Comment on News Analysis: The New Allure of Sacred Pilgrimages

That was astoundingly unprecedented. American, British, French, and an assortment of Arab countries’ warplanes and air defenses teamed up with Israel to block Iran’s massive wave of missiles and drones. Now let’s recognize that Joe Biden deserves credit for his immediate follow-up. The President saved the world from coping with an awful war in the Middle East, by calling Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and twisting Israel’s arm so that it didn’t immediately retaliate against Iran. [time-brightcove not-tgx=”true”] While Israeli war cabinet consultations are secret, we can confirm that the group of five top decision-makers was moving toward ordering a powerful retaliation against sites in Iran—some connected with that country’s nuclear program—that have been on Israel’s standby target list for years.

Israel’s leaders met today during a war cabinet meeting to discuss the country’s response after Iran launched a combination of 170 drones, 30 cruise missiles, and 120 ballistic missiles towards Israeli soil in the early hours of Sunday morning. It was the first time the Islamic Republic, long hostile to the Israeli state, directly attacked Israel after decades of proxy conflict.

The Iranian attack on Israel was historic. For the first time since the Iranian Revolution of 1979, the Ayatollah regime violated Israeli sovereignty directly without using any of its proxies, such as Hezbollah or Hamas. Iran, in this sense, has created a new equation for its conflict with Israel. Likewise, the ability to counter hundreds of Iranian missiles and drones was also unprecedented, as it resulted from an American-led coalition—which included the U.

Good intentions can sometimes be misguided. Thailand’s freshwater ecosystems this time of year are a testament to that. Ahead of the Buddhist holiday of Songkran, also known as the Thai New Year, which began on Saturday and ends on Monday, Thailand’s Department of Fisheries warned Buddhists thinking of releasing fish and turtles into local waterways—a popular practice known as “ploi pla” and believed to make merit, or bring good karma—that doing so would actually be a grave sin.

As President Joe Biden and his national security team met in the Situation Room at the White House on Saturday evening, watching in real time as hundreds of Iranian missiles and drones headed towards Israel, they received a message from Tehran. Through the Swiss, who serve as an intermediary since the U.

Singapore will soon get its fourth Prime Minister—and only the second outside of its founding family that has led the country for a combined more than 50 years since the city-state gained its independence in the 1960s. Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong, 72, who has held the position since 2004, will relinquish his office on May 15, and 51-year-old Lawrence Wong—currently deputy prime minister and finance minister—will be sworn in as the country’s next premier, according to a statement Monday by the Prime Minister’s Office.