At least 12 Palestinians drowned off the northern Gaza coast near Beit Lahia on Monday while trying to reach airdropped parcels that had landed in the sea, according to local paramedics.

“There were strong currents and all the parachutes fell in the water. People want to eat and are hungry,” he said. “I haven’t been able to receive anything. The youth can run and get these aid (drops), but for us it’s a different story.

“We call for the opening of the crossings in a proper fashion, but these humiliating methods are not acceptable,” added Abu Mohammad.

Earlier this month, at least five people were killed and 10 others injured when airdropped aid packages fell on them in Al Shati camp west of Gaza City, according to a journalist on the scene. Human rights groups have repeatedly criticized airdrops as an inefficient and degrading way of getting aid to Gazans, instead urging Israeli authorities to lift controls on land crossings into the enclave.

Hamas has called on Western countries to end airdrops of aid into Gaza, warning that the humanitarian delivery method is “offensive, wrong, inappropriate and useless.” Hamas has from the outset been critical of airdrops, describing them as “useless” and “not the best way to bring aid in.”

Israel’s severe restrictions on aid entering the Gaza Strip have drained essential supplies, condemning the entire population of more than 2.2 million people to the risk of famine, according to a UN-backed report. Humanitarian bodies including Oxfam and Human Rights Watch have warned Israel is “using starvation of civilians as a weapon of war in Gaza, which is a war crime.” Israel insists there is “no limit” on the amount of aid that can enter Gaza, but its inspection regime means relief is barely trickling in.

Still, a senior US defense official said Tuesday there had been a “significant increase” in the amount of aid flowing into Gaza through various crossings, resulting in nearly 200 trucks coming in a day, up from about 100 trucks a day in February.

The deaths came a day after Washington stepped aside and allowed the UN Security Council to pass a resolution calling for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza. The resolution, proposed by the 10 non-permanent members of the Security Council, demands an immediate ceasefire for the month of Ramadan, the immediate and unconditional release of hostages and “the urgent need to expand the flow” of aid into Gaza.

Israeli Foreign Minister Israel Katz pushed back against the demand, saying his country would not abide by the resolution. Following the UN vote on Monday, Amnesty International said Israeli authorities “must immediately halt their brutal bombing campaign in Gaza and facilitate the delivery of humanitarian aid.” It added that, “Civilian hostages must be immediately released.”

The Pentagon said Tuesday that three bundles of aid out of the 80 delivered during the US airdrop over Gaza Monday had landed in the sea after a parachute malfunction.

“During yesterday’s humanitarian air drop, which included approximately 80 bundles, three bundles were reported to have had parachute malfunctions and landed in the water,” Deputy Pentagon Press Secretary Sabrina Singh said. “It is important to note that drop zones are chosen to mitigate potential failures of parachutes to deploy. These humanitarian aid drops occur over water and the wind causes the bundles to drift over to land. In the event of a parachute malfunction the bundles land in the water.”

Another eyewitness to the mass drowning in Beit Lahia urged regional leaders to “look at us and have mercy on us.”

Following several failed attempts over five months of Israel’s devastating war in Gaza, the United Nations Security Council on Monday finally passed a resolution calling for an immediate ceasefire. The United States, which had been the only remaining hurdle to such a call, decided not to strike down the resolution.

The vote came as a shock to Israel, which saw its decades-old US ally abstain rather than veto the move, as it has consistently done over the years in its diplomatic backing of the Jewish state. Israeli officials lambasted the resolution, saying they have no intention of ceasing fire.

More than 32,000 people have been killed in Gaza in operations Israel launched after Hamas-led militants attacked the country on October 7, killing 1,200 people and taking 250 hostages.

Israel criticized the language of the resolution, saying it doesn’t firmly tie a ceasefire to the freeing of the hostages held in Gaza. The resolution demands “an immediate ceasefire… and also demands the immediate and unconditional release of all hostages.” A failed resolution proposed by the US last week demanded a ceasefire that was directly tied to releasing the hostages.

While the US says the latest resolution is non-binding, experts differ on whether that is the case. The key is in the language of the document, they say.

Here’s what we know:

Will the resolution have an impact on the ground in Gaza?

Israel has reacted angrily to the resolution, saying it has no intention of abiding by it. On Tuesday, Israeli attacks on Gaza continued.

Israeli Ambassador to the United Nations Gilad Erdan criticized the Security Council for passing a measure that called for a ceasefire “without conditioning it on the release of the hostages.”

“It undermines the efforts to secure their release,” he said at the United Nations.

Foreign Minister Israel Katz meanwhile said on X that his country would not abide by the resolution.

“The state of Israel will not cease fire,” Katz said. “We will destroy Hamas and continue to fight until the last of the hostages returns home.”

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu retaliated for the US abstention by canceling a scheduled trip to the US by two of his top advisers. Israeli national security adviser Tzachi Hanegbi and Ron Dermer, a member of the war cabinet, had been scheduled to travel to Washington Monday night to discuss alternatives to a planned Israeli offensive in the southern Gaza city of Rafah. The meeting had been requested by US President Joe Biden.

“On the ground right now… I think there is no immediate effect,” said Gabriela Shalev, a former Israeli ambassador to the UN and an emeritus professor at the Hebrew University’s faculty of law. “But of course it has a moral and a general effect.”

