Chief Adviser of Bangladesh Dr Muhammad Yunus arrived in the Thai capital Bangkok on Thursday to attend the sixth Bay of Bengal Initiative for Multi-Sectoral Technical and Economic Cooperation (BIMSTEC) summit. BIMSTEC is a regional organization comprising seven Member States lying in the littoral and adjacent areas of the Bay of Bengal constituting a contiguous regional unity. Member states are Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Myanmar, Nepal, Sri Lanka, and Thailand.

Muhammad Yunus will speak at the summit and also hold bilateral talks with the leaders of BIMSTEC member states.

"A flight of Biman Bangladesh Airlines carrying the Chief Adviser and his entourage landed at Suvarnabhumi Airport in Bangkok at about 12 pm local time," Chief Adviser's Deputy Press Secretary Azad Majumder told BSS.

On his arrival, Thai Minister in Attendance Jiraporn Shinduprai welcomed the Chief Adviser at the airport.

Yunus-Modi Bilateral Meeting

Reports say Muhammad Yunus may hold a bilateral meeting with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi on the sidelines of the summit on Friday. If they meet, it will be their first meeting after Yunus took the office of Chief Adviser of the Bangladesh government.

He will also be present at two MoU signing ceremonies during the summit.

The BIMSTEC chairmanship will officially be handed over to the Bangladesh Chief Adviser on Friday.

He is expected to return home on Friday night.

The BIMSTEC summit is being held in Bangkok from Wednesday to Friday, focusing on seven key pillars of regional cooperation:

• Trade, investment, and development

• Environment and climate change

• Security

• Agriculture and food security

• People-to-people contact

• Science, technology, and innovation

• Connectivity

Khalilur Rahman, the Chief Adviser’s High Representative on Rohingya and other priorities, said at a media briefing today that there are enough possibilities for a meeting between Chief Adviser Prof Muhammad Yunus and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi on the sidelines of the BIMSTEC Summit on April 4. He made the comment at a media briefing at the Foreign Service Academy Thursday.

On the condition of anonymity, a diplomatic source also confirmed that the meeting between Yunus and Modi will take place on April 4. However, the details are still being worked out.

He also mentioned that Bangladesh had earlier requested a meeting between Prof Yunus and Modi.

This sub-regional organization, BIST-EC, came into being on 6 June 1997 through the Bangkok Declaration. It constitutes seven Member States: five deriving from South Asia and two from Southeast Asia.

Following the inclusion of Myanmar on 22 December 1997 during a special Ministerial Meeting in Bangkok, the Group was renamed ‘BIMST-EC’ (Bangladesh, India, Myanmar, Sri Lanka and Thailand Economic Cooperation). With the admission of Nepal and Bhutan at the 6th Ministerial Meeting (February 2004, Thailand), the name of the grouping was changed to ‘Bay of Bengal Initiative for Multi-Sectoral Technical and Economic Cooperation’ (BIMSTEC).

Desk Report by Md Sajjadul Islam

Rachael Bade is POLITICO's Capitol bureau chief and senior Washington columnist. She is a former co-author of POLITICO Playbook and co-author of "Unchecked: The Untold Story Behind Congress's Botched Impeachments of Donald Trump." Her reported column, Corridors, illuminates how power pulses through Washington, from Capitol Hill to the White House and beyond.

President Donald Trump has told his inner circle, including members of his Cabinet, that Elon Musk will be stepping back in the coming weeks from his current role as governing partner, ubiquitous cheerleader and Washington hatchet man.

The president remains pleased with Musk and his Department of Government Efficiency initiative but both men have decided in recent days that it will soon be time for Musk to return to his businesses and take on a supporting role, according to three Trump insiders who were granted anonymity to describe the evolving relationship.

Musk’s looming exit comes as some Trump administration insiders and many outside allies have become frustrated with his unpredictability and increasingly view the billionaire as a political liability, a dynamic that was thrown into stark relief Tuesday when a conservative judge Musk vocally supported lost his bid for a Wisconsin Supreme Court seat by 10 points.

It also represents a shift in the Trump-Musk relationship from a month ago, when White House officials and allies were predicting Musk was “here to stay” and that Trump would find a way to blow past the 130-day time limit.

One senior administration official said Musk is likely to retain an informal role as an adviser and continue to be an occasional face around the White House grounds. Another cautioned that anyone who thinks Musk is going to disappear entirely from Trump’s orbit is “fooling themselves.”

The transition, the insiders said, is likely to correspond to the end of Musk’s time as a “special government employee,” a special status that temporarily exempts him from some ethics and conflict-of-interest rules. That 130-day period is expected to expire in late May or early June.

Musk’s defenders inside the administration believe that the time will soon be right for a transition, given their view that there’s only so much more he can cut from government agencies without shaving too close to the bone.

But many other Trump allies say he’s an unpredictable, unmanageable force who has had issues communicating his plans with Cabinet secretaries and through the White House chain of command led by Chief of Staff Susie Wiles, frequently sending them into a frenzy with unexpected and off-message comments on X, his social-media platform — including sharing unvetted and uncoordinated plans to gut federal agencies.

That’s to say nothing of their concerns about Musk as a political liability who has served as a rallying point for fractured Democrats. In Wisconsin, Musk’s opponents seized on his millions of dollars of spending in the judicial race, with some openly calling it a referendum on the polarizing mogul.

Publicly, Trump has shown nothing but admiration for Musk, who spent millions to help elect him. He often touts the waste, fraud, and abuse DOGE claims to have identified, hailing Musk’s work as revolutionary.

But my colleague Sophia Cai reports that Trump is increasingly mindful of next year’s midterms and making sure he doesn’t jeopardize his House majority. He’s kept a careful eye on the town hall outrage over DOGE, even as Republicans have chalked those scenes up to coordinated liberal stagecraft.

Also telling, Cai notes: His discussions about next steps for Musk came just days before he grew so worried about the GOP’s narrow House margin that he withdrew New York Rep. Elise Stefanik’s nomination to be ambassador to the UN.

Trump had already started easing the glide path starting more than a week before the election — including at a March 24 Cabinet meeting where he told attendees that Musk would be transitioning out of the administration, according to one of the insiders, who did not attend the meeting but was briefed on the comments. A senior administration official confirmed Trump discussed Musk’s transition at the meeting.

Soon after, Trump invited reporters and cameras in for the tail end of the meeting, where he lavished praise on Musk, who attended the meeting wearing a red MAGA hat. Cabinet secretaries — many of whom had clashed with Musk just weeks before over Musk’s bull-in-a-china-shop approach to cutting their departments — in turn jumped in to hail his bureaucracy-slashing campaign.

“Elon, I want to thank you — I know you’ve been through a lot,” Trump said, mentioning death threats and the spate of vandalism directed at the cars built by Musk’s Tesla before calling him “a patriot” and “a friend of mine.”

Both men subsequently hinted publicly at a transition. When Fox News’ Bret Baier asked Musk on Thursday whether he’d be ready to leave when his special government employee status expires, he essentially declared mission accomplished: “I think we will have accomplished most of the work required to reduce the deficit by $1 trillion within that time frame.”

On Monday night, Trump told reporters that “at some point Elon’s gonna want to go back to his company,” adding: “He wants to. I’d keep him as long as I could keep him.”

“As the President said, this White House would love to keep Elon around for as long as possible,” White House spokesperson Harrison Fields said Tuesday as election results from Wisconsin rolled in. “Elon has been instrumental in executing the President’s agenda, and will continue this good work until the President says otherwise.”

After this story was first published Wednesday, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt referred to it as “garbage” in a social media post but did not dispute the reporting. She confirmed that “Elon will depart from public service as a special government employee when his incredible work at DOGE is complete.”

But many close to Trump are relieved that Musk is expected to soon move on from his central role at Trump’s side and that the litany of DOGE surprises — which have ranged from a weekend email blast demanding federal workers list their work output to accidental cuts to Ebola prevention programs — might finally be coming to a close.

The billionaire’s involvement has raised significant conflict-of-interest concerns given his companies’ extensive government contracts, though as a special government employee, his financial disclosure forms remain confidential.

The nearly shuttered USAID had initiated an investigation on agency oversight into Starlink terminals sent to Ukraine, the Consumer Finance Protection Bureau was targeted nearly a week after publishing a rule that would put technology companies such as X – which was planning a partnership with Visa – in its crosshairs over regulation, and many other agency attacks.

Democrats have increasingly targeted Musk politically, most recently criticizing his over $20m investment in a Wisconsin supreme court race. The New Jersey senator Cory Booker broke the record for longest speech in Senate floor history after more than 24 hours assailing Trump and Musk.

There is a lot at stake

The world’s most powerful man is using his office to punish journalistic organisations that won’t follow his orders or who report critically on his policies. Donald Trump’s actions against the press include bans, lawsuits and hand-picking his own pool of reporters.

But the global threat against the press is bigger than just Trump.

Economic and authoritarian forces around the globe are challenging journalists’ ability to report. An independent press, one that those in power can’t simply overrule, is crucial to democracy. Figures such as Trump and Hungary’s Viktor Orbán want to crush it through exclusion and influence.

Iran has reacted with outrage after Donald Trump said the country will be bombed if it does not accept US demands to constrain its nuclear programme.

The US president said on Sunday that if Iran “[doesn’t] make a deal, there will be bombing. It will be bombing the likes of which they have never seen before.”

Trump’s latest threat – more explicit and violent than any made before – came after he sent a letter to Iran, as yet undisclosed, offering to hold talks on its nuclear programme. Iran had sent a reply to the US stating it was willing to hold indirect talks, officials confirmed.

Esmail Baghaei, the Iranian foreign ministry spokesperson, said of Trump’s threat:

“The explicit threat of bombing Iran by the head of a country is a clear contradiction to the essence of international peace and security.
Such a threat is a gross violation of the United Nations Charter and a violation of the International Atomic Energy Agency safeguards regime. Violence brings violence and peace creates peace – America can choose.”

The Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, a sceptic about talks with the US, said Iran was “not overly concerned” by Trump’s words.

“We consider it unlikely that such harm would come from outside. However, if any malicious act does occur, it will certainly be met with a firm and decisive response,” he said.

Brig. Gen. Amir Ali Hajizadeh, the commander of the Revolutionary Guard’s aerospace force, said:

“Someone in glass houses does not throw stones at anyone,” adding: “The Americans have at least 10 bases with 50,000 troops in the region, meaning they are sitting in a glass house.”

However, Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi clearly had the authority to keep the prospect of talks alive, saying Iran had already replied to the Trump letter through intermediaries in Oman, and adding he knew the Iranian letter had now reached the US. Araghchi said direct talks were not possible while the US continued to threaten and bully Iran.

Trump sent his original letter proposing talks through the United Arab Emirates’ senior diplomatic envoy, Anwar Gargash.

The choice of Gargash as an intermediary was seen as a sign that the letter was intended to give negotiations a genuine chance, rather than leave Iran no option but to reject the offer of talks.

Trump has set a deadline of mid-May for progress to be made, but a longer deadline also exists – mid-August – by which time the original 2015 nuclear agreement will largely expire and a European response will be required. Trump took the US out of that agreement in 2018, a move widely seen as a mistake, as it led Iran to speed up its uranium enrichment programme.

That Iran sent its reply through Oman – its traditional chosen mediator – rather than the UAE may suggest Iran does not want the UAE, which has normalised relations with Israel, to act as intermediaries.

The US and Iran had held indirect talks on reviving the nuclear agreement under the Biden administration in Vienna from 2021, but they fizzled out, and all sides agreed the indirect nature of the talks ate up time, something Trump is reluctant to offer Iran.

Some of the ground will have been covered in four rounds of parallel talks held between Iranian and European negotiators in Geneva.

Tehran has not commented on how broadly the Trump letter went in demanding concessions from Iran. But the Iranian ambassador to Iraq, Mohammad Kazem al-Sadegh, indicated the US was seeking talks that went wider than the nuclear programme, saying the letter called for the disbandment of the Iranian-backed Iraqi Popular Mobilisation Forces militia.

The US administration has been divided over whether to simply demand Iran expose its civil nuclear programme to fuller international inspection or make a wider set of demands, including a complete end to its nuclear programme and an Iranian commitment to stop bankrolling resistance groups in the Middle East such as Hamas in Gaza and the Houthis in Yemen.

The US National Security Adviser, Mike Waltz, has called for the “full dismantlement” of the Iranian nuclear programme, something Tehran rejects. By contrast, Steve Witkoff, Trump’s special envoy, spoke only of restricting Iran’s nuclear programme – something Iran has been willing to accept since 2015 so long as it leads to a lifting of sanctions on the Iranian economy.

Some inside the Trump administration believe an attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities will produce regime change.

Trump will want assurances, at the very least, that a revived Iranian economy will not just lead to extra funds for Iranian-backed militia. Kamal Kharazi, the head of Iran’s Strategic Council on Foreign Relations and sometimes touted as a chief negotiator, has accused the US of operating a psychological war by adopting a policy of “either war or negotiation.”

Gulf States Refuse to Be Launching Pad

Saudi Arabia and other Gulf states have imposed a ban on US warplanes using their airfields or skies to attack Iran after US President Donald Trump over the weekend threatened to bomb the country.

Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Qatar, and Kuwait have all told the US they will not permit their airspace or territories to be used as a launchpad against Iran, including for refuelling and rescue operations, a senior US official told Middle East Eye.

The official spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive military planning.

"They do not want to be drawn in," the official said.

The Gulf states’ intransigence is a setback for the Trump administration, which had hoped to use massive air strikes on the Houthis in Yemen as a show of force to corral Tehran to the negotiating table on a nuclear deal.

If Iran realises the US's oil-rich Arab allies are not on board with strikes, it could harden their negotiating position.

The Gulf’s opposition to an attack on Iran is based not on close ideological affinity with Iran, but on a sense the region must avoid further political instability. With the current Iranian leadership already weakened, regime change is not something they welcome.

A former official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the US felt confident it had enough Gulf support, including to launch recovery flights if any American aircraft were downed during operations.

The Trump administration has been courting the Gulf states to come on board as it ramps up a "maximum pressure" campaign against Tehran. US defence and intelligence officials met with Emirati and Saudi counterparts in March in Washington DC, around the time of the first Houthi strikes.

US Turns to Diego Garcia Base

In response to the Gulf states' ban, the US has amassed B-2 bombers at Diego Garcia base in the Indian Ocean, the official said.

This is not the first time American war planners leaned on Diego Garcia’s strategic position as an alternative to Gulf air bases. During the late 1990s, when the US was bombing Saddam...

Russia Condemns Trump’s Threat to Iran

Russia on Tuesday slammed US President Donald Trump’s threat to bomb Iran and impose secondary tariffs if it fails to reach an agreement with Washington over its nuclear programme.

“Threats are indeed heard; ultimatums are also heard. We consider such methods inappropriate; we condemn them. We consider this a way to impose our own will on the Iranian side,” Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov said in an interview with the Russian journal International Affairs, excerpts of which were published on Tuesday.

Ryabkov argued that such actions could complicate the situation and lead to consequences that would require

“many times greater efforts in the future in terms of leveling the danger of the emergence of yet another hotbed of tension and, God forbid, a conflict – an open conflict in the Middle East, where it is already quite high.”

Expressing that Russia offers an “alternative path,” Ryabkov further said that Moscow is against strikes and aggression.

US President Donald Trump’s outreach to Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, on a possible new nuclear deal is an attempt to avoid direct military action, US special envoy Steve Witkoff has said.

“We don’t need to solve everything militarily,” Witkoff told Fox News on Sunday. “Our signal to Iran is ‘Let’s sit down and see if we can, through dialogue, through diplomacy, get to the right place’. If we can, we are prepared to do that. And if we can’t, the alternative is not a great alternative.”

Witkoff’s comments come after Trump said on March 7 that he sent a letter to the Iranian leadership seeking to engage in talks over Iran’s nuclear activities and warning of potential military action if it refused. The approach was slammed by Khamenei, who said Iran was not going to engage with a “bully”.

Trump has also threatened Tehran over any support for the Iran-aligned Houthis in Yemen, who have resumed their military support for Palestinians by targeting Israel after it blockaded aid and then resumed its war in Gaza.

Amid intense US air strikes on Yemen last week, Trump said the US will hold Tehran responsible for any attacks by Yemen’s Houthis, dismissing Iran’s insistence that the group operates independently.

Talks with the US are impossible unless Washington changes its pressure policy, Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said on Sunday. On Thursday, he said that the letter was “actually more of a threat”, and that Tehran would respond soon.

There is little trust in Iran in US negotiation commitments after Trump in 2018 pulled the US out of a landmark nuclear deal – the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) – imposing instead additional sanctions on Iran. The JCPOA was signed with world powers in 2015 to curb Iran’s nuclear programme in exchange for sanctions relief.

Since Trump’s unilateral withdrawal from the accord, Iran has accelerated its enrichment of uranium to up to 60 percent purity – a step away from the 90 percent level needed for weapons-grade uranium.

According to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), which carries out inspections of Iranian nuclear sites, Iran has amassed enough fissile material for multiple bombs, but has made no effort to build one.

While Trump has hinted at the desire to negotiate with Iran since returning to the White House earlier this year, he has reinstated a “maximum pressure” campaign against Tehran.

And on Wednesday, senior White House officials again said Iran must do away with its nuclear programme entirely, leaving all uranium enrichment activity, even at low levels.

That, along with Trump’s threats of military action against Iran, has prompted calls from within Iran to abandon its officially stated policy that it will never pursue nuclear weapons.

The World Awoke to the Shocking News That Israel Had Resumed Its Genocidal War on Gaza

Questions abounded: How many people were hurt? Why is this happening? How did we get here?

What Is Happening in Gaza?

Israel killed more than 400 people in overnight attacks on Tuesday, launching air raids as people slept in the early hours of the morning.

The office of Israel’s Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, released a statement announcing the resumption of Israel’s war on Gaza.

Where Did the Attacks Take Place?

According to reports, Israeli raids targeted the northern, central, and southern governorates.

Al Jazeera Arabic reported that Israeli tanks shelled the town of Abasan in Khan Younis.

Al Jazeera’s Tareq Abou Azzoum said,

“Most of the air strikes have been on heavily built-up neighbourhoods, makeshift schools, and residential buildings where people are taking shelter.”

What Do We Know About the Victims?

At least 404 people have been reported killed by Israel in just a few hours.

Images emerging from the ground showed children among the victims. There is an unknown number of people still under the rubble.

The Government Media Office said:

“Most of these martyrs and missing persons are women, children, and the elderly,”

adding that, in some cases,

“entire families”

had been killed.

What Reason Did Israel Give for Breaking the Ceasefire?

Israel claims it is doing this to force Hamas to release the captives being held in Gaza.

It also claims it knows that Hamas was rearming and planning a new attack.

However,

“Israel itself had decided to remove itself from the negotiations for phase two of this deal that would ultimately see an end to the war and the release of all 59 Israeli captives still being held in Gaza,”

Al Jazeera’s Hamdah Salhut said.

Israel had been trying to avoid moving to the second phase of the ceasefire, with backing from the United States, while Hamas has argued that the deal should continue to phase two, as initially agreed upon.

What Is Hamas Saying?

Hamas released a statement on its Telegram accusing Israel of violating the ceasefire and continuing its genocide.

It called the attacks a

“blatant violation of all international and humanitarian conventions”

and said the perilous humanitarian situation and lack of fuel on the ground meant many of the wounded died because they were unable to reach hospitals.

What Has Been the US Response?

The White House said Israel consulted the US before resuming the attacks.

What Do We Know About the Captives?

There are about 59 Israeli captives left in Gaza, of whom less than half are believed to still be alive, according to the Israeli government.

Hamas has accused Israel of violating the ceasefire and risking the lives of the captives.

The Forum of Families of Captives in Israel said,

“their greatest fear has come true”

and blamed their government for giving up on the captives.

“We are shocked, angry, and scared about the deliberate disruption of the process to return our loved ones from the terrible captivity of Hamas,”

the Hostages and Missing Families Forum said in a statement.

But Israel Said It Was Only Doing This for the Captives, Right?

That is very, very hard to believe.

Israel’s war in Gaza is also part of a wider conflict it is waging across the region, claiming that it is necessary for its security.

It has been bombing southern Lebanon pretty much since a ceasefire was signed between it and the Lebanese government. On March 16, it killed four people in two villages.

The same night, Israel killed two people in the Syrian city of Deraa, claiming it was targeting remnants of the regime of ousted Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, although it is not clear why that concerns them.

What is more, Israel is continuing its violent campaign of raids on occupied West Bank refugee camps, claiming to be trying to root out Palestinian fighters.

However, experts previously told Al Jazeera that armed groups in Palestinian refugee camps do not pose a threat to Israel, having formed in 2021 mostly to respond to Israel’s violent, frequent raids on the camps and its entrenching and increasingly violent occupation, which violates international law.

US President Donald Trump reportedly reached out to Russian President Vladimir Putin in a February phone call to set up conversations with Iran about their nuclear programme and their support for proxies that are hostile to the US, according to a Bloomberg news article on Tuesday.

A few days after Trump’s call, members of Trump’s administration purportedly discussed the matter with their Russian counterparts during mid-February talks in Saudi Arabia attended by US Secretary of State Marco Rubio, National Security Advisor Michael Waltz, Special Envoy Steve Witkoff, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, Russian foreign policy advisor Yuri Ushakov, and the head of Russia's sovereign wealth fund, Kirill Dmitriev.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told Bloomberg:

“Russia believes that the United States and Iran should resolve all problems through negotiations” and that Moscow “is ready to do everything in its power to achieve this.”

An anonymous White House official told Bloomberg that Russia offered to do the outreach without being asked to play that role.

During a televised press conference in Iran on Monday, Foreign Ministry spokesman Esmaeil Baghaei said:

“Given the significance of these matters, it’s possible that many parties will show goodwill and readiness to help with various problems … it’s natural that countries will present an offer of help if it’s needed.”

The surprising turn of events is part of Trump’s attempts to normalise relations with Russia, which had taken a nosedive after Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022.

Shifting Dynamics

Trump's second tenure in office has seen the US president take a far softer approach to both Russia and Iran. Talks with Russia that left out the Ukrainians were seen as a signal that the US wanted to radically change the direction of the Ukraine war. The public bust-up between Zelensky and Trump during the Ukrainian president's visit to the US was further evidence of the shift in dynamics.

While Trump has restored the "maximum pressure" campaign that characterised his first administration's approach to Iran, he has this time said he is open to speaking with Iran and would prefer a deal over any military confrontation.

In 2018, as part of his “maximum pressure” campaign on Iran, Trump unilaterally withdrew from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, also known as the nuclear deal—a landmark foreign policy achievement for the Obama administration. While UN and European partners to the pact held on, Iran decided that if the US were no longer involved, it would also go its own way. Now, it seems some sort of a deal could be on Trump's radar.

In response to the report, Ryan Costello, Policy Director of the National Iranian American Council (NIAC), said that mediation between Iran and the US was "urgently necessary" to get the two countries to the negotiating table. In a statement shared with Middle East Eye, Costello added that the current "trendlines" between the two countries lead towards war and proliferation.

Russia has mediated or cooperated on issues concerning Iran and the US during both the Biden and Obama administrations.

“Opportunities for negotiations have proven fleeting between the US and Iran, so it is urgent that they seize this moment to prevent an escalation toward conflict," Costello said.

(Moscow Times, Reuters)

Is Trump Adopting a Restrained Approach With Tehran?

Read More »

Trump's administration appointments also point towards a more restrained approach to Iran.

Trump’s decision to invite Russia to the talks is probably due, in part, to the fact that Russia and Iran are strategic and military allies. Both countries signed a 20-year "strategic partnership" treaty in January, covering areas ranging from defence and technology to energy and trade.

The treaty involved agreeing to consult and cooperate regarding military and security threats, taking part in joint military exercises on both their territories and beyond, and not allowing their territories to be used for actions that threatened the other side.

Russia has cultivated closer ties with Iran, as well as China and North Korea, since its invasion of Ukraine.

The White House had not responded to a request for comment by the time of publication.

Oscars 2025: ‘Anora’ Takes Home 5 Awards, Including Best Picture

The Academy’s 97th annual gold statue gala returned to the Dolby Theatre on Sunday night.

The night opened with a tribute to Los Angeles’ legacy as a beacon of film history in recognition of the recent wildfires. The tribute continued with a performance of “Over the Rainbow” and “Defying Gravity” by Wicked nominees Ariana Grande and Cynthia Erivo. Making his Oscar-hosting debut, veteran late-night host Conan O’Brien set the night in motion with a cutaway clip referencing the body horror of Best Picture nominee The Substance. The comedian delivered a few tongue-in-cheek wisecracks before performing a song-and-dance number with the Dune sandworm on the keys.

Seasoned actor Robert Downey Jr. presented the first award of the night, honoring Best Supporting Actor, which he received last year. The statue was presented to Downey’s successor, Kieran Culkin, for his role as Benji Kaplan in the film A Real Pain. This was the first Oscar win for Culkin, who commented on how surprised he was to receive the award in a speech in his classic unscripted manner.

“I have no idea how I got here. I’ve just been acting my whole life,” Culkin said. “I felt like this was never my trajectory.”

Preceding the award for Best Costume Design, John Lithgow, Lily-Rose Depp, Elle Fanning, Connie Nielsen, and Bowen Yang addressed each nominee in the category, commenting on their meticulous work as costumers. Yang stood out most among the group of actors, as he donned his Shiz University uniform from the Best Picture-nominated film Wicked. His fashion choice rang in the win for the movie-musical’s costume designer, Paul Tazewell, the first Black man to receive the accolade in the award show’s history.

Later on, 2002 Best Actress winner Halle Berry kicked off a tribute to the James Bond franchise after veteran Bond producers Michael G. Wilson and Barbara Broccoli’s Governors Award wins in 2024. A dance in honor of the spy films was led by The Substance star Margaret Qualley before vocal performances of classic Bond themes. The stage welcomed the vocal talents of Doja Cat, RAYE, and LISA from BLACKPINK.

The award for Best Supporting Actress, presented by last year’s winner Da’Vine Joy Randolph, went to a tearful Zoe Saldaña for her performance in Emilia Pérez. This accolade marks the actress’s first nomination and win, as well as the first time in history that a woman of Dominican American origin was awarded the honor.

Another notable moment in the night came when actor Ben Stiller presented the award for Best Production Design. Wicked production designer Nathan Crowley’s win was announced after a gag in which the platform raising Stiller to the stage malfunctioned. The bit reminded the audience of the importance of a production designer’s role.

Soon after, the statuette for Best Documentary Feature went to No Other Land, a film covering destruction in the West Bank amid the Israeli military occupation of Palestine. One of the filmmakers, Yuval Abraham, delivered a speech in which he commented on the United States’ involvement in the displacement of Palestinians.

“There is a different path, a political solution without ethnic supremacy, with national rights for both of our people, … and I have to say, as I’m here, the foreign policy in this country is helping to block this path,” Abraham said.

Beginning a moment of reflection, Academy Award winner Morgan Freeman took the stage to honor the legacy of late Hollywood veteran Gene Hackman, his fellow actor and close friend. Freeman’s speech came before the In Memoriam segment, which occurred in light of the recent deaths of Hackman, as well as industry legends James Earl Jones and David Lynch.

The ceremony later honored the iconic Quincy Jones, who passed away in November. Jones was an accomplished composer and producer who received a tribute presented by Oprah Winfrey and Whoopi Goldberg. The duo brought out the musician and actress Queen Latifah to lead a rendition of “Ease on Down the Road” from The Wiz, which was produced by Jones. The performance received a standing ovation from the audience.

Next, Cillian Murphy presented the statuette for Best Actor to Adrien Brody for his leading role in The Brutalist. This was Brody’s second Academy Award for Best Actor, following his win in 2003 for The Pianist. Brody’s speech was nearly cut short by the event’s orchestra playing him off, but the actor asked the band to let him finish in a moment filled with laughter from the attendees.

Sean Baker, who wrote and directed Anora, stepped onto the stage to make four different speeches throughout the night. The filmmaker walked away with trophies for Best Picture, Best Director, Best Original Screenplay, and Best Film Editing. Anora took home a total of five awards, one of which went to Academy newcomer Mikey Madison for Best Actress in a Leading Role.

“This is a dream come true,” Madison said. “I’m probably going to wake up tomorrow.”

Finally, to present the Oscar for Best Picture, O’Brien brought out Meg Ryan and an actor he called “the best” Oscar host of all time, Billy Crystal. Anora took home the crown, marking the film’s fifth win of the night. The victory was decorated with speeches from the production team, who celebrated the importance of independent film. Samantha Quan, Baker’s wife and one of the producers for Anora, ended the ceremony with a message of hope to aspiring filmmakers.

“To all of the dreamers and the young filmmakers out there: Tell the stories you want to tell,” Quan said. “Tell the stories that move you. I promise you, you will never regret it.”

President Donald Trump’s blanket 25% tariffs on Mexico and Canada took effect on Tuesday, an extraordinary action aimed at bringing America’s top trading partners to heel.

But it threatens to weaken the North American economy, including that of the United States, at a time of significant stress for inflation-weary consumers.

Trump also doubled the tariff on all Chinese imports to 20% from 10%. Those duties sit atop existing tariffs on hundreds of billions in Chinese goods. China and Canada immediately retaliated with tariffs on American goods, threatening to ignite a damaging trade war. Mexico said it would announce retaliatory measures on Sunday.

The Trump administration said the tariffs were necessary to stem the flow of fentanyl into the United States.

“While President Trump gave both Canada and Mexico ample opportunity to curb the dangerous cartel activity and influx of lethal drugs flowing into our country, they have failed to adequately address the situation,” according to a statement released by the White House shortly before the tariffs took effect.

