Global Pulse

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  • Greenland says findings on genocide allegation not final

    Greenland says findings on genocide allegation not final

    Nearly five decades after a coercive birth control programme targeting Inuit women in Greenland concluded, newly released conflicting expert reports have reopened one of the darkest chapters of Danish colonial rule, leaving the Greenlandic government unable to formally confirm whether the policy amounted to genocide. Between 1966 and 1970, a Danish-administered initiative inserted intrauterine devices (IUDs) into more than 4,500 Greenlandic women and girls — some as young as 13 — to curb rapid population growth driven by post-war improvements in healthcare and living standards. In recent years, hundreds of survivors have come forward to reveal they received the contraceptive device without their informed consent, with many suffering long-term health complications that left them permanently infertile.

    The release of the two reports on 29 August 2026 comes exactly one year after Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen issued a formal public apology for the “systematic discrimination” inflicted on Inuit women and their families under the scheme. Denmark has already approved a compensation package that will award 300,000 Danish kroner (approximately $46,800) to every confirmed surviving victim of the policy. Greenland, which was a formal Danish colony until 1953 and gained full home rule only in 1979, retained Danish oversight of its healthcare system until 1990, leaving the legacy of colonial policy embedded in public health practices for decades after formal decolonization.

    To resolve longstanding calls for accountability, the Greenlandic government appointed a four-person independent expert panel to determine whether human rights violations committed under the programme qualified as genocide under the UN Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, which explicitly lists “imposing measures intended to prevent births” within an ethnic or national group as an act of genocide. The panel fractured sharply before the report’s release, with two members resigning to publish an independent minority report, resulting in two conflicting conclusions released simultaneously on Friday.

    The majority report, authored by Alaska-based Inuit rights lawyer Dalee Sambo Dorough and University of Copenhagen law professor Miriam Cullen, confirmed that the forced non-consensual insertion of IUDs represented clear violations of the fundamental human rights of the affected Inuit women. However, the pair stopped short of confirming genocide, concluding that “on the basis of contraceptive practices alone” they could not meet the legal threshold for the crime. They noted that genocidal intent on the part of Danish authorities could still be proven by a court through additional evidence outside the panel’s scope, including the historical record of forced removal of Inuit children to foster homes in Denmark, a separate colonial policy that also targeted Inuit cultural and demographic survival.

    The dissenting minority report, written by former Danish Institute for Human Rights head Jonas Christoffersen and Greenland-based psychologist Jensine Nedergaard, went further, finding no evidence that any Danish authority or participating medical professional ever held an explicit intention to destroy the Inuit population as a group. The report acknowledged that individual women were wronged but said the panel could not confirm the full scope of abuse.

    Addressing reporters following the release of the reports, Greenlandic Justice Minister Marianne Paviasen said the sharp division between the two analyses meant the government could not issue an official conclusion on whether genocide occurred. “We cannot say, on behalf of the government, whether there was genocide,” Paviasen stated. “This is a conversation that we will continue to have as we work toward reconciliation.”

    Survivors of the programme have already criticized the entire expert process, pointing to the lack of Inuit representation on the panel as a fatal flaw that skewed conclusions from the start. Henriette Berthelsen, a survivor who spoke to AFP ahead of the reports’ release, said the process replicated the same colonial power dynamic that created the policy in the first place. “For me, this is not just about history or politics. It’s my body, my life and my right to self-determination,” she said. “And once again, I see that it is others who will investigate and define what was done to me and to other Inuit women.”

    Inger Platou, a 70-year-old survivor who spoke to Reuters, recalled waking up from what she was told was a minor procedure only to learn an IUD had been inserted without her consent. Complications from the device left her permanently unable to conceive, leading her to adopt two children from Colombia. “It turns out we were treated like animals,” Platou said. “Without consent, they just wanted to stop women from giving birth or having children. It was a very inhumane act. We are very deferential to authority because we are colonial children.”

    In response to the reports, both governments have laid out next steps for reconciliation. Greenlandic Prime Minister Jens-Frederik Nielsen announced plans to establish a formal national reconciliation commission to continue addressing the legacy of the programme, while Danish PM Mette Frederiksen reaffirmed that Denmark would work alongside Greenlandic authorities to navigate the next phase of accountability. “We will handle the political process together with the government of Greenland,” Frederiksen said. “The most important thing for me is that we find the right path together.”