Is the resolution binding on Israel?

After the resolution passed, US officials went to great lengths to say that the resolution isn’t binding. State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller repeatedly said during a news conference that the resolution is non-binding, before conceding that the technical details of are for international lawyers to determine.

Similarly, White House National Security Council spokesman John Kirby and US ambassador to the UN Linda Thomas-Greenfield separately insisted that the resolution is non-binding.

After the resolution passed, China’s UN ambassador Zhang Jun countered that such resolutions are indeed binding. Deputy UN spokesperson Farhan Haq said Security Council resolutions are international law, “so to that extent they are as binding as international law is.”

Experts say whether a resolution is binding depends on the language used, as ambiguous language leaves room for interpretation. In this case, there have been differing opinions on whether the resolution falls under Chapter VI of the UN charter (deeming it non-binding) or Chapter VII (binding). This resolution “demands” a ceasefire.

“The US – ascribing to a legal tradition that takes a narrower interpretation – argues that without the use of the word “decides” or evocation of Chapter VII within the text, the resolution is non-binding,” said Maya Ungar, an analyst monitoring UN Security Council developments at the International Crisis Group (ICG), a Brussels-based think tank. “Other member states and international legal scholars are arguing that there is legal precedence to the idea that a demand is implicitly a decision of the council.”

“The crux of the issue is language of the resolution and the way that member states are interpreting the charter differently,” she added.

“The US is attempting to walk a fine line between criticizing and supporting Israel,” Ungar said. “By arguing that the resolution is non-binding, it seems that the US made a calculation that they could make a public statement by not vetoing without facing too much Israeli backlash.”

Even if legal experts decide the resolution is binding, a question remains on how and who can enforce it, said Yossi Mekelberg, an associate fellow with the Middle East and North Africa program at the Chatham House think tank in London.

Does the resolution leave Israel isolated on the world stage?

Israel’s Western allies, particularly the US, have long protected it from censure at the UN. Their support was in full display soon after the October 7 Hamas-led massacre, when many countries stood by Israel at the Security Council and the UN General Assembly. But as the war in Gaza dragged on and the death toll there mounted, that backing began to dwindle, even from some of Israel’s most committed allies, leaving the US as its sole backer at the UN for the past few months. Until Monday’s vote.

“They are not fully isolating Israel – their arguments about the non-binding nature makes that clear,” said Ungar of the ICG. “But this is the farthest from Israeli policy that the US has been willing to go thus far at the United Nations.”

Shalev, the former Israeli ambassador, said that by abstaining, the US took a “middle way,” but one that shows the extent to which the White House is “very worried and concerned about what is happening.”

Biden administration officials have come to believe that Israel risks becoming an international pariah if the humanitarian crisis in Gaza worsens or persists for an extended period of time.

Israel has faced intense criticism internationally, with calls from US politicians and European officials to reconsider arms sales to it in the face of the enormous civilian death toll in Gaza.

Relations with the Biden administration have been going downhill as Israel vows to press on with a potential invasion of Rafah, where 1.4 million Palestinians are sheltering. The US has warned against such a move, even as officials insist on Washington’s commitment to Israel’s security.

Vice President Kamala Harris said last weekend that the invasion would be a “mistake” and refused to rule out consequences for Israel should it go ahead.

Netanyahu’s decision to cancel official meetings in Washington in protest of the US’ abstention has left American officials perplexed. Kirby said the US was “very disappointed that they will not be coming” but insisted that the abstention was not a shift in US policy towards Israel.

“He is picking a fight with Washington, at the worst time that any Israeli prime minister can pick a fight with Washington,” Mekelberg said.

Despite the Israeli snub elsewhere, Israel’s Defense Minister Yoav Gallant flew to Washington on Tuesday to present US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin with a wishlist of US weapons and equipment that Israel wants to buy and have delivered in an expedited manner.

Shalev said Israel was facing “a very low point in our relations with the US,” noting that while tension exists on a governmental level, most of the people of Israel want ties to improve.

In the past, the US wouldn’t even let such resolutions come to a vote, she said. “(This time) the US wanted to confirm its view regarding the humanitarian aspects of Israel’s actions on the ground in Gaza, as well as regarding the unconditional release of all hostages.”

WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange has fended off the threat of immediate extradition to the United States after the High Court in London said the US needed to provide more assurances.

US authorities say Assange, 52, put lives at risk by publishing secret military documents and have for years been seeking his extradition on espionage charges.

At a two-day hearing last month, Assange sought permission to review the UK’s 2022 approval of his extradition to the US, arguing the case against him was politically motivated and that he would not face a fair trial.

In a ruling Tuesday, a panel of two judges said Assange, an Australian citizen, would not be extradited immediately and gave the US three weeks to give a series of assurances around Assange’s First Amendment rights and that he would not receive the death penalty.

If the US fails to give these assurances, Assange would be allowed to appeal his extradition at a further hearing in May.

Assange has fought extradition for the last five years from London’s Belmarsh prison and for seven years before that was holed up as a political refugee at the Ecuadorian embassy in the UK capital.

His case has sparked condemnation from free speech advocates who say if the extradition is allowed to go ahead it will have a chilling effect on press freedoms.