But the tariffs come at a time when inflation remains stubbornly high. Americans, and the US economy as a whole, are on shakier ground, as evidenced by recent data.

Tariff Impact on US Consumers and Markets

Trump’s tariffs threaten to raise the prices Americans pay for a wide array of goods that are imported from the three nations, which collectively shipped $1.4 trillion worth of goods to the US last year, according to Commerce Department data. That accounts for more than 40% of the value of all goods the US imported last year.

The only goods that won’t face a 25% tariff from Canada are energy-related items such as crude oil, one of the top goods the US imports from there. Instead, they’ll be subject to a 10% tax.

Fresh produce, cars and car parts, and electronics—including phones and computers—are among the top goods the US imports from Mexico, Canada, and China that will now face tariffs between 20% and 25%.

The stocks of global carmakers that have plants in Mexico fell sharply on Tuesday morning. Germany’s Volkswagen dropped almost 4% by 5:46 a.m. ET, while Stellantis (STLA) — the maker of Chrysler and Jeep — fell nearly 7%.

China and Canada Hit Back; Mexico is Next

Beijing retaliated on Tuesday by announcing 15% tariffs on chicken, wheat, corn, and cotton imports from the US, according to a statement from the State Council Tariff Commission.

Additionally, a 10% tariff on “sorghum, soybeans, pork, beef, aquatic products, fruits, vegetables, and dairy products” was also imposed, it said.

Separately, China’s Ministry of Commerce said it added 15 American companies, including drone maker Skydio, to its export control list, which would bar Chinese companies from exporting dual-use equipment to them.

China’s retaliatory tariffs followed a “restrained, targeted approach aimed at causing pain to those industries that matter the most to the supporters of the Trump administration,” said Alfredo Montufar-Helu, head of the China Center for the Conference Board. He noted China’s tariffs give it room for negotiations to potentially avoid even more damaging tariffs down the road.

Speaking at a regular briefing on Tuesday, Lin Jian, a spokesperson for China’s Foreign Ministry, said:

“China will fight till the end” if the US “insists on waging a tariff war, trade war, or any other kind of war.”

“I want to reiterate that the Chinese people have never feared evil or ghosts, nor have we ever bowed to hegemony or bullying. Pressure, coercion, and threats are not the right ways to engage with China. Trying to exert maximum pressure on China is a miscalculation and a mistake,” he added.

Canada’s Response

In Canada, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said hours before the tariffs took effect that Ottawa would immediately respond with tariffs on C$30 billion ($20.7 billion) of US goods. By March 25, he said Canada would impose an additional C$125 billion ($86.2 billion) tariff on American goods.

“Canada will not let this unjustified decision go unanswered,” Trudeau said in a statement.

The premier of Ontario, Canada’s largest province, has also repeated his earlier threat to cut off the energy supply to the US in response to Trump’s tariffs.

Despite Trump’s prior claims that exporters pay for tariffs, it’s actually the parties receiving goods from abroad that pay the tariff upfront. Those parties, often businesses, typically then pass on the additional tariff costs to consumers by raising prices. In some cases, they may opt to—or be forced to—absorb the higher costs.

Mexico’s Response

Mexico’s President Claudia Sheinbaum said on Tuesday morning that she would announce retaliatory tariffs on American imports into Mexico, as well as non-tariff measures, on Sunday. She said she will probably have a call with Trump on Thursday.

“The unilateral decision made by the United States affects national and foreign companies operating in our country, as well as our people,” she said at a press conference in Mexico City.

“No one benefits from this decision,” she added.

Economic Impact

Although America’s economy remains resilient, tariffs come during a time of increasing cracks in the foundation. A Bureau of Economic Analysis report Friday showed consumer spending unexpectedly fell in January, and a recent inflation report showed consumer prices rebounded in January while inflation continues to grow at a stubbornly high pace.

Meanwhile, consumer confidence fell the most to start a year since 2009, and a separate consumer sentiment report last month registered the biggest decline since records began in 1978.

That’s a problem because consumer spending makes up more than two-thirds of America’s economic activity.

Friday’s jobs report is expected to show growth continues to stagnate. First-time applications for jobless benefits ticked up more than expected last week, and the Trump administration is laying off thousands of federal workers, potentially disrupting local economies. Federal spending has also been curtailed, turning off access to some people’s livelihoods and services.

Trump’s immigration crackdown also threatens homebuilding, agriculture, and other key industries.

“Imposing tariffs on Canada and Mexico threatens to chill a collaborative effort to strengthen our shared border and risks starting a trade war with America’s closest trading partners,” said Tiffany Smith, Vice President for Global Trade Policy at the National Foreign Trade Council (NFTC).

Smith said NFTC, a trade organization, supports the Trump administration’s goal “to address illicit activity at our borders.” However, they are “deeply concerned” by the new tariffs, which they claim will “raise costs for American businesses and consumers and undermine US economic growth.”

More to Come?

Trump and his administration have suggested that the latest round of tariffs, though significant, are only the beginning.

Steel and aluminum tariffs are set to go into effect on March 12. And reciprocal tariffs, dollar-for-dollar tariffs that match what other countries impose on US goods, are expected to go into effect on April 2.

Meanwhile, Trump keeps hinting at more tariffs to come. Last week, Trump signed an executive order to investigate lumber tariffs. Although he has long suggested America doesn’t need Canadian lumber, the tariff threatens to raise the prices of new homes, a key inflation driver for American families.

Trump also hinted Monday that he would impose tariffs on agricultural imports in an attempt to boost domestic sales. Such tariffs would go into effect on April 2, he said in a Truth Social post.

(Source: CNN)

European Commission (EC) President Ursula von der Leyen has proposed a five-part plan to mobilize some 800bn euros ($842bn) to beef up Europe’s defense and provide “immediate” military support to Ukraine after the United States suspended aid.

“A new era is upon us,” the president said in a letter presenting the plan to 27 European Union (EU) leaders on Tuesday, two days before a summit aimed at cementing joint action on Ukraine and Europe’s long-term security begins in Brussels.

"'ReArm Europe' could mobilize close to 800 billion euros of defense expenditures for a safe and resilient Europe," Ursula told reporters in Brussels as she outlined the contents of her plan.

“Europe faces a clear and present danger on a scale that none of us has seen in our adult lifetime,” she wrote.

European leaders are under huge pressure to increase defense spending as US President Donald Trump’s return to power has delivered a rude wake-up call that they cannot blindly rely on Washington.

The joint borrowing would go towards building pan-European capability domains like air and missile defense, artillery systems, missiles and ammunition, drones and anti-drone systems, or to address other needs from cyber to military mobility, the EC said.

Von der Leyen’s proposal includes a new joint EU borrowing of 150bn euros ($158bn) to lend to EU governments for defense as part of the overall financing effort. She did not give a detailed timeframe but said spending needed to be increased “urgently now but also over a longer period of time over this decade.”

“Europe is ready to assume its responsibilities,” von der Leyen wrote. “We will continue working closely with our partners in NATO. This is a moment for Europe. And we are ready to step up.”

The announcement came hours after Trump ordered a pause on military aid to Ukraine amid his ongoing spat with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy last week. Trump has also said NATO’s European members should spend 5 percent of their gross domestic product (GDP) on defense – a figure no NATO member, including the US, currently reaches.

Part one involves proposing that the EU suspend strict budget rules to allow member states to ramp up their spending on defense.

"This will allow member states to significantly increase their defense expenditures without triggering the excessive deficit procedure," she said, referring to a procedure that forces governments to bring deficit levels down if they violate the rules.

The second proposal will be a new "instrument" that will provide 150 billion euros of loans to member states for defense investment.

"This is basically about spending better – and spending together," said von der Leyen. "We are talking about pan-European capability domains – for example: air and missile defense, artillery systems, missiles and ammunition, drones and anti-drone systems."

For years, EU nations have been unwilling to spend much on defense, as they rely on the US nuclear umbrella amid a sluggish economy. With the new proposal, EU member states would be forced to greatly increase their military spending, which is below 2 percent of their GDP.

NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte has told the member states they need to move to more than 3 percent as quickly as possible.

(Source: Al Jazeera, TRT World, and news agencies)

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has instructed the country's military to “prepare to defend” the Druze inhabitants of Jaramana city near Syria’s capital, Damascus.

This came in a new escalation by Netanyahu's government against the new administration in Syria, which is demanding an end to the ongoing Israeli violations of the country's sovereignty.

Jaramana, located approximately 60 kilometers (37.2 miles) from the Israeli border, is a diverse city, home to Druze, Christians, and both Sunni and Shia Muslims.

A statement issued by Israeli Defence Minister Israel Katz’s office claimed that Jaramana is “currently under attack by the forces of the Syrian regime.”

"If the Syrian administration harms the Druze, it will be struck by us,” Katz added.

On Friday evening, the city experienced security tensions that resulted in the killing of a Syrian security officer by an armed militia linked to the former regime, known as "Jaramana Shield."

‘We have never asked for protection’

Rabie Munzer, a member of the Jaramana Civil Action Group, rejected Israeli intervention in the city's events during televised remarks.

"We have lived in Jaramana for hundreds of years and from anyone. What protects us is the Syrian social fabric, of which we consider ourselves an integral part,” he stated.

Assad, Syria’s leader for nearly 25 years, fled to Russia on Dec. 8, ending the Baath Party’s regime, which had been in power since 1963.

The next day, Ahmed Alsharaa, the leader of the new Syrian administration, who was appointed president on January 29, tasked Mohammed Al Bashir with forming a government to oversee Syria’s transitional period.

After the fall of the Assad regime, Israel expanded its occupation of the Syrian Golan Heights by seizing the demilitarized buffer zone, a move that violated the 1974 disengagement agreement with Syria.

It also intensified airstrikes targeting Syrian military positions across the country.

(Source: TRT World)

At least 26 people were killed and more than 150 remain missing after a chunk of the Himalayan glacier broke off in India, sending water and debris flooding the area, according to multiple reports.

Search teams of more than 2,000 people have been searching along the banks of the Alaknanda and Dhauliganga rivers in the state of Uttarakhand following the incident on Sunday, the Associated Press reported.

Most of those reported missing were working on two different projects — the small Rishiganga hydroelectric project, which was destroyed, and a bigger one being built by a state firm further down the Dhauliganga river, which was damaged, according to Reuters.

"Our brave-hearts worked throughout the night and have reached the mouth of the tunnel... rescue operations are ongoing in full swing & we are hoping to save more lives," Uttarakhand state Chief Minister Trivendra Singh Rawat wrote on Twitter Sunday night. "Unfortunately, rescue teams have also recovered 11 dead bodies so far. Our thoughts and prayers are with everyone."

The AP reported that rescuers were trying on Monday to reach 37 power plant workers trapped in a tunnel following the disaster.

Twelve workers from the plant were rescued on Sunday from a separate, smaller tunnel, and those still stuck have been out of contact since the flood. Officials told the AP they were using heavy machinery to clear a tunnel 1.5 miles long in order to reach them.

Rakesh Bhatt was the first worker from the rescued group to be saved and told the AP it was "a great relief."

"We thought it might be rain and that the water would recede. But when we saw mud and debris enter with great speed, we realized something big had happened," he said. "We waited for almost six hours – praying to God and joking with each other to keep our spirits high."

Rawat wrote on Twitter that rescue and relief operations were "in full swing" and urged people not to "use this natural disaster as a reason to build an anti-development narrative."

According to Reuters, the two projects greatly affected by the flood are "part of the many the government has been building deep in the mountains of the Uttarakhand state as part of a development push."

Anjal Prakash, research director and adjunct professor at the Indian School of Business, who has contributed to U.N.-sponsored research on global warming, told the AP that the fallen glacier appears to have been caused by global warming, though no data for the exact cause is available yet.

NBC News reported that more than a third of the ice in the Himalayas and the Hindu Kush mountain range is expected to melt by 2100, according to a 2019 report by the International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development.

Rescue workers are struggling to reach the area where dozens of road construction workers are trapped due to adverse weather conditions.

Local officials say the operation is being hampered by adverse weather conditions. "Currently, the rescue operation is slow because we are facing difficulties in movement due to active rainfall," Chamoli District Magistrate Sandeep Tiwari said.

"As soon as the weather gets better, we will fast-track the rescue operation." He said there are currently no reports of any additional casualties.

Local media had earlier reported that people were trapped after a "glacier burst," before authorities confirmed it was an avalanche.

The area on the Tibet border is three miles (5 km) from the popular Hindu temple of Badrinath, which is visited by hundreds of thousands of devotees each year.

The Himalayan region, which has been severely affected by global warming, is prone to avalanches. In 2022, an avalanche killed 27 trainee mountaineers in Uttarakhand.

(Sources: Arab News, Fox News, and Agencies)

Born from “gunboat diplomacy,” the Panama Canal is under threat from US saber-rattling once again.

More than 100 years after the construction of the engineering marvel that linked the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans – and 25 years after the canal was returned to Panama by the US – the waterway faces renewed intimidation from American President Donald Trump.

US President Trump, in his inaugural address on Monday, vowed to wrest the canal back. “We have been treated very badly from this foolish gift that should have never been made, and Panama’s promise to us has been broken,” Trump said, claiming that Panama overcharges the US Navy to transit the canal.

“Above all, China is operating the Panama Canal,” Trump also said, a frequent claim he has made without providing any evidence. “And we didn’t give it to China; we gave it to Panama, and we are taking it back!”

Panamanian officials have scoffed at Trump’s latest claims that the country charges too much for ships to transit the canal or that China secretly has taken control of the waterway.

Still, his threats are not taken idly by Panamanians, who consider the canal central to their national identity and depend on lucrative canal traffic. In 2024, the canal earned nearly $5 billion in total profits. According to a study released in December by IDB Invest, 23.6% of Panama’s annual income is generated from the canal and companies that provide services related to the canal’s operations.

Panama has also experienced several US military interventions over the years.

“All he [Trump] needs is to land ten thousand troops, and that’s it,” said Ovidio Diaz-Espino, who was born in Panama and is the author of How Wall Street Created a Nation: J.P. Morgan, Teddy Roosevelt, and the Panama Canal. He added, “We don’t have an army.”

How the US imposed a canal on Panama

In 1903, Panama was a restive department of Colombia, with many Panamanians advocating openly for independence from a central government on the other side of the impassable Darién Gap jungle that they felt neglected them. Colombia, though, had little interest in letting go of the strategically located territory.

For generations, outsiders had considered the narrow isthmus to be the perfect spot for a trans-oceanic canal that would shorten the sea voyage by thousands of miles. Ships would no longer need to circumnavigate South America, braving the treacherous waters off Cape Horn. But the actual excavating of “the Big Ditch,” as it became known, was far more challenging than any undertaking previously attempted.

A French attempt to build a canal in the 1880s was met with disaster after scores of workers died from yellow fever and malaria amid allegations of financial mismanagement. The attempt, led by the famed developer of the Suez Canal, Ferdinand de Lesseps, all but bankrupted France.

Failing to reach terms with Colombia to build a US canal, then-US President Theodore Roosevelt sent gunships to Panama’s Atlantic and Pacific coasts to support calls for Panamanian independence. But celebrations in Panama after declaring independence were short-lived; public opinion in the new nation soured quickly over a treaty signed with the US that granted Americans open-ended use of the future canal.

Panamanians accused their envoy to the US, French engineer and soldier Philippe-Jean Bunau-Varilla, of betraying their interests to make a fortune from the deal he cut with the US. But dependent on the US to protect their freedom from Colombia, Panama’s hands were tied.

The US imported workers to build the canal from across the Caribbean. An ingenious system of locks designed by the US Army Corps of Engineers raised ships from ocean level to Gatun Lake, the largest man-made lake at the time, where they could cross the isthmus.

The final explosion that flooded the canal was triggered from the White House via telegraph in 1913 by then-President Woodrow Wilson. “Canal is opened by Wilson’s finger,” read the headline in the next day’s New York Times.

The US-controlled canal quickly became a vital asset for American commerce and the US Navy.

Panama received a $10 million initial payment from the US for the territory, followed by $250,000 each year. Many Panamanians resented that the canal, which divided their country in half, was off-limits to them.

“It was colonialism. The country was divided in two, and you couldn’t even go inside,” said author Diaz-Espino of the Canal Zone. “They had everything. They had golf courses, they had recreation centers, and at the other side of the fence was Panama.”

Tensions steadily rose until January 1964, when riots broke out after demonstrators entered the off-limits Canal Zone and tried to raise the Panamanian flag there. Twenty-two Panamanian students and four US Marines died in the fighting that ensued.

For 13 years, US and Panamanian officials discussed a plan to return the canal to Panama during both Democrat and Republican administrations. Finally, in 1977, then-President Jimmy Carter reached an agreement with then-Panamanian strongman Omar Torrijos for the US and Panama to jointly administer the crucial waterway, with the canal being fully turned over to Panama at midnight on December 31, 1999.

“Fairness and not force should lie at the heart of our dealings with the nations of the world,” Carter said at the signing ceremony for the accords.

But the final agreement still gave the US the right to intervene militarily to keep the canal open – a condition that could potentially be exploited by Trump in an attempt to retake the canal by force, but unlikely to meet legal scrutiny as the canal continues to see record traffic.

The lucrative Panama Canal

In 2007, Panama began work on the canal’s largest expansion in nearly a century, a new set of locks that would allow larger ships – more than one and a half times the size of the ships that previously transited the waterway – to travel through the canal. The new locks cost Panama more than $5 billion and went into operation in 2016. They also more than doubled the marine traffic the canal could handle.

“We paid for it, we built it, and right now over 55% of the revenues of the Panama Canal are coming from that investment, not from the US investment that they made so long ago,” former Administrator of the Panama Canal Jorge Luis Quijano told CNN.

The expanded canal has reaped billions of dollars for Panama and helped the country become a rare bastion of stability in Central America, where other nations are beset by poverty and violent drug trafficking that fuel migration to the US.

And its success has been noticed. “Panama is doing so well with the canal, there are many workers, there is so much employment,” Trump said in 2011. “The US foolishly gave the canal for nothing.”

Panama officials have made clear they would not stand for any attempt to seize the lucrative waterway, through which about 5% of all global maritime traffic passes.

“I fully reject the insinuating words by President Donald Trump at his inaugural address relating to Panama and its canal,” Panama’s President José Raúl Mulino said on X on Monday. “The canal is and will remain Panamanian, and its administration will remain under Panamanian control with respect to its permanent neutrality.”

But the specter of another US intervention has alarm bells sounding from a country that depends on both its namesake waterway and good relations with Washington.

“The Panama Canal is our oil, and this is as if you’re threatening to take oil from Saudi Arabia, to take away the oil wells,” said Diaz-Espino. “This would be devastating to the country. We’d be left with the debt and without the income.”

Hamas has released six more hostages held in Gaza in exchange for 602 Palestinian prisoners on Saturday.

The released hostages included four kidnapped during the 7 October 2023 Hamas Al-Aqsa Flood operation on Israel: Tal Shoham, Omer Shem Tov, Eliya Cohen, and Omer Wenkert.

The two other men freed, Avera Mengistu and Hisham al-Sayed, had been held in Gaza for years—Mr. Mengistu since 2014 and Mr. al-Sayed since 2015.

The six are the final hostages still alive to be returned as part of the first phase of a ceasefire deal set to end next Saturday. Israel and Hamas have yet to agree on the terms of a second phase.

Later on Saturday, 602 Palestinian prisoners were set to be released, the majority of whom were detained after the 7 October 2023 attack.

The BBC understands those released will include 50 prisoners serving life sentences and 60 with high sentences, according to a Palestinian prisoners' media office statement.

The bodies of four more hostages are expected to be transferred to Israel next week in what is supposed to be the final step in the first phase of the ceasefire.

There are 59 hostages still held by Hamas, around half of whom are believed to be alive. More are set to be freed in the next phase of the three-stage ceasefire between Israel and Hamas, which is scheduled to start on 1 March.

Hamas began releasing hostages, facilitated by the Red Cross, in exchange for Palestinian prisoners in January. Initial chaotic scenes became more choreographed, with hostages flanked by fighters on stages before the handovers.

Mr. Shoham, 40, and Mr. Mengistu, 39, were passed to the Red Cross in Rafah, south Gaza, before being transferred to the Israel Defense Forces (IDF).

• Mr. Shoham was visiting family at Kibbutz Be'eri in October 2023 when he and others, including his wife and two children, were kidnapped by Hamas. His captured family members were released after 50 days.
• In a statement, his family said: "This is an unforgettable moment, where all emotions are rapidly mixing together. Our Tal is with us."
• Mr. Mengistu, who is Ethiopian-Israeli, had been held by Hamas since September 2014 when he crossed into north Gaza.
• He and Mr. al-Sayed, a Bedouin Arab Israeli who entered Gaza in 2015, had both suffered from mental health problems in the past, according to their families.
• Following his release, Mr. Mengistu's family said they had endured "10 years and five months of unimaginable suffering."

Separately, at Nuseirat in central Gaza, Mr. Shem Tov, 22, Mr. Cohen, 27, and Mr. Wenkert, 23, were freed in another public show by Hamas. All three were taken captive at the Nova music festival on 7 October 2023.

• Mr. Shem Tov had initially escaped by car when Hamas fighters descended on the festival but was captured when he went back to rescue his friends.
• Mr. Cohen had hidden with his girlfriend, Ziv Abud, in a shelter at the festival but was discovered and driven away. The shelter was bombed, but Ms. Abud survived and escaped.
• Mr. Wenkert managed to send text messages to his family when festival-goers were being attacked, telling them he was going to a safe shelter, but they lost contact with him.

Crowds in Tel Aviv's "Hostages Square" greeted the public releases with cheers as they watched them unfold on a live feed.

Families celebrating the return of the six men called for all remaining hostages to be released.

"Our only request is to seize this window of opportunity to secure a deal that will... return all hostages home," Mr. Shoham's family said.

Remaining hostages include Edan Alexander, a 21-year-old Israeli-American soldier captured on 7 October.

His mother, Yael Alexander, who was watching Saturday's hostage release, told the BBC it was "amazing" to see them freed, but for her family, it is "very tough" waiting.

"There are more than dozens of young men alive, like my son, still waiting to be released," she said. "This is the main goal, to release the live people now from Gaza."

Saturday's joyful scenes contrasted with earlier this week, when the bodies of hostages Shiri Bibas, her two young sons, and another captive Oded Lifschitz were returned to Israel.

(Sources: Al Jazeera, BBC)

NASA has noted the countries most likely to be hit by an impending asteroid with one Arab country in the list.

NASA has warned that an impending asteroid could strike Earth with potentially devastating consequences, identifying the countries most at risk in a recent report.

The 2024 YR4 asteroid, discovered at the end of 2024, is currently heading toward Earth and could reach the planet by 2032.

Its size—estimated to be between 40 and 90 meters wide—could cause immense damage if it impacts Earth with the force of 500 atomic bombs, enough to wipe out entire cities.

Although the odds remain relatively low, the likelihood of a collision with Earth recently increased from one percent to 2.3 percent, sparking fears among those living in a "risk corridor" identified by NASA.

Scientists say that if it hits Earth, it will likely be in northern South America, across the Pacific Ocean, southern Asia, the Arabian Sea, or sub-Saharan Africa.

NASA has identified India, Bangladesh, Pakistan, Ethiopia, Nigeria, Venezuela, Colombia, and Ecuador as the countries most at risk.

One Arab state was also named as a potential target: Sudan, a vast African country roughly the size of France, Spain, Sweden, Norway, and Germany combined, which has experienced multiple incidents with meteors over the years.

One of the country's most recent experiences with memories was in 2008, when the 4.1-meter-wide 2008 TC3 asteroid exploded about 37 kilometres above Sudan, leaving fragments scattered across the Nubian Desert.

A meteoroid is a fragment of an asteroid or comet that travels through space. When it enters Earth's atmosphere, it can fragment into smaller pieces as it burns up, creating a meteor.

The 600 meteorites that struck Sudan, known as AlmahataSitta, marked the first time scientists successfully predicted an asteroid impact before it entered Earth's atmosphere, though they were slightly off in pinpointing the final impact site.

AlmahataSitta—as the meteorite became known—sparked a wave of scavengers searching for fragments, each containing thousands of micro-diamonds and other precious minerals, fetching huge sums on the market.

The rock was said to have belonged to a lost planet that was one of the first bodies to orbit the earth, millions of years ago.

(Source: New Arab)

Beijing supports all efforts—including the recent consensus reached between the US and Russia—as Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi tells other G20 top diplomats in Johannesburg.

China has come out in support of US President Donald Trump's bid to strike a deal with Russia to end the war in Ukraine, at a G20 meeting in South Africa, while US allies rallied around Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.

"China supports all efforts conducive to peace (in Ukraine), including the recent consensus reached between the United States and Russia," Wang Yi told other G20 foreign ministers gathered in Johannesburg on Thursday, according to a statement from his ministry.

"China is willing to continue playing a constructive role in the political resolution of the crisis," he added.

Wang did not reiterate the point he made at the Munich Security Conference last Friday that all stakeholders in the Russia-Ukraine conflict should participate in any peace talks.

Less than a month into his presidency, Trump has upended US policy on the war, scrapping a campaign to isolate Moscow with a phone call to Russian President Vladimir Putin and talks between senior US and Russian officials that have sidelined Ukraine.

Trump on Wednesday then denounced Zelenskyy as a "dictator," prompting statements of support for the Ukrainian president from G20 members such as Australia, Germany, and the United Kingdom.

The Trump administration said on Tuesday it had agreed to hold more talks with Russia on ending the nearly three-year-long conflict after a 4-1/2-hour meeting in Saudi Arabia.

Russia said the talks had been useful but hardened its demands, notably insisting it would not tolerate the NATO alliance granting membership to Ukraine.

While Zelenskyy accused Trump of living in a Russian "space of disinformation," Trump called Zelenskyy a "modestly successful comedian" and blamed him for starting the war with Russia in February 2022.

(Source: TRT World)

Why global dominance of United States is hanging by a thread

The launch of the Gaza war in October 2023 and the ensuing genocide puzzled many around the globe for different reasons. Some in the Arab world and elsewhere were perplexed that the West—particularly the US, Israel’s biggest sponsor—seemed “helpless” and “unable” to stop Israel and enforce a ceasefire for more than a year.

Conclusions were drawn that Israel controls the US, or that the US is too weak to control Israel. But Israel’s actions are very much aligned with the interests of the US, an insecure global hegemon in decline, as it tries to assert its power in the face of international and regional challenges.

The geopolitical landscape in the Middle East and beyond is undergoing profound shifts, driven by military conflicts, economic pressures, and strategic realignments. These changes have significant implications for regional and global actors, reshaping the balance of power.

The steady decline of absolute US dominance has been evident since the 2008 financial crisis and the defeats in Iraq and Afghanistan, alongside increasing global resistance to American economic and military policies.

One does not have to be a political economist to understand that political and military power stem from a nation’s wealth and economic abilities. In turn, these powers are used to safeguard and increase such wealth.

The US economy’s contribution to the global GDP, which reached 40 percent at the height of the Cold War, has been cut in half, while China’s share rose in that period from less than two percent to almost 20 percent. It will likely overtake the US economy in the near future.

The Chinese financial sector, once insignificant in global markets, now plays a critical role, with the country’s foreign investments and influence expanding rapidly across Asia and Africa.

China rising

Despite US initiatives such as export controls to limit China’s ability to acquire and produce advanced computing technologies, China’s rapid progress in the field is challenging US dominance. Chinese companies have made significant strides in the semiconductor sector, posing a direct challenge to established US and South Korean chipmakers.

Chinese tech firms are also developing advanced AI models that rival their US counterparts, underscoring China’s resilience and innovation despite US restrictions. China’s economic expansion has been accompanied by increased military spending, with its official defence budget second only to the US.

Moreover, Russia’s resurgence as a military power under President Vladimir Putin, along with its expanding strategic footprint, have further weakened the unipolar dominance that the US once enjoyed.

At the same time, regional powers are asserting themselves in new ways. The growing influence of countries such as Iran, Turkey, the UAE, and Saudi Arabia reflects a broader trend of regional actors seeking to expand their geopolitical reach. Unlike in previous decades, when these states acted within US-dominated frameworks, they are now pursuing more independent and, at times, conflicting strategies. This shift signals a transformation in how power is distributed across the Middle East, potentially opening space for alternative alliances and strategic calculations.

Faced with these challenges, US ruling elites—whether Democrat or Republican—are responding with more hawkish diplomacy, trade wars, and military interventions to reassert their dominance and weaken their rivals. This translates into crossing previously acknowledged red lines, and changing the rules of engagement.

Hyper-aggression

One example is the Ukraine war, where the US alone has spent more than $183bn to counter Putin, after threatening to expand NATO to Russia’s borders. This is not limited to finances and defensive hardware: in a significant policy shift, former President Joe Biden last year authorised Ukraine to use US-supplied long-range missiles to strike targets within Russian territory.

Such escalation is not a sign of a confident imperial power, but rather one that is desperately parading its might and risking a nuclear showdown in the process.

The hyper-aggression of Israel’s far-right government during the recent war on Gaza occurred because the US allowed, enabled, financed, and armed it. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s actions aligned with US strategic goals in the region and were a much-needed show of American strength directed at China. Speaking at the White House last week, Netanyahu bragged: “Well, Mr President, [Ismail] Haniyeh is gone, [Yahya] Sinwar is gone, [Hassan] Nasrallah is gone, we’ve devastated Hamas, decimated Hezbollah, destroyed [former Syrian President Bashar al-Assad]’s remaining armaments, and we crippled Iran’s air defences. In doing this, we’ve defeated some of America’s worst enemies. We took out terrorists who were wanted for decades for shedding rivers of American blood, including 241 marines murdered in Beirut.”