    Historical data shows the coercive campaign achieved its stated goal of curbing population growth: between the programme’s 1966 launch and 1974, when the practice was scaled back, Greenland’s average fertility rate plummeted from seven children per woman to just 2.3, severely stalling decades of demographic growth for the Inuit community. Former Greenlandic Prime Minister Mute B Egede first labeled the practice genocide in 2024, sparking the renewed push for official investigations and accountability that led to Friday’s release of the expert reports.

  • US plans to cut off military aid to key Middle East ally, BBC told

    US plans to cut off military aid to key Middle East ally, BBC told

    As the United States prepares to complete its full troop withdrawal from Iraq by the end of September, a bombshell development has emerged: the Trump administration is poised to halt longstanding security assistance to Iraq’s Peshmerga, the Kurdish security force that stood as a core U.S. partner in defeating the Islamic State (IS) militant group. Four independent sources with direct knowledge of closed-door discussions have confirmed the plan, which has sparked widespread alarm among regional leaders and policy analysts.

    In recent high-level meetings with leaders of Iraq’s semi-autonomous Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG), Department of Defense officials explicitly stated that the administration does not intend to renew the existing memorandum of understanding (MoU) that underpins U.S. security support for the 180,000-strong Peshmerga. The agreement is scheduled to expire on September 30 – the exact same date that the U.S. and its coalition partners will withdraw their final remaining troops from Iraq, formally closing the books on the decades-long international counter-IS campaign. The last active U.S. military base in Iraq, located in the Kurdistan regional capital Irbil, will also shutter next month following the troop pullout.

    This planned aid cutoff comes at a moment of escalating aggression from Iran against the KRG. By late May of 2026, Iran and Iranian-aligned militias had already carried out 158 separate drone and missile strikes across Iraqi Kurdistan, according to the latest data compiled by the Washington-based Foundation for Defense of Democracies. Just days ago, an Iranian drone attack targeted Irbil itself, amplifying already urgent fears among Kurdish officials about the coming security gap.

    For fiscal year 2026, the Peshmerga received $61 million through the Pentagon’s counter-IS program, funding that covered weapons procurement, military training, and troop stipends. In the administration’s 2027 budget request, the Pentagon proposed eliminating all of this security assistance, arguing that with the declared defeat of IS, the funds can be redirected to other priorities. That budget proposal remains stalled amid a broader partisan budget battle in Congress, but even so, Kurdish officials who held out hope for a short-term extension of the existing aid agreement have now been told no extension is planned. Multiple sources note that a final formal decision is still under review, and administration officials are reportedly exploring limited alternative forms of security support after the troop withdrawal, but no concrete plan for continued full funding has emerged.

    The timing of this move aligns with President Trump’s long-stated second-term goal of reducing U.S. military entanglements across the Middle East. It also comes six months into the ongoing open conflict between the U.S. and Iran, a confrontation that shows no sign of de-escalation. What makes the development particularly striking is that it comes less than a year after the U.S. opened its largest diplomatic consulate in the world in Irbil, an $800 million facility that senior State Department officials hailed just last December as a lasting symbol of the close strategic partnership between Washington and the KRG.

    Both the KRG and the U.S. State Department have declined to publicly comment on the confidential talks. A Pentagon spokesperson directed inquiries to a July statement from Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth following his meeting with newly elected Iraqi Prime Minister Ali al-Zaidi, which noted that “the United States, Iraq, and Coalition partners have achieved tremendous success in defeating ISIS and now the Iraqi Security Forces, including the Peshmerga and other Iraqi Kurdistan Region security forces, will lead the fight against terrorists in Iraq.”

    Regional policy experts and former U.S. officials have widely condemned the planned aid cutoff, warning it carries severe strategic consequences for U.S. credibility in the Middle East. Analysts argue that ending support for the Peshmerga will not only create a dangerous power vacuum in northern Iraq but also send a clear message that the U.S. cannot be counted on to stand by its long-term regional allies.

    Yerevan Saeed, director of the Global Kurdish Initiative for Peace at American University, emphasized the deep cost of abandoning a partner that sacrificed heavily for U.S. goals in the region. “The US would be cutting off the Kurds, who shed so much blood to help the Americans achieve their goals in Iraq and the wider Middle East,” Saeed said. “This is going to be a big win for Iran, China, and Russia if the Kurds are left so exposed.”

    James Jeffrey, who led the global counter-IS coalition during Trump’s first term and served as a U.S. ambassador to Iraq and Turkey under the Obama administration, warned that cutting aid would repeat a catastrophic mistake of the past. “It’s money well spent, as we found out when the Islamic State rolled into northern Iraq,” Jeffrey said, referring to the 2011 U.S. full troop withdrawal that left a power vacuum and allowed IS to seize large swathes of northern Iraq.

