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(UNITED NATIONS) — At the United Nations headquarters on Tuesday, four doctors from the U.S., U.K. and France who have spent decades working on the frontlines, warned that the humanitarian situation in Gaza has reached “a tipping point” and that an Israeli invasion of Rafah would be “apocalyptic.”

The group pleaded for help from global leaders as it discussed the worsening healthcare emergency in the Strip since Oct. 7, the result of Israel’s retaliatory war in response to the Hamas terrorist attack that left 1,200 dead and saw 253 kidnapped. More than 31,000 Palestinians have been killed and more than 72,000 others have been injured in Gaza since the war began, according to the Hamas-run Gaza Health Ministry.

Dr. Zaher Sahloul, a critical care specialist and co-founder of MedGlobal, who returned in late January from a mission in Gaza, said during Tuesday’s press conference that they hope through their testimony to “instill a sense of urgency about the situation” in the Strip. He said he’s seen civilians experiencing famine, injuries and shortages of medical supplies and facilities.

The doctors warned about a potential “bloodbath” with “apocalyptic” consequences if Israel carries out its planned invasion of Rafah, a southern city by the border with Egypt where over 1.5 million displaced civilians are currently taking refuge.

“This is probably the worst crisis that can happen within this war,” Sahloul said.

He said he saw a sea of tents of the displaced, hemmed in by the border and by the nearby fighting.

“If there is any offensive, they’re going to have a bloodbath, massacres after massacres,” he said.

Sahloul said he saw an estimate of around 250,000 deaths in this scenario from colleagues on the ground.

Practitioners from Doctors Without Borders (Médecins Sans Frontières, MSF), MedGlobal and other nongovernmental organizations are participating in a series of meetings with Biden administration officials and members of Congress in D.C. from Wednesday through Friday

Their visit comes as Israel confirmed that officials will travel to D.C. early next week to meet with their U.S. counterparts to “discuss alternative approaches” for their Rafah offensive.

Their plan includes an evacuation to “humanitarian islands,” according to Israel Defense Forces spokesperson Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari, but it was unclear what those safe areas would look like. Organizations, including MSF, have repeatedly said that there is no safe place in Gaza.

Although international leaders, including U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken, have publicly shared their concerns, a senior Israeli official told ABC News on Wednesday that “there is no world” in which Israel does not go ahead with its Rafah offensive, a military operation they claim will destroy the last battalions of Hamas left in the south.

The doctors affirmed that the situation is already dire and called for a cease-fire.

“I felt very overwhelmed the first few days that I was at Nasser Hospital with the amount of injuries that we were seeing and how little resources we had,” said Dr. Thaer Ahmad, a Palestinian-American physician who participated in a MedGlobal mission to Gaza in late January. “If it was not for the Palestinian doctors and nurses holding my hand and showing me how to treat these patients, I think I would have been useless for the rest of my time there.”

Dr. Nick Maynard, a U.K.-based surgeon who worked in Gaza and West Bank hospitals for over a decade, said that what he experienced over New Year’s still haunts him at night.

“One child alone, I will never forget, had burns so bad, you could see her facial bones. We knew there was no chance of her surviving that,” Maynard said at the U.N. “But there was no morphine to give her. So not only was she inevitably going to die, but she would die in agony. … She was just left on the floor of the emergency department to die.”

The doctor said the stories they shared Tuesday were just some of the over 13,000 similar stories of children who have been killed in the conflict, according to numbers from the Hamas-controlled Gaza Health Ministry.

Asked by a reporter about aid and plans for field hospitals, such as the one that the U.S. has announced will be built over a floating platform, Dr. Amber Alayyan, a Texas pediatrician with MSF, said such a facility wouldn’t make up for the 35 hospitals destroyed in Gaza since October.

“Before the war, the health care system was not perfect but it was robust,” Alayyan said. “You could put 1000 field hospitals and they wouldn’t address one-tenth of the current needs.”