Israel has again proved itself indispensable for US imperial interests in the region. Isn’t destroying—or at least crippling—Hamas and Hezbollah something the US has long sought to achieve? Isn’t containing Iran’s influence in the region a goal the US has been desperately trying to accomplish? Israel’s ability to fight simultaneously on different fronts against Washington’s enemies in Palestine, Lebanon, Syria, Iran, and Yemen, while carrying out a genocide in Gaza, is precisely what the US establishment—Democrat and Republican—needs to send a message to its global rivals and unruly proxies: Washington is still the hegemon.

Global solidarity

The picture may look bleak in the short term. Trump has unconditionally backed Israeli plans for the ethnic cleansing of Gaza. The Palestinian and Lebanese resistance movements have suffered crippling blows. Authoritarian Arab regimes, most notably Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi’s, have managed to play their cards well, receiving a financial lifeline from Western powers.

But the war on Gaza has also triggered some of the most vigorous social protests in the US and across the West since the Vietnam War. Millions in the Global North have taken to the streets to protest their governments’ complicity in genocide, ultimately colliding with their domestic power structures.

The liberation of Jerusalem will pass through Cairo, Beirut, Amman, and Damascus—and Washington, London, Berlin, and Paris.

Scenes of police brutality and crackdowns on free speech in European and North American cities bring to mind similar abuses long associated with Global South autocracies.

New layers of young people in the West have been politicised and radicalised by the Palestinian cause, while other social movements, most notably climate justice, have fostered bridges and alliances with Palestine solidarity campaigners. Such convergence in the West, the heart of the beast, has not been seen on such a scale since the 1960s.

In the Middle East, the story is also far from over. The recent crippling blows received by the resistance axis are nothing new; Palestinian resistance groups have faced a series of defeats over the past century, but after each setback, they regroup, rebuild, and resume fighting.

But dismantling an apartheid regime armed and backed by Western superpowers cannot be achieved solely through armed struggle, no matter how heroic. This will have to involve broad regional change from below in the Middle East, and pressure from social movements across the Global North.

(source: Middle East Eye)

The rise of the far-right could speed up the population decline of Europe, projections show, creating economic shocks including slower growth and soaring costs from pensions and elderly care.

Anti-immigration politics is on the rise across the EU, as shown by the gains made by far-right parties in the 2024 elections. Meanwhile, the anti-immigration Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) is polling second in the run-up to the German federal election this month.

But those wanting to shut Europe’s borders must contend with a stark demographic reality: the continent’s native population is expected to fall sharply over the next century in an era of low birth rates.

Experts warn that European societies will age more quickly without immigration, bringing forward a host of economic challenges as workforces shrink and care burdens grow.

“Most politicians on the centre-left and centre-right recognise that immigration is needed to ease demographic pressures,” said John Springford, an associate fellow at the Centre for European Reform thinktank. “They have sought to focus on tougher – and often inhumane – asylum rules in the hope that stricter border enforcement will provide political cover for higher regular immigration. “But radical right parties are increasingly challenging the mainstream consensus. Those countries that manage to hold the line against demands to cut working-age immigration will be in a stronger position economically in the long run.”

The latest projections produced by Eurostat, the EU’s official statistics agency, suggest that the bloc’s population will be 6% smaller by 2100 based on current trends – falling to 419 million, from 447 million today.

But that decline pales in comparison with Eurostat’s scenario without immigration. The agency projects a population decline of more than a third, to 295 million by 2100, when it excludes immigration from its modelling.

Eurostat’s baseline projections assume countries will maintain their average net migration levels from the past 20 years, but the Guardian has examined figures also published by the agency with this assumption left out.

Likewise, the UK’s Office for National Statistics publishes population projections that include a zero net migration scenario.

Italy, France and Germany, where anti-immigration politicians have recently made inroads, would face big population declines in a zero-immigration scenario.

Europe faces large population declines without immigration

Population projections across Europe, scenario with migration versus scenario without migration
United Kingdom: 2022–2100: 86m, 48m, 68m; Germany: 2022–2100: 84m, 53m, 83m; France: 2022–2100: 68m, 59m, 68m; Italy: 2022–2100: 50m, 28m, 59m; Spain: 2022–2100: 45m, 24m, 47m;
Poland: 2022–2100: 30m, 24m, 38m; Netherlands: 2022–2100: 18m, 13m, 18m;
Romania: 2022–2100: 15m, 14m, 19m; Sweden: 2022–2100: 13m, 8.8m, 10m;
Belgium: 2022–2100: 13m, 8.5m, 12m; Czechia: 2022–2100: 11m, 8.2m, 11m; Switzerland: 2022–2100: 10m, 5.7m, 8.7m; Austria: 2022–2100: 9.6m, 5.6m, 9.0m; Hungary: 2022–2100: 9.1m, 6.6m, 9.7m; and Portugal: 2022–2100: 9.0m, 5.7m, 10m.

Italy’s prime minister, Giorgia Meloni, has made cracking down on migration a priority in her first term, but her country has one of the lowest fertility rates in Europe and its population would more than halve by the end of the century under zero immigration.

In Germany, where the anti-immigration AfD is polling second, the population could shrink from 83 million to 53 million over the next 80 years if its borders were completely closed.

And in France, where the National Rally won the first round of legislative elections last summer after campaigning for restrictions on incoming people, a zero-immigration scenario would mean a population fall from 68 million to 59 million.

Only a handful of EU states would notice little difference from closed borders: Romania, Latvia and Lithuania, all countries that have experienced a net outflow of people.

Instead, in most of Europe, populations would not only shrink in the absence of current immigration levels, but also become older as the number of working-age people falls relative to elderly people.

Today, 21% of the EU population is aged 65 or over. In Eurostat’s baseline scenario, this proportion will rise to 32% by 2100, but in the agency’s zero-immigration scenario, it will increase further, to 36%.

Those studying Europe’s changing age pyramid say this will put countries under increasing economic pressure.

“The main consequences will be slower growth because the labour force will shrink, and higher tax burdens, because pension spending and the demand for health and elderly care will rise,” said Springford.

Indeed, much of the EU is already seeing this, with tax burdens – as expressed through tax revenue as a percentage of GDP – climbing in countries such as France, Italy, Germany and Spain in recent decades.

The health and social care industries will become increasingly important for managing an ageing Europe, and many health systems in the EU are already dependent on immigrant doctors or nurses.

"How healthy people are in old age, and how much care they need,” said Alan Manning, a professor of economics at the London School of Economics.

“You also have the other side of the equation that because of fewer children, because of low fertility rates, you need fewer people in education and childcare. So what we need to be doing, in some sense, is redistributing people who were caring for children to caring for old people.”

At the same time, experts stress that immigration is not a silver bullet for Europe’s demographic challenges, instead suggesting it is one of many solutions, or at least a way to ease the transition to an older society.

“Increasing immigration levels will not solve these demographic problems on their own – the levels required to do so would be very large, and there are only so many migrants who are willing to move,” said Springford.

“But they would help, as would raising employment rates of working-age people, pushing back the age of retirement, reforming pensions and shifting the burden of taxation from labour income to wealth, especially property.”

European health systems depend on immigration

Share of doctors who are foreign-trained in European countries in 2022 or most recent year available

Manning added: “For immigration to help, it’s got to be that immigrants are actually in work, and many European countries have quite low employment rates among a lot of immigrants. So you can’t take that as a given. If you had an immigrant who came in and didn’t work and then needed support for welfare, that wouldn’t make things better, that would make things worse. So it’s really important that they’re going to be in work, and that has been problematic in some cases.”

Within national borders, rural areas will bear the brunt of the EU’s coming population decline. Over the next 80 years, more villages could suffer the same fate as Camini in southern Italy.

The village is one of many in the Calabria region where the population declined sharply later in the 20th century as younger residents moved elsewhere for opportunities.

Camini has recently become the site of a project that is resettling refugees, in an attempt to bring the community back from extinction. It was cited in a recent Council of Europe report written by the Labour MP Kate Osamor that examined the potential of immigration to alleviate the challenges of an ageing population.

“I was watching the place slowly dying. The houses were just falling down because no one was living in them,” said Rosario Zurzolo, who was born in Camini and is now the president of the cooperative running the resettlement project, Eurocoop Servizi.

So far, 50 refugees have settled permanently in Camini under the scheme, bringing the village population to 350, while a further 118 refugees are being temporarily hosted. A symbolic achievement for the scheme was the recent re-opening of the local school.

Zurzolo says Camini can act as a model to help revitalise other European regions experiencing population decline.

Serena Franco, who is also part of the Camini project and presented evidence to the Council of Europe for its report, added: “They’re bringing knowledge, and now we are starting to grow with them and to make new things, new processes, new jobs as well that would be impossible without them.”

Kyiv and its European allies demanded on Thursday that they be included in any peace negotiations, after U.S. President Donald Trump spoke by phone with Russia's Vladimir Putin and said Ukraine could neither have all of its land back nor join NATO.

Russia's financial markets soared and the price of Ukraine's debt rose at the prospect of the first peace talks since the early months of a war soon to enter its fourth year.

But Trump's unilateral overture to Putin, accompanied by apparent concessions on Ukraine's principal demands, raised alarm for both Kyiv and the European allies in NATO who said that they feared the White House might make a deal without them.

"Any agreement without us will fail, because you need Europe and Ukraine to also implement the agreement," EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas said. "Any quick fix is a dirty deal."

Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha said: "Nothing can be discussed on Ukraine without Ukraine or on Europe without Europe."

Trump, who made the first publicly acknowledged White House call with Putin since the February 2022 full-scale invasion, and then followed it up with a call to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy, said he believed both men wanted peace.

But the Trump administration also said openly for the first time that it was unrealistic for Kyiv to expect to return to its 2014 borders or join the NATO alliance as part of any agreement, and that no U.S. troops would join any security force in Ukraine that might be set up to guarantee a ceasefire.

Russia seized Ukraine's Crimea peninsula and its proxies captured territory in the east in 2014, before its full-scale invasion in 2022 when it captured more land in the east and south.

Ukrainian officials have acknowledged in the past that full NATO membership may be out of reach in the short term and that a hypothetical peace deal could leave some occupied land in Russian hands.

But Kyiv and its European allies made clear they were alarmed by Trump having opened negotiations with apparent concessions to Moscow, without first agreeing on a common position.

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RUSSIA REACTION

Sybiha, the Ukrainian foreign minister, said Kyiv remained committed to applying to join NATO, which he said was the simplest and least expensive way the West could provide the security guarantees needed to ensure Russia would not attack again.

"All our allies have said the path of Ukraine towards NATO is irreversible. This prospect is in our constitution. It is in our strategic interest."

EU foreign policy chief Kallas said it would not be "good tactics" to give in to Russian demands before the start of negotiations. Europe would continue to support Ukraine if it rejected a deal that had been agreed between Moscow and Washington behind its back, she said.

Hamas released three more Israeli captives in the Gaza Strip in the sixth such exchange following days of tense negotiations that threatened to undo the precarious ceasefire.

In return, Israel began returning 369 Palestinian prisoners held in Israeli jails on Saturday, most without any charges or convictions. It is the largest number of Palestinians to be freed since the beginning of the truce.

Footage showed a busload of Palestinian prisoners from Ofer Prison arriving in Ramallah in the occupied West Bank, where they were met by relatives and cheering supporters. More buses full of Palestinians pulled out of an Israeli prison in the Negev desert heading towards Gaza.

At least four of those freed were immediately brought to a hospital for treatment. Among the most prominent to be released is Ahmed Barghouti, 48, a close aide of iconic Palestinian political figure Marwan Barghouti.

Most of the prisoners were arrested in Gaza and will be sent back to the besieged enclave. About 10 will be released in the occupied West Bank, one in occupied East Jerusalem, with the others being sent to Egypt and later to other countries that will accept them.

‘Complete the ceasefire’

The three captives in Gaza – identified as American-Israeli Sagui Dekel-Chen, Russian-Israeli Alexander Sasha Trufanov, and Argentinian-Israeli Yair Horn – were freed to members of the International Committee of the Red Cross during a brief ceremony in Gaza’s southern city of Khan Younis.

All three were among those taken by Hamas following its October 7 attack on southern Israel.

Dekel-Chen, Trufanov and Horn were seen carrying certificates for their release and maps of Palestine. They were transported back to Israel for medical examinations before reuniting with their families.

A crowd gathered in Tel Aviv’s “Hostages Square” to watch the exchange, with many carrying Israeli flags and posters with messages including “Sorry and welcome back” and “Complete the ceasefire.”

With Saturday’s handover, the number of captives released by Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad has reached 25 since the ceasefire began on January 19.

Dozens of armed Hamas and Islamic Jihad fighters guarded the square where the handover took place. Hundreds of Palestinian civilians, including women, children and the elderly, gathered behind the security cordon trying to witness the release.

Israel still destroying homes in Gaza

Meanwhile, Israel has destroyed dozens of homes in Rafah, southern Gaza, despite the ceasefire between Israel and Hamas, satellite imagery analysis conducted by Al Jazeera’s fact-checking agency, Sanad, has revealed.

Since seizing control of the border area, in breach of its 1979 peace agreement with Egypt, Israel has been digging in the Philadelphi Corridor, a 14-km (8.7-mile) strip of land along the boundary between Egypt and Gaza. The Israeli army has also constructed a 1.7 km (1.1-mile) road surrounding the crossing, running parallel to the sand fortifications.

The demolitions occurred only 700 metres (766 yards) from the Egyptian border. At the same time, Sanad also identified at least six homes razed in Tal as-Sultan, west of Rafah, a little more than 750 metres (820 yards) from the Egyptian border.

“This is a war crime because they are destroying residential houses,” Attar said, referring to the Fourth Geneva Convention, which prohibits the destruction of private property.

Meanwhile, Munir al-Bursh, director-general of the Ministry of Health in Gaza, said on Tuesday that Israeli attacks, unexploded ordnance, or fatal injuries sustained earlier have killed 118 people since the ceasefire agreement took effect.

(Source: Al Jazeera)

Elon Musk called Thursday to “delete entire agencies” from the United States’ federal government as part of his push under President Donald Trump to radically cut spending and restructure its priorities.

Musk offered a wide-ranging survey via a video call to the World Governments Summit in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, of what he described as the priorities of the Trump administration interspersed with multiple references to “thermonuclear warfare” and the possible dangers of artificial intelligence.

“We really have here rule of the bureaucracy as opposed to rule of the people — democracy,” Musk said, wearing a black T-shirt that read: “Tech Support.” He also joked that he was the “White House’s tech support,” borrowing from his profile on the social platform X, which he owns.

“I think we do need to delete entire agencies as opposed to leave a lot of them behind,” Musk said. “If we don’t remove the roots of the weed, then it’s easy for the weed to grow back.”

While Musk has spoken to the summit in the past, his appearance Thursday comes as he has consolidated control over large swaths of the government with Trump's blessing since assuming leadership of the Department of Government Efficiency. That’s included sidelining career officials, gaining access to sensitive databases and inviting a constitutional clash over the limits of presidential authority.

Musk’s new role imbued his comments with more weight beyond being the world’s wealthiest person through his investments in SpaceX and electric carmaker Tesla.

His remarks also offered a more-isolationist view of American power in the Middle East, where the US has fought wars in both Afghanistan and Iraq since the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks.

“A lot of attention has been on USAID for example,” Musk said, referring to Trump’s dismantling of the US Agency for International Development. “There’s like the National Endowment for Democracy. But I’m like, ‘Okay, well, how much democracy have they achieved lately?’”

He added that the US under Trump is “less interested in interfering with the affairs of other countries.”

There are “times the United States has been kind of pushy in international affairs, which may resonate with some members of the audience,” Musk said, speaking to the crowd in the UAE, an autocratically ruled nation of seven sheikhdoms.

He also noted the Trump administration’s focus on eliminating diversity, equity and inclusion work, at one point linking it to AI.

“If hypothetically, AI is designed for DEI, you know, diversity at all costs, it could decide that there’s too many men in power and execute them,” Musk said.

On AI, Musk said he believed X’s newly updated AI chatbot, Grok 3, would be ready in about two weeks, calling it at one point “kind of scary.” He criticized Sam Altman’s management of OpenAI, which Musk just led a $97.4 billion takeover bid for, describing it as akin to a nonprofit aimed at saving the Amazon rainforest becoming a “lumber company that chops down the trees.”

Musk also announced plans for a “Dubai Loop” project in line with his work in the Boring Company — which is digging tunnels in Las Vegas to speed transit. However, he and the Emirati government official speaking with him offered no immediate details of the plan.

“It’s going to be like a wormhole,” Musk promised. “You just wormhole from one part of the city — boom — and you’re out in another part of the city.”

(Source: TRT World)

The White House seemed to reframe the administration's position on Gaza, giving it more room for negotiation.

Right before walking away from the podium at the White House press briefing on Wednesday, press secretary Karoline Leavitt said she had one more note to add: US President Donald Trump, she said, has tasked Arab nations to present him with a plan for the Gaza Strip.

The announcement followed Trump’s meeting with Jordan’s King Abdullah on Tuesday, after which the king said he took a firm position in private, despite not pushing back in public.

“The king would much prefer that the Palestinians stay in place with the additional land to be used for new development, which would greatly create jobs at levels never seen before, but the president feels it would be much better and more majestic if these Palestinians could be moved to safer areas,” Leavitt told reporters.

“The president remains wholeheartedly committed to seeing peace in the Middle East, and our Arab partners in the region have been tasked with coming up with a peace plan to present to the president,” she said. No timeline was offered.

The move could signal that Trump is now open to ideas from Arab governments, even though he stood by his own plan to empty out Gaza and build a beach resort there in his response to a reporter on Tuesday.

“I think we sort of have gone down the line. We know pretty much what is going to be presented,” Trump said, appearing to brush off those plans.

“I think it's going to be something that's going to be magnificent for the Palestinians. They're going to be in love with it. I did very well with real estate. I can tell you about real estate. They're going to be in love with it.”

Until the White House’s announcement, it was understood that Egypt, in talks with major Arab countries, was drawing up an alternative plan for Gaza on its own accord, in an attempt to steer the US president away from the forcible transfer of a population and a US “takeover.”

Now, Washington is indicating that it was Trump that asked them to do it.

The Arab plan

A summit between the leaders of Egypt, Jordan, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, and Saudi Arabia is set to occur on an unspecified date before the 27 February “emergency meeting” on Gaza in Cairo, Al-Araby TV said on Wednesday, citing Egyptian sources.

Those sources told the broadcaster that Egypt’s proposed plan so far includes the rebuilding of Gaza within three to five years without displacing its residents.

The plan would reportedly unfold in two stages: a cleanup of the rubble, followed by the reconstruction of residential complexes. The effort would begin in Rafah, in southern Gaza, which borders Egypt, and then move further north and encompass the entire Strip.

In a statement released by the Egyptian president’s office on Wednesday, Abdel Fattah el-Sisi reiterated once again in a phone call with King Abdullah that Gaza must only be rebuilt with its residents present.

As to who will fund the plan, Egypt is seeking the participation of the Arab world, the European Union, and the United Nations, Al-Araby TV said, leaving the US out of the equation.

Trump’s decision to "own” Gaza and develop it himself has suggested that unless Washington can benefit economically from Gaza, it wants no part in rebuilding it using taxpayer dollars.

Trump administration officials have also pursued an almost wholesale cut to foreign aid since the president took office three weeks ago.

Visits postponed

In an interview with Fox News earlier this week, Israeli President Isaac Herzog said Egyptian and Saudi leaders would soon be visiting the White House to meet with Trump about Gaza.

No such meetings, however, have been announced by Washington.

But by Wednesday, the Reuters news agency reported that Sisi would forego his visit entirely if Trump did not pivot from his “Riviera of the Middle East” plan for Gaza.

Trump originally called for Egypt and Jordan to take more than 1.8 million Palestinians from Gaza.

Also on Wednesday, The Financial Times, citing a person familiar with the matter, said Saudi Foreign Minister Faisal bin Farhan had “postponed a scheduled trip to Washington after Trump announced his plan.”

The kingdom has scaled up its rhetoric against the US and Israel in recent days, especially after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu proposed in an interview that Saudi Arabia has “a lot of territory” that it could simply give to Palestinians.

State broadcaster Al-Ekhbariya described Netanyahu as a “Zionist and the son of a Zionist . . . who inherited extremism in his genes,” while Al-Arabiya asked if the prime minister was experiencing a state of hallucination.

The Saudi press had already spent much of last week lambasting Washington, saying the kingdom “does not accept bargaining or auctions” when it comes to Palestine and that it will not pursue diplomatic relations with Israel without the establishment of a Palestinian state.

Ceasefire on edge

Within hours of Trump’s comments to Fox News on Sunday that Palestinians will not have a right to return to Gaza after the US "takeover," Hamas announced it would not release the seventh batch of captives scheduled to take place on Saturday.

The group cited Israeli ceasefire violations, among them nearly 30 air strikes, nine sniper attacks, a refusal to pull back from agreed lines along the Philadelphi Corridor, the non-delivery of mobile home units, and the blocking of cash transfers to banks.

However, the announcement's timing was also seen as a response to Trump’s remarks.

The White House on Wednesday said Trump told King Abdullah to ensure that Hamas understands the "severity of the situation" if the captives are not released by Saturday's deadline.

Trump also indicated that despite the agreed phased captive swaps within the ceasefire deal, he wants “all hostages, including all Americans, by Saturday, and asked for the king's assistance.” It’s unclear how much of that may materialise.

Egypt’s Al-Qahera TV reported on Wednesday that Egypt and Qatar — the two Arab mediators between Israel and Hamas — are communicating with the parties to the Gaza ceasefire amid US and Israeli pressure to resume military operations.

Israeli Defence Minister Israel Katz said the government is prepared to fulfil Trump’s displacement plan if the captives are not released on Saturday and warned of a “new Gaza war.”

But in an added twist late on Wednesday, far-right Israeli lawmaker and former Minister of National Security Itamar Ben-Gvir said that the release of three captives by Hamas — as previously agreed — “would suffice”, even if Israel has the green light from Trump to “unleash Hell.”

For its part, Hamas said it will remain committed to the deal only if Israel does the same.

"Our position is clear, and we will not accept the language of American and Israeli threats," Hazem Qassem, a Hamas spokesperson, said. He added that the group’s chief negotiator, Khalil al-Hayya, was already in Cairo on Wednesday to discuss "the implementation of the ceasefire agreement."

(Middle East Eye)

US President Donald Trump said on Monday that Hamas should release all hostages held by the militant group in Gaza by midday Saturday or he would propose canceling the Israel-Hamas ceasefire and “let hell break out.”

Trump cautioned that Israel might want to override him on the issue and said he might speak to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

But in a wide-ranging session with reporters in the Oval Office, Trump expressed frustration with the condition of the last group of hostages freed by Hamas and with the announcement by the militant group that it would halt further releases.

“As far as I’m concerned, if all of the hostages aren’t returned by Saturday at 12 o’clock, I think it’s an appropriate time. I would say, cancel it and all bets are off and let hell break out. I’d say they ought to be returned by 12 o’clock on Saturday,” Trump said.

He said he wanted the hostages released en masse, instead of a few at a time. “We want ‘em all back.”

Trump also said he might withhold aid to Jordan and Egypt if they don’t take Palestinian refugees being relocated from Gaza. He is to meet Jordan’s King Abdullah on Tuesday.

The comments came on a day of some confusion over Trump’s proposal for a US takeover of Gaza once the fighting stops.

He said Palestinians would not have the right of return to the Gaza Strip under his proposal to redevelop the enclave, contradicting his own officials who had suggested Gazans would only be relocated temporarily.

In an excerpt of an interview with Fox News channel’s Bret Baier broadcast on Monday, Trump added that he thought he could make a deal with Jordan and Egypt to take the displaced Palestinians, saying the US gives the two countries “billions and billions of dollars a year.”

Asked if Palestinians would have the right to return to Gaza, Trump said: “No, they wouldn’t because they’re going to have much better housing.”

“I’m talking about building a permanent place for them,” he said, adding it would take years for Gaza to be habitable again.

In a shock announcement on Feb. 4 after meeting Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Washington, Trump proposed resettling Gaza’s 2.2 million Palestinians and the US taking control of the seaside enclave, redeveloping it into the “Riviera of the Middle East.”

IGNITE THE REGION

Trump’s suggestion of Palestinian displacement has been repeatedly rejected by Gaza residents and Arab states, and labeled by rights advocates and the United Nations as a proposal of ethnic cleansing.

Senior Hamas official Sami Abu Zuhri said Trump’s statement that Palestinians would not be able to return to Gaza was “irresponsible.”

“We affirm that such plans are capable of igniting the region,” he told Reuters on Monday.

Netanyahu, who praised the proposal, suggested Palestinians would be allowed to return. “They can leave, they can then come back, they can relocate and come back. But you have to rebuild Gaza,” he said the day after Trump’s announcement.

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who will depart later this week for his first visit to the Middle East in the office, said on Thursday that Palestinians would have to “live somewhere else in the interim,” during reconstruction, although he declined to explicitly rule out their permanent displacement.

The State Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the disparity between Rubio and Trump’s most recent remarks on the plan.

Trump’s comments come as a fragile ceasefire reached last month between Israel and Hamas is at risk of collapse after Hamas announced on Monday it would stop releasing Israeli hostages over alleged Israeli violations of the agreement.

Israel’s Arab neighbors, including Egypt and Jordan, have said any plan to transfer Palestinians from their land would destabilize the region.

Rubio met Egypt’s Foreign Minister Badr Abdelatty in Washington on Monday. Egypt’s foreign ministry said Abdelatty told Rubio that Arab countries support Palestinians in rejecting Trump’s plan. Cairo fears Palestinians could be forced across Egypt’s border with Gaza.

Trump said in the Fox News interview that between two and six communities could be built for the Palestinians “a little bit away from where they are, where all of this danger is.”

“I would own this. Think of it as a real estate development for the future. It would be a beautiful piece of land. No big money spent,” he said.

Trump’s comments ‘music to Netanyahu’s ears’

Adam Weinstein, the deputy director of the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, describes Trump’s call for the cancellation of the Gaza ceasefire deal as “incredibly destabilising.”

“At the end of the day, it’s a political agreement, and it can only withstand so much political stress,” Weinstein said.

“All hell already did break loose in Gaza, and it didn’t provide a solution for the hostages, for the Palestinians or for the Israelis,” he added.

The analyst said Trump’s comments are also “music to Netanyahu’s ears.”

“I think Netanyahu has always had maximalist aims. I don’t think he entered this agreement in good faith,” Weinstein explained. “I don’t think he had a real intention of negotiating phase two.”

(sources: MEE, Arab News, Haaretz)

Indian security forces have killed at least 31 suspected Maoist rebels in the forests of the central state of Chhattisgarh, police said, in its biggest encounter this year.

Two security personnel were also killed while two others sustained injuries in the gun battle in the Indravati area of Chhattisgarh on Sunday. (Reports: BBC)

Hundreds of police and paramilitary soldiers launched an operation in the forests based on intelligence that a large number of Maoist rebels had gathered there, state police Inspector General Pattilingam Sundarraj said.

He said the toll could be higher with search operations expanding. “Additional forces have been rushed to the encounter site,” he said.

Automatic weapons and grenade launchers were recovered from the scene, a police statement said.

The Maoist rebels, also known as Naxals, follow a form of communism propagated by the late Chinese leader Mao Zedong. They have waged a guerrilla-style war against the government, particularly in central and eastern India, for decades, leading to periodic clashes and casualties on both sides.

“This is a big success in the direction of achieving a Naxal-free India,” said India’s Home Minister Amit Shah, who last year said the government expected to crush the Maoist rebellion by 2026.

Sunday’s fighting is the biggest so far this year and the second major clash in less than a month in Chhattisgarh, according to police officer Jitendra Yadav.

At least 16 rebels were killed in the state’s Gariband district on January 23. According to Indian officials, the government had issued a reward for 12 of them, totaling about $345,000.

Eight rebels were also killed in a gun battle with soldiers in the Bijapur district on January 31.

New Delhi has deployed tens of thousands of soldiers in a stretch of territory known as the “Red Corridor.” The crackdown has killed some 287 rebels in the past year, most of them in Chhattisgarh, according to government data.

Indian soldiers have been battling the Maoists since 1967, when the rebels began fighting to demand more jobs, land, and wealth from natural resources for the country’s poor Indigenous communities.

Years of neglect have isolated many locals, who face a lack of jobs, schools, and clinics, making them open to overtures by the rebels. The rebels speak the same tribal languages as many villagers and have promised to fight for a better future, especially in Chhattisgarh, one of India’s poorest states despite its vast mineral riches.

The fighters have ambushed police, destroyed government offices, and abducted officials. They have also blown up train tracks, attacked prisons to free their comrades, and stolen weapons from police and paramilitary warehouses to arm themselves.

CM of Manipur Biren Singh Quits

Meanwhile, Congress's Rahul Gandhi posted a sharp comment on X on Sunday as the BJP Chief Minister of Manipur, N Biren Singh, stepped down from the top post two years after ethnic violence was unleashed in Manipur.
"The resignation of CM Biren Singh shows that mounting public pressure, the SC investigation and the no-confidence motion by the Congress have forced a reckoning," read Mr. Gandhi's post.
"For nearly two years, BJP's CM Biren Singh instigated division in Manipur. PM Modi allowed him to continue despite the violence, loss of life, and the destruction of the idea of India in Manipur."

