For today, links to Associated Press and Reuters reports and to commentary via Middle East Eye and Global Research; others are accessible by clicking on their names or initials below. (UKRAINE entry for this date is HERE.) — MCM  

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Blinken adds Israel stop to latest Mideast tour as tensions rise over Gaza war, by Matthew Lee | AP  JEDDAH, Saudi Arabia — U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken will travel to Israel this week as part of his sixth urgent mission to the Middle East since the Israelis’ war with Hamas began in October, as relations between the two countries have soured dramatically in recent weeks. The visit. . . READ MORE . . .

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FROM MARCH 19  In Gaza, starving children fill hospital wards as famine looms, by Mohammad Salem and Gabrielle Tétrault-Farber | Reuters  Twenty-seven children have died of malnutrition and dehydration in recent weeks at the Kamal Adwan hospital in north Gaza in recent weeks, the health ministry says, and other children have died in the al-Shifa Hospital, also in the north, while in Rafah in the south . . . READ MORE . . .

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FROM MARCH 15  War on Gaza: Torture, executions, babies left to die, sexual abuse… These are Israel’s crimes, by Jonathan Cook | jonathan-cook.net / Middle East Eye / Global Research  The western establishment media has been chock full of the most lurid allegations of savagery directed against Hamas, sometimes with little or no supporting evidence. Claims that . . . READ MORE . . .