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(NEW YORK) — A United Nations official in Gaza said the Monday report of famine-imminent conditions in the strip are “unprecedented” amid the ongoing Israel-Hamas war.

Earlier this week, a report from the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) initiative confirmed that famine is fast approaching in northern Gaza and will likely occur before May of this year unless a cease-fire occurs.

The report also found that the entire population of the Gaza Strip, about 2.23 million people, is facing high levels of food insecurity and, in the most likely scenario, an estimated 1.1 million people — half of the population — will be experiencing famine levels of hunger by mid-July.

Limited humanitarian access to and within the Gaza Strip continues to “impede the safe and equitable delivery of life-saving multi-sector humanitarian assistance,” the IPC report said.

Speaking from the city of Rafah in southern Gaza, Andrea De Domenico, head of the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs in the Occupied Palestinian territory, told ABC News that “the scale of this is unprecedented.”

“We’re talking about 1.1 million people,” De Domenico told ABC News. “If you compare to other contexts — at the peak of the famine in Yemen, for example — we had 150,000 people in Phase 5. Here, we’re talking about 1.1 million. So, it’s unprecedented.”

The IPC’s Phase 5 categorization is the most catastrophic and indicates households in that phase are faced with extreme lack of food and unable to meet basic needs, including water and sanitation, De Domenico said.

The Israeli government has received criticism from several countries regarding the possibility of an offensive in Rafah, the city in southern Gaza that borders Egypt. International agencies have accused Israel of not letting enough aid into the country and, when aid is let in, it’s not sufficient.

Israeli officials have said Hamas steals aid once it enters Gaza and claim looting is also a problem. Israel continues to deny all accusations that it isn’t letting enough aid into Gaza and encourages other countries to send in aid, with Israeli officials saying the U.N., its partners and other aid agencies have created logistical challenges, resulting in a bottleneck. The U.N. disputes these claims.

De Domenico said the potential expansion of the military operation in Rafah is one of the “driving factors,” referencing the IPC report, that would bring the entire population of Gaza to a catastrophic situation. An expanded offensive would further limit the already scarce access for those needing to give humanitarian assistance, he added.

“When I’m talking about access to people, I’m not talking about how many trucks cross into Gaza,” De Domenico said. “The problem is not about crossing into Gaza only. The problem is to make sure that the commodities in those trucks reach the people — all the people in Gaza, and particularly those that are most vulnerable.”

According to the scenario presented in the IPC report, 70% of the remaining population in the north, or about 210,000 Gazans, will experience “catastrophic” levels of hunger.

“Not only is [this] a man-made catastrophe, but it is also totally preventable,” De Domenico said. “We can still reverse this trajectory.”

Expanding aid teams’ abilities to deliver food and other supplies to the impacted communities, and diversifying the diet of aid is crucial to addressing the impending famine, he said. Many civilians in Gaza say they are eating animal fodder or scavenging through trash bins for nourishment — ultimately leading to increased cases of diseases.

“The problem is at the moment we barely can bring basic staples into the north of Gaza in particular, and you cannot address famine with bread,” De Domenico said. “Flour is fundamental, but you need a diversity of diet – you need access to water.”

De Domenico said the uniquely narrow land area and concentrated population of the region is crucial to note in discussions of humanitarian response.

In reference to the tangible actions to be taken in the region, De Domenico said the ability to change the impending trajectory of famine is critically time-sensitive.

“That deadline — has already passed. It was yesterday. What we have to do is immediately open those passages and give access to humanitarians … and we’re ready,” De Domenico said.

Access to the Gaza Strip became increasingly limited following Hamas’ terrorist attack in Israel on Oct. 7, 2023. More than 1,200 people have been killed in Israel since then, according to the Israeli Prime Minister’s Office. More than 31,000 Palestinians have been killed and nearly 74,000 injured over the same period, according to the Hamas-run Gaza Health Ministry.