Most observers both in the West and in other parts of the world nowadays discuss the impact of Donald Trump’s return to power in the United States. Following that, most observers have begun analyzing the meaning of Trump’s policies from conceptual and theoretical perspectives. Many Western academicians and intellectuals have been trying to show that Trump’s administration and policies are an anomaly in the Western world. Thus, they mislead the world's public opinion.

In reality, Trump’s return is not the reason for the rise of power politics, ultranationalism, great power rivalry, illiberalism, xenophobia, anti-Islamism, theo-politics, etc. in the West. On the contrary, Trump’s ascendance to power is a direct result of all these developments in the West. Therefore, the current crisis in the West and the world is much deeper than Trump’s election.

The Western countries continue to look at the wrong place. They blame refugees, Muslims, China the Global South and the poor for the negative zero-sum developments. Although the West lost all of its values and assets in its own house, it persistently looks for them in other nations and civilizations. It is clear that they will not find the correct answer, since they look for the causes of their problems in the wrong place.

The biggest threat to Western civilization is not the rise of China, political Islam, or any other “detrimental” development in the Global South, as mainstream Western circles claim. Instead, it is the conduct of Western countries. The main reason for Western conflicts and crises is their policies.

Although Western countries are still the most attractive destinations for refugees and the poor around the world, it has lost much of its attraction. All Western countries have largely lost their free and liberal spirit. Especially, the ongoing genocide in Gaza and the continuous rise of illiberalism and authoritarianism in Western countries reveal the inconsistency of Western governments. For example, no redline is left unviolated in Gaza, but still, most Western governments and political actors continue to support the Israeli aggression in the Middle East. They continue to blame the others for all regional and global crises.

There is a well-known saying in Türkiye: "If the first button of a shirt is fastened wrong, all the others will follow suit." The Western global powers fasten the first button wrong. They did not mind, and still don’t care, about the rise of racism, illiberalism and xenophobia in the West or the unequal income distribution and the negative effects of climate change in the world.

Western global powers directly or indirectly create most of these political, economic and social problems worldwide, but force others to take measures against these threats. As some Western politicians and academicians confess from time to time, they create and support terrorist organizations, but they blame the countries that suffer from the attacks of these violent organizations for the rise of these organizations.

They never question themselves. Instead, it is easier for the West to blame others. Western countries are responsible for the ineffectiveness of international law principles or international organizations such as the United Nations. They clearly articulate that they created and developed all these for others, not for themselves. In other words, the responsibility of the U.N. Security Council is to prevent aggression of non-Western countries. It is not a problem for the Western states to damage international peace and security. Therefore, the Western governments blame the International Criminal Court (ICC) or the International Court of Justice (ICJ) for investigating the violations of Israel.

For Western politicians and academics, it is just fine and necessary that the ICC or ICJ take action against Russian President Vladimir Putin or the former president of Sudan Omar al-Basheer; but it is not allowed for the very same institutions to take action against Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his Cabinet. Today, most Western governments do not hesitate to take action against those who criticize Israel and its supporters. They take action against their own societal and political actors who criticize their respective governments.

In the end, Western critics should not criticize Trump for his unwanted policies. They are the ones who paved the way for the rise of Trump and similar politicians. Nowadays, some Western countries try to raise their voices against Trump and some of his Cabinet members' interventions in their domestic affairs, while continuing to intervene in the domestic affairs of many non-Western countries.

It is clear to everyone that the current global system is not sustainable. For a better and promising world system, Western global powers, especially the European countries, have to change themselves first. Otherwise, they will continue to cut the branch that they sit on. If they do not take the necessary measures, they will all face a political atmosphere in which they risk losing their political sovereignty soon. They have to act before it is too late. The clock is ticking and time is running out.

(Source: Daily Alsabah)

Pressure is building on Myanmar’s military regime to hold national elections that opposition forces have promised to disrupt. Myanmar’s 2024 census was almost certainly the most contentious – and deadly – ever conducted. Enumerators and their heavily armed guards from Myanmar’s military were subject to repeated attacks from opposition groups, as they stumbled through a failed attempt to document the country’s population between October and December last year.

One incident in early October saw seven soldiers providing security for census takers in Mandalay Region killed with an explosive device. Days later, three more soldiers were killed when opposition forces hit their vehicle with a shoulder-launched rocket in Kayin State in the country’s east.

“The census was an utter, abject failure,” Richard Horsey, Myanmar adviser to the International Crisis Group, told Al Jazeera. “But the regime has declared it a marvellous success.”

What is generally a mundane administrative exercise in population counting in most parts of the world, that Myanmar’s census was met with such violent resistance speaks to its significance in the country’s democratic trajectory. Publishing preliminary results in January, Myanmar’s Ministry of Immigration and Population said the census represents the military government’s “commitment to national reconciliation.” But it also represents the final step before the military attempts to hold a national election later this year – the first since overthrowing Myanmar’s democratically elected government in a coup four years ago and igniting a civil war.

While the military has painted a potential vote as a return to democratic norms, for Myanmar’s opposition forces, elections are merely an attempt to legitimise the illegitimate regime that seized power in February 2021. The “election will be a sham, it will just be for show,” said Zaw Kyaw, a spokesperson for the presidential office at the National Unity Government (NUG), an exiled administration that includes lawmakers ousted by the military. “The military believes that [holding an election] will be an exit strategy, and they can get some legitimacy in the eyes of some countries by hosting a sham election,” he told Al Jazeera. “But this election will not lead to stability. It will lead to more instability and more violence.”

‘Absolutely no credible data’

In November 2020, State Counsellor Aung San Suu Kyi led her National League for Democracy (NLD) party to a landslide victory in Myanmar’s general election, winning 82 percent of seats contested in the country’s national and regional parliaments. Three months later, in the early hours of February 1, the military would overthrow Aung San Suu Kyi’s government, arresting her and other NLD figures. Justifying the coup, the military alleged massive NLD voter fraud in the polls and declared the results void, without providing any evidence of wrongdoing. The coup triggered nationwide pro-democracy protests, morphing into an armed rebellion that continues to engulf large swaths of the country today.

The military-installed government – led by Senior General Min Aung Hlaing as its prime minister, and more recently president – has ruled the country since 2021 under a state of emergency that it has renewed several times as it battles ethnic armed groups and newer pro-democracy fighters across the country. The military extended the state of emergency a further six months to July 31. “There are still more tasks to be done to hold the general election successfully,” the military said, announcing the extension of emergency rule. “Especially for a free and fair election, stability and peace is still needed,” it said. Myanmar’s military said its goal for the 2024 census was to provide an “accurate” voter list for the next election. Such a list would prevent the double-counting of ballots and the participation of ineligible voters, stamping out the widespread voter fraud it claims corrupted the vote in 2020.

“The junta produced absolutely no credible data,” said Khin Ohmar, founder of democracy and human rights group Progressive Voice. “The junta’s sham census lacked coverage of major swaths of territory and large segments of the population, particularly in areas controlled by democratic resistance groups or revolutionary forces,” she told Al Jazeera. By its own account, Myanmar’s Ministry of Immigration and Population said it only fully counted populations in 145 out of Myanmar’s 330 townships, which appears to indicate the military now controls less than half the country. Despite the limited census data, the ministry said it was “profoundly grateful to the people of Myanmar for their enthusiastic participation”, describing the census as a “resounding success”. Khin Ohmar said the reality is that members of the public who participated in the census were forced “into providing personal data”, often “at gunpoint”. “It is clear that the junta will continue to use these violent tactics against civilians for its sham election,” she said. “Any public participation is guaranteed to have been coerced by the military junta,” she added. Myanmar’s military government did not respond to repeated requests for comment from Al Jazeera.

A crisis of an ‘unprecedented scale’

Just how high stakes elections are for Myanmar’s severely weakened military cannot be overstated. While proclamations of its imminent demise have been frequent since the coup, the once unlikely goal of a regime-free Myanmar now looks more achievable than ever as the military has suffered serious setbacks since late 2023.

In October that year the Three Brotherhood Alliance – a coalition of ethnic armed groups: the Arakan Army, the Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army, and the Ta’ang National Liberation Army – carried out a devastating assault on military-controlled territory in northern Shan State. Setbacks for the regime continued into 2024 with the military experiencing its worst territorial and personnel losses in its history. Some 91 towns and 167 military battalions fell to resistance forces in a crisis of an “unprecedented scale”, according to the United States Institute of Peace. Plummeting morale has also seen a “historic surge in defections” from the army. In the context of diminishing control and increasingly robust violent resistance, critics say holding a national election is a fanciful notion.

The regime’s Election Commission Chairman Ko Ko said in December the polls would be held in just under half of the country’s 330 townships nationwide. But even this figure appears unduly optimistic. Myanmar’s pro-democracy resistance groups and anti-military government ethnic armed organisations increasingly see the military as there for the taking. While the ousted NLD administration, in government between 2015 and 2021, attempted to strike a balance between civilian and military rule during the country’s short-lived democratic experiment, a return to the pre-coup status quo of military officials in government is no longer an option.

“Our main goal [in 2025] is to eliminate the military dictatorship,” the NUG’s Zaw Kyaw said. “The military is weaker than it has ever been in Myanmar’s history,” he added. Despite the inherent security risks, Horsey of the Crisis Group believes national polls look “increasingly likely” this year. Time is also ticking for Min Aung Hlaing, Horsey says, as grumbling grows louder from within the military establishment. “There is pressure from within the elite to hold these polls. They don’t want Min Aung Hlaing ensconced as dictator-for-life. Most don’t relish the prospect of him sticking around forever,” Horsey said. “He’s consolidated all power in his own hands and they want a slice of the action,” he said. The military’s most influential patron, China, “has also been pushing very hard”, Horsey added. “[China] has no interest in electoral democracy, but they do not like [Min Aung Hlaing] and think elections will be a way of diluting his power. Perhaps even bringing more reasonable, predictable and amendable people to the fore,” he said.

One group not pushing for elections in Myanmar is the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN). The 10-member bloc, of which Myanmar is a member, has been bitterly divided on the issue. But ASEAN foreign ministers issued a joint statement in January telling the regime that holding an election amid an escalating civil war should not be a “priority”.

‘Violent, messy’ and ‘bizarre exercise’

Under Myanmar’s military-drafted 2008 constitution, authorities are mandated to hold elections within six months of the state of emergency being lifted – currently set for July 31 – with November the traditional month to do so. But for the vast majority of Myanmar’s embattled population, what month the military will hold the sham polls is irrelevant.

Holding “elections are an absolute anathema to most people” in Myanmar, the Crisis Group’s Horsey said. “It is seen as – and is – an attempt [by the military] to wipe away the NLD and Aung San Suu Kyi’s landslide victory five years ago,” he said. “That is something that people just will not accept and they will resist.”

Such resistance was already evident in the attacks disrupting the census, and Horsey believes the elections will similarly be a “violent, messy, incomplete process”. “Who in their right mind would campaign, open party offices, and participate in the election? There’s going to be ambushes, attacks, assassinations – it’s going to be very very dangerous,” he said. “It’s going to be a bizarre exercise, something that no one else, I think, would recognise as an election.”

(Sources: Al Jazeera)

A rebel alliance claimed the capture of the biggest city in the Democratic Republic of Congo’s mineral-rich eastern region this week, pushing back against resistance from government troops backed by regional and UN intervention forces.

The takeover of Goma is yet another territorial gain for the Alliance Fleuve Congo (AFC) rebel coalition, which includes the M23 armed group – sanctioned by the United States and the United Nations.

It is also a swift expansion of the alliance’s foothold across swathes of eastern DR Congo – where rare minerals crucial to the production of phones and computers are mined – and is likely to worsen a long-running humanitarian crisis in the region.

“AFC-M23 controls Goma,” Victor Tesongo, an AFC spokesperson, told CNN Monday, adding that “Goma fell under pressure” after the group’s earlier seizure of the nearby towns of Minova and Saké.

The Congolese government has yet to confirm the rebels’ takeover but acknowledges their presence in the city, capital of the eastern North Kivu province. It announced Sunday it had cut diplomatic ties with neighboring Rwanda, which it accuses of equipping the group with both weapons and troops, and recalled its diplomatic staff from the nation. A Rwandan government spokesperson did not deny or confirm the country’s support for M23 when asked by CNN.

More than a dozen foreign peacekeepers, as well as the military governor of North Kivu province, have been killed in recent days trying to fend off the rebels, as thousands of locals flee their advance into Goma.

What are the latest developments?

South Africa’s military confirmed Tuesday that four more South African soldiers deployed in DR Congo as part of the UN peacekeeping mission there had died, only days after nine were killed in the fighting.

Meanwhile, aid agencies said that hospitals were overwhelmed as hundreds of people caught in the crossfire in Goma sought treatment for injuries, among them seriously wounded children. Amid the fighting, food assistance programs in and around the city have been temporarily paused, the World Food Programme said Tuesday.

There were “many dead bodies” in the city’s streets, said Jens Laerke, a spokesperson for the UN humanitarian office. Fighters had reportedly raped civilians, and property had also been looted, he said. Among those killed was a famed Congolese boxer, Balezi Bagunda, according to Matthew Leutwyler, the founder of the non-profit We Are Limitless, who had been working with him to evacuate local children the organization works with.

The Red Cross warned on Tuesday that the unrest in the city could lead to the spread of viruses, including Ebola, if laboratories with samples of the disease are affected by the violence.

Patrick Youssef, regional director for Africa at the International Committee of the Red Cross, said that his organization is “very concerned” that a biomedical laboratory in Goma could be impacted by the disorder there. “It’s a center very close to our delegation,” he said.

Meanwhile, in the national capital, Kinshasa, protesters gathered and fires were lit outside a number of Western and African embassies, including that of Rwanda. The French embassy was “attacked and firebombed,” the French foreign ministry told CNN, but protesters were unable to enter the site’s perimeter.

Later on Tuesday, the US Embassy in Kinshasa advised US citizens to leave the city. “Due to an increase in violence throughout the city of Kinshasa, the US Embassy in Kinshasa advises US citizens to shelter-in-place and then safely depart while commercial options are available,” a statement from the embassy said.

Reports emerged Monday of Congolese troops exchanging fire with Rwandan soldiers along their shared border as fear of a blown-out war grows.

Earlier that day, gunfire rang out from Goma’s airport after it was shut by the rebels; a French intelligence source told CNN M23 had gained full control of the facility on Tuesday. At the same time, more than 4,000 prisoners broke free from a correctional facility, the UN-funded Radio Okapi reported, compounding chaotic scenes witnessed in the city.

In a statement Monday, the Uruguayan army, whose troops are part of the UN peacekeeping mission in Goma, said “hundreds” of Congolese soldiers had laid down their weapons following a 48-hour ultimatum by M23. Rwandan national broadcaster also shared footage of Congolese soldiers surrendering their arms to Rwandan forces at a Rwandan border post after fleeing Goma.

How did the conflict escalate?

DR Congo has experienced decades of militia violence, including armed rebellion by M23, which claims to defend the interests of the minority Rwandophone communities, including the Tutsi. Since 2022, M23 has waged a renewed rebellion against the Congolese government, occupying a large expanse in North Kivu, which borders Rwanda and Uganda.

For several months, the rebels have also controlled Rubaya, a mining town in North Kivu that harbors one of the world’s largest coltan deposits. This valuable mineral is used in the production of mobile phones.

Bintou Keita, who heads the UN mission in DR Congo, told the Security Council in a September briefing that “competition over exploitation and trade of natural resources” had escalated conflict between armed groups in the country’s east.

According to Keita, coltan trade from the M23-controlled Rubaya mining site is estimated to “supply over 15 percent of global tantalum production,” and “generates an estimated $300,000 in revenue per month to the armed group.” M23 denied these claims, insisting its presence in the Rubaya area was “solely humanitarian.”

A report by the UN Group of Experts on the Democratic Republic of Congo, released in December, revealed that “at least 150 tons of coltan were fraudulently exported to Rwanda and mixed with Rwandan production.”

Since April last year, the report said, M23, “with RDF (Rwanda Defence Force) support, has made significant territorial gains and strengthened control over occupied areas,” adding that such a pattern suggested “that the true objective of M23 remained territorial expansion and the long-term occupation and exploitation of conquered territories.”

Why is Goma important?

Goma is home to around two million people and is the largest city in North Kivu. M23’s incursion on Monday was the second time the group had moved to capture the provincial capital after it briefly took control in 2012.

M23 spokesman Willy Ngoma told CNN on Saturday that his group was motivated by concern for the residents of Goma, which is home to minority groups such as the Congolese Tutsi community. “We do not want to capture Goma but to liberate it,” he said. “The population is in distress; we must save it as quickly as possible.”

Prof. Dady Saleh, a Congolese political and economic analyst, told CNN there was more to M23’s interest in Goma. “Goma is a strategic and highly symbolic city with an international airport, as well as proximity to Rwanda and Lake Kivu, opening the easy path with South Kivu,” he said.

But, most importantly, Saleh said, Goma’s fall to M23 “will be the symbol of its complete and total capture” of the eastern part of the DRC.

M23’s self-proclaimed liberation agenda has been scarred by a long trail of alleged human rights violations and what rights group Human Rights Watch described in 2023 as “war crimes against civilians” in North Kivu. The group has consistently denied such claims.

Fighting between M23, Congolese forces and other rebel groups has also forced many from their homes in the country’s east, with at least 400,000 people displaced just since the beginning of this year in North and South Kivu, the UN’s refugee agency, UNHCR said in a statement.

What’s at stake for Rwanda?

UN experts believe that an estimated 3,000 Rwandan soldiers operate alongside M23 fighters in eastern DR Congo, outnumbering the rebel group’s number in the country. According to Saleh, the Congolese analyst, Rwanda does not just support M23, “it (Rwanda) is the M23.”

Western nations, such as the US, Britain, and France, have censured Kigali’s support for the group.

Rwanda government spokesperson Yolande Makolo told CNN that her country “will do what is necessary to defend our borders and protect Rwandans.” She cited a UN report that found evidence DR Congo’s military had collaborated and carried out joint operations with a Hutu militia group against a mainly Tutsi rebel group, the CNDP, which M23 grew out of.

Hutu militias carried out the genocide of Tutsis and moderate Hutus in Rwanda in 1994. “This is happening right next to our border,” Makolo said of the insecurity in eastern DR Congo, adding that “the President of the DRC has said publicly that his enemy is President (Paul) Kagame and the Rwandan Government, and that he will ‘liberate’ Rwandans.”

Rwanda’s foreign ministry also blamed DR Congo’s government for failing to engage in dialogue with M23, describing it as a “Congolese rebel group fighting to protect their community in eastern DRC.”

Is there a route to peace?

Eastern African leaders plan to convene an emergency meeting within 48 hours to find solutions to the crisis, Kenya’s President William Ruto said Monday, urging Tshisekedi and Kagame “to heed the call for peace.” Previous interventions led by Angola, including truce agreements, have failed to cease hostilities.

“A solution is still in sight,” Saleh told CNN, especially if the leaders meet as planned. “But it is rather the quality of the solutions in sight that is the real question,” he said.

“The region needs a lasting solution to the security situation, and to achieve this, one of the conditions is that the DRC must be able to ensure its security and control its economy. Solutions in terms of power-sharing, tribal and ethnic integration are not a lasting solution.”

Note: Corrections include the addition of missing spaces (e.g., “had moved” instead of “hadmoved”) and fixing minor spacing and punctuation issues. No sentences were rephrased or rewritten.

The head of the United Nations has expressed concern about President Donald Trump’s decision to pause foreign assistance from the United States as his administration promotes its “America First” agenda.

During a news conference on Monday, a spokesman for Antonio Guterres said the UN secretary-general had noted the policy change “with concern”.

“He calls for additional exemptions to be considered to ensure the continued delivery of critical development and humanitarian activities for the most vulnerable communities around the world,” Stephane Dujarric told reporters.
“Those lives and livelihoods depend on this support,” said Dujarric, adding that the US is “one of the largest aid providers” in the world. “We are currently mapping out what [the Trump administration’s decision] means and the impact that it would have.”

Trump signed an executive order shortly after he was sworn in for a second term on January 20, ordering all federal government agencies to enact a 90-day pause on foreign development assistance and to review existing programmes.

Experts say Trump administration’s order to halt foreign assistance will ‘cost many, many lives’.

“It is the policy of the United States that no further United States foreign assistance shall be disbursed in a manner that is not fully aligned with the foreign policy of the President of the United States,” the order reads.

Days later, the US State Department said in a memo that it was suspending almost all new funding for foreign aid programmes, with exceptions for the country’s top Middle East allies, Israel and Egypt. The order on Friday also included an exemption for emergency food assistance and related expenses.

“President Trump stated clearly that the United States is no longer going to blindly dole out money with no return for the American people,” the department said in a statement on Sunday defending the measures. The statement also affirmed newly confirmed Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s support for the Trump-led policy.

“Reviewing and realigning foreign assistance on behalf of hardworking taxpayers is not just the right thing to do, it is a moral imperative. The Secretary is proud to protect America’s investment with a deliberate and judicious review of how we spend foreign assistance dollars overseas.”

But experts have slammed the Trump administration’s decision, saying it will have disastrous consequences for people around the world.

Michael Schiffer, who served as the assistant administrator of the US Agency for International Development’s (USAID) Asia bureau from 2022 to 2025, said stopping foreign aid — even temporarily — will have “obvious, predictable results”.

“Children will die. Our national security will erode. America’s alliances will suffer. US partners will be at risk. And America’s enemies will rejoice,” Schiffer warned in a column for the website Just Security.

Jeremy Konyndyk, president of Refugees International and an ex-USAID official under former Presidents Joe Biden and Barack Obama, also said “a global stop-work order on foreign aid will cost many, many lives if kept in place”.

Konyndyk noted that US foreign assistance goes to addressing famine in Sudan, supporting refugees in Africa and Asia, and funding HIV/AIDS treatment programmes around the world. “It is no exaggeration whatsoever to say that following through on this policy will kill a lot of people,” he wrote on social media.

“It will also shred US global credibility in much of the world, where our assistance programs are a huge share of our country partnerships.”

(Source: Al Jazeera and news agencies)

On the fourth day, President Donald Trump set out to impose his will on the globe. Rapt European elites watched Trump beam virtually into the Swiss alpine village of Davos Thursday, in a metaphor for a world that is taking in his testosterone-fueled return to power with fearful fascination.

The set-up was perfect for the president. On a giant screen, the ultimate outsider literally towered over his scolded audience of bankers, financiers, business titans, NGO leaders, political bigwigs and diplomats.

The appearance at the World Economic Forum was Trump’s latest hyper-confident move to reshape America’s destiny after a frenetic week of executive actions and stunning, freewheeling news conferences.

He issued his most explicit threat yet to tariff European exports, issued an all-but-unreachable target for countries’ NATO defense spending, again tried to goad Russian President Vladimir Putin into talks to end the Ukraine war and pressed home his carrot-and-stick approach to Chinese leader Xi Jinping.

But the reason Thursday’s speech may go down in history is that Trump gave the Davos crowd his rawest vision yet for America’s new role in the world.

“He was elected as a disruptor,” David Miliband, a former British foreign secretary, told CNN’s Christiane Amanpour from Davos.

“He promised that he would disrupt the existing way of doing things, both within the United States and internationally,” said Miliband, now the CEO of the International Rescue Committee. “He has been consistent in that all the way through the campaign, during the transition period and now in the first three days.”

Trump plans to dismantle global order

In its new “golden age,” Trump argued, the United States will pursue its singular national interests exclusively – several times referring to his country as a “sovereign” nation. This is MAGA code for the US acting alone and not through the international Bretton Woods organizations Washington set up to make the world safe for democracy and to promote prosperity for all after World War II. This approach is justified, Trump insisted, because “many things have been unfair for many years to the United States.”

From now on, he made clear, every US foreign policy act will come with a value calculation gauging how it benefits Americans. Other countries and multinationals don’t have to play ball, but if they choose not to – they will be punished, including with tariffs.

Furthermore, America is so powerful and resource rich, it doesn’t need any other nation. He said of Canada, for instance, “We don’t need them to make our cars. … We don’t need their lumber because we have our own forests, etc., etc. We don’t need their oil and gas. We have more than anybody.”

Trump reserved special ire for the European Union, bitterly complaining about regulatory practices he said crimped growth (and interfered with his personal business interests). He complained about taxes and curbs imposed on Google, Apple and Meta in Europe, and hinted he sees the firms, whose tech oligarch leaders he welcomed into his inner circle, as instruments of American power. “These are American companies, whether you like them or not. They’re American companies and they shouldn’t be doing that.”

Trump demands yet more from NATO members

Trump revealed his transactional nature in his latest salvo on NATO. He formalized his demand for members to more than double their defense spending to 5% of GDP. This is a figure that would bankrupt many Western economies or require governments to desecrate their expensive welfare states endemic to the European social democratic ethos, which his Make America Great Again movement has long disdained.

When a reporter in the Oval Office later pointed out that the US spends only about 3.4% on defense, Trump responded: “We are protecting them, they are not protecting us.” In his belligerence, Trump ignored the fact that the only time the alliance’s Article 5 mutual defense clause has ever been invoked was by allies who sent their troops to die in America’s war on terror after the September 11 attacks in 2001.

In his first few days in power, Trump has also reinforced his warnings that he sees nations like Panama, Canada and the vast Danish autonomous territory of Greenland as part of America’s sphere of interest.

In a gesture that was extraordinary coming from a US president speaking to an international audience, Trump complained about the trade deficit with Canada then renewed his call for it to join the US. “I say you can always become a state, and if you’re a state, we won’t have a deficit.” There’s no chance of Canada — a nation that defines itself against the US — becoming the 51st state. But Trump’s threatening language is such a departure because it’s the antithesis of the principle that all nations are sovereign equals that the US enshrined in the United Nations charter.

Trump’s “America First” philosophy is often described as a return to the kind of isolationism that prevailed between the two world wars. But that’s not quite accurate. He wants to stride the global stage. But he’s advocating a foreign policy where America is dominant in its own hemisphere and engages elsewhere selectively.

This was explained by new Secretary of State Marco Rubio this week. “Our job is to ensure that we have a foreign policy that advances the national interest of the United States. I expect every nation on earth to advance their national interests. … I hope there will be many — in which our national interests and theirs align.”

In other words, the US is ready to work with other nations when it suits – not through international organizations that dilute American power but individually, which means the US will have the advantage of size, wealth and military might.

This, along with Trump’s belief in great powers acting with primacy in their spheres of influence and his growing obsession with US territorial expansion, is a rather 19th-century concept. As is Trump’s determination to use tariffs to boost the American economy to fulfill his campaign promise to raise living standards and lower prices.

Trump sees tariffs as economic tool

The president warned business leaders in Davos that “if you don’t make your product in America, which is your prerogative, then, very simply, you will have to pay a tariff.” He said that the duties would “direct hundreds of billions of dollars, and even trillions of dollars into our Treasury to strengthen our economy.”

His comment was an effective declaration of a trade war against the European Union because he’s not just seeking to make imports less competitive than American products, he’s trying to lure jobs and industry across the Atlantic.

Tariffs were used for much of the country’s first 150 years. They were a particular favorite of Trump’s new favorite president, William McKinley, a Republican who like him, fashioned a political realignment in industrial states and who was an imperialist who added the Philippines, Puerto Rico and Hawaii to the US property portfolio.

Trump has mentioned McKinley, who served from 1897 until his assassination in 1901, several times in recent days and signed an executive order to restore the original name of Denali, in Alaska, to Mount McKinley.

“President McKinley made our country very rich through tariffs and through talent,” Trump said in his inaugural address on Monday.

The president’s repeated warnings of impending tariffs are challenging assumptions that he’s simply raising the threat as leverage to win concessions in the short term in trade talks with nations like Mexico, Canada and with the EU. His remarks on Thursday, however, suggested this is a more permanent tool. Still, he’s not yet acknowledged the concerns of many economic experts who believe that heavy US tariffs will raise prices for Americans and wreck the global economy.

One of the most eloquent arguments against high blanket tariffs was made by Franklin Roosevelt, in his 1932 presidential campaign. In a speech in Seattle, FDR explained that tariffs introduced by President Herbert Hoover under pressure from hardline Republicans had “the inevitable result of bringing about retaliations by the other nations of the world” and were leading the US on the “road to ruin.”

He explained that “our next-door neighbor, Canada, imposed retaliatory tariffs on your peaches, so that their tariff is now higher than the freight rates to Canada. And there is a retaliatory tariff on asparagus, and on other vegetables and other fruits, so high that practically none of your agricultural product can be sold to your logical customers, your neighbors across the border. The market for your surplus is destroyed and thereby fair prices for your whole crop are made impossible.”

FDR’s cautions offer guidance to Trump critics today. And this is apt, since many of the long-held American principles, from trade to international relations, that the 47th president is seeking to dismantle stem from the foundations of the modern, US-led global order laid down by the 32nd president.

Sri Lanka has revoked a power purchase agreement with Indian conglomerate Adani Group following allegations of corruption, energy ministry sources in Colombo said Friday.

President Anura Kumara Dissanayake's administration opened probes into the company's local projects after billionaire founder Gautam Adani was charged with bribery in the United States late last year.

The administration of his predecessor had in May 2024 agreed to buy electricity at US$0.0826 per kilowatt from an Adani wind power complex yet to be built in the island nation's northwest.

But a top energy ministry official said Dissanayake's cabinet decided earlier this month not to proceed with the deal.

"The government has revoked the power purchase agreement, but the project is not cancelled. A committee has been appointed to review the entire project," the source said, speaking to AFP on condition of anonymity.

