Towards a European alternative to SpaceX and Starlink.

During an interview with CNBC, Leonardo’s CEO, Roberto Cingolani, has said that his [Italian state owned] company is already at work to create a European alternative to the Starlink low Earth orbit satellite communication system, owned by the American company SpaceX. Cingolani has said that Leonardo is currently in talks with [the French state-owned company] Thales, with which is already a joint owner of Thales Alenia Space and Telespazio, and the [joint French/German/Spanish state-owned company] Airbus Defence and Space to create a European space alliance.

Furthermore, continued Cingolani, the European antitrust regulations need to be modified, given that, due to the gravity of the current situation, the problem cannot be handled with the regular timings of the European bureaucracy, Cingolani is convinced, thanks to the good will of all the interested parties, that the project might be successfully completed not within years but within a few months, thus creating a true alternative to SpaceX. More problematic is instead going to be the issue of the carrier rocket since Europe doesn’t yet have an equivalent to SpaceX’s Falcon 9 system, the reusable rocket which has allowed the north American company to revolutionize the costs and the timings of space launch.

Starlink and the issues arisen in Ukraine.

Starlink is a constellation of low orbit satellites developed to supply broadband internet services throughout the world, especially in rural areas not covered by other networks. The system has reached notoriety due to the current war between Russia and Ukraine, as the previous [American] Biden administration had authorized SpaceX to supply its satellite services to Kiev; but following that, controversies arose between the Ukrainian government and the owner of SpaceX due to the suspension and reactivation of the services used by Ukraine’s Armed Forces to guarantee their own communications. These problems have then pushed various countries (including Italy) to review their contracts and the possibility to award them to SpaceX, not wanting to potentially remain hostage of fickle decisions regarding the supply of services considered essential to national security.

The IIRIS 2 programme.

As is well known, the European Commission is currently financing the IRIS 2 program, whose development started in 2024, with a budget of 2,4 billion euros granted by the European Union and a further 750 million euros by the ESA, the European Space Agency. IRIS 2 is designed to provide high speed internet to the African continent, which is currently almost deprived of it, and of course also cover Europe and her ever increasing “hunger” and need for such services. IRIS 2, as has already happened for the Galileo satellites, will have a double military and civilian system, by reserving certain channels and functions for the defence sector.

The UNAIDS program head has said millions more will die as a result of the sudden cuts to funding by the Trump administration. She also warned that the AIDS pandemic could return to 1990s levels.

The head of the United Nations program on HIV/AIDS, UNAIDS, said on Monday that over 6 million additional deaths from the disease are expected after the US slashed its funding.

UNAIDS executive director Winnie Byanyima said the sudden cuts from the US, which had been the biggest donor to the program, had been "devastating."

"You're talking of losing the gains that we have made over the last 25 years. It is very serious," she told reporters in Geneva.

Over 6 million additional AIDS deaths

"If US Assistance is not restored and not replaced by other funding — and we have not heard of other governments pledging to fill the gap — there would be an additional 6.3 million more AIDS-related deaths — in the next 4 years," Byanyima said.

She pointed out that some 600,000 AIDS-related deaths were recorded globally at the last count in 2023.

Byanyima also said "an additional 8.7 million new infections" were expected.

Beyond the short-term, the UNAIDS chief said that without the funding gap being filled, the AIDS pandemic could return to levels not seen since the 1990s.

Previous reporting on the incident:

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/apr/02/evidence-execution-style-killings-palestinian-workers-israeli-forces-doctor-says

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/mar/31/israel-killed-15-palestinian-paramedics-and-rescue-workers-one-by-one-says-un

A rebel group called the Commoners of the South has begun handing its weapons over to Colombia’s government, the Defense Ministry said Saturday, as part of peace talks expected to lead to the group’s disarmament in the coming months.

The group of about 250 fighters operates in Colombia’s Southwestern Nariño province and has been in negotiations with the government since last year.

Until recently, the Commoners of the South was part of the National Liberation Army, or ELN, a group of about 6,000 fighters that is still fighting Colombia’s government.

In May last year, the Commoners broke away from the ELN and began peace talks with the administration of President Gustavo Petro. That angered the ELN’s leadership and stymied its negotiations with Colombia’s government.

Petro, who was part of a rebel group in his youth, has been staging peace talks with nine separate rebel groups and drug trafficking gangs in Colombia under a strategy known as “total peace.”

Most of these negotiations have failed to reduce violence and so far only the Commoners of the South have agreed to begin a transition toward civilian life.

Prime Minister Donald Tusk has announced that Poland will launch a campaign aiming to discourage migrants from trying to enter the country across the border with Belarus. It will warn them that Poland has suspended the right to claim asylum and strengthened the border to prevent irregular crossings.

Since 2021, tens of thousands of migrants and asylum seekers – mainly from the Middle East, Asia and Africa – have tried to cross into Poland and other EU countries with the encouragement and assistance of the Belarusian authorities.

In a video on social media, Tusk on Friday announced that Poland “will soon start an information campaign in the seven countries where the largest number of migrants trying to illegally cross the Polish border come from”.

He did not specify which countries those would be. However, Polish border guard data show that, in 2024, the seven nationalities that most often submitted asylum claims after crossing from Belarus were Ethiopians, Eritreans, Somalis, Syrians, Sudanese, Yemenis and Afghans.

