Xavier Greenwood

1 week ago | observer.co.uk | Stephen Armstrong |Xavier Greenwood

Donald Trump has extended the deadline by which TikTok must be sold by its Chinese owner ByteDance or be shut down in the US. So what? If this sounds familiar, it’s because he’s done this three times. Trump once fumed that the app was a national security threat and proposed a ban during his first term. Now he has repeatedly deferred enforcing one. This is the result of the president being betweena rock: unwilling to let the app go dark; anda hard place: unable to secure a sale. Rock.

1 week ago | observer.co.uk | Donald Macintyre |Xavier Greenwood

But Netanyahu has bought himself time that Palestinians can ill-afford France and Saudi Arabia were due to convene a UN conference on a two-state solution this week. One of the goals was to increase the number of countries recognising a Palestinian state, a notion that Benjamin Netanyahu has consistently rejected. So what? The meeting was cancelled. The Iran-Israel conflict is not just taking lives and raising fears of a wider war. It has sucked attention away from the other conflict in the region.

1 week ago | observer.co.uk | Chloe Hadjimatheou |Xavier Greenwood

A prominent Persian-language TV station reported yesterday that a top aide to Ayatollah Khamenei had been assured by a senior Russian official that he and his family would be evacuated from Iran if Israel’s bombardment of the country continued to escalate. So what? A single report from an anti-regime channel should be treated with caution. For 46 years the Islamic Republic has held a ruthless and centralised grip on power in Iran that it won’t give up easily.

1 week ago | observer.co.uk | Xavier Greenwood

At 9.08am BST the plane took off from Ahmedabad airport bound for London Gatwick. The cockpit gave a mayday call. The Flight AI171 reached only 650ft before rapidly losing altitude. After 30 seconds, the plane crashed into a hostel for medical students. While rolling news websites shared initial statements and reported on response teams sifting through the wreckage, social media was way ahead.

2 weeks ago | observer.co.uk | Xavier Greenwood

A string of fatal crashes and longstanding concerns about Boeing’s corporate culture fuel rampant online speculation about what happened to the Dreamliner On Thursday at 9.08am BST, an Air India flight took off from Ahmedabad airport bound for London Gatwick. Almost immediately after take-off, the cockpit gave a mayday call. The Flight AI171 only reached 625 feet before rapidly losing altitude. After 32 seconds in the air, the plane crashed into a hostel housing medical students.