The court said on Tuesday that Assange had a “real prospect of success” on three of the nine grounds of appeal: that his extradition is incompatible with freedom of expression; that, if extradited, Assange might be prejudiced at trial due to his nationality; and that, if extradited, he would not enjoy adequate death penalty protection.

But the court refused to grant him leave to appeal on the ground that the prosecution is politically motivated.

“The judge found, on the evidence, that Mr Assange had not shown that the request was made for the purpose of prosecuting him on account of his political opinions,” it said.

It said the judge had taken account of the evidence that the CIA had planned to kidnap Assange from the Ecuadorian Embassy, but the judge “concluded that this was not related to the extradition proceedings.”

Assange is being pursued by US authorities for endangering lives by publishing confidential military records supplied by former Army intelligence analyst Chelsea Manning in 2010 and 2011.

In 2019, prosecutors in Virginia charged Assange with 18 offences including one charge of conspiracy to attempt to hack a computer in connection with the 2010 release of classified military material obtained through Manning and 17 additional counts under the Espionage Act.

The prosecution alleges that Assange goaded Manning into obtaining thousands of pages of unfiltered US diplomatic cables that potentially endangered confidential sources, Iraq war-related significant activity reports and information related to Guantanamo Bay detainees.

Each of those counts carries a potential sentence of 10 years, meaning that if convicted, Assange could be sentenced to up to 175 years in prison.

He has been fighting the request for his extradition ever since.

Assange was not present at the crucial last-ditch hearing in February as he was too “unwell” to attend, according to one of his lawyers.

His legal team had argued that the US request was in breach of their client’s human rights, politically motivated and that his work was “ordinary journalistic practice” which he shouldn’t be punished for.

They also claimed Assange was the subject of an alleged CIA assassination plot while he lived at his Ecuadorian safe haven between 2012 and 2019. “There is compelling evidence now in existence… that senior CIA and [US] administration officials requested detailed plans and drawings of [the plot],” lawyer Edward Fitzgerald said.

The allegation has never been tested evidentially but his legal team had argued that it should be considered and made part of the case.

ISIS claimed responsibly for Friday’s deadly assault on a concert venue in Moscow, releasing graphic footage purporting to show its gunmen carrying out what was Russia’s worst terror attack in decades.

Russian authorities have accused four men from the former Soviet republic of Tajikistan of being behind the attack, which left at least 137 people dead and more than 100 injured. The suspects, who are charged with committing a terrorist act and face possible life imprisonment, have been remanded into pre-trial detention through May 22 after appearing in court in Moscow on Sunday.

Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Monday that “radical Islamists” carried out the assault, but also claimed without proof that a “window” had been prepared for the attackers to escape to Ukraine. Kyiv has denied the allegations.

US officials have tied the attack to ISIS-K, an affiliate that operates in central Asia, which has become one of the region’s most brutal and feared terror groups.

Here’s what we know about ISIS-K.

Who are ISIS-K?

ISIS-K was formed in 2015 and has been active in Afghanistan, Pakistan and Iran. It is a branch of ISIS, the terror group that emerged in Syria and Iraq and, at its peak, controlled a huge stretch of territory.

Five years since the fall of ISIS’ self-proclaimed caliphate across Iraq and Syria, the group has morphed into a terror network with cells spread around the world, including in Africa, the Middle East, Central Asia and Southeast Asia.

The connection between ISIS-K and its apparent parent group is not entirely clear. The affiliates share an ideology and tactics, but the depth of their relationship – such as the chain of command and control – has never been fully established.

By 2018, ISIS-K was ranked the world’s fourth-deadliest terror group, according to the Institute for Economics and Peace, which monitors global terrorism.

The Taliban’s takeover of Afghanistan in August 2021, and the withdrawal of US troops from the country, thrust ISIS-K into the global spotlight – especially after the group orchestrated a deadly bombing outside Kabul airport that killed 13 US military personnel and 170 Afghans.

It was ISIS-K’s most globally consequential action to date and drew a promise of retribution from US President Joe Biden.

The United Nations estimated in 2021 that the group has up to 2,200 core fighters based in Afghanistan’s Kunar and Nangarhar provinces.

What do they want?

Like its parent organization, ISIS-K aims to create a “pure Islamic state,” according to CSIS – describing the group’s vision of a “global, transnational caliphate” governed by Sharia law.

ISIS-K has a mutual hatred of the Taliban and attracts those with views even more radical than the Islamist group that rules Afghanistan. It refuses to acknowledge the Taliban as a legitimate Islamic leader because it relies on a narrow base “instead of committing to a universal Islamic jihad,” according to CSIS.

As such, ISIS-K’s recent attacks have largely been aimed at the Taliban and other symbolic targets, as well as at Afghanistan’s Shia Muslim minorities, in particular the ethnic Hazaras.

The group’s hatred of the West, including the United States, Britain and Europe, also features prominently in their agenda – as does its enmity toward Russia.

Why did they attack Russia?

“Russia has been at the top or near the top of the list of ISIS for many years,” said Daniel Byman, director of Georgetown University’s security studies program. He pointed to Moscow’s crucial role in the Syrian civil war, when it intervened in support of the Syrian government and against ISIS.

ISIS-K has also criticized the Taliban for being “too close to Russia,” Byman added.

