Global Pulse

作者： admin

  • Amsterdam celebrates 25 years since the world’s first same-sex weddings

    Amsterdam celebrates 25 years since the world’s first same-sex weddings

    AMSTERDAM — A quarter-century after the Netherlands made global history by becoming the first country to legalize same-sex marriage, the Dutch capital kicked off silver anniversary celebrations early Wednesday with a special midnight ceremony at Amsterdam City Hall, where three new same-sex couples exchanged wedding vows officiated by Mayor Femke Halsema.

    The moment echoed the landmark 2001 ceremony, when then-Mayor Job Cohen married the world’s first legally recognized same-sex couples. That groundbreaking step 25 years ago blazed a trail for equal marriage legislation that has since been adopted by nearly 40 nations across the globe. Today, same-sex weddings are a fully normalized part of life across the Netherlands: official Dutch statistics show more than 36,000 same-sex couples have tied the knot in the country since 2001.

    The anniversary comes as the Netherlands prepares for another milestone for LGBTQ+ representation: Prime Minister Rob Jetten, the nation’s first openly gay head of government, announced he will soon marry his partner Nicolás Keenan, an Argentine field hockey star who claimed bronze at the 2024 Paris Olympic Games. Speaking to reporters at the overnight Amsterdam celebration, Jetten reflected on how the 2001 legalization shaped his own journey. “As a prime minister, I’m very proud that we celebrate 25 years of universal marriage here in the Netherlands,” he said. “Also for me personally, I can still remember when I was 14 years old watching TV, seeing the first couples getting married here in Amsterdam. That was also very inspiring and emancipating for me, personally, as it has been for so many others.”

    While the Netherlands led the global push for equal marriage, progress and acceptance have spread unevenly across the world. The United States granted nationwide recognition of same-sex marriage via a 2015 U.S. Supreme Court ruling, after years of state-by-state legalization. A 2023 study estimates more than 800,000 same-sex couples are now married across the country.

    Amy Quinn, deputy mayor of Asbury Park, New Jersey, and her wife Heather Jensen were among the first same-sex couples to marry in New Jersey when the state legalized same-sex marriage in 2013. For the pair, legal marriage was not just symbolic: when they planned to start a family, their attorney confirmed marriage would grant both partners equal parental rights, allowing both names to appear on their child’s birth certificate, granting hospital visitation access, and enabling both to sign school documents. “It’s shocking to me in terms of really how recently we got it,” Quinn said of the right to marry.

    Even as more countries have embraced equal marriage, the past decade has brought growing backlash against LGBTQ+ rights in many regions. In the U.S., advocacy group Human Rights Campaign has tracked bills in at least nine state legislatures that seek to roll back federal recognition of same-sex marriage, most calling on the U.S. Supreme Court to overturn its 2015 landmark ruling. Though none of these measures have advanced to date, and could not force the high court to reverse its decision, the proposals have sparked concern among LGBTQ+ communities. “I don’t think it’s a time for people to be afraid,” said Kelley Robinson, president of the Human Rights Campaign. “It’s a time to be aware, to protect our families, to protect our kids and to protect our lives.”

    Last week alone brought two new signs of growing anti-LGBTQ+ pushback in the U.S. The U.S. Supreme Court ruled against a Colorado ban on conversion therapy for LGBTQ+ youth, siding with opponents who argued the ban violated free speech rights and sending the case back to a lower court for re-evaluation. Separately, the Chicago Bulls cut guard Jaden Ivey from the team roster following anti-LGBTQ+ comments he posted to Instagram alongside statements about his religious beliefs.

    Across much of the globe, particularly in parts of Asia and Africa, same-sex marriage remains illegal, and a growing number of countries have implemented harsher repressive policies targeting the LGBTQ+ community. Just one day before the Dutch anniversary celebration, Senegal’s president signed a new law that increases criminal penalties for same-sex relations, making it the latest African nation to enact harsh restrictions on LGBTQ+ people.

    Even in the Netherlands, which is widely seen as a global leader in LGBTQ+ equality, advocates warn progress has stalled. Philip Tijsma, spokesperson for COC Netherlands, the country’s oldest and largest LGBTQ+ advocacy organization, noted that while the 25th anniversary is a moment to celebrate the 2001 milestone, the Netherlands has fallen behind peer nations in advancing new protections for the community. “We have become a little bit lazy,” Tijsma said. He pointed out that many other European countries have enacted far stronger protections for transgender people, and that anti-LGBTQ+ harassment remains common in the Netherlands: LGBTQ+ people still face bullying in schools and verbal or physical harassment for public displays of affection like holding hands on the street.

