Ho, Ho, Hong Kong -- Overheard

WASHINGTON — A top U. N. official said Friday that hard-hit northern Gaza was now in “full-blown famine” after more than six months of war between Israel and Hamas and severe Israeli restrictions on food deliveries to the Palestinian territory. Cindy McCain, the American director of the U. N. World Food Program, became the most prominent international official so far to declare that trapped civilians in the most cut-off part of Gaza had gone over the brink into famine. [time-brightcove not-tgx=”true”] “It’s horror,” McCain told NBC’s “Meet the Press” in an interview to air Sunday.

Chants of “disclose, divest, we will not stop, we will not rest” are reverberating across the globe as student-led protests in support of Palestine have popped up outside the U. S. and in countries like Australia, Mexico, and the U. K. as the Israel-Hamas war enters into its seventh month.

LONDON — Britain’s governing Conservative Party is suffering heavy losses as an array of election results pour in Friday, piling pressure on Prime Minister Rishi Sunak ahead of a U. K. general election in which the main opposition Labour Party appears increasingly likely to return to power after 14 years. [time-brightcove not-tgx=”true”] Labour won control of councils in England it hasn’t held for decades and was successful in a special by-election for Parliament that, if repeated in a general election in coming months, would lead to one of the Conservatives′ biggest-ever defeats. The only negative so far for Labour has been in some areas with large Muslim populations, such as Oldham in northwest England, where the party’s candidates appear to have suffered as a result of leader Keir Starmer ‘s strongly pro-Israel stance in the conflict in Gaza. Perhaps most important in the context of the looming general election, which has to take place by January but could come as soon as next month, Labour easily won back Blackpool South in the northwest of England that went Conservative in the last general election in 2019, when then-Prime Minister Boris Johnson won a big victory.

Desperate times call for desperate measures, and across Asia, communities are responding to an extreme and deadly heat wave, which has battered the region since last month and has left few options for residents and governments to cope, in creative and even superstitious ways. One city in the Philippines has rolled out free mobile showers, while in Vietnam, municipal authorities reportedly looked into the possibility of enlisting the help of a man who claimed he could pray for precipitation.

Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin met Thursday with his counterparts from Australia, Japan and the Philippines as the U. S. deepens ties with an emerging regional group that Pentagon officials have privately nicknamed, the “Squad.” The quadrilateral grouping is one of a number of regional partnerships that Washington has used to push back against China’s assertiveness in Asia.