In 2022, ISIS-K claimed responsibility for a suicide blast near Russia’s embassy in Kabul, which killed six people, including two consular staff.

Over the past month, Russia has thwarted several ISIS-related incidents, according to state-run news agency RIA Novosti. At least four incidents in March alone have been reported across Russia that local authorities said involved people connected to ISIS, RIA reported.

Russian state media reported on March 7 that the FSB, Russia’s security service, prevented an ISIS attack on a synagogue in Moscow, according to Reuters. The ISIS attackers were killed in a gunfight, the reports said.

What other attacks are they responsible for?

To date, the majority of ISIS-K’s most devastating attacks have been in Afghanistan and Pakistan – the Kabul airport blast being a prominent example.

Others include a May 2020 attack on a Kabul maternity ward that killed 24 people and an attack on Kabul University in November 2020 that killed 22, according to CSIS. ISIS-K was also believed to be behind a horrific car bombing outside a girls’ high school in May 2021 that killed at least 85 people.

The group was particularly active during its peak around 2018 – when an ISIS-K suicide bomber killed 128 people at an election rally in Mastung, Pakistan, one of the bloodiest attacks anywhere in the world that year.

While it’s no longer as strong as it was in 2018, ISIS-K continues to plan attacks in Afghanistan. It is the most active terror group in the country, responsible for 73 deaths in 2023, according to the Institute for Economics and Peace.

Could they pose a broader global threat?

The Kabul airport attack had raised global concerns that ISIS-K could pose a major threat across the region and beyond.

In March 2023, the head of the US Central Command told lawmakers that ISIS-K was becoming more emboldened, and that Europe or Asia were more likely targets for terrorist attacks originating in Afghanistan than the US.

In a 2023 threat assessment report by US intelligence agencies, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence said ISIS-K “almost certainly retains the intent to conduct operations in the West and will continue efforts to attack outside Afghanistan.”

And earlier this year, the UN Security Council warned in a report that ISIS-K was planning or conducting “operational plots” in Europe. Seven people linked to the group were arrested in Germany last year while planning for “high-impact terrorist attacks,” including obtaining weapons and possible targets, the council said.

It is not the first time that ISIS has struck a concert venue. In November 2015, ISIS gunmen attacked the Bataclan theater in Paris – part of an assault that hit other targets in the city – killing at least 130 people. In May 2017, the group claimed responsibility for a suicide bombing at an Ariana Grande concert in Manchester Arena, England, that killed 22 people. ISIS has also inspired terrorists in the US, including the gunman who killed 49 people at the Pulse nightclub in Orlando, Florida, in 2016 in what was then the most lethal terrorist attack in the US since 9/11.

Earlier this month, the US government had information about a planned terrorist attack in Moscow – potentially targeting large gatherings, to include concerts – which prompted the State Department to issue a public advisory to Americans in Russia. The US also shared this information with Russian authorities.

The intelligence that Washington had been getting since November was “fairly specific” and the US intelligence community warned Russia, but it’s not clear if this is directly tied to the March 7 warning by the US embassy in Moscow.

Putin rejected the US embassy warnings about terror attacks as “provocative” in a speech to the FSB, saying they “resemble outright blackmail and the intention to intimidate and destabilize our society.”

Artificial intelligence is energy-hungry and as companies race to make it bigger, smarter and more complex, its thirst for electricity will increase even further. This sets up a thorny problem for an industry pitching itself as a powerful tool to save the planet: a huge carbon footprint.

Yet according to Sam Altman, head of ChatGPT creator OpenAI, there is a clear solution to this tricky dilemma: nuclear fusion.

Altman himself has invested hundreds of millions in fusion and in recent interviews has suggested the futuristic technology, widely seen as the holy grail of clean energy, will eventually provide the enormous amounts of power demanded by next-gen AI.

“There’s no way to get there without a breakthrough, we need fusion,” alongside scaling up other renewable energy sources, Altman said in a January interview. Then in March, when podcaster and computer scientist Lex Fridman asked how to solve AI’s “energy puzzle,” Altman again pointed to fusion.

Nuclear fusion — the process that powers the sun and other stars — is likely still decades away from being mastered and commercialized on Earth. For some experts, Altman’s emphasis on a future energy breakthrough is illustrative of a wider failure of the AI industry to answer the question of how they are going to satiate AI’s soaring energy needs in the near-term.

The appeal of nuclear fusion for the AI industry is clear. Fusion involves smashing two or more atoms together to form a denser one, in a process that releases huge amounts of energy.

It doesn’t pump carbon pollution into the atmosphere and leaves no legacy of long-lived nuclear waste, offering a tantalizing vision of a clean, safe, abundant energy source.

But “recreating the conditions in the center of the sun on Earth is a huge challenge” and the technology is not likely to be ready until the latter half of the century, said Aneeqa Khan, a research fellow in nuclear fusion at the University of Manchester in the UK.

Fission is the process widely used to generate nuclear energy today.

The problem is finding enough renewable energy to meet AI’s rising needs in the near term, instead of turning to planet-heating fossil fuels. It’s a a particular challenge as the global push to electrify everything from cars to heating systems increases demand for clean energy.