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(WASHINGTON) — The U.S. has submitted a draft resolution to the UN Security Council calling for “an immediate ceasefire tied to the release of hostages,” Secretary of State Antony Blinken told Saudi news outlet Al Hadath on Wednesday.

“Well, in fact, we actually have a resolution that we put forward right now that’s before the United Nations Security Council that does call for an immediate ceasefire tied to the release of hostages, and we hope very much that countries will support that,” he said in an interview with Al Hadath’s Christiane Baissary. “I think that would send a strong message, a strong signal.”

Story developing…

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(WASHINGTON) — As a gang-led rebellion continues to surge through Haiti, the U.S. on Wednesday orchestrated two helicopter airlifts from Port-au-Prince — evacuating more than 30 stranded Americans to the Dominican Republic, according to the State Department.

After officials spent days weighing escape routes for citizens trapped in the perilous capital city, State Department deputy spokesperson Vedant Patel announced in a briefing that an operation involving government-chartered helicopters would get underway in the hours ahead, with multiple flights planned to help as many people depart as possible.

“Of course, the situation on the ground is one of the biggest factors into determining the frequency at which we can do this,” Patel said.

Another official later said that the State Department intends to facilitate the departure of roughly 30 Americans via two helicopter flights each day through the duration of the mission and that government personnel would be on hand in the Dominican Republic to help individuals book commercial travel back to the U.S upon landing.

But this official cautioned that the department’s ability to continue running the flights would depend on security conditions in Haiti and the availability of commercial charters, as well as ongoing demand for evacuations.

Patel said in Wednesday’s briefing that the number of Americans that had reached out to the U.S. Embassy in Haiti through its crisis intake form was approaching 1,600, but that many had not asked for help departing the country.

For those who do wish to leave, there are few viable options, according to officials. Gangs have laid siege to Port-au-Prince’s airport, and warfare between the criminal groups, the country’s beleaguered authorities and bands of vigilantes have made traveling by road treacherous.

An official said that members of the State Department’s Diplomatic Security Service are working with the Department of Defense to provide security for departing citizens and the helicopter landing zone — which is very near the embassy, according to a defense official — but embassy security alerts have repeatedly cautioned Americans in Haiti that they must make their own way to departure points, instructing individuals to “assess your own safety when deciding whether to travel.”

The U.S. on Sunday organized a charter flight from Cap-Haïten, a city in northern Haiti, that brought approximately 30 Americans to Miami, and State Department officials say they are continuing to evaluate other departure options from the region.

Republican politicians and private companies have also organized their own evacuations. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis said his state chartered a flight from Haiti that landed in Orlando late Wednesday.

Many fear that the already dismal conditions in the country are only becoming more dire. UNICEF said on Tuesday that the country’s health care system is on the verge of collapse, and aid groups say the latest wave of violence has made reaching vulnerable populations impossible.

The Biden administration has allocated more than $50 million in humanitarian assistance for Haiti in recent days and is counting on a multinational security force led by Kenya to restore order to the country.

However, Kenyan officials say they will only consider launching that force when Haiti installs a new leader.

Secretary of State Antony Blinken, Haitian stakeholders and Caribbean leaders struck an agreement early last week to launch a transitional council to appoint an interim prime minister.

U.S. officials initially anticipated that process would take up to 48 hours, but the council has yet to take shape — further pushing off prospects for international intervention.

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(CARTAGENA, Colombia) — Centuries after the Spanish galleon ship San José sunk in Colombian waters and nearly a decade after it was initially discovered, the estimated $17 billion shipwreck is set to be recovered as soon as April, according to officials.

“For the first time in history, a model of comprehensive public management of the archaeological site and asset of cultural interest, protected by regulations and public missionality, is advanced,” the Colombian government said in a press release, which was translated, Tuesday.