    Jason Campbell, a former U.S. defense official and Middle East expert at the Middle East Institute, noted that the withdrawal of U.S. troops will already reduce Iran’s ability to target American personnel in the region – but it will leave the Peshmerga far more exposed to Iranian aggression. “The Peshmerga have been the frontline in the US and international war with ISIS,” Campbell said. “If the US moves forward with this, it’ll make the Kurds perhaps the most vulnerable potential targets of Iran.”

    The discussions on Peshmerga aid are part of broader negotiations between Washington, Baghdad, and the KRG tied to the upcoming troop withdrawal, which was agreed to in a 2024 bilateral security deal between the U.S. and Iraq. American combat troops initially withdrew from Iraq in 2011, but returned in 2014 after the vacuum created by the first withdrawal allowed IS to rise to power and seize large portions of northern Iraq and Syria. Today, experts estimate fewer than 1,000 U.S. troops remain in Iraq, down from a peak of 170,000 during the height of the Iraq War.

    Leading the U.S. side in the recent security talks is Tom Barrack, a close Trump ally who serves as U.S. ambassador to Turkey and special envoy to Iraq and Syria. The administration has publicly stated it is open to a new bilateral security agreement with Baghdad, and the topic was discussed during al-Zaidi’s July visit to Washington, where the Iraqi prime minister met with President Trump, Defense Secretary Hegseth, and congressional leaders. During his visit, al-Zaidi framed the upcoming withdrawal as a historic milestone for Iraqi sovereignty: “October 1 will mark a new day in the trajectory of the Iraqi state, as Iraq will be free of any foreign military presence,” his office said in a statement.

  • Right-wing commentator Milo Yiannopoulos detained by ICE

    Right-wing commentator Milo Yiannopoulos detained by ICE

    Controversial right-wing political commentator Milo Yiannopoulos, a British national long based in the United States, has been listed in Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detention records, according to recent data checks of the agency’s inmate registry.

    The 41-year-old commentator, who previously served as an editor for conservative outlet Breitbart News and briefly worked with American rapper Kanye West, is currently believed to be held in a Louisiana detention facility, based on publicly searchable ICE detainee data. A self-described provocateur who has styled himself as the “most fabulous supervillain on the internet,” Yiannopoulos has long faced fierce condemnation from critics who label him a spreader of harmful hate speech targeting marginalized groups.

    As of press time, neither ICE representatives nor Yiannopoulos himself have responded to requests for comment from the BBC. A nationwide search of the agency’s detainee database confirms that a detainee matching Yiannopoulos’ name and British nationality is currently in ICE custody, though the exact reasons and specific circumstances surrounding his detention remain unconfirmed and undisclosed to the public.

    Raised in Kent, in southern England, Yiannopoulos has resided in the U.S. for many years and became a polarizing public figure during the 2016 U.S. presidential election, when he emerged as an early high-profile backer of Donald Trump. He even headlined a “Gays for Trump” rally during that year’s Republican National Convention and repeatedly supported Trump’s calls for stricter U.S. immigration policies. Despite his early alliance with the Trump movement, the pair had a very public falling out. While Yiannopoulos still claims to back parts of Trump’s policy agenda, he posted a critical statement on social media platform X back in March of this year claiming that Trump “has lost his way, bought off by foreign interests.”

    Yiannopoulos has drawn widespread backlash for years over incendiary remarks targeting transgender people, Muslim communities, the Black Lives Matter movement, feminists, and even LGBTQ+ groups — a notable controversy given that he previously identified as gay, and now describes himself as “ex-gay.” Some of his most infamous provocative columns include pieces titled “Birth Control Makes Women Unattractive and Crazy” and “Would You Rather Your Child Had Feminism or Cancer?”

    One of the most serious scandals of his career came in 2017, when he was disinvited from speaking at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) — a major annual gathering of U.S. conservatives that has repeatedly hosted Trump — after video surfaced of comments that appeared to condone pedophilia. Shortly after the incident, Yiannopoulos issued an apology and resigned from his position at Breitbart. He has repeatedly pushed back against the accusations, arguing his remarks were describing his own personal experiences of abuse as a child, rather than endorsing the act.

    For years, Yiannopoulos has been publicly associated with the alt-right, a loose ideological movement defined by its opposition to mainstream political correctness and feminism that includes outspoken factions of neo-Nazis and white supremacists. While he has stated he does not consider himself an official member of the alt-right, he has previously described the movement as “energising and exciting.”