A recent analysis by the International Energy Agency calculated electricity consumption from data centers, cryptocurrencies and AI could double over the next two years. The sector was responsible for around 2% of global electricity demand in 2022, according to the IEA.

The analysis predicted demand from AI will grow exponentially, increasing at least 10 times between 2023 and 2026.

As well as the energy required to make chips and other hardware, AI requires large amounts of computing power to “train” models — feeding them enormous datasets —and then again to use its training to generate a response to a user query.

As the technology develops, companies are rushing to integrate it into apps and online searches, ramping up computing power requirements. An online search using AI could require at least 10 times more energy than a standard search, de Vries calculated in a recent report on AI’s energy footprint.

The dynamic is one of “bigger is better when it comes to AI,” de Vries said, pushing companies toward huge, energy-hungry models. “That is the key problem with AI, because bigger is better is just fundamentally incompatible with sustainability,” he added.

In part, demand is being driven by a surge in data centers. Data center electricity consumption is expected to triple by 2030, equivalent to the amount needed to power around 40 million US homes, according to a Boston Consulting Group analysis.

“We’re going to have to make hard decisions” about who gets the energy, said Khoo, whether that’s thousands of homes, or a data center powering next-gen AI. “It can’t simply be the richest people who get the energy first,” he added.

For many AI companies, concerns about their energy use overlook two important points: The first is that AI itself can help tackle the climate crisis.

“AI will be a powerful tool for advancing sustainability solutions,” said a spokesperson for Microsoft, which has a partnership with OpenAI.

The technology is already being used to predict weather, track pollution, map deforestation and monitor melting ice. A recent report published by Boston Consulting Group, commissioned by Google, claimed AI could help mitigate up to 10% of planet-heating pollution.

AI could also have a role to play in advancing nuclear fusion. In February, scientists at Princeton announced they found a way to use the technology to forecast potential instabilities in nuclear fusion reactions — a step forward in the long road to commercialization.

AI companies also say they are working hard to increase efficiency. Google says its data centers are 1.5 times more efficient than a typical enterprise data center.

A spokesperson for Microsoft said the company is “investing in research to measure the energy use and carbon impact of AI while working on ways to make large systems more efficient, in both training and application.”

There has been a “tremendous” increase in AI’s efficiency, de Vries said. But, he cautioned, this doesn’t necessarily mean AI’s electricity demand will fall.

In fact, the history of technology and automation suggests it could well be the opposite, de Vries added. He pointed to cryptocurrency. “Efficiency gains have never reduced the energy consumption of cryptocurrency mining,” he said. “When we make certain goods and services more efficient, we see increases in demand.”

In the US, there is some political push to scrutinize the climate consequences of AI more closely. In February, Sen. Ed Markey introduced legislation aimed at requiring AI companies to be more transparent about their environmental impacts, including soaring data center electricity demand.

“The development of the next generation of AI tools cannot come at the expense of the health of our planet,” Markey said in a statement at the time. But few expect the bill would get the bipartisan support needed to become law.

In the meantime, the development of increasingly complex and energy-hungry AI is being treated as an inevitability, Khoo said, with companies in an “arms race to produce the next thing.” That means bigger and bigger models and higher and higher electricity use, he added.

“So I would say anytime someone says they’re solving the problem of climate change, we have to ask exactly how are you doing that today?” Khoo said. “Are you making every next day less energy intensive? Or are you using that as a smokescreen?”

Beijing has lashed out at the United States and the United Kingdom for imposing sanctions over alleged Chinese government-backed cyberattacks, calling the Western allies’ move an act of “political manipulation.”

The US and the UK announced Monday a set of criminal charges and sanctions against seven Chinese hackers for allegedly conducting sweeping attacks on behalf of China’s civilian intelligence agency.

The yearslong campaign allegedly targeted American officials, senators, journalists and companies – including Pentagon contractors – as well as British parliamentarians, the UK’s election watchdog and members of the European Parliament, affecting millions of people.

New Zealand also weighed in on Tuesday, accusing state-sponsored Chinese hackers of launching “malicious cyber activity” against the country’s parliament in 2021.

Accusations of cyber espionage have long been a major point of friction between Beijing and Washington, with the US indicting a series of Chinese hackers in recent years.

The public accusations from three members of the so-called Five Eyes intelligence alliance show key Western democracies are now taking a more concerted – and coordinated – stand against what they view as unacceptable levels of hacking and espionage by Beijing.

At a news conference Tuesday, China’s Foreign Ministry lashed out at the US and the UK, accusing them of “hyping up the so-called cyberattacks by China.”

“This is purely political manipulation. China is strongly dissatisfied with this and firmly opposes it,” ministry spokesperson Lin Jian said, adding China has made solemn representations to both sides.

“We urge the United States and the United Kingdom to stop politicizing cyber security issues, stop slandering and smearing China, impose unilateral sanctions, and stop cyberattacks on China.”

The spokesperson did not mention New Zealand.

Australia and the European Union also expressed solidarity with the UK and voiced concerns over China’s alleged malicious cyber activities, as Beijing comes under growing scrutiny in a big election year for democracies around the world.

The accusations and sanctions come as China is trying to manage tensions and repair frayed relations with major Western powers, as it grapples with a host of economic challenges including an exodus of foreign investment.