Several activists had challenged the agreement, arguing that smaller renewable projects were selling electricity at two-thirds the price of Adani.

The proposed construction of Adani's 484-megawatt wind power plant in the Mannar and Pooneryn coastal areas is facing a separate Supreme Court challenge over environmental concerns.

An official document seen by AFP on Friday confirmed that Sri Lanka's cabinet this month decided to appoint a panel to "re-evaluate" the project's construction. It also confirmed the withdrawal from the power purchase agreement, which the current ruling party had strongly criticised while in opposition.

Dissanayake came to power in September promising to tackle corruption and bring back stolen Sri Lankan assets said to be stashed abroad.

With a business empire spanning coal, airports, cement and media, Adani Group has been rocked in recent years by corporate fraud allegations.

Indian industrialist Gautam Adani was charged in the US on November 19, accused of paying bribes and hiding the payments from US investors, according to prosecutors in New York.

Adani was the first foreign investor to enter Sri Lanka in the wake of a 2022 financial crash that devastated the island nation's economy. His firm's proposed $442 million wind power plants were approved in February 2023 but the project has been stalled by court challenges.

Another Indian neighbor, Bangladesh's interim government, also has accused energy supplier Adani Power of breaching a multi-billion-dollar agreement by withholding tax benefits that a power plant central to the deal received from New Delhi, according to documents seen by Reuters.

In 2017, the Indian company controlled by billionaire Gautam Adani signed an agreement with Bangladesh to provide power from its coal-fired plant in eastern India. Dhaka has said it hopes to renegotiate the deal, which was awarded by then-Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina without a tender process and costs Bangladesh far more than its other coal power deals, according to Bangladesh power agency documents and letters between the two parties reviewed by Reuters, as well as interviews with six Bangladesh officials.

Dhaka has been behind on payments to Adani Power since supply started in July 2023. It owes several hundred million dollars for energy that has already been supplied, though the two sides dispute the exact size of the bill.

Bangladesh's de facto power minister Muhammad Fouzul Kabir Khan told Reuters the country now had enough domestic capacity to cope without the Adani supply, though not all domestic power generators were operational.

(sources: Reuters, AP, TRT World)

Donald Trump, who rode back into power on a wave of voter dissatisfaction with the status quo, promised a new "golden age" for America in his inaugural address.

The speech was a mix of promises – and contradictions – that underlined some of the opportunities and challenges the new president will face in his second term in office.

He started talking a little after noon on Monday, and it seemed at times like he didn't stop talking – at ad-libbed remarks later at the Capitol, at his indoor parade rally at a downtown sports arena and at the White House executive order signing – until well into the evening.

Through it all, Trump demonstrated the kind of dramatic flair and penchant for controversy and confrontation that has energised his supporters and infuriated his critics.

During his inaugural address, Trump paid particular attention to immigration and the economy – issues that polls suggest American voters cared about most last year. He also promised to end government-promoted diversity programmes and noted that US official policy would only recognise two genders, male and female.

That last line generated an enthusiastic response at the Capitol and wild cheers from his crowd of supporters gathered at a nearby sports arena. It's a sign that cultural issues – where he drew the most vivid contrasts with Democrats in last year's election – will continue to be one of Trump's most powerful ways the new president connects with his base.

Before he outlined what this new age would entail, however, Trump painted a dark picture of the current American political climate.

As his predecessor, Joe Biden, and other Democrats sat stone-faced to one side, Trump said the government faces a "crisis of trust". He condemned the "vicious, violent and unfair weaponisation" of the US Justice Department, which had investigated and attempted to prosecute him for contesting the 2020 election results.

He claimed a mandate to reverse "horrible betrayals" and lashed out at a "radical and corrupt establishment" that he said extracted power and wealth from America's citizens.

It was the kind of populist, anti-elite rhetoric that has been a staple of Trump's speeches for a decade. Unlike when Trump first began his ascent to the pinnacles of US political power in 2015, however, Trump represents the current emerging establishment as much as any one man. And sitting behind him on the dais were a collection of some of the wealthiest, and most influential, corporate leaders in the world.

On the day of his inauguration, Trump has the attention – and the initiative. His aides have promised hundreds of executive actions – on a range of subjects, including immigration, energy, trade, education and hot-button cultural issues.

In his inaugural address, he detailed a handful of them. He pledged to declare national emergencies on energy and immigration, allowing him to put the US military on the border, drastically limit the rights of asylum-seekers and reopen large swaths of federal land to energy extraction. He repeated his pledge to change the name of the Gulf of Mexico to the "Gulf of America" and to take back the Panama Canal.

He made an unfounded claim that China was running the key waterway and said that US ships, including naval vessels, were paying too much in transit fees – perhaps a hint at the real objective in future negotiations with the Panamanian government.

"The US will once again consider itself a growing nation," he said, pledging to increase American wealth and expand "our territory".

That last bit might catch the ear of US allies, who have already been concerned by Trump's interest in acquiring Greenland and quips about making Canada the 51st US state.

On the campaign trail, and in this speech, Trump made a series of big promises. Now that he is president, he will be challenged to deliver – and show what the "golden age" he heralds actually means.

After Trump concluded his speech and saw Biden depart via a Marine helicopter, he gave off-the-cuff remarks at a gathering of supporters elsewhere in the Capitol. It was there that the more unscripted Trump – the one who frequently generates headlines and turns American politics on its head – reemerged.

The 2020 election was "rigged", he said. Former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi was criminally responsible for the 6 January, 2021 attack on the US Capitol. He boasted about the size of his 2024 election victory and said he grudgingly agreed to talk about "unity" in his inaugural address.

It was just a taste of what was in store for the rest of the day – and for the next four years.

At a signing ceremony in the evening, Trump took an ordinary presidential act – rescinding orders from a previous administration of a different party – and turned it into spectacle.

After giving another winding speech – his third of the day – Trump moved to a small desk on the stage at the downtown sports arena where his indoor inaugural parade had just concluded. Then he went to work freezing new federal regulations and hiring, reversing Biden administration directives, mandating federal workers work in-office full-time and withdrawing from the Paris Climate Accords.

"Can you imagine Joe Biden doing this?" he asked after signing the regulation freeze – but that applied to the moment as much as the content of the orders.

He also signed more symbolic orders to end the "weaponisation of government" and instruct his administration to address the higher cost of living.

After the arena ceremony, Trump tossed the pens he used into the crowd – another Trumping flourish.

Then he went back to the White House, and executive orders continued – pardoning nearly all of the 1,600-plus supporters arrested in the 6 January Capitol riot, temporarily suspending the TikTok ban and withdrawing the US from the World Health Organisation. He also reinterpreted a key constitutional amendment and instructed his administration to cease granting citizenship to US-born children of undocumented migrants. All the while, he offered a running commentary – including proposing a 25% tariff on Mexico and Canada starting on 1 February, accusing Democrats of cheating in the 2020 election and expressing doubt about the Gaza War ceasefire.

Trump returns to power with a team that has a detailed strategy for governing and an aggressive agenda to pursue. Trump himself, however, can still be as unpredictable and unfocused as ever – making remarks that could represent new policy or just a momentary distraction.

(sources: CNN, Fox News, Aljazeera)

In the face of genocide, ethnic cleansing and a suffocating blockade, Gaza has demonstrated an extraordinary endurance that few could have anticipated. This resilience is not a chance occurrence but the outcome of the steadfastness of its people, their patience in the face of ongoing Israeli aggression, and their refusal to succumb to the occupation’s attempts to impose a new reality by force.

Over the course of 15 months of relentless bombardment and destruction, Gaza endured some of the most intense Israeli military campaigns aimed at breaking the spirit of its people. Yet, through patience and perseverance, the people of Gaza have endured these hardships, forcing a reassessment of Israeli strategies. As British journalist David Hearst pointed out, Israel found itself facing an unexpected reality, with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu failing to achieve his objectives and forced to abandon his “red lines” under internal and international pressure.

Israel’s failure to subdue Gaza

Israel’s strategy was based on swiftly quelling any resistance and securing a military victory that would reshape Gaza’s political landscape. However, the Palestinian people have shown that their endurance is stronger than any plans devised against them. The prolonged conflict turned into a war of attrition for the Israeli army, which faced significant losses. Gaza has become more than a besieged territory; it has emerged as a symbol of resilience and the capacity to endure and challenge oppressive forces.

The endurance demonstrated by Gaza is not a fleeting occurrence but the result of its sustained resistance to attempts by the occupation to break its will. This endurance highlights that, despite immense challenges, Gaza remains steadfast, asserting its rights and forcing the occupation to reconsider its strategies. Today, Gaza stands as a global symbol of resilience in the face of injustice and aggression.

Global solidarity movement

The solidarity movement seen in Britain and around the world is a reflection of Gaza’s patience and determination to confront the occupation. The marches and demonstrations in London and other cities are a testament to the global awareness of Gaza’s plight. This movement has played a role in exposing the occupation’s actions to the world, serving as an echo of the Palestinian people’s forbearance that has captured global attention.

What Gaza has accomplished is a testament to the endurance of the Palestinian people in the face of relentless aggression. This achievement was not merely the result of external support, but a product of Gaza’s people’s patience and resilience. It is a victory for Palestine that reignites the cause in the global conscience, countering efforts to marginalise it. Gaza has shown the world that the will of a people determined to persevere cannot be subdued, and that steadfastness in the face of injustice is a path to eventual freedom.

Over 110 killed in Gaza since ceasefire deal announcement

Meanwhile at least 113 Palestinians were killed, including 28 children and 31 women, in Israeli attacks on Gaza since the announcement of a ceasefire deal that is due to start on Sunday, according to the enclave’s civil defence. Israel’s cabinet approved the Gaza ceasefire agreement on Friday, according to reports.

Israel’s genocidal war in Gaza has killed at least 46,788 Palestinians and wounded 110,453 since October 7, 2023. At least 1,139 people were killed in Israel during the Hamas-led attacks that day and more than 200 were taken captive.

Biden and Trump both claimed the credit Gaza deal

Outgoing US President Joe Biden and President-elect Donald Trump both claimed credit on Wednesday for a Gaza ceasefire-for-hostages deal that was months in the making but was helped across the line by a Trump envoy.

In announcing the ceasefire, Biden noted the final deal largely mirrored the framework of a proposal he made back in May. He smiled when a reporter asked who the history books will credit for the ceasefire and asked, "Is that a joke?"

Trump, in a social media post, was quick to claim a measure of credit for the breakthrough that came after months of stalled negotiations. He had repeatedly warned there would be "hell to pay" if a deal was not made by the time he takes office on Monday.

(Sources: AP, Aljazeera, MEM)

The Palisades fires expanded east quickly, threatening an area near the Getty Center. Gov. Gavin Newsom said he wanted answers about whether there had been enough water to fight the initial fires.

A part of the Brentwood area of Los Angeles came under mandatory evacuation orders Friday evening as the Palisades fire quickly expanded. The area threatened by the expansion of the wildfire, the largest in the Los Angeles area, included the Getty Center as well as parts of the Brentwood and Encino neighborhoods.

Wildfires have ripped across more than 35,000 acres of the Los Angeles area this week, killed at least 11 people and forced hundreds of thousands of people to flee from their homes.

California’s governor, Gavin Newsom, said he was ordering an independent review to determine why firefighters ran out of water early on, calling the situation “deeply troubling.” President Biden noted that the death toll might rise and that there were a lot of people who are unaccounted for.

The Palisades fire between Santa Monica and Malibu, was 8 percent contained on Friday. To the east, firefighters had contained 3 percent of the Eaton fire, near Altadena and Pasadena. Both fires now rank in the top five most destructive fires in California’s history.

It is not clear what ignited the fires, and investigators will likely take months to come to any firm conclusions. But power lines near the Eaton and Palisades fires were on when those blazes erupted on Tuesday. Energy experts said that was concerning, because electrical equipment has often ignited infernos during periods of high wind in California and elsewhere. And the dry, windy conditions that help the fires spread are poised to persist.

The victims: Among those who died was one man in his 60s who lived in his childhood home and drove a bloodmobile; another man, in his 80s, was a retired aerospace engineer and an active deacon in his church; and a woman who was a retired pharmacy technician whom neighbors called “an angel.”

Scale of destruction: The area burned by the various fires is larger than the footprint of San Francisco, Pittsburgh, Boston or Miami. As of Friday afternoon, about 100,000 people were under evacuation orders, and hundreds of thousands of electricity customers were without power.

False alerts: Los Angeles County emergency management officials said the erroneous evacuation alert that was transmitted this week went out to nearly 10 million residents, or roughly the entire population of the county. The fires’ effects on cellphone towers could have caused the problem, the officials said, calling the error a “serious breach of public trust.”

Federal response: Mr. Biden offered assurances that the federal government would help rebuild the affected areas, and Deanne Criswell, the FEMA administrator, said the agency was ready, and sufficiently funded, to support displaced residents.

Arrests: At least 18 people have been arrested in the Eaton and Palisades fires, on charges of looting, identity theft, possession of narcotics and possession of burglary tools, officials said. National Guard units have been deployed to secure evacuation zones.

On Friday, even as slowing wind speeds increased hopes that firefighters would contain the blazes, dry vegetation and steep terrain pushed the Palisades fire, the biggest, east, putting a new swath of Los Angeles under mandatory evacuation orders.

The blaze was burning along the tops of the ridges of Mandeville Canyon, said Kenichi Haskett, a division chief with the Los Angeles County Fire Department, on Friday night. The fire tore through a steep area full of dry vegetation and threatened the neighborhood of Encino in the north.

The spread was being driven by the landscape rather than wind, Mr. Haskett said. “We’re not getting strong winds the way we got on Tuesday and Wednesday.” The Palisades fire has now burned more than 21,000 acres in five days.

The rains that usually fall in autumn and early winter did not come, leaving most of Southern California bone dry and leaving vegetation primed to burn. Most locations south of Ventura County have recorded about a quarter-inch of rain or less in the past eight months, while the Los Angeles area has received only sprinklings of rain since April.

That means the Santa Ana winds, the strong, dry gusts that have driven the wildfires, have had a particularly dramatic effect. Even as they have subsided, the parched vegetation has continued to fuel the Palisades fire, experts said. Stronger winds are expected to return to Los Angeles and Ventura counties Saturday afternoon, reaching the highest speeds overnight into Sunday morning and heightening the risk of rapid wildfire spread.

Wind speeds over the fire were light — under 15 miles per hour — on Friday night, said Dave Gomberg, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service. In comparison, Wednesday saw wind gusts of over 90 m.p.h. “I think a big component is the fuels are exceptionally dry,” Mr. Gomberg said of Friday’s expansion.

The Palisades fire was “following the terrain and the fuels,” said Craig Clements, director of the Wildfire Interdisciplinary Research Center at San Jose State University. Fires thrive in hilly terrain and move faster uphill than downhill, he said, adding, “The steeper the terrain, the faster the fire can go.”

The fire chewing its way through Mandeville Canyon is a “plume-dominated fire,” that is being fueled by its own wind, said Redondo Beach Fire Chief Patrick Butler, a former assistant chief for the Los Angeles Fire Department who has led the response to many Southern California fires. Such blazes often shoot upward and then collapse, scattering embers for miles in concentric patterns, he said. On Friday evening, ash was falling in the Brentwood neighborhood to the south of the canyon.

Wildfires are notoriously hard to fight in Mandeville Canyon, which has poor radio communication and an extremely narrow road, Mr. Butler said: “There’s basically one way in and one way out.”

The Palisades fire in Los Angeles lurched east late Friday night, prompting emergency officials to expand mandatory evacuation orders to Brentwood, including the Getty Center. Like the nearby Pacific Palisades, Brentwood is among the most affluent Los Angeles neighborhoods, a place for manicured suburban living that keeps city life just within reach.

How did fires start?

Officials have begun investigating what caused the wildfires that ripped through the Los Angeles area and are still burning. No cause has been identified yet for any of the big blazes — Palisades, Eaton or Hurst.

One major utility in the region, Southern California Edison, is examining whether transmission lines near the origins of the Eaton and Hurst fires could have sparked either blaze. On Thursday evening, SCE told state regulators that insurance companies demanded the company preserve electric equipment as possible evidence in the Eaton Fire, though it emphasized that no investigation has found evidence that its equipment ignited the fire. SCE did not mention the Hurst Fire in the report.

Los Angeles Fire Department arson investigators are examining the brushy hillside near Pacific Palisades where the fire started. Arson investigators — also called fire investigators — determine how and where fires ignited, whether by power lines, a tossed cigarette or any of the other ways people or human infrastructure cause fires, either on purpose or accidentally. It doesn’t necessarily mean the fire involved criminal arson.

The fires broke out amid a blustering siege of Santa Ana winds. The area was primed to burn after more than eight months without meaningful rain. Southern California Edison had cut power to some areas but not others as a fire prevention measure.

The Palisades Fire broke out about 10:30 a.m. Tuesday on a brushy hillside between a residential street and a ridgeline trail in Temescal Gateway Park with sweeping views of the San Gabriel Mountains and Santa Monica Bay. The 20,438-acre fire has destroyed at least 5,300 structures and killed one person.

Los Angeles Water and Power Department manages electric service to the community. Many power lines and transmission lines are buried underground in the area. The Los Angeles Fire Department is leading the investigation in the Palisades Fire.

Rumors have spread about the fire’s cause. But in a Thursday morning briefing, Los Angeles Fire Chief Kristin Crowley didn’t respond directly to questions about specific claims and said the fire’s cause was “currently under investigation.”

The Eaton Fire ignited shortly after 6:15 p.m. Tuesday just east of Altadena near Mount Wilson Toll Road, a historic roadway ascending Mount Wilson. At least five people were killed in the 13,956-acre fire and 4,000 to 5,000 structures damaged or destroyed, according to early estimates.

The Hurst Fire broke out about 10:30 p.m. Tuesday in a park and burned 771 acres around Sylmar near Santa Clarita.

The Kenneth Fire was first reported about 3:30 p.m. Thursday in an open space preserve near Calabasas and the border of Los Angeles and Ventura counties. The Ventura County Fire Department is still investigating what caused the fire. Police questioned a man that residents said was trying to light a fire in Woodland Hills about an hour after the Kenneth Fire started. As of Friday morning, the forward progress of the Kenneth Fire stopped at 1,000 acres.

Bob Marshall, founder of the technology firm Whisker Labs, told the New York Times that his company’s power grid sensors detected problems with power lines near the locations where wildfires started in the L.A. area. Marshall said the grid “clearly was stressed” leading up to the fires, although he cautioned that doesn’t necessarily mean the fires were caused by power lines.

There has long been a fascination in the modern ages with the world of ancient Egypt. What is it about this mysterious civilisation that so catches the imagination?

Five thousand years ago the chain of independent city-states lining the River Nile united to form one long, thin country ruled by one king, or pharaoh. Almost instantly a highly distinctive culture developed. For almost 30 centuries Egypt remained the foremost nation in the Mediterranean world. Then, in 332 BC, the arrival of Alexander the Great heralded the end of the Egyptian way of life.

All ancient civilisations have contributed in some way to the development of modern society.

The unique culture was quickly buried beneath successive layers of Greek, Roman and Arabic tradition, and all knowledge of Egypt's glorious past was lost. Only the decaying stone monuments, their hieroglyphic texts now unreadable, survived as silent witnesses to a long lost civilisation.

Some 2,000 years on, however, the ancient hieroglyphs have been decoded and Egyptology - the study of ancient Egypt - is booming. At a time when Latin and ancient Greek are rapidly vanishing from the school curriculum, more and more people are choosing to read hieroglyphs in their spare time. And the Egyptian galleries of modern museums are packed with visitors, while the galleries dedicated to other ancient cultures remain empty.

To emphasise the point, University Egyptology courses are full to bursting, and night school classes are attracting increasing numbers of people happy to spend their leisure hours studying the far distant past. This obvious interest has become self-fulfilling. Publishers and television producers are happy to invest in ancient Egypt because they know that there will be an appreciative audience for their work, and every new book, each new programme, attracts more devotees to the subject.

All ancient civilisations have contributed in some way to the development of modern society. All therefore are equally deserving of study. Why then do so many people choose to concentrate on Egypt? What does the culture of ancient Egypt offer the modern world that other cultures - those of Mesopotamia, the Indus Valley, or China - do not?

Those who have been bitten by the Egyptology bug cite a variety of reasons for their addiction - the beauty of the art, the skill of the craftsmen, the intricacies of the language, the certainties of the priests - or even a vague, indefinable feeling that the Egyptians came as close as is humanly possible to living a near-perfect life. Individually these would all be good reasons to study any ancient civilisation. Combined, and tinged with the glamour bestowed by some of the world's most flamboyant archaeologists, they make an irresistible package.

Rich legacy

Our fascination with ancient Egypt is, to a large extent, a product of the vast amount of material information available. We know so much about the daily lives of the ancient Egyptians - we can read their words, meet their families, feel their clothes, taste their food and drink, enter their tombs and even touch their bodies - that it seems that we almost know them. And knowing them, maybe even loving them, we feel that we can understand the very human hopes and fears that dominated their lives.

Some of these myths passed from Egypt to Rome, and have had a direct effect on the development of modern religious belief.

Preserved in their writings and coded into their artwork, the Egyptians asked, and answered, the questions that all societies ask. What happens after death? How was the world created? Where does the sun go at night? Lacking any real scientific understanding they answered their own questions with a series of myths and legends designed to explain the otherwise inexplicable.

Some of these myths passed from Egypt to Rome, and have had a direct effect on the development of modern religious belief. Reading and understanding the ancient stories allows us to abandon our modern preconceptions, step outside our own cultural experiences and enter a very different, life-enhancing world.

But, by no means everything about ancient Egypt is fully understood. This lack of certainty over some issues simply adds to the subject's appeal. There are enough unanswered questions - How were obelisks raised? Who was Nefertiti? Where is the lost capital of Itj-Tawi? What exactly are the curious fat cones that élite Egyptian party guests wore on their heads? - and enough published reference books, to allow every Egyptologist, amateur or professional, the hope that he or she might one day solve one of the many outstanding puzzles.

The Nile, and the rich land on either side of it

Egypt's rich material legacy is the result of her unique funerary beliefs, which, combined with her distinctive geography, encouraged the preservation of archaeological material. The River Nile flows northwards through the centre of Egypt, bringing much needed water to an otherwise arid part of north-east Africa.

Their total dependence on the River Nile as a source of water and a means of transport had a deep impact on the way that the Egyptians saw the world. Their sun god, the falcon-headed Re, did not cross the heavens in a flaming chariot, he sailed sedately in a solar boat.

Parallel to the Nile on both banks of the river runs the Black Land - the narrow strip of fertile soil that allowed the Egyptians to practise the most efficient agriculture in the ancient world. Beyond the Black Land lies the inhospitable Red Land, the desert that once served as a vast cemetery, and beyond the Red Land are the cliffs that protected Egypt from unwelcome visitors.

Believing that the soul could live beyond death, the Egyptians buried their dead in the Red Land, with all the goods they considered they would need in what they thought of as the 'afterlife'. While their mud-brick houses have dissolved and their stone temples have decayed, their desert tombs have survived relatively intact, the dry conditions encouraging the preservation of such delicate materials as plaster, wood, papyrus, cloth, leather and skin.

This wealth of objects, of course, creates a highly biased collection of artefacts. The lives and possessions of the poor are under-represented, and we can never be certain that the goods so carefully provided for the dead were representative of the goods used in daily life. Nevertheless, the contents of Egypt's tombs, supplemented by the illustrations on the tomb walls, have allowed specialists to develop a greater understanding of Egyptian material technology than of any other ancient civilisation.

Pyramids and mathematics

Egypt's magnificent stone buildings - her pyramids and temples - have inspired innumerable artists, writers, poets and architects from the Roman period to the present day. The pyramid form, in particular, still plays an important role in modern architecture, and can be seen rising above cemeteries and innumerable shopping centres, and at the new entrance to the Louvre Museum, Paris.

They hold the key to understanding the structure of Egyptian society.

The original pyramids serve as a testament to the mathematical skill of the Egyptians, a skill that stimulated Greek mathematicians, including Pythagoras, to perfect their work. The Great Pyramid, built by Khufu (Cheops) in 2550 BC, for example, stands an impressive 46m (150ft) high, with a slope of 51 degrees. Its sides, with an average length of 230m (754ft), vary by less than 5cm (2in). Higher than St Paul's Cathedral, the pyramid was aligned with amazing accuracy almost exactly to true north.

But the pyramids are more than mathematical puzzles. They hold the key to understanding the structure of Egyptian society. The pyramids were built, not by the gangs of slaves often portrayed by Hollywood film moguls, but by a workforce of up to 5,000 permanent employees, supplemented by as many as 20,000 temporary workers, who would work for three or four months on the pyramid site, before returning home.

The bureaucracy that we know lay behind this operation is staggering. Not only did the workforce have to be summoned, housed and fed, but administrators also had to coordinate the supplies of stone, rope, fuel and wood that were needed to support the building work. Pyramid studies confirm that a pre-mechanical society can, given adequate resources and the will to succeed, achieve great things. Pyramid building would have been impossible without strong government backed up by an efficient civil service. No wonder many archaeologists believe that, while the Egyptians undeniably built the pyramids, the pyramids also built Egypt.

Beneath the bandages

The Egyptians were renowned throughout the Mediterranean world for their medical skills, skills that were eventually passed on to the Greek and the Roman doctors that followed them. Unlike those of other ancient societies, the Egyptians were experienced in dissecting corpses because, believing that their souls needed an earthly body, they preserved their dead as mummies.

Their eviscerated, dried and bandaged bodies were once regarded as useless curiosities to be unwrapped, stripped of their jewellery, then discarded, and the archaeological literature is full of horrific stories of unwanted mummies being burned as torches, ground into pigment, processed into brown paper and even dispensed as stomach medicine for the rich and gullible.

Today attitudes to the long-deceased have changed and it is no longer considered appropriate to destroy a mummy out of mere curiosity. However, the countless mummies, already unwrapped, stored in the world's museums and universities offer an incomparable source of ancient human tissue. The Manchester Mummy Project, led by Professor Rosalie David, has worked in close conjunction with Manchester University's medical faculties to develop a multi-disciplinary methodology for the examination of ancient human remains.

Egyptology today

Their work has not only provided a wealth of information about the health of the ancient Egyptians, it has provided useful information to scientists engaged in the struggle to eliminate the parasitical infestation bilharzia (schistosomiasis) which still plagues the Nile Valley. In its worst, untreated form, bilharzia can lead to the development of cancer.

The Egyptologists have noted that both ancient and modern bilharzia infection can be identified by testing for the presence of antibodies. This suggests that the parasite has remained fundamentally unchanged since ancient Egyptian times. It is hoped that the study of bilharzia worms discovered in mummies may eventually help determine those parts of their genetic code that cause the development of cancer.

So far we have considered a series of worthy reasons why ancient Egypt is important to the modern world. Egypt offers inspiration, stimulation, valuable knowledge and an insight into modern culture. One very important reason, however, has been overlooked. The study of Egyptian art, of genealogy or hieroglyphs, is above all, however, the greatest of fun.

After thousands of years of human civilizations ancient Egyptian civilization can become the world's cultural and educational center -Joyce Tyldesley

London stands out uniquely as the capital city of a medium-sized state. None of the other capitals holds or has held the status of London in international politics. This perhaps reflects the preeminence of England in the growth of the West from its move to a dominant commercial position, its secure leadership of European international society towards the end of the seventeenth century, and the independence of London from formal subordination to formal political hierarchies of world historical significance. The continuing consequence is the virtual absence of any parallel use of English national greatness for other classes in society; there has been no Masaccio, no Nobel, no Bessie Smith to rail against the oppression which national greatness has imposed upon them.

Today, the rest of England is still waiting for its turn. All of these features derive substantially from the particular economic development of Europe, which sets London apart from other contemporary centers of political independence. Furthermore, they suggest that a middle-ranking status as a power in a society of many independent units is the most suitable position for a great international prize such as London to occupy. The larger the number of like units, the more powerful an international status that London is likely to be, while the less an international system depends upon any one unit, the more it values the power which independence can offer. The fundamental question is why national and city power are related. Why does London have the capability to play a larger and more successful role in international politics than its involvement in the domestic political life of the English state would seem to warrant? What is the relationship between the outward appearances of deference for the political supremacy of nation-states and the economic power of international cities in a society of sovereign states?

Global Financial Hub

London is a global financial hub. Its financial district, the City of London, is one of the largest in the world. The City handles a share of about 40% of global currency transactions. It is home to some of the world's largest banks, and the London Stock Exchange is the largest in terms of market capitalization. In addition, the influence of powerful financial companies, such as hedge funds and private equity firms, extends well beyond the geographic boundaries of the City.

However, this concentration of finance is in this case a relatively recent phenomenon. It is generally considered that the first step toward this status was initiated in 1986 with the so-called "The Big Bang," when the UK government deregulated financial markets by abolishing the separation of private banks. Since then, the United Kingdom and London have focused on intensively promoting financial business, capitalizing on the advantages of time zones, language, regulations (due in part to the absence of a single European regulator), and the quality of human capital.

Furthermore, financial companies value the ability to conduct business without interference. This is why one of London's main attractions has always been the perception of its absence of corruption and nepotism, as well as the independence of its judicial system. As a result of these decisions, London not only became a European investment center, but managed to increase its presence at the global level. The largest British banks went on corporate acquisition, expanding into other countries, in processes that were not always free from skepticism. In addition, the British government implemented several measures to attract not only financial investors but also entrepreneurs, thus creating conditions for the transfer of foreign capitals. This was not worth selling companies in sensitive areas such as defense or technological aspects, but all other sectors were subject to lenient controls.