    In the U.S., the backlash has been particularly sharp against transgender rights in recent years. A majority of U.S. states have now barred transgender girls and women from participating in some women’s sports, and restricted access to gender-affirming health care for transgender youth. Restrictions on puberty blockers, hormone therapy, and gender-affirming surgery for minors have also spread to other countries around the world. Former U.S. President Donald Trump and his administration have spearheaded many of these policy efforts, pushing aggressively for broad restrictions on rights and protections for transgender people.

    Despite these widespread challenges, the mood at Amsterdam’s anniversary celebration remained joyful and hopeful. Gert Kasteel and Dolf Pasker, one of the four original couples who married in the 2001 landmark ceremony, joined Wednesday’s event to mark their 25 years of marriage. “We’re very happy!” Kasteel said. “It’s unbelievable, 25 years,” added Pasker. “It’s so beautiful that there’s so much attention for it.”

    This report features contributions from Corder, reporting from The Hague, Netherlands, and Mulvihill, reporting from Haddonfield, New Jersey.

  • Man, 19, shot by police, left fighting for life after alleged suburban altercation in Brisbane’s north

    Man, 19, shot by police, left fighting for life after alleged suburban altercation in Brisbane’s north

    A teenager is clinging to life after being shot by Queensland Police officers during a confrontation that unfolded at a suburban Brisbane property on Wednesday, following a call to respond to a mental health emergency.

    Emergency dispatchers received the alert shortly after 12:30 p.m. local time, directing officers to a residential address on Akebia Street in the quiet northwest Brisbane suburb of Arana Hills. First responders arrived at the scene with the primary mission of conducting a welfare check for the 19-year-old male resident.

    What began as a de-escalation effort quickly deteriorated into a violent altercation, according to initial police accounts. Authorities confirmed the young man was armed with a large bladed weapon when officers first attempted to engage with him. In a bid to subdue the individual without lethal force, law enforcement deployed a Taser on two separate occasions, but neither attempt successfully stopped the threat.

    After the failed less-lethal interventions, one officer fired a single shot that struck the teenager. First aid was immediately administered to the injured man at the scene by attending officers, before he was rushed by ambulance to a major Brisbane hospital in life-threatening condition. As of the latest update, he remains in critical but stable condition receiving ongoing medical care.

    By Wednesday afternoon, the entire residential property had been cordoned off with official police evidence tape, with dozens of uniformed officers and investigating detectives stationed at the site to secure the area and collect forensic evidence. Local residents reported seeing a female individual, believed to be a household member or acquaintance of the injured man, being interviewed by investigators at the perimeter of the scene.

    In an official statement released shortly after the incident, Queensland Police confirmed that a full internal investigation has been launched into the circumstances of the shooting. Oversight of the probe will be handled by the state’s independent Crime and Corruption Commission, in line with standard protocols for police use of lethal force incidents. The Ethical Standards Command, the internal watchdog unit for Queensland Police, will lead the day-to-day investigation into whether the officer’s use of force complied with operational policies and the law.

    No officers were injured during the incident, and authorities have not yet released further details about the specific mental health context that prompted the initial welfare call, or the identity of the officer who fired the shot. The investigation remains ongoing as investigators collect witness statements, forensic evidence, and body worn camera footage from the scene.

  • India has begun its long-delayed population census. Here’s why it matters

    India has begun its long-delayed population census. Here’s why it matters

    NEW DELHI – Nearly three years after its originally scheduled launch, India has kicked off the world’s most extensive national population enumeration exercise, a sweeping data-gathering effort that stands to reshape everything from targeted social welfare programming to legislative representation across the South Asian nation.

    The 2011 national census pegged India’s population at 1.21 billion. Updated demographic estimates now place the country’s total population above 1.4 billion, confirming India as the world’s most populous nation, a title held by China for decades. Planners initially scheduled the new enumeration for 2021, but public health risks from the COVID-19 pandemic and unforeseen logistical hurdles forced a multi-year postponement.

