Navalny Poisoned by Russia; UK Reveals Timing

Palmerston, the former chief mouser of the UK Foreign Office, died in Bermuda, according to a social media post in his name, after retiring in 2020. The cat, a rescue from Battersea Dogs & Cats Home, served four years in Whitehall before relocating.

In other news, Doctors Without Borders (MSF) suspended some operations at Nasser Hospital in Gaza after armed men posed security threats inside the building. The Geneva-based medical charity reported on its website that non-essential work was halted on January 20 due to concerns about the management of the structure and safeguarding its neutrality.

Meanwhile, over 100 artists have voiced their support for the United Nations special rapporteur for occupied Palestinian territory, Francesca Albanese, who faces international calls to resign. The group, Artists for Palestine, signed an open letter offering full support to Albanese, a defender of human rights.

Also, the UK and its allies revealed that Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny was killed using a poison developed from a dart frog toxin. The "barbaric" act, using a neurotoxin classified as a chemical weapon, could only have been carried out by the Kremlin, according to the UK. The announcement was deliberately timed to coincide with a security conference in Munich, according to Sky News. The poison, found in the skin of Ecuadorian dart frogs, is 200 times stronger than morphine, and victims "suffocate in agony," according to Germany's foreign minister. Naming the person or government allegedly responsible for such a political assassination is a form of information weapon, according to Sky News.