Al-Jazeera / US plays down Rafah assault, says it will push for Gaza ceasefire deal
 

• The United States has played down the deadly Israeli assault on Rafah, saying the offensive appears to be “limited” despite concerns over the fate of the more than 1.5 million Palestinians sheltering in the southern Gaza city. 

• State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller told reporters on Tuesday that the US still opposes a major Israeli offensive against Rafah. 

• Israel had stepped up its bombardment of Rafah on Monday, killing dozens of people after ordering about 100,000 residents in its eastern areas to evacuate. Israeli troops also stormed the Palestinian side of the Rafah border crossing between the Gaza Strip and Egypt, which serves as a major gateway for humanitarian aid. 

• “This military operation that they launched last night was targeted just to Rafah gate,” Miller said on Tuesday.

  
  Related article: Bloomberg - Jordan Fabian / US Paused Weapons Shipment to Israel Over Rafah Invasion Concern

The New York Times - Andrew Higgins / On European Tour, Xi Jinping Heads to Friendly Territory in the East
 

• When China’s leader, Xi Jinping, last visited Europe’s formerly Communist east in 2016, the president of the Czech Republic hosted him for a flag-bedecked, three-day state visit and offered his country as an “unsinkable aircraft carrier” for Chinese investment. 

• That vessel has since sunk, scuppered by China’s support for Russia in the war in Ukraine and bitter disappointment over projects that never materialized. Also capsized are many of the high hopes that took hold across Eastern and Central Europe for a bonanza of Chinese money. 

• So when Mr. Xi returned to the region this week, after a visit to France, he headed for Serbia, arriving there late Tuesday before moving on later in the week to Hungary — two countries whose long-serving authoritarian leaders still offer a haven for China in increasingly turbulent political and economic waters. 

• “The Czechs, the Poles and nearly everyone else are really pissed at China because of the war,” said Tamas Matura, a foreign relations scholar at Corvinus University of Budapest. “But in Hungary that is not a problem, at least not for the government” of Prime Minister Viktor Orban, Mr. Matura said.

   

The Guardian - Jillian Ambrose / Renewable energy passes 30% of world’s electricity supply
 

• Renewable energy accounted for more than 30% of the world’s electricity for the first time last year following a rapid rise in wind and solar power, according to new figures. 

• A report on the global power system has found that the world may be on the brink of driving down fossil fuel generation, even as overall demand for electricity continues to rise. 

•  Clean electricity has already helped to slow the growth in fossil fuels by almost two-thirds in the past 10 years, according to the report by climate thinktank Ember. It found that renewables have grown from 19% of electricity in 2000 to more than 30% of global electricity last year. 

• “The renewables future has arrived,” said Dave Jones, Ember’s director of global insights. “Solar, in particular, is accelerating faster than anyone thought possible.”

   

Euractiv - Reuters / Russia targets energy facilities in air attack on Ukraine, officials say
 

• A Russian air attack on Ukraine damaged several facilities in a strike targeting energy infrastructure across the country, Ukraine’s military and energy officials said on Wednesday (8 May). 

• “Another massive attack on our energy industry!” Ukraine’s Energy Minister German Galushchenko wrote on the Telegram messaging app. 

• Power generation and transmission facilities in the Poltava, Kirovohrad, Zaporizhzhia, Lviv, Ivano-Frankivsk, and Vinnytsia regions were targeted, he added. 

• Except the Zaporizhzhia region, all the other regions are far from the frontline that goes through Ukraine’s east and southeast.

   

Our opinion reads for today:

• Project Syndicate - Ian Bremmer / Will the Renewed US Support for Ukraine Be Enough? 
• Financial Times - Enrique Krauze / Mexican democracy hangs in the balance