    The massive counting effort is being rolled out in two distinct phases across India’s diverse 28 states and eight union territories. The first phase, which launched this week, will run through September, with field enumerators spending roughly four weeks in every local administrative area to document housing infrastructure, residential conditions and access to basic public utilities. Unlike past paper-only censuses, this year’s exercise combines traditional door-to-door in-person surveys with a new digital self-reporting option: residents can submit their information via a multilingual smartphone app that integrates satellite mapping technology to improve geographic accuracy.

    The second phase, scheduled to run from September through the first of April next year, will collect far more granular demographic and socioeconomic data, including religious affiliation and caste identity. In total, more than 3 million trained government workers will be deployed across the country over the 12-month enumeration period. For comparison, the 2011 census relied on roughly 2.7 million enumerators to collect data from more than 240 million households nationwide.

    A defining and highly anticipated feature of this new census is the expanded caste enumeration planned for the second phase. For the first time in independent India’s history, the government will attempt to count all caste groups across the country, going far beyond the limited enumeration of historically marginalized communities that has been standard since 1951.

    Caste, an ancient hierarchical social system deeply rooted across much of Indian society, particularly within Hindu communities, continues to shape social standing, access to education, economic opportunity, and eligibility for government-mandated affirmative action programs today. Hundreds of distinct caste groups are defined by traditional occupation and socioeconomic status across the country, but modern India has never held a full national enumeration of these groups, leaving policymakers working with outdated, incomplete data. The last full national caste count conducted through a census took place in 1931, when India was still under British colonial rule. Since India’s first post-independence census in 1951, national enumerators have only counted Dalits (Scheduled Castes) and Adivasis (Scheduled Tribes), the two most disadvantaged groups that are legally entitled to targeted government welfare and reservation benefits.

    Successive national governments have resisted calls for a full caste enumeration for decades, with opponents arguing that a full count could exacerbate existing social divisions and fuel inter-caste unrest. But growing grassroots pressure from lower-caste advocacy groups pushed the current government to approve the expanded count for the 2021 (now 2024) enumeration.

    Beyond caste data, the aggregate population numbers collected through the census carry far-reaching implications for India’s political landscape. Census data forms the foundational dataset for distributing national funding for welfare programs and designing a wide range of public policies, from infrastructure development to public health planning. It will also almost certainly trigger a nationwide redrawing of India’s legislative electoral map, as the number of seats allocated to each state in the lower house of Parliament and state legislative assemblies is adjusted to reflect recent population growth. This redistricting will intersect with a 2023 national law that reserves one-third of all legislative seats for women, meaning any expansion in total seats will directly increase the number of positions reserved for female representatives across all levels of government.

  • NFL says will not scrap diversity measure despite Republican pressure

    NFL says will not scrap diversity measure despite Republican pressure

    The National Football League will maintain its longstanding pro-diversity hiring policy, the Rooney Rule, despite escalating legal and political pressure from conservative Republicans led by Florida’s Republican attorney general, league commissioner Roger Goodell confirmed Tuesday at the NFL’s annual owners meeting. The Rooney Rule, a landmark policy first introduced in 2003 to address the persistent underrepresentation of people of color in top-tier coaching and front office roles, requires every NFL franchise to interview at least one minority candidate for open senior positions. Crucially, the rule does not mandate that teams hire a specific candidate based on race or ethnicity, only that they expand their candidate search to include qualified minority applicants. The policy has become the latest target of a nationwide conservative crackdown on diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) initiatives, a movement spearheaded by former and current President Donald Trump, who has prioritized rolling back decades of anti-discrimination measures across U.S. public and private sectors. Last week, Trump signed an executive order barring federal contractors from implementing any workforce policies designed to counteract systemic racism or sexism. That same week, Florida’s top prosecutor James Uthmeier, a close Trump ally, sent a formal letter to the NFL declaring the Rooney Rule an “illegal” affirmative action policy, arguing that “NFL fans in Florida don’t care what color their coach’s skin is.” But Goodell pushed back firmly on these claims, emphasizing that the league’s core commitment to diversity remains unshaken despite shifting political and legal landscapes. “One thing that doesn’t change is our values. And we believe that diversity has been a benefit to the National Football League,” Goodell told reporters at the meeting. He added that the league has closely reviewed evolving state and federal laws, and remains confident that the Rooney Rule is fully consistent with all current legal requirements. Pushing back on claims of racial preference, Goodell reiterated that the policy “is not a hiring mandate.” Instead, he framed it as a mechanism to expand talent pools, noting that the framework has been adopted by industries far beyond professional football, and across countries around the world, as a tool to source stronger, more diverse candidates. “The rule gives us an opportunity to hire the best talent, ultimately, and the clubs make those decisions individually,” Goodell explained. While the NFL is defending the policy, pro-diversity advocacy groups have long pointed out that the Rooney Rule’s real-world impact has remained limited, even after it was expanded to cover general manager and coordinator positions in addition to head coaching roles. Currently, just five of the NFL’s 32 teams have a minority head coach, with three of those identifying as Black, despite African-American players making up roughly 70 percent of the league’s entire player pool. The standoff over the Rooney Rule comes as hundreds of DEI programs across corporate, academic and non-profit sectors face growing legal and political scrutiny at both the state and federal levels, in the most significant rollback of anti-discrimination hiring measures in a generation.

