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France has pledged to broaden its defense commitment to Ukraine by offering specialized technical and operational cooperation to counter Russia’s intensifying use of ballistic weaponry.

The announcement followed a high-level telephone consultation between President Volodymyr Zelensky and French President Emmanuel Macron on Saturday, May 16.

Writing on his official Facebook page, President Zelensky explicitly framed the development as a major milestone for Ukraine’s heavily strained air defense architecture.

“I thanked Emmanuel for his principled condemnation of Russian strikes on our cities and communities. These attacks make very clear what Russia is and why we all need to strengthen our collective defense against all threats. France is ready to work on anti-ballistic capabilities. This is a strong decision and an important step. We also discussed boosting our ability to repel Russian attacks right now,” Zelensky noted.

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Maldivian authorities on Saturday suspended the search for the bodies of four Italian divers believed to be deep inside an underwater cave, after a military diver died during a perilous mission to try to reach them.

The group of five Italian divers is believed to have died while exploring a cave at a depth of about 50 meters (160 feet) in Vaavu Atoll on Thursday, according to Italy’s Foreign Ministry. The recreational diving limit in the Maldives is 30 meters (98 feet).

Maldives presidential spokesman Mohamed Hussain Shareef said the search was suspended after Mohamed Mahudhee, a member of the Maldivian National Defense Force, died of underwater decompression sickness after being transferred to a hospital in the capital.

Mahudhee will be buried with military honors in a funeral attended by President Mohamed Muzzu on Saturday night. The diver was part of the group that had briefed Muizzu on the rescue plan when he visited the search site on Friday.

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Russian President Vladimir Putin will meet with Chinese leader Xi Jinping on a two-day trip to Beijing next week, the Kremlin said Saturday.

The announcement comes less than 24 hours after U.S. President Donald Trump finished his own state visit to China, where he also met Xi to discuss trade and the U.S. and Israel’s war in Iran.

In a statement, the Kremlin said that Putin’s trip, planned for May 19-20, had been scheduled to coincide with the 25th anniversary of the 2001 Sino-Russian Treathttps://thehill.com/homenews/ap/ap-international/ap-putin-to-visit-chinese-leader-xi-jinping-days-after-trumps-trip-to-beijing/?tbref=hpy of Friendship.

It said that the two leaders would discuss bilateral relations as well as “key international and regional issues” and economic cooperation.

Relations between China and Russia have deepened in recent years, particularly since the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in early 2022 left Moscow shunned on the global stage and heavily reliant on Beijing for trade due to Western sanctions.

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Cisco Systems is one of the most consequential—yet least visible—corporations in Silicon Valley. The San Jose-based networking giant, with a market capitalization in excess of $270 billion and annual revenue of $56.7 billion in 2025, manufactures the routers, switches, firewalls, and communications platforms that run the internet’s infrastructure, as well as many of its worldwide corporate, government, and military networks.

Cisco makes a point of publicly highlighting its commitment to corporate social responsibility, and building “an inclusive future for all” in the dozens of countries around the world in which it operates. Yet the company’s aggressive pursuit of contracts with the Israeli government and military—a small yet growing part of its global business—has led to accusations that behind this sunny facade the networking giant is profiting from genocide.

A new set of leaked documents—provided to Drop Site by whistleblowers disturbed by the company’s operations in Israel—shows Cisco’s deep and growing collaboration with the Israeli military and intelligence establishment in its regional wars and the genocide in Gaza.

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Emirati scholar Abdulkhaleq Abdulla has called Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu a "war criminal" who is wholly unwelcome in the United Arab Emirates, after the country's foreign ministry issued a statement denying that Netanyahu ever came to visit UAE ruler Mohammed bin Zayed al-Nahyan. 

Netanyahu made a "secret" visit to the UAE in March, amid the US-Israeli war on Iran, his own office said in a statement on Wednesday.

"There is no welcome whatsoever for a war criminal and the killer of Gaza's children on the pure soil of the Emirates," Abdulla, who is a non-resident fellow at the Arab Gulf States Institute in Washington, DC, wrote on X on Thursday.

"The visit that Netanyahu is talking about is a fabrication from his sick imagination, and it is well known that he is a prolific liar who released this lie to serve opportunistic electoral purposes."

In a statement, the UAE foreign ministry said its "relations with Israel are public and conducted within the framework of the well-known and officially declared Abraham Accords, and are not based on non-transparent or unofficial arrangements".

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Chinese President Xi Jinping is using the issue of Taiwan to exert power over President Trump as the two leaders seek to tackle a number of hot button issues during this week’s high stakes summit in Beijing.

During their bilateral meeting on Thursday, Xi told Trump the “entire relationship” between Washington and Beijing would be put in jeopardy if the “Taiwan question” is not handled well, according to the Chinese foreign ministry.

Additionally, China referred to Taiwan as “the most important issue in China-U.S. relations” in a readout following the meeting.

The White House, on the other hand, did not mention Taiwan once in its readout of the meeting, and Trump notably did not respond to questions from reporters on the topic when he was greeted by Xi.

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Yuri Ushakov, an aide to Vladimir Putin, asserted on May 10 that any settlement regarding the war in Ukraine will “stand still” unless Kyiv withdraws its military from the Donbas. Despite this rigid ultimatum, Ushakov expressed confidence that the US has not abandoned the diplomatic track, predicting that Donald Trump’s envoys, Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, will soon return to Moscow for further talks.

The Kremlin has signaled that diplomatic efforts to end the war will face a continued deadlock unless Ukraine agrees to a total military withdrawal from the Donbas region.

Speaking to Russian state media, Presidential Aide Yuri Ushakov emphasized that Russia’s stance on territorial control remains unchanged. “A settlement in Ukraine without the withdrawal of the Armed Forces of Ukraine (AFU) from Donbas will stand still even after 10 rounds of negotiations,” Ushakov stated, adding that he believes Kyiv will eventually be forced to “realize” this necessity.

Despite the harsh rhetoric regarding territorial concessions, the Kremlin appears to remain open to the diplomatic channel established by the Trump administration.

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The 1974 Carnation Revolution in Portugal that overthrew the country's dictatorship and led to independence for its African colonies was sparked off by the airing of Portugal's Eurovision entry for that year, E depois do adeus ("And After the Farewell"), by Paulo de Carvalho.

In 2009, authorities in Azerbaijan interrogated 43 people after they voted for Armenia's entry in the contest that year, while Ukraine and Russia regularly jibed at each other over the latter's invasion until Russia was expelled in 2022.

But arguably the biggest political controversy in the contest has been around Israel's participation since the beginning of the genocide in Gaza in October 2023.

"For me, this is first and foremost about the devastating humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza and the enormous loss of civilian lives," Emmelie de Forest, winner of the 2013 Eurovision song contest, told Middle East Eye.

"But it’s also about what it means when cultural institutions try to completely separate themselves from political reality. I don’t think music exists outside the world around us."

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