  • Brazil’s TV and radio campaign blitz begins, with Lula and Flávio Bolsonaro set for a nasty fight

    Brazil’s TV and radio campaign blitz begins, with Lula and Flávio Bolsonaro set for a nasty fight

    Brazil’s high-stakes presidential contest enters a new phase this Friday, as the two front-runners — incumbent Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva and opposition leader Sen. Flávio Bolsonaro — launch their official free campaign advertising blitz across national television and radio networks. Long-time political observers note that even amid the global explosion of social media campaigning, these traditional broadcast platforms remain one of the most influential tools for winning voter support across Brazil’s vast, continental territory.

    Polls currently show the race is a dead heat: Lula, who is running for an unprecedented fourth non-consecutive term, holds a negligible lead over Flávio Bolsonaro, the eldest son of former far-right president Jair Bolsonaro. This tight margin has political analysts forecasting that the ad campaigns will be among the most combative in recent Brazilian history. Independent political consultant and former Brazilian government minister Thomas Traumann warns that the tone of this election will be even more toxic than the 2022 presidential race, which stands as one of the most divisive in the country’s post-democracy history. That 2022 contest saw Lula defeat Jair Bolsonaro by the narrowest margin since Brazil returned to democratic rule in 1985, and the former president is currently serving a 27-year prison sentence for his role in orchestrating the 2023 coup attempt following his election loss.

    For millions of Brazilian voters, the arrival of daily campaign ads on TV and radio serves as an unmistakable marker that election season is underway, much like iconic Brazil national flags and street art signal the coming of the World Cup. Unlike the United States, where political candidates must spend hundreds of millions of dollars to buy broadcast ad time, Brazil’s system allocates free airtime to political parties based on the size of their electoral coalitions and their existing representation in the country’s lower house of Congress.

    Communications scholar Bruno Pompeu, a professor at the University of Sao Paulo, explains that this free ad framework is intentionally designed to uphold core democratic principles. “The gratuity of ads defends the democratic principle of equal treatment and means the amount of time each party gets is not going to be determined by the economic power of each party,” Pompeu noted.

    This structure has already created an uneven playing field for the two front-runners in the first round of voting, scheduled for October 4. Lula and his allied coalition have secured 5 minutes and 31 seconds of daily dedicated ad time, while Flávio Bolsonaro’s bloc will only receive 4 minutes and 20 seconds. The remaining allocated airtime will be split between the two smaller party candidates still in the race. Traumann argues that this smaller allocation of time for Bolsonaro highlights a key weakness in his candidacy: unlike his father, who successfully united a broad right-wing coalition on his way to winning the 2018 presidency, Flávio Bolsonaro has struggled to win the backing of major established parties. If a run-off vote is required — scheduled for October 25 — the two remaining candidates will receive equal airtime under Brazilian electoral law.

    For many long-time voters, these broadcast ads remain a core part of how they engage with elections. Maria Izabel Pecanha, an 84-year-old retired history teacher living in Rio de Janeiro, says she has relied on TV and radio campaign coverage since the 1950s, and ignores most social media political content. “I like to watch them to feel excited, to feel angry, to think of how Brazil’s political actors show themselves. It is always very instructive,” Pecanha said. “I have watched today’s and I will keep doing that until the end of the campaign, it is like watching a bit of history unfold.”

    Even as digital campaigning grows in prominence, political analysts say traditional broadcast ads retain unmatched reach, penetrating remote rural regions of Brazil where social media access is often limited or inconsistent, and shaping national public conversation around the election. Still, the medium is evolving to match shifting media habits: João Ricardo Matta, a business professor at the Getulio Vargas Foundation, one of Brazil’s leading academic and research institutions, says social media’s more casual, conversational tone is already shaping the style of this cycle’s TV and radio spots. “They will be less artificial, more natural, with the appearance of something homemade,” Matta said, adding that many campaigns are shifting a larger share of their overall budgets from traditional broadcast ad production to digital social media content.

    Overall, broadcasters are required to set aside 14 minutes of daily airtime for nearly 1,000 30-second campaign ads across all races, plus an additional 12 and a half minutes reserved exclusively for presidential candidates, in the lead-up to the October 4 first round.

  • ‘A very frightening time’: US terror tag endangers UK Palestine Action activists, critics say

    ‘A very frightening time’: US terror tag endangers UK Palestine Action activists, critics say

    A recent decision by the United States government to label UK-based pro-Palestine advocacy group Palestine Action as a transnational terrorist organization has triggered widespread alarm among campaigners, who warn the move will expose UK-linked activists to elevated risks of intrusive surveillance and potential exclusion from the global financial system.

