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Irish University to Cut Links with Israel Over Gaza War

A picture taken from Israel's border with the Gaza Strip shows an Israeli tank rolling along the border fence on June 4, 2025. (AFP)
A picture taken from Israel's border with the Gaza Strip shows an Israeli tank rolling along the border fence on June 4, 2025. (AFP)
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Irish University to Cut Links with Israel Over Gaza War

A picture taken from Israel's border with the Gaza Strip shows an Israeli tank rolling along the border fence on June 4, 2025. (AFP)
A picture taken from Israel's border with the Gaza Strip shows an Israeli tank rolling along the border fence on June 4, 2025. (AFP)

Ireland's prestigious Trinity College Dublin said on Wednesday that it would cut all links with Israel in protest at "ongoing violations of international and humanitarian law".

The university's board informed students by email on Wednesday that it had accepted the recommendations of a taskforce to sever "institutional links with the State of Israel, Israeli universities and companies headquartered in Israel".

The recommendations would be "enacted for the duration of the ongoing violations of international and humanitarian law", said the email sent by the board's chairman Paul Farrell, and seen by AFP.

The taskforce was set up after part of the university's campus in central Dublin was blockaded by students for five days last year in protest at Israel's actions in Gaza.

Among the taskforce's recommendations approved by the board were pledges to divest "from all companies headquartered in Israel" and to "enter into no future supply contracts with Israeli firms" and "no new commercial relationships with Israeli entities".

The university also said that it would "enter into no further mobility agreements with Israeli universities".

Trinity has two current Erasmus+ exchange agreements with Israeli universities: Bar Ilan University, an agreement that ends in July 2026, and the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, which ends in July 2025, the university told AFP in an email.

The board also said that the university "should not submit for approval or agree to participate in any new institutional research agreements involving Israeli participation".

It "should seek to align itself with like-minded universities and bodies in an effort to influence EU policy concerning Israel's participation in such collaborations," it added.

Ireland has been among the most outspoken critics of Israel's response to the October 7, 2023 attacks on southern Israel by Hamas that sparked the war in Gaza.

Polls since the start of the war have shown overwhelming pro-Palestinian sympathy in Ireland.

In May 2024, Dublin joined several other European countries in recognizing Palestine as a "sovereign and independent state".

It then joined South Africa in bringing a case before the International Court of Justice in the Hague accusing Israel of committing genocide in Gaza -- charges angrily denied by Israeli leaders.

In December, Israel's Foreign Minister Gideon Saar ordered the closure of the country's embassy in Dublin, blaming Ireland's "extreme anti-Israel policies".

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World

Flooding Kills Two as Vietnam Hit by Dozens of Landslides

Deadly flooding inundated thousands of homes in Vietnam's Lam Dong province in what authorities say is a record-breaking year of natural disasters. Quoc Nguyen / AFP
Deadly flooding inundated thousands of homes in Vietnam's Lam Dong province in what authorities say is a record-breaking year of natural disasters. Quoc Nguyen / AFP
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Flooding Kills Two as Vietnam Hit by Dozens of Landslides

Deadly flooding inundated thousands of homes in Vietnam's Lam Dong province in what authorities say is a record-breaking year of natural disasters. Quoc Nguyen / AFP
Deadly flooding inundated thousands of homes in Vietnam's Lam Dong province in what authorities say is a record-breaking year of natural disasters. Quoc Nguyen / AFP

Heavy rain in Vietnam triggered flooding that killed at least two people and caused more than a dozen landslides, state media said Friday, adding to what authorities called the "most unusual" year of natural disasters in the country's history.

South-central Vietnam has been lashed by weeks of heavy rain, submerging hundreds of thousands of homes in coastal tourism hotspots and causing deadly landslides in mountainous regions.

Downpours inundated thousands more homes in Lam Dong province on Thursday and killed at least two people, the Voice of Vietnam news outlet reported.

It added that 16 landslides struck the province, damaging roads and bridges and forcing the evacuation of hundreds of homes.

Floodwaters up to two meters deep were still sloshing through Ham Thang commune in Lam Dong on Friday, resident Pham Thi Ngoc Yen told AFP, adding authorities were delivering food and water by boat.

"Our province has always been very safe from floods or typhoons. This year was so weird," she said.

"I hope that the water will recede a lot in the next two days so that our life can get back to normal."

Record year

"2025 has been the year with the most unusual natural disasters in history," Hoang Duc Cuong, deputy director of the environment ministry's meteorology and hydrology department, said in a statement Friday.

A total of 21 storms, including 15 typhoons and 6 tropical depressions, have affected Vietnam this year, the highest number since records began in 1961, according to the environment ministry's statement.

Vietnam is in one of the most active tropical cyclone regions on Earth, but in a typical year it is affected by around 10 typhoons or storms.

The country has also experienced extreme rainfall and widespread flooding this year, with rivers setting new high-water marks from the northern regions through central and down to the lower Mekong Delta.

"Never before have such exceptionally large and historical floods occurred simultaneously in one year on 20 rivers," the environment ministry said.

One area of central Vietnam recorded up to 1,739 millimeters (5.7 feet) of rain in just 24 hours.

Elsewhere in Asia, devastating floods in recent days have killed more than 1,500 people and displaced hundreds of thousands across four countries, including Indonesia and Sri Lanka.

In Vietnam, natural disasters have left more than 400 people dead or missing this year and caused more than $3.6 billion in damage, according to the ministry.

The Southeast Asian nation is prone to heavy rain between June and September, but scientists have identified a pattern of human-driven climate change making extreme weather more frequent and destructive.