  • DR Congo fans dance in the rain after sealing World Cup spot

    DR Congo fans dance in the rain after sealing World Cup spot

    After more than half a century of waiting, the Democratic Republic of Congo has secured its spot at the men’s FIFA World Cup for the first time since 1974, sparking wild, rain-soaked celebrations across the capital Kinshasa that stretched long into Tuesday night.

    The Leopards, as the national team is nicknamed, claimed their historic place in the 2026 World Cup with a dramatic 1-0 extra-time victory over Jamaica in the intercontinental playoff held in Guadalajara, Mexico. Burnley Premier League defender Axel Tuanzebe scored the all-important winning goal that sealed the result, cementing his status as a national hero overnight.

    This summer’s World Cup, co-hosted by the United States, Canada and Mexico, will see DR Congo drawn into Group K alongside Portugal, Colombia and Uzbekistan. It marks only the second time the Central African nation has ever qualified for the global tournament; its first appearance came in 1974, when the country competed under the name Zaire and exited the group stage after losses to Scotland, Yugoslavia and Brazil.

    By the evening of the playoff match, hundreds of supporters had already gathered in Kinshasa’s central public square to watch the game together, many having donned the team’s iconic sky-blue jerseys from the early hours of the day. Even when heavy rain began pouring down heavily throughout the 120 minutes of tense play, fans refused to leave, waiting patiently for the final whistle. The moment the referee blew the final horn, the packed square erupted into roars of celebration, with fans dancing and cheering in the downpour.

    Across the entire city of 17 million, the final result was met with a thunderous chorus of celebration: drivers honked their car horns nonstop, residents banged on pots and pans from their windows, and fans blew whistles into the late hours of the night. Many fans draped themselves in the DRC national flag, even as the fabric became soaked through by the persistent rain, declaring an unofficial national holiday the next day and vowing to celebrate straight through to dawn.

    What makes this moment even more meaningful is that it comes as a rare unifying joy for a country that has been marked by decades of regional conflict and the recent resurgence of the Rwandan-backed M23 armed group. For supporters from even conflict-affected regions of the country, the victory offers a much-needed break from instability and a moment of shared national pride. Standing in the pouring rain in Kinshasa, Merou, a fan from the eastern DRC city of Goma, which was seized by M23 in early 2025, called the qualification truly exceptional.

    “We are very proud of the Leopards today for this feat,” he said. “This victory will unify the Congo. We hope the whole country will benefit from it.”

    Another supporter, Maclain, echoed that sentiment, noting the country had earned this moment of collective happiness after years of violence and division. “We deserve a moment of happiness, away from the gunfire. We need to come together too,” he said.

    The qualification run itself was already a dramatic underdog story: the Leopards defied all expectations to eliminate African football powerhouses Nigeria and Cameroon earlier in the qualification process, before beating Jamaica to seal their historic spot at the World Cup.

  • Chang Ung, North Korean ex-IOC member who brokered Olympic joint marches with South, dies

    Chang Ung, North Korean ex-IOC member who brokered Olympic joint marches with South, dies

    The International Olympic Committee confirmed Wednesday the passing of Chang Ung, North Korea’s first and only member of the global Olympic governing body, who spent decades advancing cross-border sports exchange between the divided Korean Peninsula. He was 87 years old.

    The IOC announced that Chang died on Sunday, releasing a statement expressing “extreme sadness” at the loss of the longtime sports diplomat. To honor his legacy, the Olympic flag will fly at half-mast for three days at Olympic House, the IOC’s headquarters in Lausanne, Switzerland. No cause of death was included in the IOC announcement, and as of Wednesday, North Korea’s state-run media outlets had not publicly acknowledged his passing.