“Our message will be simple,” said Tusk. “The Polish border is sealed. Don’t believe the smugglers. Don’t believe Lukashenko, don’t believe Putin [the presidents of Belarus and Russia]. They lie to you when they say that this is the way into Europe.”

“You won’t apply for asylum here anymore,” continued Tusk, referring to a law introduced last week that suspends the right to apply for asylum at the border with Belarus. Those who are caught crossing are sent back to Belarus.

“But above all, you won’t cross the Polish border illegally,” warned the prime minister. “Thousands of soldiers, border guards and policemen, cameras and drones, guard every meter of it 24 hours a day.”

He then invited potential migrants to “see for yourself”, showing a video of a group who had tried to cross the border but were apprehended by Polish officers.

Both the former Law and Justice (PiS) government and Tusk’s current ruling coalition, which replaced PiS in power in December 2023, have taken tough measures in response to the security and migration crisis at the Belarus border.

Those have included introducing exclusion zones along the border to prevent people from entering the area, as well as building physical and electronic barriers along the frontier.

Article text:

The Israeli military pressed deeper into northern Gaza by ground on Friday after issuing a series of evacuation orders calling on Palestinians to flee, part of its escalating offensive against Hamas in the war-battered Gaza Strip.

The expansion of ground operations came after the Palestinian health authorities said on Thursday that dozens of people, including children, were killed in Israeli strikes on a school turned shelter in the Tuffah neighborhood of Gaza City. On Friday, the Israeli military said the strikes were targeting well-known militants in a Hamas command and control center, without naming them.

The evacuation orders have brought renewed hardship to Palestinians who had already endured displacement from their homes and miserable conditions during the first 15 months of the war. A shaky two-month cease-fire between Israel and Hamas collapsed in March after the two sides failed to reach an agreement to extend it, ending a brief respite for Palestinians in Gaza.

The Israeli military has since embarked on a major bombing campaign and seized territory in Gaza in a tactic that Israeli officials have said was intended to compel Hamas to release more hostages.

As the Israeli military operation expanded, Hamas’s military wing on Friday appeared to threaten the remaining Israeli and foreign hostages held in Gaza. In a statement that did not mention the plight of its own people, Hamas said its fighters were holding some captives in the evacuation zones under “strict security measures that are extremely dangerous to their lives.”

The armed group has in the past threatened the well-being of hostages in the face of Israeli bombardments.

The military said its recent campaign had dismantled weapons infrastructure and killed militants, including Mohammed Awad, whom it described as a senior military commander in the Mujahedeen Brigades, a small armed group in Gaza.

The military said that Mr. Awad had taken part in Hamas-led attacks on Oct. 7, 2023, and was “likely personally involved in the abduction and brutal murders of Shiri, Ariel and Kfir Bibas,” though it did not explain how it had come to that conclusion. Mrs. Bibas and her two young children became symbols for many Israelis of their suffering on Oct. 7, when about 1,200 people were killed and about 250 abducted to Gaza.

Avichay Adraee, the military’s Arabic-language spokesman, said in a post late Thursday on social media that he was providing a “final” warning before a new attack, urging people to relocate southward. Mr. Adraee suggested that militant groups were operating among civilians.

While many people have complied with such evacuation orders from the military during the most recent Israeli campaign, others have chosen to stay in their homes or shelters, saying they could not bear being displaced or that they have nowhere else to go.

On Friday, the military said its troops began operating in the neighborhood of Shajaiye in eastern Gaza City in order “to expand the security zone,” referring to what it has characterized as a buffer zone next to Israel’s border with Gaza.

During the first 15 months of war, much of Shajaiye was transformed into a wasteland as the Israeli military fought Hamas, with buildings demolished, roads ripped up and utilities infrastructure ruined.

Palestinian health authorities — who do not distinguish between civilians and combatants — said the bodies of 27 people killed in the Tuffah strike had arrived at the hospital.

Multiple videos verified by The New York Times show an explosion and its chaotic aftermath at the Dar al-Arqam school, where civilians were sheltering. The strikes were followed by a chaotic scene at Al Ahli Arab Hospital in Gaza City, where dust-covered and bloodied children were rushed from vehicles.

Khamis Elessi, a volunteer doctor at the hospital, said successive waves of wounded people arrived in the emergency room, overwhelming medical staff.

“It was a terrifying scene,” he said in phone interview. “People were thrown on the ground.”

Dr. Elessi, 56, said he was stunned by the number of wounded children. “I was brought to tears,” he said. “One boy kept asking me: Why did they hit me?”

One of those killed was the grandson of Khalil al-Hayya, Hamas’s top negotiator based in Qatar, the Hamas-run Al Aqsa TV channel reported.

Alaa Hamada, 36, said she and her children were sheltering at Dar al-Arqam when the strikes pounded into the school turned shelter.

“What happened can’t be described in words,” she said. “It was a miracle that we survived.”

Israel has previously targeted schools being used as shelters, contending that Hamas militants were operating command centers in them. Hamas has denied such claims in the past. The United Nations has said that Israeli strikes on schools probably violated the law by causing disproportionate harm to noncombatants.

More than 1,000 people in Gaza have been killed since the collapse of the cease-fire on March 18 and more than 50,000 people have been killed since the start of the war, according to the Gaza health ministry. The bodies of 86 people killed by Israel arrived at hospitals across Gaza on Thursday, according to the health ministry.

Nader Ibrahim, Ameera Harouda and Aaron Boxerman reporting.