The 150-foot-long, 64-gun, three-masted galleon ship’s treasure is comprised of 200 tons of silver and emeralds, 11 million gold coins, an intact Chinese dinner service and porcelain pottery, according to Colombian Navy divers’ findings in June 2022.

In 2015, when the wreck was initially rediscovered, former Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos said in a news conference, “This is the most valuable treasure that has been found in the history of humanity.” Santos also paid tribute to the 600 people who were onboard the ship during the wreck.

Current Colombian President Gustavo Petro ordered the recovery to be coordinated by the Ministry of Cultures, Arts and Knowledge, the National Navy’s General Maritime Directorate and the Colombian Institute of Anthropology and History, according to the release.

The San José was sunk in 1708 by British warships while it was returning to Spain, with a cargo full of treasure meant to help fund The War of the Spanish Succession, a European conflict that spanned from 1701 to 1714.

The shipwreck’s deep-sea location, which remained a mystery until 2015, is near Cartagena, a port city on Colombia’s Caribbean coast, Colombian officials said in the press release.

In December 2015, former president Santos announced the discovery of the San José galleon, which launched an international debate over the rightful owner of the ship’s bounty.

Colombia, Spain, Bolivian Indigenous groups and an American salvage company have all attempted to take legal ownership of the historical wreck, which is now estimated to be worth $17 billion, according to court documents from Colombia’s National Legal Defense Agency, obtained by Business Insider in 2023.

A U.S. salvage company, Sea Search Armada (SSA), claimed they discovered the location of the San José in 1981 and attempted to take legal ownership against Colombia for the recovery of the ship.

However, a U.S. court declared the galleon the property of the Colombian state in 2011, according to court documents.

In 2018, UNESCO, the United Nations cultural agency, intervened when the Colombian government attempted to auction some of the San José’s artifacts to fund the recovery costs.

“Allowing the commercial exploitation of Colombia’s cultural heritage goes against the best scientific standards and international ethical principles as laid down especially in the UNESCO Underwater Cultural Heritage Convention,” a letter from the cultural agency to Colombian Culture Minister Mariana Garces Cordoba said.

In May 2022, the official decision was made to keep the “invaluable cultural heritage of Colombians managed under the figure of a protected archaeological area of ​​the national order,” according to the release.

In the 316 years since the San José sunk, the ship has remained untouched aside from natural ocean wear and tear.

“So far, the entire discovery of the Galeón San José Asset of Cultural Interest and its archaeological evidence have been deposited without any variation, other than that produced by the marine dynamics themselves (currents and fauna), with no evidence of external interventions,” according to the release.

The Colombian State will invest 17,962 million pesos ($1,073,646) in the recovery process, officials say.

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(NEW YORK) — A private U.S. advisory firm of former senior American military, CIA and humanitarian officials is proposing to operate the anticipated daily deployment of international aid ships from Cyprus to the Gaza coast, in a plan that would increase the American presence in the volatile region.

The proposal, pitched by the firm Fogbow with the hope that foreign donors will sign on in meetings this week, is being pursued separately from a U.S. military effort to build a giant pier off Gaza to enable the delivery of aid.

While such a plan would put more Americans operating near Gaza, Fogbow’s effort calls for its team to stay offshore, providing primarily logistics and other support from nearby sites.

“Right now, the plan is to have no Americans on the ground. But there will be former military and former humanitarian officials advising at each level,” said the person, speaking on condition of anonymity because the effort – coined the “Blue Beach Plan” — hadn’t been publicly announced.

Representatives from potential donor countries were scheduled to meet Thursday and Friday in Nicosia, Cyprus, to discuss details, the person said.

A leading global authority warned this week that famine was “imminent” in north Gaza in the wake of Israel’s military operations against Hamas. U.S. officials have pressed the Israeli government to open up ground checkpoints and allow aid trucks to enter Gaza. But convoys are still being denied access or slowed down as Israel says they want to ensure the cargo doesn’t help Hamas fighters.

