IDF and Hezbollah exchange fire

Israel-Lebanon

IDF and Hezbollah exchange fire
Lebanese health authorities said at least three people were killed and more than a dozen others wounded in an Israeli raid on Beirut on Friday, the first Israeli attack on the Lebanese capital in months. The Israeli strike came after Hezbollah bombed northern Israel with rockets and the region was awaiting revenge vowed by the militant group’s leader Hassan Nasrallah for this week’s massive bombing of Hezbollah members’ pagers and walkie-talkies. Nasrallah said this week’s deadly explosions, which killed 37 people and wounded more than 3,000, “crossed all red lines.” Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant announced that Israel was entering a “new phase of the war.” Hundreds of people, mostly Hezbollah fighters, have been killed in cross-border fighting since October last year and hundreds of thousands have been displaced.

This map shows details of the conflicts between Israel and Hezbollah. Click on the map for more information.

Graphic source: GraphicNews
________________________________________________________________________

Ecuador
Noboa seeks foreign military assistance
Ecuador’s President Daniel Noboa has said he wants to change his country’s constitution to allow for foreign military bases. The United States previously maintained a military base in the coastal city of Manta to combat drug trafficking, but former President Rafael Correa ordered U.S. troops to leave in 2009. President Noboa argues that Ecuador needs foreign military aid to combat transnational criminal gangs that use the country as a major transit route for drugs smuggled from South America to Europe and the U.S. The leader declared war on 22 criminal groups in January, but gang-related violence continues to plague cities including Manta, Durán and Guayaquil. Ecuador recorded a record 47 homicides per 100,000 inhabitants in 2023, up from a rate of six homicides per 100,000 inhabitants in 2018. President Noboa has long argued that expelling the U.S. military was a mistake that led to the rise of transnational criminal gangs in Ecuador.

This map shows the murder rate by province in Ecuador. Click on the map for more information.

Graphic source: Amazon Watch
________________________________________________________________________

World
IVF corals survive heat wave
Ninety percent of young corals grown using in vitro fertilization (IVF) in the U.S., Mexico, and the Caribbean survived last year’s heat wave, compared with only a quarter of century-old, non-IVF-grown corals, a surprising study from SECORE International found. Over the past five years, researchers have collected coral spawn for laboratory fertilization of eggs, replanting, and replenishing colonies in the Caribbean. IVF treatments increase genetic diversity, unlike fragmentation techniques, which produce genetic clones. While older corals in this study lost some or all of their algae, the young IVF corals retained them. Survival is thought to be due to young corals finding heat-resistant symbiotic algae. But as heat waves and bleaching events become more common, coral reproduction may not be enough to reverse the effects of bleaching.

This map shows changes in coral heat stress during major bleaching events from 1997 to 2024 globally. Click on the map to learn more.

Q: What is the largest peninsula in the world?

A: The Arabian Peninsula
The Arabian Peninsula, or Arabia, is a peninsula in Western Asia, located northeast of Africa on the Arabian Plate. At 1,250,000 square miles (3,237,500 km2), comparable in size to India, the Arabian Peninsula is the largest peninsula in the world. The Arabian Peninsula is bounded by the Red Sea to the west and southwest, the Gulf of Aden to the south, the Arabian Sea to the south and southeast, and the Gulf of Oman and the Persian Gulf (also called the Arabian Gulf) to the east. Geographically, the peninsula and the Syrian Desert merge to the north without a clear demarcation line, but the northern borders of Saudi Arabia and Kuwait are generally considered to be the border of Arabia there.

Source

Q: Which mountain is the main national symbol of Armenia?

Stay tuned for the answer to today’s question in Monday’s DailyGeo.

AGS accepts DailyGeo GeoQuestion suggestions.
Please email [email protected] if you have any ideas!
Please mention GeoQuestions in the subject line, along with your answer and source.

DailyGeo is a daily digital communication created by the American Geographical Society (AGS) for the geography community. If you are receiving this email, it is because you are an AGS affiliate or a participant in one of our programs. Please feel free to share and encourage others to join the community!

We understand this may not be for everyone. While we’ll hate to see you go, you can opt out here.

How are we doing? We want to hear your feedback about DailyGeo – what we’re doing well and what we should be doing differently. Talk to us by emailing ags@americangeo.org.