Beijing’s frustration was evident on Tuesday, when Lin, the Foreign Ministry spokesperson, blamed the US for encouraging the Five Eyes alliance “to spread all kinds of disinformation about the threats posted by Chinese hackers for geopolitical purpose.”

Liu Dongshu, an assistant professor focusing on Chinese politics at City University of Hong Kong, said the coordinated move by the US and its allies undermines Beijing’s “divide and rule” strategy.

“My observation is that China has always sought to create some distance between the US and other Western countries, such as European nations and Australia. Especially considering the possibility of a reelection of Donald Trump, China feels there may be a chance to separate them a little more,” he said.

“But (the accusations) show that despite their differences, these countries remain united on many issues regarding China.”

‘Sensitive time’

The sanctions against two Chinese nationals and a technology company in the central Chinese city of Wuhan mark the first time Britain has slapped penalties on Chinese state-affiliated entities for alleged cyberattacks, even as Western intelligence agencies have increasingly sounded the alarm in recent years.

“It is an escalation, but perhaps only because the UK has been rather mild in its previous actions,” said Jonathan Sullivan, an associate professor and China specialist at the University of Nottingham.

British cybersecurity officials said a Chinese state-backed hacking group known as APT31 had “conducted reconnaissance activity” against British parliamentarians who were openly critical of Beijing in 2021.

Chinese hackers have also “highly likely” breached the UK’s Electoral Commission in 2021 and 2022 and accessed personal data of 40 million voters, according to British officials.

On Tuesday, the Chinese Foreign Ministry said China had made “technical clarification” in response to the APT31-related information submitted by the UK, calling its evidence “insufficient” and “unprofessional.”

The sanctions come at a sensitive time in the UK, which is facing a general election and bracing itself for a wave of misinformation, said Sullivan, the China expert at the University of Nottingham.

“Our economic relations with China are already undergoing securitization, from investment to data protection,” he said, citing Britain’s bans on Chinese tech giant Huawei from its 5G networks, and on the camera systems of Chinese surveillance company Hikvision from sensitive sites.

Last September, a British parliamentary researcher was arrested on suspicion of spying for China.

The sanctions could risk disrupting the upward trajectory of UK-China ties, which have stabilized in the past year after years of deterioration following British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s “robust pragmatism” approach to foreign policy, Sullivan said.

“I would be astonished if (Beijing) does not respond in kind. China does not tend to receive such actions without retaliation.”

This story has been updated with additional developments.

Microplastics have been found in historic soil samples for the first time, according to a new study, potentially upending the way archaeological remains are preserved.

Researchers found microplastics in soil deposits more than seven meters (23 feet) underground, which were deposited in the first or second century CE and excavated in the 1980s, a team led by researchers from the University of York in the United Kingdom said in a statement published Friday.

In total, the study identified 16 different microplastic polymer types in contemporary and archived soil samples, the statement adds.

Microplastics are tiny pieces of plastic that are no larger than five millimeters (0.2 inches)—about the size of a single sesame seed—and form when larger plastics break down, either by chemically degrading or physically wearing down into smaller pieces.

They were also commonly used in some beauty products until around 2020, say researchers, and conversations about their proliferation in the world around us have spiked in recent years.

There are concerns about the impact of microplastics on the environment and on human health, but this latest study also suggests they could force a change in the entire field of archaeology.

While preserving archaeological remains in situ has been the favored approach in recent years, the new findings could trigger a change in approach, as microplastic contamination could compromise the remains’ scientific value.

“This feels like an important moment, confirming what we should have expected: that what were previously thought to be pristine archaeological deposits, ripe for investigation, are in fact contaminated with plastics, and that this includes deposits sampled and stored in the late 1980s,” John Schofield, a professor and director of studies in the University of York’s Department of Archaeology, said in the statement.

“We are familiar with plastics in the oceans and in rivers. But here we see our historic heritage incorporating toxic elements. To what extent this contamination compromises the evidential value of these deposits, and their national importance is what we’ll try to find out next.”

David Jennings, chief executive of York Archaeology, explained why microplastic contamination is such a concern.

“Our best-preserved remains—for example, the Viking finds at Coppergate (in the city of York)— were in a consistent anaerobic waterlogged environment for over 1000 years, which preserved organic materials incredibly well,” he said in the statement.

“The presence of microplastics can and will change the chemistry of the soil, potentially introducing elements which will cause the organic remains to decay. If that is the case, preserving archaeology in situ may no longer be appropriate.”

The study was published in Science of the Total Environment.

The headlines from Russia over recent weeks have been bleak: The death of opposition leader Alexey Navalny; a rigged election; and a ruthless insistence by President Vladimir Putin in pressing ahead with his war on Ukraine.

Now comes another shock to the system, with the appalling murder of at least 139 people in a terror attack at a concert hall just outside Moscow. And with its brutal official response to the attack, Russia seems to have taken an even darker turn.

While terror group ISIS has claimed responsibility for the massacre, releasing appalling footage of the carnage, the Kremlin has obfuscated. Putin first insinuated – implausibly, and without evidence – that a “window” had been opened by Ukraine for the terrorists to escape across an active front line. On Monday, he said the crime had been ”committed by radical Islamists” but again alleged that the perpetrators planned to flee to Ukraine. Kyiv has vehemently denied involvement and called the Kremlin’s claims “absurd.”