With few options, the U.S. in recent weeks joined other countries in air dropping aid — pushing parachute-strapped pallets out the backs of C-130 military planes — in an effort officials acknowledge is not nearly as efficient as a ground convoy.

President Joe Biden this month announced he would try to push more aid through by opening up a maritime aid corridor and deployed some 1,000 troops to construct a pier that would help humanitarian ships off load supplies. The military pier, however, is still some two months away from becoming operational.

U.S. officials said this week that the government still hasn’t decided which organizations it might rely on to help move the humanitarian aid from its pier, including providing transportation to shore, security and distribution. Biden has insisted that U.S. troops not operate from the ground in Gaza, and the expectation is that Army, Navy and Marines will be working some three to five miles from the coast.

With the U.S. pier still weeks away, international aid groups have launched their own efforts using donations. Earlier this week, a barge operated by the Spanish aid group Open Arms landed with food from World Central Kitchen, a charity founded by celebrity chef José Andrés.

According to a statement provided by the World Central Kitchen, aid workers built their own jetty in Gaza using nearby rubble from bombed buildings to unload the cargo. The group said their team is now prepared to send a second maritime shipment that will include food and heavy machinery to expedite the offloading process.

The idea pitched by Fogbow would dramatically expand these kinds of operations, the person familiar with Fogbow’s plan said, allowing more aid ships from the World Central Kitchen and elsewhere to access the coast weeks before the US military pier is up and running.

Private contractors operating in war zones aren’t uncommon, although US military officials grew wary of the idea following deadly shootings of civilians involving security contractors in the Iraq war.

Fogbow advisers, however, would not be involved in any security operations, and they would not work from the ground in Gaza. According to the plan, the group would rely on a maritime company from Cyprus to deliver supplies to the beach and United Nations organizations to distribute it.

Fogbow is led by retired Marine Corps Lt. Gen. Sam Mundy and Mick Mulroy, a former Pentagon and CIA official and now an ABC News contributor, as well as by Chris Hylslop, a retired United Nations humanitarian official.

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(NEW YORK) — The United States has fallen eight spots and is no longer in the top 20 happiest countries in the world, falling behind countries like Canada, Israel, Kuwait, Lithuania and the United Arab Emirates, according to the 2024 World Happiness Report released by Gallup and its partners.

The new report, which was released on Wednesday, shows that the top 10 happiest countries in the world remain largely unchanged compared to the 2023 report, but that there has been a lot of change when it comes to the top 20.

“Costa Rica and Kuwait are both new entrants to the top 20, at positions 12 and 13,” the report states. “The continuing convergence in happiness levels between the two sides of Europe led last year to Czechia and Lithuania being in the top twenty, nearly joined now by Slovenia in 21st place. The new entrants are matched by the departures of the United States and Germany from the top 20, dropping from 15 and 16 last year to 23 and 24 this year.”

The list of the world’s happiest countries no longer includes any of the world’s largest countries.

“In the top ten countries only the Netherlands and Australia have populations over 15 million,” according to the report. “In the whole of the top twenty, only Canada and the United Kingdom have populations over 30 million.”

One of the main reasons for the United States dropping out of the top 20 is the overall unhappiness of younger people, according to the report.

“For the United States, Canada, Australia and New Zealand, happiness has decreased in all age groups, but especially for the young, so much so that the young are now, in 2021-2023, the least happy age group,” according to the new report. “This is a big change from 2006-2010, when the young were happier than those in the midlife groups, and about as happy as those aged 60 and over. For the young, the happiness drop was about three-quarters of a point, and greater for females than males.”

The 2024 World Happiness Report goes on to explain another reason for such a heavy drop is the widespread concern about an “emerging epidemic of loneliness, and about the consequences of loneliness for mental and physical health.”