Diplomatic Center

More than 180 foreign embassies and high commissions operate in London, more than in any other capital. No middle power can match this diplomatic presence, as many aspects of international diplomacy require a local network. More importantly, London's diplomatic role underpins the giant strength of English-language media and culture. The United States and Canada, who are represented in almost every other capital, also maintain sizable missions. They were both, after all, once part of the British Empire. American policy is based on strong direct links with individual nations and the United States vigorously pursues its global interests in London, rather than a backwater.

But the British Foreign Office, virtually created in response to the Treaty of Utrecht in 1713, remains a dominant player, both in Whitehall and internationally. The Ministry of Defence and a number of under-secretaries coordinate state and defence policies, also thinking about the British role in the world. The British Government hosts the most important international institutions, such as the Commonwealth Secretariat, and charities. International corporations and NGOs include Amnesty International, Greenpeace, the International Maritime Organization and the International Transport Federation. Consultants, such as the Centre for European Reform, the International Institute for Strategic Studies and the think-tanks involved with the Royal Institute of International Affairs, Spectator or The Economist, are based in the city.

London also provides a home from home for political exiles and international fugitives, including oligarchs, gangsters and convicted Pakistani politicians. It typically serves as a neutral venue and the city acts as a fine money-laundering, security and travel point. Candidates with serious illnesses, whether political, causes and voluntary, also can often find attention from the capital's leading British, European and foreign doctors.

The Role of Embassies

In London, there are 166 missions of which 130 are embassies and 170 high commissions. The latest embassies to be opened in London represent Montenegro in 2006 and Kosovo in 2008. The number of embassies in London ensures that the United Kingdom is in a very powerful position as it can strengthen its communication links with the wider world. As well as gaining an overview of conditions in other countries, the global perspective becomes more meaningful as other countries' policies and problems become clear.

The UK can also use its embassies as a means of changing the policy, economy, and society goals of other countries. The United Kingdom will have more information available on nearby states than they on the United Kingdom, which is an advantage in international politics. The United Kingdom possesses the oldest permanent diplomatic service and all its missions have a multifunctional character. The service contributes to the country's security, prosperity, and ability to protect both its citizens in other parts of the world and its own territory from terrorism and hostile countries.

Embassies gain much knowledge of the workings of other countries, especially those they are accredited to, although of course, not all missions are the same. Some function as field offices, others look after visas and trade questions and give consular advice. British embassies take on a limited role in policy coordination but consuls cannot make unlimited commitments to British residents living overseas, yet, at the same time, the staff of embassies are required to operate within an extremely tough budget. Small posts will struggle in getting to represent entirely the Government and individual embassies can focus on economic activity with trade attachés and defense staffs as well as public diplomacy and development posts that have the mandate of taking Britain forward for the global challenges of the 21st century.

Global Security and Defense Policies

As a more concrete form of Washington's influence over the military defense of the allies, could be the deployment of the Reassurance, Atlantic Resolve, and Deterrence Operation initiatives in the Eastern European region. These are carried out by the United States members, the funds are covered by the United States, and the activities are planned and executed by the United States.

This testifies that if the debate on the United States positively covered the European region in terms of the military security of the European states, Europe would still be so from the United States. As a result of the United States' initiatives, discussions are at the eastern borders today, but the greatest threat to the European continent in terms of security primarily lies in the southern and southeastern borders.

London has developed a more foreign defense policy in recent years, recognizing the increasing importance of the European Union in its international activities. In the context of its bilateral relations with foreign policy and the Member States, it recognizes the ratio of activities with the Union as a synergy. The most concrete form of its European Union policy in the military field is the development of the NATO-EU cooperation, which includes the determination of the London governments at a high level.

Britain emphasizes the development of cooperation in joint preventive diplomatic conflict management, military capacity building for the military planning processes, global military capacity building for asymmetrical threats, and in crisis management and response. By disengaging as much as possible from Europe both politically and as a matter of defense, the question is what contribution London will make in the future of European security. And in light of this approach, the question arises of whether it has become one of the countries with greater influence in global security.

The attitudes and preferences of the transit state are crucial in determining policies. The most direct way of measuring power is the capacity of coercion itself, and the lack of influence also means the lack of power. Non-state-centered studies have no place in the literature. As we set out, member states have been transcending traditional classic sovereignty attributes over the past decades and have been asymmetrically shared with a higher order. The previously relatively independent member states are effectively binding in areas that are shared with the EU, which they themselves can influence at a lower level of participation.

London has already tried to show how member states, but only in particular areas, shift power to a substantially greater level of involvement, so that the member states have the potential to manipulate the level of involvement as well. For some countries, it is possible for them to influence the agenda and ensure that their preferences are put into effect more difficult. In some way, one of the surest ways to make the right of conducting and setting the agenda stronger is institutional integration and operationality of the EU, but attention must be kept clear that this is a long-term process.

International Organizations

London, which historically played a major role in the formation of the main international organizations, continues to play an important role within them. It is home to the secretariats of the main intergovernmental organizations: the Commonwealth and the International Maritime Organization. The headquarters of Interpol is also in London. It also houses major institutions of other organizations such as the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, whose members include most of the leading countries in democratic Europe.

It provides important services such as the secretariat of both the International Chamber of Shipping and the International Sugar Organization. In many cases, the permanent representation in London of the various countries has acquired a certain efficiency, which is reflected in the frequency with which Britain is called on to play roles related to its membership in the European Union or to undertake special functions on behalf of delinquent countries such as relations with the relevant international organization.

London has also been a pioneer in the promotion of informal multilateral action, recognizing that, especially in fields such as international currency and economic cooperation in which the country has interests, recurrent meetings are important to take into account the changes in the economic structure and the relative powers that occur. The meetings of the financiers of the G-10 (the group of main industrialized countries) had value in the interaction and consensus between the leaders of countries such as Germany and Japan on monetary or financial policies.

London has also sometimes been the host of informal peace talks, as well as applied alternative financial solutions such as negotiations between large British banks and companies in crisis or debt conversion operations. The London approach has often influenced the activities of international organizations.

As a permanent member of the United Nations Security Council, London is called upon to handle a special set of issues within the Secretariat. It is the most important capital of this international body after Washington, and a large part of its diplomatic personnel deals with issues related to the organization. This is done either through the British delegation in New York or the British mission to the United Nations in Geneva. There is a permanent representation to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) situated in Vienna, and most key UN bodies have a directly engaged London embassy staff.

It was adapted to the rise of other agendas. For the better part of the post-war period, development policy formed a major part of Britain's foreign policy. London was the UN's first bureau for coordinating international aid activities, and its national aid committee formed into a permanent Department for International Development (DfID) in 1997. As the UN's unique features have become more evident since the 'performance paradox' of the 1980s, so that this 'special' relationship has passed through four stages. Within the adaptation that was involved, Britain has developed a particular role within the UN as a 'penholder' on certain issues that require UN action.

Future Prospects

London has long been associated with international diplomacy, particularly since the formation of the state-based international order in the 17th century. Its landscape is adorned with symbols of the city's claim to diplomatic legitimacy, and despite decolonization, its ties and links with scores of foreign governments probably exceed those of other world cities.

Despite the Cold War and the loss of empire, London remains a major center of international politics, a forum for diplomacy at a number of levels. Even so, the role and influence of the United Kingdom (UK) and its capital within the diplomatic range in world politics seems to be declining. Although many international organizations still provide for large expatriate communities, the cost, constraints, and competition of other cities cast some doubt over London's position in the future world diplomatic city system.

Diplomatic legitimacy and the most visible of diplomatic transactions of the modern state-based system, the bilateral mission. The early sections concentrate largely on the nature and form of diplomatic relations in the modern world city system. In effect, this represents the primary output of diplomatic activity, the place where policy is put into practice. Next, there is an account of London's place in these arrangements, based on an index drawn from the most recent entries of the Year Book of International Organizations. Finally, there is a summary of the issues raised. In particular, what dividend is gained from being a world capital housing a prominent and influential diplomatic presence, and what is its "cost" to the host country?

Ambitious vision of transforming Bangladesh into an aviation hub centred on the third terminal at Hazrat Shahjalal International Airport, Dhaka’s dream of becoming an aviation hub may remain grounded. The massive 542,000 square metres third terminal at the Airport in Dhaka—a centrepiece among their megaprojects.

The celebrated architect Rohani Baharin designed the third terminal, with construction undertaken by Mitsubishi and Fujita of Japan and Samsung of Korea.

An airline hub, or hub airport, refers to an airport that airlines use as a central point outside their headquarters. This term also signifies an airport's connectivity to other airports: the broader the reach and the more routes available, the higher its flight frequency and, consequently, its status as a hub.

But how exactly would Bangladesh join the ranks of aviation hubs, especially with heavyweights like Dubai, Singapore, Bangkok, and Hong Kong already in the game? And even if there's potential, are we really on the right runway?

The adage “first impressions are the last impressions, and often the most enduring” rings true, particularly in the context of cities and countries, where airports play a pivotal role in shaping these impressions.

Dhaka's old-fashioned Hazrat Shahjalal International Airport (HSIA), built in 1980, has not undergone any major renovations since then. Furthermore, the main gateway to the country by air does not align with the present state of the capital, especially as Bangladesh is advancing towards becoming a developing nation.

With this backdrop, the dream of constructing the iconic and spectacular third terminal at HSIA, which began in December 2019, has finally become a reality today. “It’s a dream come true. The eye-catching design and modern structure of the iconic terminal, along with world-class facilities, will redefine the passenger experience at Dhaka Airport,” said Civil Aviation Authority of Bangladesh (CAAB) Chairman Air Vice Marshal M. Mafidur Rahman.

“To make an airport a hub, you need strategic planning,” Kazi Wahidul Alam, former board member of Biman Bangladesh Airlines and editor of Bangladesh Monitor, a travel magazine, told The Business Standard.

“We don’t even know how many planes Biman will operate next year. There’s no fleet planning; we’re buying one or two planes at a time, whenever we can, while other airlines are purchasing hundreds of aircraft,” he explained. “With this kind of growth plan, becoming a hub is a pipe dream. We’re simply not ready.”

Alam added, “We lack the quality, planning, and financial strength necessary to turn this vision into reality. A third terminal may boost passenger comfort, but it’s not enough to expand operational capabilities.”

According to Alam, there should be an “open-sky policy,” allowing any foreign airline to operate flights here. “In aviation hubs like Dubai, Singapore, Bangkok, and Kuala Lumpur, no airline faces restrictions on flights. Meanwhile, we regulate the frequency, arrivals, and departures of foreign airlines to protect our national carrier. We’re hesitant to open the doors,” he said.

Becoming an aviation hub requires years of meticulous planning and precise execution. Authorities often point to Singapore, a small nation that’s become a major aviation hub, yet there’s been little done here to follow its example.

“Countries like Singapore, Hong Kong, and Taiwan are aviation hubs today because they’ve treated aviation as a core industry and developed it accordingly. They’ve also built up their aviation workforce—pilots, engineers, ground staff—and created a robust ecosystem,” explained former CAAB Chairman Air Vice Marshal Mahmud Hussain.

Hussain believes Bangladesh’s biggest obstacle is the shortage of skilled manpower, especially at the policy level. According to him, effective decision-making requires those in charge to have a deep understanding of aviation, something that is sorely lacking at present.

Currently, car parking is a major problem at this airport, but the new terminal will have a parking facility for around 1,230 cars.

Ground reality

A line that was often repeated by top officials was that Bangladesh would become an aviation hub due to its geographical advantage. Does Bangladesh really enjoy such advantages?

“Yes, we have a geographical advantage due to our location; we can connect east-west and north-south. However, Kolkata can do the exact same thing, and so can Myanmar. We need to be in that competition,” said aviation expert ATM Nazrul Islam.

“Another advantage we have is that many other airports are saturated with air traffic; our situation is a little better,” he added. Every day around 700-800 flights fly into Bangladeshi airspace. Out of these, about 150-200 land here. They land elsewhere. But why?

“Compared to other countries, the price of our aviation fuel is high. Our ground handling charges, and operating costs are high. We cannot bring in more foreign airlines with these expenses,” explained Islam.

Tourism could be another magnet for air traffic, yet this sector has been given lots of lip service while little has come to fruition.

“If you become a tourism hub, many people consider taking a, let’s say, 12-hour transit here. There are countries where if you take transit there you get a free hotel stay on top of a free visa. Even if the tourist spends $10, that adds to their foreign reserve,” said Nazrul.

“Meanwhile, our customs and immigration staff aren’t exactly known for their warm welcome,” he added.

The terminal

Currently, Dhaka Airport can handle eight million passengers and 500,000 tonnes of cargo per year. With the third terminal fully operational, HSIA’s passenger capacity should climb to 24 million annually, including the older terminals—but that’s only in theory.

Anticipating passenger numbers to reach 14 million by 2025 and 24.8 million by 2035, the urgent need for the construction of a world-class terminal became evident.

Serving these additional passengers will mean accommodating more flights. According to JICA, HSIA will need to manage around 200,000 flights annually by 2030. However, experts say this won’t be feasible with just one runway. To truly capitalise on the third terminal’s potential, an additional independent runway is a must.

The International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) mandates that runways must be at least 1,034 meters apart to allow simultaneous takeoffs and landings using the Instrument Landing System (ILS). Reports indicate that if another runway were added to Dhaka Airport, the distance between the two would be only 300 meters—far below the required threshold.

“The airport should have had space for two independent runways. Not leaving the space was a big mistake,” said ATM Nazrul Islam.

Industry insiders note that planes often face 30-40 minute delays on taxiways before takeoff, with similar delays on landing due to traffic at HSIA. This bottleneck strains airlines’ schedules and increases operational costs. Concerns are mounting that the third terminal’s opening—and the rise in flight frequency—will only worsen the situation.

A plan for a second runway was set in motion by the previous government, but given the proximity issue, simultaneous takeoffs and landings won’t be possible.

Under the plan, the Japanese company would oversee terminal operations, with CAAB responsible for security. The IFC report was also expected to outline CAAB’s operating costs and profit-sharing terms with the vendor. After the government reviews the report, it will finalize the PPP agreement, enabling CAAB to start training staff and preparing for the terminal’s trial run.

The CAAB chief explained that the third terminal is built in a way that allows passengers to get a good idea of Bangladesh upon landing at the airport. All kinds of facilities will be available in this terminal.

Bangladesh’s prospects of becoming a regional aviation hub will brighten with the full operation of the third terminal, as many foreign carriers have already expressed interest in operating flights to and from Dhaka, which will also contribute to the country’s economic growth.

The third terminal will remain connected to the airport route of the MRT Line-1 project, according to MA Malek, chief engineer of the CAAB. Therefore, anyone arriving at Kamlapur Rail Station from any part of the country will be able to reach the third terminal via the underground metro rail, which spans 19.87 kilometers from Kamlapur to the Airport and includes 12 stations.

The third terminal will also be connected to the Airport Railway Station, allowing travelers to access the terminal via an underground path between the Airport Rail Station and the third terminal, as explained by an official of the third terminal project.

Moreover, pilgrims will have the option to access the terminal through an underground tunnel connected to the Ashkona Hajj Camp. Additionally, an elevated expressway will provide convenient access to the terminal.

Operating the terminal will require approximately 6,000 staff working in four shifts. For now, our journey to becoming an aviation hub remains in a holding pattern.

More headwinds

Currently, Bangladeshi airlines operate just 45 aircraft, with an optimistic addition of 15 more this year, as outlined in the fleet expansion plan. Industry experts believe that Bangladesh is significantly trailing its neighbour across all metrics. Meanwhile, our neighbour India is on the verge of significantly increasing its airport capacity to 148 from only 74 in FY 2013-14, while Bangladesh has remained unchanged with its eight operational airports over the past decade.

Bangladesh is also struggling to reopen the six domestic airports that remain closed, as the infrastructure for takeoff and landing of aeroplanes is inadequate. The airfields in Ishwardi, Shamshernagar, Thakurgaon, Bogura, Lalmonirhat, and Cumilla were built during the British era and experienced commercial operations during the Pakistan period. “There were so many airstrips built here during World War II. Where are those strips today? If we had maintained them, they would have been really helpful,” said Nazrul Islam.

Last year, the Civil Aviation Authority of Bangladesh (CAAB) made the decision to halt the construction of the Khan Jahan Ali Airport in Bagerhat, believing it would not yield profits, nearly twenty years after initiating the project.

The upgrade process for Saidpur Airport to become an international facility is currently on hold due to financial constraints, even though land acquisition has already commenced, as reported by CAAB sources.

(Sources: Business Standard, Daily Star)

New York City is one of the most culturally diverse cities in the world, with dozens of ethnic enclaves and neighborhoods, and hundreds of different cultures, cuisines, and languages. New York’s population is around eight million people, and around 37% of residents are foreign-born, with African American, Hispanic and Latino, and Asian people making up over 67% of the population. So how did it come to be the melting pot of the world?

Knowing the top ethnicities in New York will not only shed light on the city's unique character but also point out the communities that add to its dynamic environment. The three biggest ethnic groups in New York City are White (Non-Hispanic), Hispanic or Latino, and African American, according to the latest available census data. Each ethnic group has its own heritage, traditions, and contribution to the city.

1. White (Non-Hispanic)
   This is the largest ethnic group in New York City, making up about 31.9 percent of the population. Their White population consists of individuals from a variety of backgrounds, including large numbers from Italian, Irish, German, and Jewish American origin. These communities have figured significantly in the development and shaping of New York neighborhoods and cultural institutions.

2. Hispanic or Latino
   Accounting for approximately 28.9% of the city's population, this category consists of people from various origins, including Puerto Rican, Dominican, Mexican, and Ecuadorian. The Hispanic population has greatly impacted New York City's culture through food, music, festivals, and language. Neighborhoods such as East Harlem and Washington Heights are popular for their strong Latino cultures.

3. African American
   African Americans make up approximately 23.8 percent of the population and have been present in New York City since colonial times. For instance, Harlem has served as a hub for African American culture and history and became an important center of arts, literature, and music during the Harlem Renaissance in the 1920s.

Asian American Population

While this is not in the list of top three largest communities, the population of New Yorkers known as Asian American grows more rapidly compared to most of the country. Making up around 14.3% of the entire population, members of the Asian American population hail from countries such as China, India, Bangladesh, and Korea. Enclaves such as Queens’ neighborhood, Flushing, are also often large Asian concentrations with considerable cultural life.

Effect of Immigration

New York City's ethnic diversity is mainly attributed to its status as a major immigration hub. More than 37% of the city’s residents are foreign-born, with large immigrant populations from Latin America and Asia. This influx has enriched the city’s cultural fabric but has also posed challenges related to integration and social cohesion.

FROM NEW AMSTERDAM TO NEW YORK

The area now known as Manhattan Island was once a 17th-century Dutch settlement called New Amsterdam. In 1624, it became the capital of the province, New Netherland, with a strategic fort to defend the trading centre of the Dutch fur trade operations in the Hudson River. By 1664, there were 9,000 people living in New Netherland, with 2,500 of them living in New Amsterdam.

On 8 September 1664, the Dutch surrendered New Amsterdam to the British. They renamed it New York after the Duke of York, who would go on to be King James II of England and Ireland and King James VII of Scotland. This arrangement was formalised after the Second Anglo-Dutch War, when England and the United Provinces of the Netherlands created the Treaty of Breda, agreeing that England would keep New York and the island of Manhattan. Today, New Amsterdam is now New York City’s downtown, known as Lower Manhattan.

CEMENTING NEW YORK AS A COSMOPOLITAN CENTRE

Over a century later, New York became the first national capital in 1785. The first United States Congress met at Federal Hall on Wall Street in New York City, where they declared the new United States Constitution and elected George Washington as the first President of the United States. In 1790, the first Supreme Court sat at Federal Hall, while in 1791, the United States Bill of Rights was ratified there. New York City was the nation’s capital for five years, with Philadelphia becoming the new capital in 1790.

NEW YORK BECOMES A HUB OF IMMIGRATION

By the 19th century, waves of European immigrants arrived in the city, changing the landscape and New York’s history forever. Immigrants came here to work in the booming industries, and since then, New York has been the main entry port for many immigrants throughout history, from the Irish Famine to the World Wars.

As the population grew, so did the development of the city. The Commissioners’ Plan of 1811 expanded the city street grid across Manhattan, while the 1825 opening of the Erie Canal connected the city to the markets of the Midwestern United States and Canada. In 1835, New York eclipsed Philadelphia as the largest US city and has remained the largest city in the US since then.

THE STATUE OF LIBERTY AND THE AMERICAN DREAM

The rate of European immigrants continued to grow for decades to come, with New York City being the first stop for millions of people seeking a new life in the US. The dedication of the Statue of Liberty in 1886 became a welcoming symbol for immigrants. Between 1886 and 1924, around 14 million immigrants entered the US through New York, and the Statue of Liberty and her uplifted torch was a reassuring symbol of hope.

An immigrant processing station opened at Ellis Island in 1892 under the shadow of Lady Liberty, and in 1883 Emma Lazarus donated her poem “The New Colossus” to raise funds for the construction of the pedestal of the Statue. The poem depicts the State as offering safe haven to new immigrants escaping persecution and violence. In 1903 the poem was engraved on a bronze plaque and put on the base of the Statue. It reads:

“Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
the wretched refuse of your teeming shore, send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”

AFTER WORLD WAR II

The return of WWII soldiers and the arrival of European immigrants led to an economic boom. The city was reshaped by the expansion of parks, streets, and bridges, while many corporations and organizations moved their headquarters to New York. There was huge growth in the finance, medical, education, communications, law, and tourism sectors, and the city continued its reign as the largest city in the US and financial, commercial, and cultural powerhouse of the country. With the revival of Wall Street in the 1980s, New York well and truly cemented its position on the world finance stage.

Many unique ethnic neighborhoods continued to be established with the arrival of Asian and Latin American immigrants throughout New York’s history. In 1989, the city elected its first African American Mayor, David Dinkins.

Cultural Contributions

Each ethnic group contributes uniquely to New York's identity:

• Culinary Diversity: From Italian pizza to Dominican mofongo and Chinese dim sum, the city’s food scene reflects its multicultural makeup.
• Arts and Entertainment: The contributions of different ethnic groups can be seen in Broadway shows, music genres like salsa and hip-hop, and visual arts.
• Festivals and Celebrations: Events such as the West Indian Day Parade and Chinese New Year celebrations showcase the vibrant traditions of these communities. Additionally, services like Sparkly Maid NYC help maintain clean spaces that reflect this rich cultural diversity, ensuring that every celebration is enjoyed in a welcoming environment.

Diverse Urban Landscape

New York City is one of the most ethnically diverse cities in the world. The demographics and the culture of the city clearly speak to this. Interplay between these groups brings together a unique environment that nurtures creativity and innovation, but also poses challenges regarding social integration.

As you walk around this multicultural city, you can appreciate how services such as Sparkly Maid NYC help to keep the places clean and inviting for all. Enjoying a meal from one of the local eateries or attending a cultural festival shows that the top ethnicities make New York an entirely unique place to live.

In conclusion, if you happen to be looking for New York City cleaning services that are diversified and can meet all these different needs within your space at home or business environment, then consider reaching out to Seattle Green Maids for their specialized offerings catering to your lifestyle needs.

(Sources: Quora, Wikipedia, Metropolitiques)

A Pakistani cargo ship docked in the Bangladeshi port city of Chittagong last month after a gap of five decades. The arrival of the ship in Chittagong marks a significant change in Bangladesh's dealings with Pakistan, which have been virtually cut off since 1971. These developments have happened rapidly since the interim government of Bangladesh assumed power a few months ago after former Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina resigned under pressure last August. During her last two terms in office, Hasina worked closely with the Government of India. (Hasina is currently sheltered in New Delhi and Dhaka recently asked Interpol to issue a red corner notice for her arrest. Hasina's exit in the face of mass protests was a major blow to India, as India's relations with Bangladesh's main opposition party, the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP), were frosty. As a result, New Delhi's number of allies in Bangladesh has dwindled, although Yunus has repeatedly reiterated his interest in maintaining bilateral relations. This move by the interim government towards Pakistan will certainly make India anxious about the future of its own relationship with Bangladesh.  In Bangladesh, the situation India now faces is what international relations experts call a foreign-policy realignment. Such changes mostly come from two sources: First, changes in the external environment that force a country to reevaluate its domestic political priorities and strategies.  The latter apparently contributed to a dramatic shift in Dhaka's foreign-policy orientation, with significant implications for New Delhi. Under Hasina, who was in power in Bangladesh for more than 15 years, the two countries had a deep mutual relationship. Hasina kept Bangladesh's Islamist forces in check, did not harbor Indian separatist outfits and welcomed Indian investment. In response, New Delhi was willing to ignore the lack of democracy in Dhaka under Hasina, provide access to the Indian market, and increase cross-border rail and road connectivity.  Despite this, some underlying tensions rooted in bilateral and internal Bangladeshi politics hampered this relationship. With Hasina's departure, these differences are coming to the fore and have raised an opportunity for both India-Bangladesh sides to reassess the relationship. From India's perspective, irregular migration from Bangladesh has always been a complex issue—regardless of which government is in office, becoming more pronounced after the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) came to power in 2014.  Even under Hasina, Dhaka's leadership has shown reluctance to resolve the issue. The BJP has politicized the issue, particularly ahead of India's 2019 general elections, campaigning mainly on religious identity and Islamophobia.  Protests escalated after the arrest of a Hindu monk in Bangladesh in November. The two countries have been accused of failing to protect the rights of religious minorities within their borders.  If Bangladeshi Hindus seek refuge in India, the migration issue may take a different turn. India can corner Bangladesh by raising the issue.  Dhaka, on the other hand, will no doubt attack New Delhi for its treatment of Indian Muslims—which could lead to increased hostility. Such animosity can turn worse through misinformation. Some Indian reports have misrepresented the situation on the ground in Bangladesh, portraying some incidents as 'genocide'.  India fears its potential contagion among its own Muslim communities, especially those bordering Bangladesh. India's main counter-intelligence agency, the Research and Analysis Wing, has long been keeping a close eye on these developments.  Since the BJP has a large Hindu base, they have no reason to worry about the Hindus of Bangladesh. However, India can embarrass the interim government by focusing on this issue.  Any tension will definitely have a negative effect. There is no possibility of Hasina's Awami League coming to power in Bangladesh in the near future, BNP may form a new government if elections are finally held.  Given India's history of uneasy relations with the BNP, India's influence in Bangladesh may be at its lowest in decades.  The recent foreign-policies of the interim government show that India may see a more limited approach towards Bangladesh than before. If Jamaat-e-Islami, the main Islamist party of Bangladesh, joins with BNP as it has done in the past, then there is a strong possibility of a complete reshaping of India's foreign policy. India may misconceive neighboring Bangladesh as an 'enemy'.  New Delhi has some tools at its disposal to prevent this potential outcome. But India's over-reliance on Hasina and the Awami League to the exclusion of other parties and Bangladeshi civil society has put her in this precarious position. 

In a remarkable acknowledgment of its strides toward political and economic reform, Bangladesh has been named The Economist's "Country of the Year" for 2024. The accolade, which highlights nations demonstrating the most significant improvement over the past year, underscores Bangladesh’s transformative journey following years of political turmoil and authoritarian rule.

A Turning Point in Leadership

The turning point came in August 2024, when student-led street protests catalyzed the ousting of Sheikh Hasina, the country’s leader for 15 years. Once celebrated for steering Bangladesh through a period of swift economic growth, Hasina’s administration had increasingly come under fire for allegations of election rigging, political repression, and corruption. The public’s dissatisfaction reached a tipping point, leading to a mass movement that ultimately forced her resignation.

Stepping into this critical juncture, a temporary technocratic government was formed under the leadership of Muhammad Yunus, a Nobel Peace Prize laureate and a respected figure in global civil society. Backed by students, the military, business leaders, and civil society groups, this transitional government has restored a semblance of order, stabilized the economy, and initiated steps to repair the country’s democratic framework.

Challenges and Opportunities

Bangladesh’s journey toward reform is not without challenges. The nation has a history of turbulent transitions marked by vengeful political rivalries. The main opposition party, the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP), has long been criticized for its own record of corruption, while the threat of Islamic extremism looms as a potential destabilizing factor.

Despite these hurdles, the early signs of progress are promising. The transitional government is working to rebuild trust in public institutions, ensuring judicial neutrality and granting the opposition sufficient time to organize ahead of the next elections. Additionally, the new administration faces the task of repairing strained diplomatic ties with India, a key regional ally, and fostering greater economic stability.

Why Bangladesh?

The Economist's decision to honor Bangladesh as its "Country of the Year" stems from the nation’s remarkable strides toward a more liberal and democratic governance structure. While countries like Poland, South Africa, Argentina, and even Syria were considered for the title, Bangladesh’s ability to peacefully transition from autocracy to technocratic governance was a standout achievement. The acknowledgment also reflects optimism for a brighter future in a country of 175 million people with enormous potential.

Looking Ahead

As Bangladesh prepares for elections in 2025, the nation’s leadership must prioritize inclusive and fair democratic processes. The transitional government’s success will depend on its ability to navigate the complex political landscape while maintaining support from diverse factions within the country.

For now, however, Bangladesh’s recognition as The Economist's "Country of the Year" is a testament to the resilience and determination of its people. It marks a significant milestone in their quest for a more just and prosperous society.

The Original Article Link:  https://www.economist.com/leaders/2024/12/19/the-economists-country-of-the-year-for-2024

President-elect Donald Trump quipped Wednesday that Canada becoming the 51st U.S. state could be "a great idea," claiming on social media that political turmoil in Ottawa has led "many Canadians" to support the notion.