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov meanwhile has dismissed questions about warnings from the United States about the risk of terror attacks in Russia. “Intelligence is never provided to the Kremlin,” he said in a call with reporters Monday. “It is provided through channels from one intelligence agency to another intelligence agency. This is classified as sensitive information that is not disclosed.”

Peskov added: “There are currently no contacts with Westerners now.”

Putin rose to power on a promise to get tough on terrorists: The former KGB officer was a relative political unknown when he pledged in 1999 to “waste” Chechen separatists.

That threat followed a series of apartment bombings in Russia that claimed hundreds of lives and touched off weeks of nationwide panic. Putin would follow through on his threat with the invasion of breakaway Chechnya, a move that vaulted him to the position of Russia’s tough-guy-in-charge, an image that would help him secure undisputed power.

The second war in Chechnya was a brutal affair, and human-rights activists documented the appearance of so-called “filtration camps” where civilians were routinely subjected to humiliation, torture and sometimes extrajudicial execution. Russian troops repeated the practice in occupied parts of Ukraine.

The ugly conduct of Russian security forces in both Chechnya and Ukraine has often remained out of public view, at least when it came to the narrative promoted through official Russian media. But after Friday’s Crocus City attack, the brutality of Russian security services appeared on naked display.

Video footage and still images that have surfaced on Russian social media appear to show the violent interrogation of several of the men alleged to have taken part in the terror attack. One video appears to show one of the suspects, Saidakrami Rachabalizoda, being pushed face-down to the ground while having part of his ear severed by an interrogator. A pro-Kremlin Telegram channel published a still photograph that appeared to show the electrocution of another.

The response to this? Open gloating on the part of some prominent, Kremlin-connected figures.

Margarita Simonyan, the editor-in-chief of Russian state propaganda network RT, approvingly posted a video on the Russian social network VK that appeared to show a suspect in the Crocus City attack quaking while being questioned by interrogators. And in a separate post on X, Simonyan posted video of a handcuffed suspect being brought into court while bent over by security officials and a video of Rachabalizoda in court with a bandaged ear.

“I never expected this from myself, but when I see how they are brought into court bent over, and even this [severed] ear, I feel nothing but pleasure,” she wrote.

The Kremlin’s silence on the matter has been telling, with Peskov declining to comment when asked about the evidence of abuse of suspects. It sends a message to ordinary Russians – and the world – that Russian state security forces are capable of anything.

Dmitry Medvedev, Russia’s former president and placeholder for Putin during a four-year interregnum, was characteristically militant in his comments on the tragedy. “Everyone asks me, what is to be done?” Medvedev said, according to Russian state news agency TASS. “They were caught. Well done to everyone who caught them.

“Should they be killed?” Medvedev continued. “Definitely. And that will happen. But it is even more important to kill everyone involved. Everyone. Who paid, who sympathized, who helped. Kill them all.”

Medvedev is no longer a top political player, but he has emerged since the full-scale invasion of Ukraine as a reliable barometer of far-right sentiment in Russia. And that sort of militant sentiment appears to be on the rise. Russia does not have the death penalty, but in a statement on state channel Rossiya-24, Vladimir Vasiliev, the head of the United Russia faction in the lower house of parliament, said fellow lawmakers might consider the issue of reviving it.

“Many questions are being asked now about the death penalty,” he said, according to state news agency RIA-Novosti. “This topic will certainly be deeply, professionally, and meaningfully addressed. And a decision will be made that will meet the moods and expectations of our society.”

The sentiments of wider society may be hard to gauge, but the mood of Russia’s political class is already clear. It is vengeful, and all options are on the table.

Ecuador’s youngest mayor, 27-year-old Brigitte García, was found shot dead Sunday morning, the country’s national police said.

In a statement posted on X, police said that García, the mayor of San Vicente, a small coastal city, was in what is believed to be a rental car along with her communications director, Jairo Loor, who was also killed from a gunshot wound. Preliminary investigations suggest the shots were fired from inside the car, police said.

Further investigations are underway, police said. In a statement Sunday, the Ecuadorian Ministry of Government called the incident a “criminal action” and referenced a national “fight against terrorism, organized crime and political corruption,” although they did not accuse any person or group of being behind the killings.

“We stand in solidarity with their families and reaffirm our commitment to use all force of the State to not leave these crimes unpunished,” the ministry said.

Garcia was the youngest mayor in the country, according to her X profile. Former Ecuadorian President Rafael Correa took to social media to express his disbelief, saying, “enough!”

“My God! Brigitte! She was the youngest mayor of the country,” he added, along with a photo that showed him and García embracing.

A memorial for García is planned for Monday afternoon, according to the San Vicente municipality. Her burial is scheduled for Tuesday.

Ecuador has been grappling with a surge in violence at the hands of armed gangs.

In January, Ecuador declared a state of emergency after notorious gang leader José Adolfo Macías, also known as ‘Fito’, escaped from prison in Guayaquil. Ecuadorian President Daniel Noboa declared an “internal armed conflict” in the nation the following day and ordered armed forces to execute “military operations to neutralize” the violence across the country. More than 2,000 people were detained less than two weeks after the decree, according to the president’s office.