“Although overall levels of loneliness are not unduly high in global terms, there is a significantly different pattern across the generations,” the report says. “Loneliness is almost twice as high among the Millennials than among those born before 1965. Millennials also feel less socially supported than Boomers in those countries, another place in which these countries look different from the rest of the world. This is despite the fact that actual social connections are much more frequent for Millennials than Boomers, and about as frequent as for Generation X.”

The results are based on self-assessments from people in more than 140 countries who are answering questions regarding their overall satisfaction with their lives. The study also takes into account six key variables which contribute to explaining life evaluations, including GDP per capita, social support, healthy life expectancy, freedom, generosity and corruption.

Then to help understand the differences seen between countries, they look at six factors: the nation’s healthy life expectancy, economy (GDP per capita), levels of corruption, social support, generosity and freedom.

The top 10 countries overall this year are Finland, Denmark, Iceland, Sweden, Israel, Netherlands Norway, Luxembourg, Switzerland and Australia.

The countries that fared the worst and were least happy this year are Zambia, Eswatini, Malawi, Botswana, Zimbabwe, Congo (Kinshasa), Sierra Leone, Lesotho, Lebanon and Afghanistan, which was listed as the least happy by a sizeable margin.

The report, which was published on Wednesday, was released to coincide with the U.N.’s International Day of Happiness which is celebrated on March 20 every year to promote happiness, well-being and a more compassionate world.

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(NEW YORK) — The recent identification of fossils from a heavily armored ancient crocodile ancestor species, known as aetosaurs, provides a glimpse into our world 215 million years ago.

The study, led by researchers at the University of Texas at Austin and published in the journal The Anatomical Record earlier this year, announces a new aetosaur species: Garzapelta muelleri.

Aetosaurs are a species likened to modern crocodiles that lived during the Triassic Period, 229 million to 200 million years ago, which pre-dates the Jurassic Period, according to researchers, who further note aetosaur fossils have been discovered on every continent except Antarctica and Australia.

Garzapelta muelleri’s fossilized dorsal carapace – the hard, armored plating that covered its back – is 70% complete, according to researchers, with major pieces from the neck and shoulder region to the end of its tail intact.

William Reyes, a doctoral student at the UT Jackson School of Geosciences who led the study, published in January, told Phys.org on Monday that the findings are remarkable because “Usually, you find very limited material.”

The exterior of Garzapelta’s skeleton is called the osteoderm, which is comprised of rock-hard plates and curved spikes both made of bone, according to the study.

“Take a crocodile from modern day, and turn it into an armadillo,” Reyes told the publication, describing the ancient creature.

The study determined that Garzapelta’s fossils date back 215 million years and that the species was largely omnivorous, contradictory to its modern cousin, the carnivorous crocodile.

The name Garzapelta muelleri is a nod to Garza County in northwest Texas, where the fossil was discovered, while “pelta” is the Latin word for shield, to signify the armor-like shell of the species. The second half of the name, muelleri, is a nod to Bill Mueller, the paleontologist who initially discovered the aetosaur’s fossilized skeleton.

To determine that Garzapelta is, in fact, a new species of aetosaur, researchers compared the skeleton with those of similar ancient aetosaurs.

“The carapace of G. muelleri exhibits a striking degree of similarity between that of the paratypothoracin Rioarribasuchus chamaensis and desmatosuchins,” researchers said in the study.

However, the unique qualities of Garzapelta’s skeleton, from the formation of the osteoderm plates to the distinct markings and ridges on the species’ bones, make it distinctly different from its aetosaur relatives, according to the study.

“Convergence of the osteoderms across distantly related aetosaurs has been noted before, but the carapace of Garzapelta muelleri is the best example of it and shows to what extent it can happen and the problems it causes in our phylogenetic analyses,” Reyes told Phys.org.

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(LONDON) — For the second time in less than two weeks, a global photo agency has issued an editing notice on a royal family photo shared by Kate, the Princess of Wales.

Getty Images added an editor’s note Tuesday on a photo that was taken by Kate in 2022 of the late Queen Elizabeth II and some of her great-grandchildren.