    Born in 1938, Chang began his career as an athlete, captaining North Korea’s national basketball team before transitioning to sports administration after retirement. Over decades of service, he rose through the ranks of North Korea’s athletic establishment, holding senior positions including vice sports minister, vice chairman of North Korea’s National Olympic Committee, and vice president of the Olympic Council of Asia. He was elected to the IOC in 1996, becoming North Korea’s sole representative to the organization for the entirety of his tenure.

    For nearly three decades, Chang led the vast majority of negotiations between North and South Korea aimed at expanding sports cooperation, a diplomatic track that often faced obstacles amid broader political tensions between the two rivals. His most high-profile achievement came at the 2000 Sydney Olympic Games, where athletes from both Koreas marched together during the opening and closing ceremonies under a single unification flag depicting the Korean Peninsula. This marked the first unified public appearance by the two Koreas’ athletic delegations since the peninsula was divided into two separate states in 1945.

    Joint marches became a recurring feature of subsequent Olympic Games and major international sporting events, including the 2018 Winter Olympics hosted by Pyeongchang, South Korea. After watching the opening ceremony joint parade in Pyeongchang, Chang told reporters he was “deeply moved” by the moment. Beyond ceremonial parades, Chang’s early dialogue with South Korean counterparts laid the groundwork for the two Koreas to field their first unified men’s and women’s teams at the 1991 World Table Tennis Championships in Chiba, Japan. At the 2018 Pyeongchang Games, the nations competed together for the first time at an Olympic Games, launching a combined women’s ice hockey team.

    In recent years, however, inter-Korean sports ties have stalled alongside a broader collapse in political relations. No cross-border exchange programs of any kind, including sports initiatives, have taken place for years. After the collapse of 2019 nuclear diplomacy between North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and then-U.S. President Donald Trump, North Korea has pulled back from talks with both the U.S. and South Korea, with Kim branding Seoul a permanent enemy and ruling out future unification talks.

    IOC President Kirsty Coventry highlighted Chang’s outsized contributions to the Olympic movement in her tribute, noting his work to advance access to sports, cross-cultural dialogue, and the positive role of athletics in civil society. “His efforts to promote cooperation on the Korean Peninsula demonstrated the power of sport to build bridges and inspire hope,” Coventry said.

    During his IOC tenure, Chang served on multiple key committees, including the Sport for All Commission and the International Olympic Truce Foundation. Most recently, North Korea’s official Korean Central News Agency mentioned Chang in 2023, when he received the Olympic Order — the IOC’s highest honor, awarded to individuals who make extraordinary contributions to the global Olympic movement — during an IOC session in Mumbai, India. Then serving as an honorary IOC member, Chang participated in the awarding ceremony via video link.

  • Divorced couples in Japan can now share custody of their children

    Divorced couples in Japan can now share custody of their children

    On Wednesday, a historic shift in family law took hold across Japan, as a revision to the country’s Civil Code legalizing joint child custody for divorced couples went into force. Prior to this change, Japan stood out as the only G7 nation that did not formally recognize joint legal custody, a policy position that drew growing criticism from both domestic and international observers for years.

    Under the old framework that dated back decades, Japanese family courts almost exclusively awarded sole custody to one parent when separating couples could not reach a private agreement. In the vast majority of cases, that parent was the mother – and the sole custody ruling granted full power to cut off all contact between the non-custodial parent and their children. While couples were permitted to work out informal visitation or co-parenting arrangements on their own, the court system offered no path to formal joint custody if negotiations broke down, leaving many non-custodial parents permanently estranged from their kids after divorce.

    The new regulation fundamentally rewrites this process: family courts now retain the authority to grant either sole or joint custody based on the specific circumstances of each case. Critically, the policy change is also retroactive: couples who divorced under the previous, restrictive system can now petition a family court to revisit and revise their existing custody arrangements. The revised code also adds a new mandate for formal child support payments, enshrining a right for the custodial parent to claim a baseline of 20,000 Japanese yen (equivalent to roughly £95 or $125) per month from their former spouse.

    Proponents of the reform have pinned long-held hopes on this policy shift as a solution to the high-profile issue of international parental abduction that has put Japan under global scrutiny in recent years. High-profile cases have drawn widespread attention to the harms of the old sole custody system: in 2023, retired Japanese table tennis legend Ai Fukuhara was accused by her Taiwanese ex-husband of abducting their young son, cutting off all contact and refusing to return the child to his home in Taiwan, a case that was eventually resolved through a private settlement. Two years prior, during the 2021 Tokyo Olympic Games, a French father living in Japan staged a public hunger strike to draw attention to his own case, where he claimed his ex-wife had taken their children and cut off all access under the protection of the old sole custody rules.

