The Washington Post - Ishaan Tharoor / Britain’s Conservatives face an ‘extinction-level’ event
After 14 years in power, Britain’s Conservatives appear headed for a historic defeat. Various projections surrounding Thursday’s general election show the opposition Labour Party — led by Keir Starmer, a mild center-left politico — on the precipice of a potential parliamentary supermajority.
The fate of the Tories, as the Conservatives are also known, seemed encapsulated in that pivotal moment toward the end of May when Prime Minister Rishi Sunak called an early vote: There he stood, alone in the rain at 10 Downing Street, grim-faced, soaked, bedraggled and, as some of his critics suggested, seemingly desperate for it all to be over.
That end seems around the corner. A survey conducted last month by the Telegraph, a newspaper well-known for its Conservative leanings, projected a “Tory wipeout,” with the former ruling party dropping to a mere 53 seats from its current 365 in the House of Commons, and Labour securing a startling 516-seat haul.
Sunak would lose his own seat, according to the survey, as would two-thirds of his cabinet. Some forecasters suggest that the Conservatives may not even end up being the largest party in opposition. The centrist Liberal Democrats could, in some scenarios, win more constituencies than them.
Bloomberg - Kati Pohjanpalo and Leo Laikola / China Can End Russia’s War in Ukraine With One Phone Call, Finland Says
Russia’s reliance on China has gotten to the point where Beijing could end the war in Ukraine if it chose to, Finnish President Alexander Stubb said.
“Russia is so dependent on China right now,” Stubb, 56, said in an interview in Helsinki Tuesday. “One phone call from President Xi Jinping would solve this crisis.”
Stubb’s comments reflect the increasing frustration among Ukraine’s allies over China’s perceived support for Russia’s war effort.They accuse Beijing of providing the Kremlin with technologies and parts for weapons and helping Moscow to get around international trade restrictions.
“If he were to say, ‘Time to start negotiating peace,’ Russia would be forced to do that,” Stubb said. “They would have no other choice.”
Financial Times - Lauren Fedor and Joshua Chaffin / Joe Biden under new pressure to quit race as Democratic disquiet spreads
Joe Biden is facing renewed pressure to end his re-election bid, after a Democratic lawmaker called on him to drop out of the presidential race and state governors sought a White House meeting to discuss his candidacy.
Lloyd Doggett, a Democratic congressman from Texas, on Tuesday became the first lawmaker from the president’s party to publicly call for Biden to step aside, saying “too much is at stake to risk a [Donald] Trump victory” in November’s election.
“Recognising that, unlike Trump, President Biden’s first commitment has always been to our country, not himself, I am hopeful that he will make the painful and difficult decision to withdraw,” Doggett said.
Jared Golden, a Democratic congressman from Maine, later published an op-ed in the Bangor Daily News, a local newspaper, saying he had no confidence in Biden’s ability to win in November.
Al-Jazeera - Mersiha Gadzo, Lyndal Rowlands and Alastair McCready / Israel war on Gaza live: 12 killed in Israeli air raid on ‘safe zone’
An Israeli air attack has killed 12 Palestinians, including nine members of one family, in a designated “safe zone” after they followed Israel’s evacuation orders to leave eastern Khan Younis, the Associated Press reports.
The UN estimates that up to 250,000 people have been affected by Israel’s military order for people to leave areas near the southern city of Khan Younis as the total number of displaced people in Gaza is estimated to have reached 1.9 million.
After hundreds of sick and wounded people fled the European Hospital in Khan Younis only three patients remain, says World Health Organization representative Rik Peeperkorn, pleading for the hospital to be spared from attacks as an Israeli ground invasion looms.
The killing of four people in an Israeli air raid on the Nur Shams refugee camp in the occupied West Bank brings to six the total number of Palestinians that have been killed in the area in the past 24 hours, including a woman and a child.
Our opinion reads for today:
The New York Times - Thomas L. Friedman / The Question President Biden Needs to Ask Himself. Now.
Foreign Affairs - Linda Robinson / The Global Assault on Women in Politics