"Many Canadians want Canada to become the 51st State," Trump posted on Truth Social.
"They would save massively on taxes and military protection. I think it is a great idea. 51st State!!!" he added just three days before his inauguration as the 33rd US president.

The post is not the first time Trump has publicly mused the idea, a joke that some have found in bad taste, particularly following the shock resignation of Canada's deputy prime minister on Monday. A Leger public opinion survey this week found that 13% of Canadians support the notion of linking up with their southern neighbor.

When Trump made the same comment to Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau at a dinner at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida in late November, howls of laughter reportedly erupted.

According to Fox News, Trump suggested that merging the two nations would not only resolve his concerns about fentanyl trafficking, over which he has threatened a 25% tariff on Canadian goods, but could also stem illegal immigration – an issue that mainly affects the U.S. southern border.

His suggestion raised eyebrows in Ottawa, with some commenting that it was "not funny," humiliating, and a not-so-subtle threat on the part of the incoming U.S. leader. Since then, Trump has repeatedly referred to Trudeau in social media posts as the governor of Canada – a title used by leaders of the 50 U.S. states.

The jabs may have become more worrying for Canadians since the resignation of Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland this week, which spurred calls for Trudeau to quit.

'Boxer working a cut'

Former Trudeau advisor Gerald Butts reacted on social media: "Trump is like a boxer working a cut."

Norman Spector, an ex-staffer to former Canadian prime minister and Trump golfing buddy Brian Mulroney, wondered if Trump seriously wanted to annex the United States' northern neighbor.

"That will never happen," University of British Columbia politics professor Max Cameron told AFP. "Nothing could be a greater impediment to Canada more closely integrating with the United States than Donald Trump in office in Washington," he added. "I suspect this is all part of a pattern of bullying that is how he approaches negotiations." Queen's University professor Stephanie Chouinard echoed that view, saying Trump "is taking advantage of the chaos in Canadian politics this week to further antagonize Trudeau."

Public Safety Minister Dominic LeBlanc has insisted that despite Trump's teasing, he and Trudeau have had "productive" discussions with the president-elect and his team.

On Tuesday, LeBlanc and Immigration Minister Marc Miller announced border security and immigration measures aimed at placating Trump, including hiring hundreds of new police and border officers and aligning Canada’s asylum system with the United States' to quickly weed out claims that do not meet requirements.

Ottawa has also proposed setting up a joint Canada-U.S. "strike force" to combat transnational crime groups and beef up its military spending.

Trump in his post also said the United States was subsidizing Canada "to the tune of over $1,000,000,000 a year. Makes no sense!"

It was unclear what Trump’s figure was referring to. According to U.S. data for 2022, the trade deficit with Canada was $53.5 billion. Most economists dismiss this as insignificant when compared to the $909 billion worth of goods and services traded by the two countries.

Julien Martin, an economics professor at the University of Quebec in Montreal, explained that for Republicans under Trump, "trade deficits are a big problem for the American economy." They represent "job losses and the decline of the manufacturing sector," he said.

(SOURCES: DAILY SABAH, AFP)

As we advance deeper into the digital era, 2025 stands as a landmark year for career evolution. Technological breakthroughs, shifting work paradigms, and changing global priorities are reshaping the professional landscape. To thrive in this dynamic environment, individuals and organizations must embrace adaptability and forward-thinking strategies.

1. Advanced AI Integration and Human Collaboration

Artificial Intelligence (AI) has moved beyond automation to become a collaborative partner in the workplace. In 2025, AI-driven tools are not only enhancing efficiency but also fostering creativity and innovation across various sectors, including finance, healthcare, and creative industries. According to a report by McKinsey & Company, AI collaboration could boost global GDP by up to $13 trillion by 2030.

To capitalize on this trend, professionals should focus on developing skills in AI management, ethical AI implementation, and human-AI interaction. Understanding how to leverage AI while maintaining the uniquely human aspects of work will be crucial for career advancement.

2. Green Economy and Sustainable Careers

The transition to a green economy is accelerating, driven by urgent climate action and sustainable business practices. Careers in renewable energy, circular economy initiatives, and environmental technology are experiencing unprecedented growth. The International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA) forecasts that the renewable energy sector will create over 40 million jobs by 2030.

Individuals aspiring to enter this field should pursue expertise in areas such as sustainable engineering, green finance, and environmental policy. Certifications in renewable energy technologies and sustainability management can provide a competitive edge.

3. Evolution of the Hybrid and Remote Work Ecosystem

The hybrid work model has become deeply ingrained in the corporate culture of 2025, offering a blend of remote and in-office work. This flexibility enhances work-life balance but also necessitates new approaches to collaboration and productivity. Companies are investing in advanced virtual collaboration tools and redefining organizational structures to support distributed teams.

Professionals should hone their digital communication skills, proficiency with virtual collaboration platforms, and ability to manage time effectively in a hybrid setting. Employers, on the other hand, need to focus on fostering inclusive virtual environments and supporting employee well-being to maintain engagement and productivity.

4. Global Talent Mobility and Diverse Workforce

Global talent mobility has surged, with organizations increasingly seeking diverse skill sets from around the world. The demand for multilingual professionals and those with cross-cultural competencies is higher than ever. According to the World Economic Forum, global remote hiring is expected to grow by 30% in the next five years.

To enhance employability in this global market, job seekers should consider learning new languages, gaining international experience, and obtaining globally recognized certifications such as PMP, CFA, or Scrum Master. Embracing diversity and cultural intelligence will be key assets in a multicultural workforce.

5. Lifelong Learning and Continuous Skill Development

The rapid pace of technological and industry changes underscores the importance of lifelong learning. Professionals must continuously update their skills to remain relevant and competitive. Online education platforms and micro-credentialing are becoming standard for ongoing professional development.

Investing in continuous education, whether through formal degrees, online courses, or professional workshops, is essential. Employers are also recognizing the value of supporting employee education through tuition reimbursement and internal training programs.

6. Ethical and Inclusive Workplaces

As workplaces become more diverse and technology-driven, there is a heightened focus on ethics and inclusivity. Organizations are prioritizing ethical AI practices, diversity and inclusion initiatives, and creating equitable work environments. This shift not only fosters a positive workplace culture but also drives innovation and business success.

Professionals should advocate for and contribute to ethical practices within their organizations. Developing a strong understanding of diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) principles will enhance leadership opportunities and collaborative efforts.

Looking Ahead to 2025 and Beyond

As we navigate through 2025, the key to career success lies in embracing change, fostering continuous learning, and aligning personal goals with global trends. By staying informed about emerging technologies, sustainability initiatives, and evolving work models, professionals can strategically position themselves for long-term growth and fulfillment.

Organizations must also adapt by investing in their workforce, promoting inclusive cultures, and leveraging technological advancements to stay competitive in the global marketplace. Together, individuals and companies can build a resilient and prosperous future in the ever-evolving world of work.

The World Council of Churches (WCC) is committed to fostering interreligious trust and respect through both bilateral and multilateral dialogues, as well as regional and cross-cultural encounters. These efforts focus on pressing issues such as religion and violence, perceptions of "the other," and the search for identity in diverse, pluralistic societies.

With a focus on embracing dialogue as a practical manifestation of the gospel’s call to love God and our neighbors, the WCC’s office of Interreligious Dialogue and Cooperation works to facilitate encounters and engagements among member churches. The goal is to advance the fullness and flourishing of all life through these interactions.

Since its establishment in 1971, the office has advocated for dialogue as “the common adventure of the churches,” promoting it in a spirit of honesty, hospitality, and hope. The WCC emphasizes the pursuit of peace and mutual upbuilding, as outlined in Romans 14:19, within a multi-religious world.

True dialogue, according to the WCC, involves translating theological reflection into courageous and compassionate action. The organization’s interreligious desk is dedicated to building bridges of trust and respect across different faith communities, fostering interreligious solidarities aimed at promoting justice, peace, and the wellbeing of all creation.

Türkiye-mediated “historic reconciliation” between Somalia and Ethiopia is a groundbreaking development in conflict management, distinguishing Ankara’s diplomacy and foreign policy outlook from global powers like the US, China, and the European Union, experts say.

“The US and EU have primarily focused on counter-terrorism and migration management in the region. China has prioritised economic investments and infrastructure development under the Belt and Road Initiative,” says Dr. Kaan Devecioglu, who serves as coordinator for North African Studies at the Ankara-based think tank ORSAM.

Devecioglu tells TRT World that major powers like the US, European Union, and China played only a limited role in resolving this issue because of different priorities, reducing their role to that of a disinterested bystander. As a result, the Somalia-Ethiopia conflict did not rank high on the list of their strategic interests.

Except for Türkiye, Devecioglu says the powers like the US and China failed to navigate the historical and ethnic complexities of the conflict, often looking at the region through a partisan lens, increasing the risk of entanglement in regional rivalries.

“Türkiye’s approach to African diplomacy, which combines historical ties, cultural proximity, and balanced mediation, has distinguished it from global powers. It filled a vacuum left by the relative disengagement of other major actors,” he notes.

Culminating on December 11, the Ankara Declaration over the breakaway Somaliland region has been hailed by geopolitical experts as a path forward to restore stability in the Horn of Africa, a large peninsula situated on the easternmost part of the African mainland.

“For Africa, the Ankara Declaration showcases the potential of intra-continental solidarity with a trusted external mediation. For Ethiopia and Somalia, it represents a vital framework and pathway towards de-escalation and economic cooperation,” says Nuur Mohamud Sheekh, a London-based foreign affairs expert who previously served at the Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD), an eight-country trade bloc in Africa.

The Somalian president and the Ethiopian premier were in Ankara for a joint press conference where Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan announced the establishment of a “solid foundation for cooperation” between the two countries based on mutual respect for territorial integrity.

“Türkiye is increasingly seen as a credible and trusted partner not only in Africa but also globally. This is complemented by Türkiye’s investments in Africa and developmental cooperation,” Sheekh tells TRT World.

Reason for the Rift Between Ethiopia and Somalia

The breakaway region of Somaliland has been at the centre of the rift between the two East African nations. Even though it seceded from Somalia in 1991, Somaliland is recognised by neither the African Union nor the UN as an independent state.

Regional tensions erupted when Ethiopia, which is to the south and west of Somaliland, signed a deal with the breakaway region on January 1 to use its Red Sea port of Berbera.

The deal was important for landlocked Ethiopia because it gave it direct access to the Red Sea for the first time since the early 1990s. Ethiopia lost the ability to conduct maritime trade when Eritrea seceded more than three decades ago. With over 120 million people, Ethiopia is the most populous landlocked country in the world.

As part of the deal, Somaliland leased a 20-kilometre stretch of land along its coastline to Ethiopia to establish a marine force base for Ethiopia.

The deal drew strong opposition from Somalia, which considered the deal an attack on its sovereignty and territorial integrity, resulting in regional instability.

Ankara has been actively involved in the Somali-Ethiopian reconciliation process, particularly since 2005 when Türkiye declared it the “Year of Africa,” says Devecioglu.

“While Türkiye’s prominent role in mediating this conflict has gained attention in recent years, its trust-building efforts date back nearly two decades,” he tells TRT World.

Türkiye has redoubled its focus on Africa in recent years through development aid, infrastructure projects, and cooperative solutions to security challenges.

“Türkiye has acted as a bridge between the parties and played a leading role in achieving this historic agreement,” he adds.

The Ankara Declaration

The Ankara Declaration solidifies Türkiye’s position as a reliable mediator in Africa, advancing its role in four key areas, Devecioglu says.

1. Ankara has established itself as a “constructive and neutral actor” in African affairs.
2. Somalia and Ethiopia are both important partners for Türkiye, so peace between the two nations strengthens Ankara’s political, economic, and strategic ties with the region.
3. The declaration aligns with Türkiye’s broader diplomatic objectives in Africa, such as promoting stability, enhancing trade and investment, and fostering security cooperation.
4. The resolution of the conflict contributes to regional security, which creates a stable environment for Türkiye’s investments and humanitarian initiatives, Devecioglu says.

According to Yunus Turhan, a post-doc researcher at Harvard University’s African Studies Center, the Ankara Declaration paves the way for intergovernmental partnerships to ensure full cooperation between Somalia and Ethiopia.

The deal is significant because it will grant Ethiopia access to the sea while ensuring Somalia’s national unity and territorial integrity is respected, he tells TRT World.

Referring to the phrase “African solutions to African problems,” coined by the Ghanaian economist George Ayittey in response to the crisis in Somalia in the early 1990s, Turhan says Türkiye’s mediation seems to have turned a corner in regional diplomacy.

Ankara’s peace initiative emphasises “respectful and honourable negotiations” rather than the ideological interests of the usual peace broker, he adds.

Salient Features of the Ankara Declaration

The declaration said the leaders of Somalia and Ethiopia reaffirmed their respect and commitment to one another’s sovereignty, unity, independence, and territorial integrity.

“They agreed, within a spirit of friendship and mutual respect, to forgo and leave behind differences and contentious issues and forge ahead in a cooperative manner to pursue shared prosperity,” it said.

The leaders acknowledged the potentially diverse benefits that could be derived from Ethiopia’s assured access to and from the sea while respecting the territorial integrity of Somalia.

The two parties will start technical negotiations with Türkiye’s facilitation by the end of February 2025 and conclude the same within four months.

The leaders of the two countries also agreed to finalise commercial arrangements through bilateral agreements, which will allow Ethiopia to have reliable access to the sea “under the sovereign authority” of Somalia.

If it does succeed, Syria could provide a powerful lesson in how a rebel movement gains national legitimacy.

Much time and effort will be spent examining why the Bashar al-Assad father-and-son dynasty crashed after 54 years of unbending rule. Was it the weakness of his backers that proved the tipping point?

Hezbollah had just had its political and military leadership in Beirut wiped out by an Israeli bombing campaign. Iran is bracing itself for a second attack by Israel. Has Russian aerial power, so devastating in the three-month-long bombardment of Aleppo in 2016, become fatally overstretched in Ukraine? Was it the refusal of the Iraqi Popular Mobilisation Forces (PMU) to come to the rescue that proved the final straw?

Had all of the above actors become fed up with Assad’s refusal to countenance talks, let alone a political settlement, with the rebels? Had the axis of resistance, so strategically constructed by Iran, become a mirage, a Potemkin Village? Why had Aleppo, Syria’s second city, fallen without so much as a bullet being fired?

Only about 910 deaths have been reported during the regime's collapse—relatively small numbers in a country where half a million perished in the civil war, and millions were displaced. Was it just good timing?

Internal Factors Behind Assad’s Collapse

There were strong internal factors that could explain the sudden collapse of Assad’s army. After the rebel forces took Aleppo and Hama, the dying regime raised the salaries of soldiers by half—a sign of poor pay and low morale. Syrian soldiers began heeding the rebels’ calls to defect. A crashing economy, low morale, and a leader who refused to bend became the ingredients of a revolt that spread like wildfire around the Arab world 13 years ago.

So, are we witnessing the Arab Spring bursting again into flames from embers that were never fully stamped out?

Arab Spring Reborn

Books have been written, and careers forged, on the premise that this foolishly optimistic yearning for democracy is dead. Analysts have chronicled how even now the divisions that tore Tahrir Square apart refuse to heal; how Tunisia’s revolutionaries, who considered themselves so much more sophisticated than their Egyptian brothers, meekly followed their neighbor into the same hole eight years later; how the Gulf princes poured their obscene wealth into ensuring that spring was followed by winter.

Throughout this prolonged funeral, Syria stood as the object lesson the Arab world was told to avoid. Governments from Bahrain to Morocco warned their people: "We don't want to end up like Syria." And yet, it is here in Syria that the revolution could be starting up again 13 years later.

The scenes unfolding in Damascus hark back to a forgotten age: the toppling of statues, the joy of people climbing tanks, and the surreal realization that no one is watching them anymore. Horror accompanies the pictures emerging from Sednaya prison, where survivors have been held so long they still believe that the late Syrian President Hafez al-Assad (who died in 2000) is in power, and that Saddam Hussein is their liberator.

Shifting Tectonic Plates

As these clips played mesmerically on everyone’s phones, the tectonic plates of the region were shifting in Doha, where its annual forum was taking place. Foreign ministers who strode confidently into the conference hall on Saturday emerged on Sunday visibly changed. Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, typically the star of such events, grew visibly uncomfortable when questioned on Syria and soon demanded to be asked about Ukraine instead.

Within hours, Russia—previously unyielding—was using Turkey to seek security assurances from Hay'at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), a rebel movement it had relentlessly bombed. This turnaround was as startling as the sight of the ashen-faced Iranian delegation rushing through hotel corridors, huddling in one meeting after another.

Conversely, Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan, long sidelined during the Gaza war, found himself back at center stage. Almost overnight, the Syrian revolution transformed Turkey from a distressed observer to a key player in the Middle East.

Not a Foot Wrong

So far, HTS leader Abu Mohamed al-Jolani, designated a terrorist by the US and the UN, has struck all the right notes, whatever his real intentions may be. HTS reassured Christians in Aleppo, handed governance to policemen as rebel troops entered, left the Sayyida Zeinab shrine in Damascus untouched, and refrained from confronting Iraqi paramilitary groups. They kept the road to Latakia open for retreating Syrian army generals, stopped looting, and instructed cheering crowds to respect government buildings.

In a historic moment, Jolani delivered his victory speech in Damascus’s Umayyad Mosque, adjacent to Saladin’s resting place. Speaking in uniform, he declared the victory a new chapter for Syria and the region. The symbolism of his words resonated throughout the Muslim world.

Israel’s Calculated Move

Meanwhile, Israel seized the moment to demilitarize Syria, launching over 300 airstrikes targeting military sites. Tanks rolled into Qatana, just 10 km from Damascus. Israel’s actions appear part of a broader pro-Western plan to tame the rebels from day one. This intrusion, however, might solidify the rebels' stance on sovereignty, making them unlikely to tolerate Israeli aggression.

Hamas’s confidence in a free Syria siding with Palestine was evident. As Jolani’s family hails from the Golan Heights, occupied and annexed by Israel, a rebel-led Syria could adopt a staunchly anti-Israel stance.

Lessons Learned

If this marks the beginning of a new Arab Spring, one lesson is clear: revolutions must be radical. The Syrian uprising, unlike its Egyptian and Tunisian counterparts, dismantled the army, deep state, and secret police by force. Success here could inspire other Arab nations grappling with autocracy, proving that revolutions wax and wane but never truly die.

The final outcome, however, depends on the Syrian people—and their resolve to see this revolution through.

Negotiations for the EU-Mercosur agreement have concluded after 25 years. European and the South American trade blocks signed the agrement. Now two sides will now have to ratify the deal, but it could still be blocked as it has many opponents — particularly in Europe.

Critics have said the deal will contribute to continued rainforest deforestation to produce beef and grow soy to feed cattle.#

"Today marks a truly historic milestone," said European Commission President Ursula von der Leyenon Friday in Montevideo, when the EU and the Mercosur trade bloc finalized their deal. She said that a "powerful message to the world" had been sent.

"In an increasingly confrontational world, we demonstrate that democracies can rely on each other."

Von der Leyen added that the agreement, which has been almost 25 years in the making, was "one of the largest trade and investment partnerships the world has ever seen."

Connecting Europe with South America

The EU-Mercosur agreement connects more than 700 million people on the European and South American continents. Some 450 million citizens in 27 EU states, and about 270 million in Brazil, Argentina, Uruguay and Paraguay.

It does not yet apply to the Mercosur trade bloc's newest member, Bolivia, nor to Venezuela whose membership of the bloc has been suspended until further notice due to democratic backsliding.

Negotiations came to an end on Friday after 25 years, with the leaders of the partner states all smiles at their group photoImage: EITAN ABRAMOVICH/AFP/Getty Images

Most of the key points had already been agreed in 2019. The agreement will remove over 90% of tariffs on goods exchanged between the two blocs, which the European Commission estimates will save EU exporters more than €4 billion ($4.2 billion) per year.

Rare earth elements needed for cars, machinery

From the EU perspective, the main focus is likely to be on the import of raw materials and the export of cars and machinery. The bloc's interest in finalizing the agreement became more acute in the wake of the reelection of US President-elect Donald Trump, who threatened the EU with tariffs during his campaign.

In view of the global geopolitical situation, von der Leyen said the agreement was "a political necessity." The EU hopes to become less dependent on China for its access to rare earth elements, for example. Mercosur states will be able to supply the EU with these raw materials that are crucial for modern technological products, like mobile phones and electric vehicles.

Argentina's lithium boom threatens Indigenous townmining industry. Lithium's increasing demand puts the environment and local livelihoods at serious risk.

In 2023, according to the EU, the Mercosur states exported mainly mineral products, food, beverages and tobacco to the EU, which in turn exported machinery, equipment, chemicals and pharmaceutical products. The trade volume between the two blocs that year amounted to around €110 billion.

In the EU, particularly in Germany, car manufacturers will be likely hoping that the 35% import duty on cars will be reduced, while South American producers will be looking forward to being able to more easily sell meat, sugar and other such products to the EU.

Donald Trump only the second American president after Grover Cleveland (1885-1889; 1893-1897) to win non-consecutive terms, and he is making a lot of people within and outside the United States nervous. Most believe thatTrump is bad news all round, someone who “made divisiveness the calling card of his presidency”, as journalists Peter Baker and Susan Glasser put it in their book The Divider. “The former president, twice impeached and twice acquitted, is the only chief executive since the founding of the nation to obstruct the peaceful transfer of power,” they wrote in their 2022 book. “The Trump era is not past; it is America’s present and maybe even its future.” The Trump era is indeed the US’s future, at least for the next four years. But four years is a long time for someone who Republican Senator Lindsey Graham had called a “wrecking ball” in 2015 and former president George W. Bush’s son Jeb Bush described as a “chaos candidate” who will be a “chaos president.” The US is in the moment of what went wrong, which means how and why Kamala Harris lost. As always, it is the proverbial tale of blindfolded men asked to describe the elephant by touching various parts of the animal’s anatomy. With too many variables to deal with and heuristics coming into play, it’s difficult to get the elephant right. Or maybe make it simple, as an African-American analyst on CNN did: “Well, if America wants Trump, then let America have him.” David Brooks, writing in the New York Times, went for a Marxian, class-clash analysis (yes, in NYT, if you can believe it!) titling the op-ed, ‘Voter to Elites: Do You See Me Now?’ As he put it: “The great sucking sound you heard was the redistribution of respect,” made by those in the “bottom decile.” Tom McTague at UnHerd.com was more snarky, though he too seemed to be grappling like everyone else to figure it out. “Trump horrifies many outside the United States, but like Tony Soprano or Walter White [from the series The Sopranos and Breaking Bad, respectively], all the more so because they see something in him that they recognise. He is a portent. Harris is little more than her caricature on SNL [Saturday Night Live].” Gets marks for sarcasm but doesn’t tell us much about why, even if we can get to the how. “We are back in Trump’s world and we don’t yet know what he is going to do with it,” says McTague though perhaps the more ominous bit should be about Trump becoming better at being Trump by knowing how to deal with Washington and its power elites, like “the velociraptors in the movie Jurassic Park that proved capable of learning while hunting their prey, making them infinitely more dangerous.” And that brings us to how Trump will approach the external world. In Fear, the first of Bob Woodward’s Trump trilogy, Woodward told the reader that White House Chief of Staff John Kelly referred to Trump as an “idiot” and “unhinged”, while Secretary of Defence James Mattis thought Trump had the understanding of “a fifth or sixth grader.” His approach to the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (Nato) and the US allies was roundly criticised, his boorish behaviour with world leaders provided much acerbic ammunition to late night shows hosts, as was his admiration for strongmen like Vladimir Putin and North Korea’s Kim Jong Un. The beltway pundits, raised on theories of international relations and the nuances of statecraft, thought he could not be dressed in any theoretical robes, that he was transactional, an isolationist, whose approach to statecraft was antiquated and out of tune with the geopolitical realities of the 21st century. Or, as Wayne Barrett, the late investigative reporter who wrote a definitive book on Trump’s real estate dealings, said, “Everyone else in the movie that Donald Trump is making with his life…is an extra.” But is Trump also inconsistent and whimsical?

There is a long history of migration via the Mediterranean. Human mobility in all directions across the Mediterranean has occurred for thousands of years. More recently, since at least the mid-1990s, thousands of people each year have crossed the Mediterranean by boat from the northern coasts of Africa and Turkey to seek asylum or to migrate to Europe if they do not have the documentation required by the countries of destination. It should be noted that the Mediterranean Sea is where irregular migration to Europe is most visible.
The reality behind the complex issue of sub-Saharan migrants’ despair shows how this human tragedy has become a serious national security concern for both North African and Southern European countries.

In fact, this issue needs to be tackled with wise and genuine long-term public policies, as it is a humanitarian matter. The sub-Saharan journey through harsh desert conditions and the illegal crossings from Maghreb countries – Algeria, Tunisia, Libya, Mauritania, and Morocco – to the Italian and Spanish shores on death boats are all part of this crisis.
The roots, however, go beyond a simple geographical and demographic movement of people from the south to the north due to harsh climates, economic conditions, famine, social injustice, and political impasse.

For decades, Southern European countries, particularly France, have been using people from sub-Saharan Africa and notably the Maghreb countries as a reservoir of labor. But in recent years, the migrant question has started to take the decision-makers, politicians, media, and even elites in the departure, transit, and host countries by surprise.

Oppression or humane policies
Sub-Saharan migrants have been arriving in the Maghreb countries and continuing their dangerous journey to cross illegally into Europe. This permanent journey is full of unknown risks for them, including human trafficking, terrorist group recruitment, and drug smuggling. Therefore, these human and socioeconomic imperatives need to be addressed by first raising awareness among the transit and host societies, followed by coordination between local non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and authorities in those countries, and finally, the implementation of well-studied humanitarian programs in terms of protection, integration, and post-integration, according to the 1951 Geneva Convention on migrant protection.

In 2023, it was estimated that 3,105 migrants died while crossing the Mediterranean Sea. As of October 2024, 1,620 casualties were recorded.
However, the accurate number of deaths recorded in the Mediterranean Sea cannot be ascertained. Between 2014 and 2018, for instance, about 12,000 people who drowned were never found.

The migrant question has societal cohesion ramifications for the entire social and cultural structure of the transit North African and European host countries. This is the argument used by right-wing and far-right politicians, the media, and voters. In this context, for instance, in North African countries, bold measures such as public policies, awareness campaigns in elementary schools and mosques, and the role of mainstream media to report fairly on such a complex issue are crucial. The consequences of neglecting this issue feed hate speech and violence. It is important not to let xenophobic politicians and irresponsible media exploit the migrant question, as seen in France and Italy.

For instance, Tunisia has increasingly become a destination for migrants and asylum seekers. The EU has been working to protect migrants and refugees and support local communities in the country, while also promoting legal migration pathways and reducing irregular departures. At the same time, the EU is taking measures to empower border management and combat human trafficking and smuggling.

Last month, at a summit in Brussels, EU leaders discussed setting up “return hubs” – processing and detention centers in countries outside the bloc. European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said talks on how these hubs might work would continue. The summit’s final statement reflected the bloc’s firm new stance on migration, calling for “determined action at all levels to facilitate, increase and speed up returns from the EU using all relevant EU policies, instruments and tools.”

Yet, this position faces harsh criticism from human rights activists and left-wing parties in France. The new French Interior Minister Bruno Retailleau, whose ideology leans toward far-right movements in Europe, is already pushing for tough measures toward migrants and illegal immigrants in France.

The decision to remove or oblige someone to leave French territory is made by the préfet, particularly in the event of refusal to issue a residence permit or irregular stay in France. The decision obliges the concerned individual to leave France voluntarily within 30 days. In some cases, it may also compel the person to leave immediately.

Algeria and Tunisia have not been cooperative on this matter, according to French authorities and media. France is pushing for a model similar to that of Albania. European countries like Italy, France, Austria, and Germany have engaged with Tunisia and Egypt under Frontex deals to manage the migrant issue abroad.

Is exiling migrants a solution?
In December 2018, the Global Compact for Migration in Marrakech was the first serious attempt to resolve the modern migrant crisis at an international level. Signed by a majority of U.N. members, it was hampered by vocal discontent from the U.S. and several European countries. These governments, wary of ceding aspects of their sovereignty, rejected it, despite the pact being non-binding. However, the pact remains one of the best models available for North African states.

Due to the lack of a coherent migration policy in North African, and particularly the Maghreb countries, this complex issue has been continuously used as a political tool by far-right parties in Europe – particularly in Italy, France, and more recently, in Germany and Scandinavian countries. Experts on migration issues have repeatedly questioned whether programs like the EU-based asylum system, offshore hubs, or migrant hot spots could ever be legal measures under international law, as seen with Albania's programs, which are facing legal challenges due to territorial jurisdiction issues.

The U.K.’s offshore deportation program to Rwanda demonstrated the challenges of such measures. Now, EU countries are dealing with the issue through bilateral approaches. For example, Germany opened programs last summer with Morocco, Tajikistan, and Afghanistan (despite no diplomatic ties between Berlin and Kabul, with Dushanbe serving as a caretaker for diplomatic affairs between Kabul and Berlin).

France has chosen a similar path, negotiating with Morocco. In their announcement of a “solid, exceptional partnership,” the French interior minister and his Moroccan counterpart praised their efforts in migration cooperation and called for a broad plan. This plan seeks to address legal migration, fight irregular migration, cooperate on re-acceptance policies, prevent illegal departures, and strengthen coordination between source, transit, and destination countries based on the principle of shared responsibility. France is also looking at the Italian model regarding migrants; migrants rescued in the Mediterranean by an Italian ship are scheduled to be disembarked in Albania.