    Despite the widespread acclaim for the reform as a step toward more equitable family law, the change has not received universal support. Critics, including many domestic gender advocacy groups, raised concerns ahead of the bill’s passage that joint custody mandates could put vulnerable women at risk, forcing them to maintain ongoing contact with abusive former partners in cases involving domestic violence. Lawmakers have addressed these concerns directly in the text of the revised code: the law explicitly requires courts to award sole custody to one parent if evidence of domestic violence or child abuse is confirmed during proceedings.

    This revision marks one of the most significant changes to Japanese family law in modern history, closing a policy gap that separated Japan from other major developed economies and responding to years of pressure to reform a system that critics argued harmed children and non-custodial parents alike.

  • ‘Go take your oil:’ Nato fissure erupts over Iran as allies brush off US

    ‘Go take your oil:’ Nato fissure erupts over Iran as allies brush off US

    The ongoing US-Israeli military campaign against Iran has opened a deep and widening breach between the United States and its longstanding NATO allies, with multiple member states rejecting American requests for military access, basing rights, and defensive assets even as the Trump administration casts new uncertainty over its commitment to the alliance’s core mutual defense pledge.

    Multiple European capitals have now publicly pushed back against Washington’s demands. Spain has barred US military aircraft bound for Iran-related operations from entering its airspace, according to official statements. Leading Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera also reported that Rome has denied landing access to US military aircraft en route to the Middle East at a key Sicilian base, a striking move given Italy’s right-leaning government under Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, traditionally aligned with US foreign policy goals.

    Poland, a central European nation that has stood as one of Washington’s most reliable NATO allies since the end of the Cold War and where former President Trump retains broad popular support amid the country’s powerful right-wing populist movement, also issued a public denial on Tuesday. Warsaw rejected claims it had agreed to redeploy its Patriot air defense systems to the Middle East, confirming it turned down an informal request from the Trump administration for the assets.

    While Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez, a leftist leader, publicly opposed the US-Israeli war from its earliest days, the scope of refusals spanning ideologically diverse governments makes clear that Washington’s diplomatic isolation on the conflict is accelerating.

    Trump amplified transatlantic tensions in a post on the social platform X on Tuesday, calling out major European powers for their refusal to back the campaign. He revealed that France, which has long maintained an independent foreign policy agenda in the Middle East, has also denied US aircraft carrying military equipment to Israel permission to transit its airspace. He also publicly criticized the United Kingdom for declining to join the war effort, ending his post with a blunt warning: “The USA will remember !!!”

    The combative posture has been echoed across the Trump administration. When asked about growing alliance tensions, US Secretary of War Pete Hegseth declined to explicitly commit to NATO’s Article 5, the foundational clause that states an armed attack against one member is considered an attack against all, instead deferring any judgment on the commitment to Trump.

    Hegseth defended the US-led campaign against Iran, arguing the operation was launched “on behalf of the free world” and allies whose missile capabilities faced threats from Tehran. “When we ask for additional assistance or simple access, basing and overflight, we get questions or roadblocks or hesitations,” he told reporters.

    But that framing stands in stark contrast to how NATO allies view the conflict, according to Ian Lesser, vice president of the German Marshall Fund in the United States, who spoke to Middle East Eye. “There is a basic concern that Europe is being asked to contribute to and approve of operations they had no role in shaping and a strategy they had no role in shaping,” Lesser explained.

    “This war is both unpopular among the public and, in some cases, the elite, and it could take a direction that European allies can’t shape. That’s not a good recipe for cooperation,” he added.

    Tehran has responded to the US-Israeli offensive with a large-scale retaliatory campaign, launching thousands of missiles and drones targeting Israel and Arab Gulf states. While Iranian strikes on Gulf territory have specifically targeted US military bases with precision, Tehran has also attacked civilian infrastructure and energy facilities in the region in retaliation for similar Israeli strikes on Iranian targets.

    Washington has pushed Gulf Arab states to join the offensive against Iran, and Middle East Eye was first to report that the US has secured access to King Fahd Air Base in western Saudi Arabia after Iranian drone and missile strikes damaged facilities at US bases closer to the Gulf. To bolster its Iran deployment, the Trump administration has also reallocated critical military resources, including marines and air defense systems, away from East Asia.

