The more than 5,000 sailors and soldiers aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln, one of the largest aircraft carriers in the United States fleet, have been deployed in the Persian Gulf for over 250 days due to the Iran war. They have not made a port call in more than half a year, a new modern record for consecutive days at sea, and with no signs that the conflict will end soon, their families have reported a serious deterioration in living conditions and mental health.

“A horrible act of terror.” This is how the occupation, for the past five days, of two Palestinian houses by Israeli settlers in the town of Qusra, in the West Bank, has been described. The condemnation does not come from a human rights group or the ever “concerned” European Union, but from a great ally of Israel, the United States ambassador in Jerusalem, Mike Huckabee.

Russian President Vladimir Putin visited the island of Iturup in the Pacific Ocean this Thursday, provoking a strong protest from the Japanese government, which claims this and three other islands, the southernmost of the Kuril archipelago, controlled by Moscow since the end of World War II in 1945. Due to this dispute, Moscow and Tokyo have never signed a peace treaty that would formally end the conflict.

The first thing is the movement. The life that begins every Monday at the first hour and suddenly, past seven-thirty, the ground starts to shake rhythmically: from here to there and from there to here. Through the window, the trees join in this dancing. Then, the creaks of the house walls begin to sound: one creak, another one. And in the distance, the neighbors’ shouts, the prayers like lifebuoys. Immediately, the nerves of my little dog, Kosti, expressed in broken barks.