World

Israel Sets 2026 Defense Budget at $34 Billion Despite Ceasefire in Gaza

FILED - 25 June 2024, Israel, Jerusalem: Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz is pictured during an event in Jerusalem. Photo: Hannes P Albert/dpa
FILED - 25 June 2024, Israel, Jerusalem: Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz is pictured during an event in Jerusalem. Photo: Hannes P Albert/dpa
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Israel Sets 2026 Defense Budget at $34 Billion Despite Ceasefire in Gaza

FILED - 25 June 2024, Israel, Jerusalem: Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz is pictured during an event in Jerusalem. Photo: Hannes P Albert/dpa
FILED - 25 June 2024, Israel, Jerusalem: Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz is pictured during an event in Jerusalem. Photo: Hannes P Albert/dpa

Israel's defense budget for 2026 has been set at 112 billion shekels ($34.63 billion), the defense minister's office said on Friday, up from 90 billion shekels budgeted in an earlier draft.

Defense Minister Israel Katz and Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich agreed on the defense spending framework as the cabinet has begun debating next year's budget, which needs to be approved by March or could lead to new elections.

Ministers began what is usually a marathon session on Thursday ahead of a vote that could come early on Friday. If it passes, it heads to parliament for its initial vote.

Katz said the military will continue its to address the needs of its fighters and reduce the burden on reservists.

"We will continue to act decisively to reinforce the IDF and to fully address the needs of the fighters and to reduce the burden on reservists - in order to ensure the security of the State of Israel on every front," his office quoted him as saying.

The Gaza war has been costly for Israel, which spent $31 billion in 2024 on its military conflicts with Hamas and with Hezbollah in Lebanon.

Israel has since entered ceasefire deals with both militant groups.

Smotrich's office said that the 2026 defense budget has seen an increase of 47 billion shekels compared to 2023 on the eve of the war.

"We are allocating a huge budget to strengthen the army this year, but also one that allows us to return the State of Israel to a path of growth and relief for citizens,"
Smotrich said, according to his office.

World

India Rolls Out Red Carpet for Russia's Putin

In this pool photograph distributed by the Russian state agency Sputnik, Russia's President Vladimir Putin and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi look out from a car prior to an informal dinner at Modi's residence. Alexander KAZAKOV / POOL/AFP
In this pool photograph distributed by the Russian state agency Sputnik, Russia's President Vladimir Putin and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi look out from a car prior to an informal dinner at Modi's residence. Alexander KAZAKOV / POOL/AFP
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India Rolls Out Red Carpet for Russia's Putin

In this pool photograph distributed by the Russian state agency Sputnik, Russia's President Vladimir Putin and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi look out from a car prior to an informal dinner at Modi's residence. Alexander KAZAKOV / POOL/AFP
In this pool photograph distributed by the Russian state agency Sputnik, Russia's President Vladimir Putin and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi look out from a car prior to an informal dinner at Modi's residence. Alexander KAZAKOV / POOL/AFP

India's Prime Minister Narendra Modi hosts Russia's President Vladimir Putin at a summit on Friday, with defense and trade ties taking center stage as New Delhi faces heavy US pressure to stop buying Moscow's oil.

Both leaders will also discuss the geopolitical situation in the wake of the Russian invasion of Ukraine and global trade disruptions triggered by tariffs imposed by US President Donald Trump, said AFP.

Big ticket defense sales and co-production ventures, energy purchases, and wider economic engagement are on the agenda, Putin's first visit to India since the Ukraine war.

Modi welcomed Putin at the airport on Thursday with a warm hug on a red carpet, before the two rode together in the same car to a private dinner -- mirroring a lift that Putin gave Modi when they last met in China in September.

"India-Russia friendship is a time-tested one that has greatly benefitted our people," Modi wrote in a post on social media, accompanying a photograph of them grinning together inside the vehicle.

It was a symbolic show of friendship, after US President Donald Trump imposed 50-percent tariffs on most Indian products in August, citing Delhi's continued purchases of Russian oil -- revenue Washington argues helps fund the war in Ukraine.

In an interview with India Today, Putin said he was "very happy" to be meeting "my friend" Modi.

"The range of our cooperation with India is huge," he said in remarks translated by the broadcaster, citing ship and aircraft manufacturing, nuclear energy and space exploration.

"This visit is part of India's diversification strategy, both in terms of strategic and economic, especially at a time when the US tariffs have hurt India," Ashok Malik of business consultancy The Asia Group told AFP.

On Friday, Putin is due to be given an honor guard welcome at the presidential palace in New Delhi, before meeting with Modi.

'Balancing acts'

India is walking a diplomatic tightrope -- relying on strategic Russian oil imports while trying not to provoke Trump during ongoing tariff negotiations.

"Balancing acts are second nature to Indian foreign policy making", wrote Pankaj Saran, a former Indian envoy to Russia, writing in the Times of India.

The leaders will also address business and industry leaders before Putin attends a state banquet hosted by the Indian President Droupadi Murmu.

India, the world's most populous nation, has become a major buyer of Russian oil, saving itself billions of dollars and providing Moscow with a much-needed export market after it was cut off from traditional buyers in Europe because of the war.

Putin also told India Today that Modi is "not someone who gives in to pressure", when asked about the impact of US tariffs.

The Russian share of India's arms imports fell from 76 percent in 2009-13 to 36 percent in 2019-23, according to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute.

Besides discussions around cutting-edge defense hardware, which includes air defense systems, fighter jets, and nuclear submarines, New Delhi will push for easier access to the wider Russian market.

Bilateral trade reached $68.7 billion in 2024-25 -- almost six times higher than the pre-pandemic levels -- but Indian exports accounted for only $4.88 billion.

The two countries are expected to announce an agreement on easier mobility of Indian workers into Russia.