    For NATO allies, the conflict has already carried a steep economic cost. After Iran seized effective control of the Strait of Hormuz, the world’s most critical energy chokepoint, and implemented a new system for approving safe passage for vessels, global oil and gas prices have surged, hitting European economies particularly hard. Roughly 20 percent of the world’s total energy supplies pass through the strait, and NATO countries, which have already cut most imports of Russian energy following the 2022 invasion of Ukraine, are facing unprecedented energy market volatility as a result.

    Iran’s consolidation of control over the strait has emerged as a major strategic embarrassment for the Trump administration, which has built its global superpower legitimacy on two core foundations: unwavering commitment to the NATO alliance, and guaranteed security for global energy flows out of the Persian Gulf. Tehran is now working to establish an alternative transit framework that prioritizes non-Western aligned vessels, including ships flagged by neutral countries like Pakistan and cargo carrying energy priced in Chinese renminbi instead of the US dollar, a direct challenge to Washington’s global financial and energy dominance.

    Trump has dramatically shifted his public posture on the crisis in recent days, moving from threatening to “obliterate” Iran’s entire energy grid if Tehran refused to surrender control of the strait, to stepping back and shifting responsibility to US allies. In a social media post directed at Washington’s uncooperative allies including the UK on Tuesday, Trump wrote: “Just TAKE IT. You’ll have to start learning how to fight for yourself, the USA won’t be there to help you anymore, just like you weren’t there for us. Iran has been, essentially, decimated. The hard part is done. Go get your own oil!”

    Analysts warn Trump’s threat to cede control of the strait to Iran is self-defeating if he eventually seeks NATO support to reimpose Western oversight of the waterway. If Tehran retains de facto control over the strait, Lesser said European allies will be forced to reconsider their entire regional security framework, and have little incentive to back the US war effort in the meantime.

    “Why would Nato countries make themselves more exposed by assisting the US war on Iran? They can probably imagine this going in a direction that allows certain traffic through Hormuz, but not all,” Lesser said, adding that European capitals also do not want to be publicly associated with a war that is deeply unpopular at home.

    In a sign that Tehran is actively encouraging NATO allies to break with Washington, Iran has publicly signaled it will reward countries that refuse to back the US campaign. The Iranian embassy in Spain said Thursday that Tehran would accommodate any request from Madrid for Spanish-flagged vessels to receive guaranteed safe passage through the strait. While Spain’s commercial shipping fleet is relatively small, the gesture carries clear symbolic weight for transatlantic relations.

  • Albanese cancels Gallipoli trip as Iran war intensifies

    Albanese cancels Gallipoli trip as Iran war intensifies

    Australia’s Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has scrapped his long-awaited first Anzac Day trip to the Gallipoli battlefields in Turkey, a journey that would have marked his first attendance at the transnational commemoration since he took office, amid rapidly escalating military tensions across the Middle East following the U.S.-Israeli attack on Iran. The cancellation was confirmed by Albanese himself during parliamentary question time on Wednesday, in response to a query from Deputy Opposition Leader Andrew Hastie. Though the prime minister had never formally announced the April 25 travel plans publicly, he acknowledged to the chamber that the proposal had been abandoned explicitly due to current travel conditions in Turkey. Albanese framed the decision as a responsible act of priority-setting, noting he is instead focusing on urgent ongoing matters, including active diplomatic engagement with Australia’s regional partners at a time of global instability. Hastie, who has been publicly critical of the Labor government’s response to the unfolding Iran conflict, used the question to also raise concerns over unconfirmed reports that multiple Australian government ministers have scrapped other scheduled April travel and events, and pressed the prime minister on whether the government has received official advice about delayed or canceled fuel cargo shipments bound for Australia. This cancellation breaks a pattern Albanese has maintained since taking office: he has opted to stay in Australia for Anzac Day commemorations in 2023 and 2025, and traveled to Papua New Guinea for the 2024 services, never having attended the Gallipoli Anzac Day events as prime minister before this planned trip. The prime minister’s choice comes at a moment of deep uncertainty over the trajectory of the Middle East conflict. After the joint U.S.-Israeli surprise military strike on Iran launched on February 28, which has killed more than 2,500 people across Iran, Lebanon and other regional territories, the outcome of the conflict remains far from clear. U.S. President Donald Trump has publicly suggested the conflict will wrap up within a matter of weeks, but on the ground, Israeli forces have expanded their ground invasion into Lebanon, and the country has for the first time come under direct attack from the Iran-aligned Houthi movement based in Yemen, further raising the risk of the conflict spreading across the wider Middle East.