García was elected last year as a member of the left-wing Citizen Revolution Party, which is aligned with Correa, the former president.

According to her social media feed, she had worked in recent weeks to help bring clean drinking water to San Vicente, meeting recently with the country’s development bank on the project.

The four men suspected of carrying out a brutal attack at a Moscow concert hall that killed at least 139 people have appeared in court on terror charges, as the Kremlin defended its security services criticized for failing to prevent the massacre.

Three of the suspects were bent double as they were marched into the Moscow courtroom late on Sunday night, while the fourth was in a wheelchair and appeared unresponsive.

The suspects, who are from the Central Asian republic of Tajikistan but worked in Russia on temporary or expired visas, were named by Moscow City Court as Dalerdzhon Mirzoyev, Saidakrami Rachabalizoda, Shamsidin Fariduni and Mukhammadsobir Faizov. They face a maximum sentence of life in prison.

They are accused of storming Crocus City Hall in a Moscow suburb on Friday, shooting civilians at point blank before setting the building on fire, causing the roof to collapse while concert-goers were still inside.

ISIS claimed responsibility for the massacre and released graphic footage showing the incident – but Moscow has insinuated, without evidence, that the perpetrators planned to flee to Ukraine. Kyiv has vehemently denied involvement and called the Kremlin’s claims “absurd.”

At a meeting with other government officials on Monday, Russian President Vladimir Putin said the attack had been carried out by “radical Islamists.”

“We know that the crime was committed by radical Islamists, whose ideology the Islamic world itself has been fighting for centuries,” Putin said.

The first suspect charged, Mirzoyev, had a black eye, bruises over his face and a plastic bag wrapped around his neck. Mirzoyev, 32, had a temporary resident permit for three months in the Siberian city of Novosibirsk, but it had expired, Russian state media RIA Novosti reported.

Rachabalizoda, born in 1994, told the court through an interpreter that he has Russian registration documents but could not remember where they are. He appeared in court with a swollen eye and a bandaged ear.

The third defendant, Fariduni, born in 1998, was employed at a factory in the industrial city of Podolsk and registered in Krasnogorsk, both near Moscow.

The three men pleaded guilty to the terrorism charges, Russian media reported. It was unclear what the fourth man, Faizov, born in 2004, pled. He was pictured lying limp in a wheelchair inside a glass cage.

The men looked beaten and injured as they were brought into the courtroom. Videos and still images that appeared to show some of them being violently interrogated, including one apparent use of electrocution, circulated widely on Russian social media.

One video appears to show Rachabalizoda being held on the ground while having part of his ear cut off and stuffed in his mouth by a camouflage-wearing interpreter.

Margarita Simonyan, the editor-in-chief of Russian state propaganda network RT, posted a video of Rachabalizoda appearing in court with a heavily bandaged ear, which she wrote made her “feel nothing but pleasure.”

The four have been remanded into pre-trial detention until May 2022, the court said.

Later Monday, Russia’s Investigative Committee asked the court to detain three other men – two brothers and their father – in connection with the attack, Russian state media TASS reported.

On Monday, three days after the attack, rescuers were still searching among the ruins of the collapsed concert hall and trying to clear rubble. Russia’s Ministry of Emergency Situations said more than 300 “specialists” were working at the site.

The attack, the deadliest on Russian soil in almost two decades, was met with outrage and disbelief in Russia, prompting calls for the harshest of punishments to be meted out.

While the concert hall roof was still burning, ISIS claimed responsibility for the attack and shared a video taken by the men as they stormed the building, where thousands of Russians had arrived to watch the rock group Picnic.

Despite ISIS appearing to provide evidence that its fighters had carried out the attack, Putin and other senior officials have been keen to associate Ukraine with the terror attack.

In a national following the attack – more than 19 hours after it began – Putin on Saturday claimed that a “window” had been prepared for the attackers to escape to Ukraine. He did not provide evidence. Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova also said: “Now we know in which country these bloody bastards planned to hide from persecution – Ukraine.”

Ukraine has vehemently denied any involvement and called the allegations a “planned provocation by the Kremlin to further fuel anti-Ukrainian hysteria in Russia society” and further mobilize Russian citizens to participate in Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine.

Despite relations between Washington and Moscow being at historic lows, the United States warned Russia that ISIS militants were planning to stage an attack in the country. The US embassy in Moscow said earlier this month it was “monitoring reports that extremists have imminent plans to target large gatherings in Moscow,” including concerts.

US National Security Council spokesperson Adrienna Watson said the US had shared this information with Russian authorities under the “duty to warn” policy. The US also warned American citizens to avoid places like theaters and concert halls.

But in a speech Tuesday – just days before the attack – Putin dismissed the American warnings as “provocative,” saying “these actions resemble outright blackmail and the intention to intimidate and destabilize our society.”

Answering questions from reporters on Monday, Peskov refused to comment on whether Moscow had received warnings from Washington, and defended the “tireless work” of Russia’s security services.

“Because he would have no qualms about issuing a fake intelligence warning in order to meddle with another country’s elections, I believe he may well have thought that in fact that’s what the Americans are doing,” Galeotti said.

“He said they were trying to escape to Ukraine. This makes sense. They just found some halfwits who were eager for money,” Matveev said.