Last April, Kensington Palace shared the photo on the social media accounts of Kate and her husband Prince William to mark what would have been the queen’s 97th birthday.

Credit for the photo was given to Kate.

In its editor’s note Tuesday, Getty Images says the photo “has been digitally enhanced at source.”

The palace has not commented on the addition of the editor’s note to Kate’s photo of the late queen.

The notice from the photo agency comes just over one week after multiple global news agencies, including Getty Images, retracted a photo of Kate with the three children she shares with William over concerns it was “manipulated.”

In a statement to ABC News at the time, the AP said it had “retracted the image because at closer inspection, it appears that the source had manipulated the image in a way that did not meet AP’s photo standards. The photo shows an inconsistency in the alignment of Princess Charlotte’s left hand.”

The photo was shared on William and Kate’s social media accounts to mark Mother’s Day in the U.K. Credit for the photo was given to William, and it was shared along with a message from Kate thanking people for their “continued support” as she recovers from abdominal surgery.

The day after the photo was retracted, Kate issued a public apology for any “confusion” caused by the photo.

“Like many amateur photographers, I do occasionally experiment with editing,” she said in a statement posted on social media. “I wanted to express my apologies for any confusion the family photograph we shared yesterday caused. I hope everyone celebrating had a very happy Mother’s Day.”

The palace has not commented on the photo controversy.

Hany Farid, a computer science professor at the University of California, Berkeley, told ABC News his analysis of the photo of Kate with her children shows “minor manipulation,” and no evidence it is an AI-generated photo.

“I think most likely it is either some bad photoshop to, for example, remove a stain on the sweater, or is the result of on-camera photo compositing that combines multiple photos together to get a photo where everyone is smiling,” Farid said. “Either way, I think it is unlikely that this is anything more than a relatively minor photo manipulation.”

Still, the retraction of the photo added to a growing credibility issue for the royal family.

Last week, Phil Chetwynd, global news director at Agence France-Presse, told BBC Radio that in light of the photo editing, he no longer considers Kensington Palace to be a trusted source.

“No, absolutely not,” Chetwynd said. “Like with anything, when you’re let down by a source, the bar is raised.”

The photo was the first time Kate had been seen in an official capacity since December, when she joined the royal family for a Christmas Day church service.

In mid-January, the palace announced Kate had undergone a “planned abdominal surgery” and would be out of the public eye until after Easter.

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(HONG KONG) — Hong Kong’s legislature has unanimously passed a strict security law, 11 days after it was tabled in an unusually fast turnaround.

Authorities in Hong Kong have argued that the law is necessary to uphold stability and “plug any holes” left by the sweeping National Security Law, which was imposed by China following widespread protests in 2019.

Article 23 was mandated under Hong Kong’s mini constitution, but plans to enact it in 2003 were shelved after mass protests. This time, Hong Kong’s chief executive, John Lee, made it clear the government wanted it passed with “full speed.” Authorities in Beijing and Hong Kong have spent the last few years dismantling political opposition and stacking the legislature with only “patriots” loyal to Beijing.

A lengthy bill that ran more than 200 pages, Article 23 expands on the already broadly worded National Security Law.

Article 23 also targets new offenses like insurrection and external interference. Lee hailed its passage as a “historic moment,” adding that the bill targets “potential sabotage and undercurrents that try to create troubles.” Penalties include life sentences.

There are fears, however, the new security law could further erode Hong Kong’s already diminished freedoms and semi-autonomy.

Inter-Parliamentary Alliance on China, a coalition of western lawmakers, released a statement criticizing the passage of the Article 23 law, saying, “Aside from representing a disastrous deterioration in Hong Kong’s already diminished freedoms, it fundamentally changes the business environment.”

It may also have a lasting impact on the city’s competitive edge, impacting investor appetite for a city once viewed as a safe investment gateway to mainland China.

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