  • ‘My six-year-old has nosebleeds’: Chiang Mai air pollution sparks health fears

    ‘My six-year-old has nosebleeds’: Chiang Mai air pollution sparks health fears

    Once celebrated for its misty mountain vistas, crisp cool air and lush tropical landscapes, Chiang Mai in northern Thailand has now become a city gripped by a recurring public health crisis. Decades of unaddressed seasonal air pollution have pushed long-time residents to the breaking point, with many families weighing permanent departure to protect their children’s health.

    Tirayut Wongsantisuk, a 41-year-old father, never imagined he would leave the city he and his wife chose for its idyllic natural setting when they relocated in the 2010s. Today, that dream has turned into a daily nightmare: two of his young daughters suffer from frequent nosebleeds, and his six-year-old eldest has developed painful skin rashes and swollen, allergy-ridden eyelids. The persistent poor air quality has left Tirayut with no good options. “I’ve been thinking, maybe we really should move during this season… because if something irreversible happens to our child, we’ll feel terrible forever,” he told the BBC in an on-the-ground interview.

    Tirayut’s fear is shared by dozens of other Chiang Mai families caught in this year’s particularly severe fire season. Over the past week, smoke from hundreds of raging blazes has choked the entire northern region, pushing Chiang Mai to the top of IQAir’s global ranking of the world’s most polluted major cities. When a BBC reporting team visited the area last week, a thick, acrid blanket of haze erased the iconic mountain views that draw millions of tourists each year, and a constant smell of burning hung in the air.

    Official satellite data underscores the scale of the crisis: on April 1 alone, the system detected 4,750 active fire hotspots across Thailand, a new record, with the vast majority concentrated in the forested and agricultural lands of the north. By the following morning, Chiang Mai’s average PM2.5 concentration — the tiny toxic particles that penetrate deep into the lungs and bloodstream — was rated “very unhealthy” by global public health standards.

    The annual crisis runs from November to March, a window that aligns with common agricultural practice: many smallholder farmers burn residual crop stubble to clear fields ahead of planting new season seeds. Dry seasonal conditions also fan the spread of spontaneous wildfires across parched forest and grassland areas. Local media has shared dramatic imagery of mountain slopes entirely engulfed in flames, with some residents comparing the blazing lines of fire to erupting volcanoes.

    To curb the spread of blazes, Thai authorities have already implemented emergency measures: all high-fire-risk national parks have been closed to the public, and officials have announced that anyone caught intentionally starting fires in restricted zones will be arrested on site. Under current Thai law, those convicted of illegal forest burning face maximum penalties of 20 years in prison and fines of up to 2 million baht, equivalent to roughly $61,100. Even so, the strict penalties have failed to deter the annual burning that drives the haze crisis.

    Public health experts warn that long-term exposure to PM2.5 haze causes a cascade of health complications, ranging from mild issues like itchy eyes and frequent nosebleeds to life-threatening conditions such as respiratory failure and heart attacks. For Benjamas Jaiparkan, a 35-year-old public school teacher in Chiang Mai, the risk is too great to ignore. She has already sent her two children to stay with relatives in neighboring Phayao province, where air quality remains far better than in Chiang Mai, and is now planning a permanent move. Her four-year-old son began experiencing regular nosebleeds last year, and she fears permanent damage to his developing lungs. “I feel so sorry for him because I don’t know how much more his lungs can take,” she said.

    Frustration with government inaction has been building for years among Chiang Mai residents. Activists and affected communities have repeatedly filed legal action to force systemic change. In July 2023, more than 1,700 Chiang Mai residents brought a lawsuit against former Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha and two leading state agencies, arguing that the government’s failure to curb northern air pollution had cut an average of five years off each resident’s life expectancy. In January 2024, a Chiang Mai court ruled in favor of the plaintiffs, ordering the national government to draft a binding emergency action plan to improve air quality within 90 days.

    The crisis is not isolated to Thailand: hazardous seasonal haze has become a regional public health emergency across Southeast Asia. This year, Malaysia and Indonesia have both recorded their highest number of fire hotspots in seven years, spreading poor air quality across borders and affecting millions of people across the region.