Recently, Albania’s deal with Italy and a small-scale agreement between Denmark and Kosovo have made Albania and Kosovo eager to join the EU. However, it is unclear which non-EU countries might be willing to host such centers. Italian Premier Giorgia Meloni stated after the EU summit that there were “many countries looking at the Albania model," and several far-right leaders praised what Dutch Prime Minister Dick Schoof described as “a different mood in Europe.”

In conclusion, while irregular immigration to the EU has plummeted by more than 40% this year compared to 2023, the bloc’s tough approach reflects the success of far-right, anti-immigration parties who have dominated the narrative on migration in the media for the past decade. As a result, the issue requires bold, humanitarian policy actions, not political exploitation.

The Australian Senate was debating a ban on children younger than 16 years old from social media Thursday after the House of Representatives overwhelmingly supported the age restriction.

The bill would make platforms, including TikTok, Facebook, Snapchat, Reddit, X, and Instagram, liable for fines of up to 50 million Australian dollars ($33 million) for systemic failures to prevent young children from holding accounts.

It is likely to be passed by the Senate, as it is the Parliament’s final session for the year and potentially the last before elections, which are due within months.

The major parties’ support for the ban all but guarantees the legislation will become law. But many child welfare and mental health advocates are concerned about unintended consequences.

Unaligned Sen. Jacqui Lambie complained about the limited amount of time the government gave the Senate to debate the age restriction, which she described as “undercooked.”

“I thought this was a good idea. A lot of people out there thought it was a good idea until we looked at the detail and, let’s be honest, there’s no detail,” Lambie told the Senate.

Opposition Sen. Maria Kovacic said the bill was not radical but necessary.

“The core focus of this legislation is simple: It demands that social media companies take reasonable steps to identify and remove underage users from their platforms,” Kovacic told the Senate.

“This is a responsibility these companies should have been fulfilling long ago, but for too long they have shirked these responsibilities in favor of profit,” she added.

Sen. David Shoebridge, from the minor Greens party, said mental health experts agreed that the ban could dangerously isolate many children who used social media to find support.

The House of Representatives on Wednesday overwhelmingly carried the bill 102 votes to 13.

Communications Minister Michelle Rowland urged senators to pass the bill, which she said reflected the Australian community’s view.

“The ... government is on the side of supporting parents and protecting young people,” Rowland told the House.

Once the legislation becomes law, the platforms would have one year to work out how they could implement the ban before penalties are enforced.

The platforms complained that the law would be unworkable and urged the Senate to delay the vote until at least June next year, when a government-commissioned evaluation of age assurance technologies made its report on how young children could be excluded.

Critics argue the government is attempting to convince parents it is protecting their children ahead of general elections due by May. The government hopes that voters will reward it for responding to parents’ concerns about their children’s addiction to social media. Some argue the legislation could cause more harm than it prevents.

Criticisms include that the legislation was rushed through Parliament without adequate scrutiny, is ineffective, poses privacy risks for all users, and undermines parental authority to make decisions for their children.

Opponents of the bill also argue the ban would isolate children, deprive them of the positive aspects of social media, drive them to the dark web, discourage children too young for social media to report harm, and reduce incentives for platforms to improve online safety.

Despite ending more than a year of fighting along the Lebanese border, there is no sense of victory in Israel following Wednesday's ceasefire with Hezbollah.

Displaced Israelis say they do not feel safe to return to their homes, political opponents and allies of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu have denounced the deal as weak, and many have been left wondering what happened to the total victory promised by the prime minister.

Speaking on national television on Tuesday evening, Netanyahu tried to sell the agreement to the Israeli public. But most were left unconvinced, questioning whether it amounted to a temporary pause in fighting or a more permanent end to hostilities—and wondering how long it would take for Hezbollah to regroup and re-arm.

Israeli political analyst Meron Rapaport told Middle East Eye that confusion and disappointment in Israel over the Hezbollah deal, in part, reflected the government’s failure to deliver the decisive outcome it had promised in a conflict that had enjoyed widespread popular support.

“[Defence Minister] Israel Katz just ten days ago said that the goal is to disarm Hezbollah and that there will be a buffer zone. That is what they told us, and clearly, that is not happening. It is a very big gap,” Rapoport said.

But he said the deal also reflected differences between the government and the country’s traditional security establishment over how the wars in Gaza and Lebanon were being fought.

While the latter favoured the fight against Hezbollah, Netanyahu and his allies remain committed to the war in Gaza and the goal of ethnic cleansing in the north of the enclave, Rapaport suggested.

“The Lebanon war was a war of the centre-left and the army in particular and not for the right. This was a war of the old elites,” he said. “The new elites are interested in Gaza, so it was easy for Netanyahu to give up on Lebanon and concentrate on Gaza,” Rapaport added.

But Ameer Makhoul, an Israeli human rights activist, told MEE that it remained questionable whether Netanyahu is committed to a lasting ceasefire with Hezbollah.

He suggested that the deal may amount to a short-term truce, with Netanyahu biding his time in expectation of a more supportive US administration under Donald Trump when he takes over in January, allowing some respite to Israeli forces exhausted by waging war on multiple fronts.

“It seems as though he is talking about a 60-day truce rather than an end to the war, viewing it as a waiting period for Trump,” said Makhoul.

“This might be the first rational decision acknowledging the limits of power and acknowledging that the army is exhausted, overburdened, and placing a heavy strain on soldiers, especially on the reserve forces.”

'An agreement on ice'

Members of Netanyahu’s far-right coalition were quick to distance themselves from the deal.

“This agreement does not meet the goal of the war—to return the residents of the north safely home,” said Itamar Ben-Gvir, the security minister and leader of the Jewish Power party.

“An agreement with the Lebanese army is an agreement on ice. The Lebanese army does not have the authority at all, and certainly not the ability, to overcome Hezbollah.

“We have already seen that we must not rely on anyone but ourselves…. In the end, we will have to return to Lebanon again. This is a historic mistake.”

Sharp criticism also came from Yoav Gallant, the former defence minister who was sacked by Netanyahu earlier this month. Both men were this week the subjects of arrest warrants for war crimes charges issued by the International Criminal Court.

Gallant said: “In the Middle East, words, declarations, and even written agreements have no meaning—the future of the north and the security of its residents will be determined by only one thing: the determination of the Israeli government to direct the security apparatus to vigorously attack any attempt by Hezbollah to violate it immediately."

Opposition leader Yair Lapid said that the government’s priority should be negotiating a deal for the release of hostages held by Hamas in Gaza since October 2023.

"The greatest disaster in our history happened during Netanyahu's tenure. No agreement with Hezbollah will erase the lawlessness. We need to urgently make a deal… to bring home the citizens who were abandoned," Lapid said.

Benny Gantz, another opposition figure who quit Netanyahu’s war cabinet in June but has backed the wars in Gaza and Lebanon, said: "You must not do half-hearted work."

Not going back

Meanwhile, residents of towns and villages in northern Israel have said they remain fearful about returning to their homes, with many saying they prefer to stay where they are for now.

Yifat Elmalich, a mother of three from Kiryat Shmona, where a bus station was hit by Hezbollah rockets overnight on Wednesday, told the Ynet news website: “We don’t want to go back to a life of constant fear… This agreement feels weak and not in our favour… For now, we’re leaning toward staying put. Our house was damaged by shrapnel, and we still don’t feel fully safe in the city."

Hofit Mor, a mother of four from Moshav Kfar Yuval, said: "I’m against the agreement. It feels like it’s bringing us back to square one, to where we were before the war… After seeing the disaster in the Gaza border region, we realised the danger we were living in. Under these conditions, I’m not going back."

Up to 70,000 residents have been evacuated from northern Israel since October 2023, after Hezbollah stepped up rocket attacks in response to Israel’s assault against Hamas in Gaza.

The mayor of one northern town, Kiryat Shmona, vividly captured their frustration with the deal in comments on Facebook ahead of the ceasefire deal's announcement.

Posting a video of people in Lebanon celebrating the imminent deal, Avihay Shtern wrote: “You promised us a complete victory, so how is it that Hezbollah is celebrating?”

Meanwhile, the world has largely welcomed a ceasefire deal which ends 13 months of fighting between Israel and Hezbollah that has claimed the lives of at least 3,700 Lebanese and more than 130 Israelis.

The deal between the governments of Israel and Lebanon, brokered by the US and France, came into effect on Wednesday at 4 a.m. local time.

From the Israeli army’s perspective, the war in Lebanon was coming to a point of diminishing returns. It has succeeded in weakening Hezbollah’s military standing and eliminating its top leadership but has been unable to wipe it out entirely.

For its part, Hezbollah has been seriously debilitated in Lebanon; the war has eroded its military capabilities and left it rudderless.

Hezbollah and the Israeli military began to exchange cross-border fire on Oct. 8, 2023, one day after Israel launched its assault on the Gaza Strip in retaliation for a deadly Hamas-led attack.

The conflict dramatically escalated on Sept. 23 this year, when Israel began heavily bombing several parts of Lebanon, including Hezbollah’s stronghold in the south. The airstrikes killed thousands of Lebanese, displaced some 1.2 million others, flattened residential buildings, and devastated 37 villages.

Amid the halt in hostilities, President Joe Biden said that it “was designed to be a permanent cessation of hostilities.” Negotiators have described it as laying the groundwork for a lasting truce.

Under the terms of the deal, Hezbollah will remove its fighters and arms from the region between the Blue Line and the Litani River, while Israeli troops will withdraw from Lebanese territory during the specified period.

Thousands of Lebanese troops and UN peacekeepers will deploy to the region south of the Litani River. A US-led international panel will oversee compliance from all sides. However, uncertainty persists, as both Hezbollah and Israel have warned that they will resume fire if the other party breaches the agreement.

Authorities in India’s capital have shut schools, halted construction, and banned non-essential trucks from entering the city after air pollution shot up to its worst level this season.

A thick blanket of toxic smog engulfed most parts of northern India on Monday after dense fog overnight, with the “hazardous” air quality in some areas of the National Capital Territory (NCT) of Delhi hitting a new high of 1,081, according to Swiss group IQAir’s live rankings.

India’s pollution control authority said the national capital territory’s 24-hour air quality index (AQI) reading was 484, classified as “severe plus,” the highest this year. Experts say the scores vary because of a difference in the scale countries adopt to convert pollutant concentrations into AQI, and so the same quantity of a specific pollutant may be translated as different AQI scores in different countries.

Meanwhile, the concentration of PM2.5 – particulate matter measuring 2.5 microns or less in diameter that can be carried into the lungs, causing deadly diseases and cardiac issues – was 39 times the World Health Organization’s recommended levels. The smog, a toxic blend of smoke and fog, happens each year in winter as cold air traps dust, emissions, and smoke from illegal farm fires in some surrounding states.

Authorities directed all schools in Delhi to move classes online and tightened restrictions on construction activities and vehicle movements, citing efforts to “prevent further deterioration” of the air quality. Authorities hope, by keeping children at home, traffic will be significantly reduced.

“Physical classes shall be discontinued for all students, apart from Class 10 and 12,” Chief Minister Atishi, who uses only one name, said in a statement late on Sunday. Similar restrictions were adopted last week.

Many in the city cannot afford air filters, nor do they have homes they can effectively seal from the misery of foul-smelling air blamed for thousands of premature deaths every year. Delhi and the surrounding metropolitan area, home to more than 30 million people, consistently top world rankings for air pollution in winter.

“My eyes have been burning for the last few days,” said rickshaw puller Subodh Kumar, 30. “Pollution or no pollution, I have to be on the road, where else will I go?” he said, pausing from eating breakfast at a roadside stall. “We don’t have an option to stay indoors… our livelihood, food, and life – everything is in the open.”

Farm fires – where stubble left after harvesting rice is burned to clear fields – have contributed as much as 40 percent of the pollution in Delhi, SAFAR, a weather forecasting agency under the Ministry of Earth Sciences, has said. Satellites detected 1,334 such events in six Indian states on Sunday, the most in the last four days, according to India’s Consortium for Research on Agroecosystem Monitoring and Modeling from Space (CREAMS).

Despite the polluted air, many residents continued their daily routines. Many structures were barely visible, including New Delhi’s iconic India Gate, as visibility dropped to 100 meters (109 yards). Authorities said flights and trains continued to operate with some delays.

India’s weather department has also forecast “dense to very dense fog” for the northern states of Uttar Pradesh, Haryana, and Rajasthan for Monday. Cooler temperatures and slow-moving winds worsen the situation by trapping deadly pollutants each winter, stretching from mid-October until at least January.

India’s Supreme Court last month ruled that clean air was a fundamental human right, ordering the central government and state-level authorities to take action.

South American state Argentina has left COP29 while the is US preparing to quit the Paris Agreement. Where do we stand on climate action?

Argentina has left UN climate talks and US President-elect Donald Trump plans to withdraw from the Paris climate agreement. So far, only a handful of countries have updated their climate targets. So, where do we stand?

The first week of the UN climate summit COP29 in Baku, Azerbaijan, is drawing to a close against a backdrop of calls for urgent action by UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres and warnings by climate scientists.

As the world faces into an escalating climate crisis with unprecedented storms, floods, droughts and wildfires, government climate action has been at a “three-year standstill,” according to scientists from Climate Action Tracker. The independent scientific project tracks government policies and measures them against the globally agreed Paris accord goal of holding warming well below 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 Fahrenheit), and pursuing efforts to limit warming to 1.5C.

Argentina surprisingly leaves COP29

US President-elect Donald Trump is preparing to withdraw from the Paris climate agreement for the second time. And now Argentinian President and climate skeptic Javier Milei, who met with Trump on Thursday, ordered his delegates to leave the UN conference earlier this week.

Buenos Aires-based Latin America campaign director of environmental NGO 350.org Maria Victoria Emanuelli called this decision “erratic and unpredictable,” adding that it could cost the country a considerable financial sum needed for climate action.

“It’s difficult to understand how a climate-vulnerable country like Argentina would cut itself from critical support,” said Anabella Rosemberg, an Argentina native working as a senior adviser at Climate Action Network International.

New climate goals for 2035 announced

Many heads of state and government, including from the US, France and Germany, are not attending the conference, which also offers a platform for nations to announce more ambitious climate goals. These include emissions reduction targets and how to achieve them. Countries have until February to come forward with their national targets. So far, only a few have made use of the opportunity.

The UK phased out energy from coal

The UK’s new Prime Minister KeirStarmer said his country will aim to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 81% on 1990 levels by 2035.

“We are building on our reputation as a climate leader,” he said at COP29, urging the other parties “to come forward with ambitious targets of their own, as we all agreed at the last COP.”

Starmer, who took office in July after his center-left Labour Party won the general election, has promised to turn the country into “a clean energy superpower.” Speaking in Baku, he said the UK had closed its final coal power plant in September, making it the first G7 country to phase out energy from the fossil fuel.

Starmer’s 2035 pledge was “a step in the right direction but must be seen as a floor to the level of ambition not a ceiling,” Rosie Downes, head of campaigns with environmental group Friends of the Earth, said in a statement. She added that deeper and faster cuts were needed.

“With the warning signals flashing red, a planet battered by increasingly severe floods, storms and heat waves, and the election of climate denier President Trump, the need for climate leadership by the UK has never been more urgent,” she said.

However, the UK’s existing 2030 commitments were still way off course, she added.

Brazil is still increasing oil and gas production

Brazil, which will host next year’s COP30, has also unveiled its climate target. It aims to cut emissions between 59% and 67% from 2005 levels by 2035. That equals a cut of 39% to 50% from 2019 levels, environmental NGO 350.org said. According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), a decrease of 60% by 2035 compared to 2019 levels is necessary to stay below the 1.5C threshold.

Giving a range rather than a fixed percentage figure has drawn criticism as it creates uncertainty and weakens accountability, 350.org’s Associate Director of Policy and Campaigns Andreas Sieber said. “The lower range is unacceptably low, while the upper limit, though a positive step, should be seen as just the starting point,” he added.

Especially in its role as COP host next year, Brazil should lead by example, said Sieber.

While the country claims its investment in the energy sector with a focus on renewable sources is placing Brazil “at the forefront of the global energy transition,” analysts say the country is on track to increase oil and gas production 36% by 2035. Swiss-based research and advocacy NGO Oil Change International looked at how the “COP troika nations” Brazil, the United Arab Emirates and Azerbaijan — who will host, hosted or are hosting the climate talks — are doing in terms of climate action.

“The UAE and Brazil rank first and third in the world in terms of oil and gas expansion approved since the COP28 decision to transition away from fossil fuels,” Oil Change International found.

Arab Emirates is leading oil and gas expansion

In its updated targets published last week, the UAE said it was committing to achieving a 47% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions by 2023, compared to 2019. While that was a slight improvement on the Gulf state’s previous target of 40%, global civil society movement Climate Action Network called it “insufficient.”

“The plan doesn’t include any commitment to phase out fossil fuels or to stop the expansion of fossil fuel infrastructure,” said Mohamed Kamal, member of Climate Action Network Arab World.

350.org called it a “greenwashing exercise,” adding “it decided to bury its bad news on the day of the US election results.” The NGO points to the glaring omission of exported emissions — the country exports most of its oil.

“The UAE now leads the world in oil and gas expansion, even after assuming the role of COP president with a mandate to transition away from fossil fuels,” Sieber said. “This ‘climate commitment’ brazenly undermines its own credibility and COP presidential legacy.”

“There can be no ‘1.5 degrees Celsius aligned’ climate plans without explicit commitments to halt the production of fossil fuels and to stop generating energy from them,” said David Knecht, co-coordinator of Climate Action Network’s Ambition Working Group.

The left-leaning alliance of Sri Lanka's new leader has secured a landslide victory in the country's snap parliamentary elections.

Official results show President Anura Kumara Dissanayake's National People's Power (NPP) coalition scored a two-thirds majority in parliament, with 159 seats. A party or bloc needs to secure 113 seats to win in parliament.

The NPP received nearly 62% of the vote, winning even in the Tamil-dominated Jaffna Peninsula for the first time since independence from Britain in 1948.

"Thank you to all who voted for a renaissance," Dissanayake said in a brief statement on the social media platform X, previously known as Twitter.

The Rajapaksa clan’s Sri Lanka Podujana Peramuna party, whose cohort of brothers gave the country two presidents during a dozen years in power and held 145 seats in the outgoing legislature, was virtually wiped out in this week’s vote, winning just two seats. Voter turnout in this election was less than 70%.

This landslide victory in parliamentary elections delivers the self-described Marxist leader a powerful mandate to fight poverty and corruption in the crisis-stricken nation. Correspondents say the victory has cemented a transformation of the island-nation's political landscape, which for decades was dominated by established political parties of family dynasties.

The landslide mandate will also allow him to push through economic and constitutional changes he promised during the campaign. In the outgoing assembly, Dissanayake's party held just three seats.

Sajith Premadasa, the man Dissanayake defeated in the presidential elections, led the opposition alliance. Dissanayake called for snap elections shortly after becoming president to seek a fresh mandate to pursue his policies, stating that there was "no point continuing with a parliament that is not in line with what the people want."

Nearly two-thirds of former MPs chose not to run for re-election, including prominent members of the former ruling Rajapaksa dynasty.

In Sri Lanka’s parliament, out of 225 seats, 196 MPs are directly elected. The remaining seats are nominated by parties based on their percentage of votes in what is known as proportional representation. There are 17 million registered voters out of Sri Lanka’s 22 million population, according to the Election Commission of Sri Lanka (ECSL).

The state of the economy was a key issue for many voters. High inflation, food, and fuel shortages precipitated a political crisis in 2022, which led to the ousting of President Gotabaya Rajapaksa. His successor, Ranil Wickremesinghe, managed to negotiate a $3 billion bailout package with the International Monetary Fund (IMF), but many Sri Lankans continue to face economic hardship.

The number of people living below the poverty line in Sri Lanka has risen to 25.9% in the past four years. The World Bank expects the economy to grow by only 2.2% in 2024.

The coalition will now face massive pressure to perform and live up to its campaign promises. Dissanayake has vowed to repay the country’s debt, reform its political culture, and punish members of past administrations for corruption.

Sri Lanka’s economic situation remains precarious, with the main focus still on providing essential goods and services. How the country progresses from this point will be a real challenge for the new government.

The snap election was called by President Anura Kumara Dissanayake, who won the September election after blaming the country’s traditional ruling elite for the economic collapse that led to the country defaulting on its loans.

Dissanayake, who has been critical of the “old political guard,” has pledged to abolish the country’s executive presidency – a system under which power is largely centralized under the president. The executive presidency, first introduced by President J.R. Jayewardene in 1978, has been widely criticized for years. However, no political party, once in power, has scrapped it. The system has recently been blamed for the country’s economic and political crises.

Dissanayake has promised to fight corruption and end austerity measures imposed by his predecessor, Ranil Wickremesinghe, as part of the IMF bailout deal.

“At stake is the ability of newly elected President Dissanayake to pursue the ambitious agenda that won him election in September,” Alan Keenan, a senior consultant on Sri Lanka for the Belgium-based think tank International Crisis Group, told Al Jazeera before the election.

Although Dissanayake’s NPP alliance did not secure a two-thirds majority in parliament, he now has the mandate he needs to tackle corruption and recover stolen assets following the financial crash.

He played an active role in the 2022 protests against former President Gotabaya Rajapaksa’s rule. Tens of thousands took to the streets when inflation skyrocketed, and a foreign exchange crisis led to fuel and food shortages. Rajapaksa was forced to flee, after which Ranil Wickremesinghe took over as president.

Wickremesinghe lifted the country out of bankruptcy but at a cost to the common people. His $2.9 billion IMF deal led to a rise in the cost of living. He was also criticized for protecting the Rajapaksa family – a charge he denied.

“The people have great expectations for ‘system change,’ including holding politicians accountable for corruption. But there is also a major debate happening about the economic trajectory,” Devaka Gunawardena, a political economist and research fellow at the Social Scientists’ Association in Sri Lanka, told Al Jazeera.

“The question is whether Sri Lanka can get itself out of the debt trap while protecting people’s livelihoods, which have been devastated by the crisis and austerity,” he added.

While Dissanayake was critical of the IMF deal and campaigned to restructure it, he has since announced – especially after an October meeting with a visiting team from the international lender – that his government would stick to the deal. However, he has sought “alternative means” to the severe austerity measures introduced by Wickremesinghe and told the IMF team his government would aim to provide relief to those Sri Lankans worst affected by increased taxes.

“This election is also about whether the NPP can consolidate its electoral gains to explore alternatives, such as redistribution and a shift towards local production,” Gunawardena said.

The drill comes amid growing international scrutiny over Pyongyang's reported deployment of thousands of troops to Russia to support Moscow's war efforts in Ukraine.

South Korea, Japan, and the United States have conducted a joint air drill involving a heavy bomber, according to Seoul's military. This was in response to North Korea's latest long-range missile test. The exercise took place on Sunday, three days after Pyongyang launched one of its most powerful and advanced solid-fueled intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBM), which experts say could reach targets in the mainland U.S.

The drill mobilized the U.S. B-1B bomber, South Korea's F-15K and KF-16 fighter jets, and Japan's F-2 jets, Seoul's military reported. "The exercise demonstrates the commitment of the ROK-U.S. alliance to integrated extended deterrence in response to advancing nuclear and missile threats from North Korea," said South Korea's Joint Chiefs of Staff in a press release.

During the aerial maneuver, South Korea and Japan's jets escorted the U.S. strategic bomber to a designated location south of the Korean peninsula, "demonstrating an overwhelming capability to swiftly and accurately strike simulated targets," it added.

The B-1B Lancer is a supersonic heavy bomber known for its high-speed performance with a payload of 34,000 kilograms of munitions, including both conventional and precision-guided weapons. It was the fourth time this year that the bomber was deployed to the Korean peninsula, and the second time for a trilateral aerial exercise to counter Pyongyang's military threats.

North Korea’s latest ICBM launch reportedly flew higher and farther than any previous missile, according to both North Korea and the militaries of Seoul and Tokyo, which tracked it in real-time. The official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) hailed it as "the world's strongest strategic missile," with leader Kim Jong-un expressing "great satisfaction" at the successful launch. North Korea “would never change its line of bolstering its nuclear forces,” the agency added.

The launch has raised international concerns over Pyongyang’s purported deployment of thousands of troops to Russia to support Moscow's war efforts in Ukraine, sparking fears that North Korean soldiers in Russian uniforms could soon engage in combat.

The exercise was staged "in response to North Korea’s launch of an ICBM on Oct. 31” and aimed to showcase "increasing security cooperation between the three countries” to “deter and jointly respond to North Korea's threats."

Sunday’s trilateral exercise was the second set of joint drills conducted by Seoul, Washington, and Tokyo this year. It took place three days after North Korea launched a Hwasong-19 long-range missile, which the regime called a “perfected” ICBM.

According to Pyongyang's state-controlled KCNA, the Hwasong-19 reached an altitude of 7,687.5 kilometers (4,776.8 miles) over a duration of 5,156 seconds (85 minutes and 56 seconds)—setting new records for both altitude and flight time among North Korea's ICBMs.

Although the missile traveled just over 1,000 kilometers before landing in the East Sea about 200 kilometers west of the Japanese island of Okushiri, near Hokkaido, the short distance relative to its long flight time aligns with KCNA's explanation that the missile was launched on a lofted or high-angle trajectory.

The missile's flight time and peak altitude suggest it has a longer range or larger payload capacity than its predecessors. South Korean and U.S. military experts believe that if launched on a standard-angle trajectory, the Hwasong-19 could reach distances of more than 15,000 kilometers, enough to strike anywhere on the U.S. mainland.

According to the KCNA, North Korean leader Kim Jong-un attended the launch with his daughter, Kim Ju-ae, and expressed “great satisfaction” with the missile's performance. He declared that the launch had “proved before the world” North Korea's “hegemonic position” in weapons development, calling it “absolutely irreversible.”

Photos from the event indicate that the Hwasong-19 was launched from an 11-axle transporter erector launcher (TEL), an upgraded configuration from the Hwasong-18's nine-axle TEL. The blunt shape of the Hwasong-19 warhead, contrasting with the sharper warhead on the Hwasong-18, suggests it might be intended to accommodate multiple warheads.

At the 8th Congress of the ruling Workers' Party in 2021, Kim announced that his regime aimed to develop multiple independently targetable reentry vehicle (MIRV) technology, allowing missiles to carry multiple warheads capable of evading and overcoming interception systems during atmospheric descent.

Hong Min, a senior researcher at the Korea Institute for National Unification, interprets the test as a demonstration of North Korea's growing nuclear capabilities, intended to "emphasize North Korea’s irreversible nuclear sophistication." Min adds that the missile test serves as a critique of current U.S. policy on North Korea and as a point of criticism for the Trump campaign against the Democratic administration.

Hong also noted that the North's latest show of force is likely intended to consolidate internal support, especially given recent reports that the regime has deployed troops to support Russia.

"North Korea's current strategy appears to be a response to the international attention and pressure regarding the troop deployment, aiming to reframe recent troop movements as a justified reaction to U.S. threats," Hong explained.

Dan Schulman of Valor Capital Group has predicted 15-20 percent unemployment as a result of Artificial Intelligence (AI). Elon Musk believes there’s a 90 percent chance AI will benefit humanity, though critics argue it is certain to decimate jobs across the developed world.

AI took center stage at Saudi Arabia’s Future Investment Initiative (FII) summit this year, driving both optimistic and sobering discussions on its potential impact on the world. The summit, known as “Davos in the desert,” saw global finance leaders, tech entrepreneurs, and politicians gathered under the cloud of ongoing conflicts in Gaza and Lebanon, as well as the looming U.S. election on November 5, which could potentially bring former president Donald Trump back to power. However, it was the rapid advances in AI—highlighted by the launch of OpenAI’s generative AI app, ChatGPT, two years ago—that occupied most sessions over the summit’s three days.

“I feel comfortable saying it’s getting 10 times better per year … I think we’ll be able to do anything that any human can do, possibly within the next year or two,” said Musk, founder of SpaceX and CEO of Tesla, addressing FII delegates via video link. “It’s most likely going to be great, though there’s a chance, maybe 10 to 20 percent, that it could go badly.”

Despite Musk’s optimism, several speakers tempered the enthusiasm with warnings about the potential downsides of AI. One significant concern cited was the possibility of exacerbating inequality. Jeffrey Sachs, a development economist at Columbia University, noted that economic progress “is not reaching 74 countries representing nearly half of the world’s population.”

“So what kind of world are we building?” Sachs questioned. “A world of increasing health, no doubt, and advancing technology, but also shocking inequalities that are unimaginable. If Musk is right … wages could plummet for most people. Elon, currently worth $280 billion, could see his wealth soar to trillions, while most people are left with little. The social consequences of this imbalance could be extremely complex,” he said.

Meanwhile, AI has already become a part of our daily lives. Once limited to the realm of science fiction, AI is now seamlessly integrated into our everyday experiences. It powers much of the technology we use, from the smartphones in our pockets to the smart systems in our homes and workplaces. For instance, AI influences our experiences through personalized news feeds and self-adjusting thermostats, which anticipate our needs and adapt to our habits.

These AI algorithms are not merely observing our behavior; they are actively reshaping our experiences in subtle yet profound ways. As AI continues to blur the boundaries between human and machine, it ushers in an era of both exhilarating possibilities and emerging challenges. One thing is clear: AI is here to stay. In this article, we analyze five key ways AI’s rapidly evolving technologies are impacting our daily lives.