    The announcement came via an official statement published on the US Treasury Department’s website, which rolled out a new package of sanctions targeting what it calls “Violent Far-Left Terrorist Networks”. Alongside Palestine Action, the sanctions also target Masar Badil, a Palestinian movement pushing for a revolutionary alternative path to secure Palestinian rights and self-determination, as well as Italian tech collective Autistici/Inventati. The US claims the collective provides specialized digital infrastructure, tools and services to Antifa cells and other violent far-left extremist groups, including a designated foreign terrorist organization.

    US officials emphasized that the designation complements the UK government’s 2024 decision to ban Palestine Action under domestic terrorism law, a ruling that is currently scheduled to face a legal challenge at the UK Supreme Court this November.

    For activists directly connected to the group, the new sanctions have already created profound uncertainty and fear. Max Geller, a former Palestine Action member and US citizen who resides in the UK, told independent outlet Middle East Eye that he now faces deep anxiety over his financial security and ability to travel. “I have American bank accounts, I don’t know if I’m going to suddenly be de-banked or if every single one of my Paypal transactions with my friends are going to be scrutinised,” Geller said. With elderly parents based in the US, Geller added that the ban could even block family visits, noting “Suddenly going back home has become a very stressful and scary prospect. No one knows what this means yet. They don’t use these laws on American citizens, so no one really knows what it means for people like me.”

    Huda Ammori, co-founder of Palestine Action, described the US economic sanctions as an additional layer of repression stacked on top of the UK’s domestic proscription, one that will make daily life far harder for hundreds of linked activists. “There is so much reliance in the Western world on these institutions that you don’t think about how intertwined they are with the US financial system until you’re at the opposite end of their repression,” Ammori told Middle East Eye. Beyond financial exclusion, Ammori warned the designation amplifies the risk of expanded surveillance through intelligence sharing arrangements between the US and UK governments. “It puts people at more of a risk. The US are known for trying to quash who they perceive as enemies of the American empire, and we are now firmly in their sights,” she said.

    Legal and civil liberties campaigners say the far-reaching nature of the US sanctions puts thousands of UK-based supporters at risk of severe consequences. Tim Crosland, a former government lawyer and co-founder of London-based advocacy group Defend our Juries, pointed out that more than 2,700 people have already been arrested in the UK under the 2000 Terrorism Act for supporting Palestine Action. He questioned what the new US designation means for this group: “Are they now in danger of having their bank accounts closed and not being able to operate within the financial system?” Crosland noted that the sanctions already cut off financial access for high-profile critics, pointing to the case of UN Special Rapporteur for Palestine Francesca Albanese, who was sanctioned by the US during the Trump administration last year and has since been locked out of routine financial transactions after calling for the International Criminal Court to prosecute Israeli officials and US company executives accused of complicity in human rights abuses in Palestinian territories.

    “Does that apply to people who’ve held up signs saying ‘I support Palestine Action’? Will the British government give the US the personal data of the people who’ve done that? Because they haven’t got the data unless somebody gives it to them,” Crosland added.

    The US announcement came just days after new details emerged of a pending terrorism-connected case against seven Palestine Action activists accused of vandalizing former US president Donald Trump’s golf resort in Turnberry, Scotland. In March 2025, the activists are alleged to have broken into the property, dug up sections of the golf course and spray-painted “Gaza is not 4 sale” on the clubhouse. All seven face charges of malicious damage aggravated by a terrorist connection, a designation that can result in longer prison sentences and continued terrorist monitoring for decades after release.

    Raza Husain KC, who represented Ammori in a judicial review of the UK’s proscription last November, noted that then UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer held two phone calls with Trump shortly after the incident, on March 10 and 30. Declassified UK reported that the British government has so far refused to confirm or deny whether the two leaders discussed Palestine Action during those conversations. Around the same time, Trump’s son Eric met with Scottish First Minister John Swinney, and a Freedom of Information disclosure showed Swinney “noted with concern the recent incident at the Trump Turnberry property, condemning the damage caused by vandalism and offered reassurance that the relevant authorities would continue to take the incident seriously”. Trump later took to his Truth Social platform to label the activists “terrorists” who had committed “serious damage” — language that echoed the wording of the UK’s 2000 Terrorism Act — and said they would “hopefully be treated harshly”. Ammori argued that the wording makes clear the proscription was discussed: “What emboldened him to use those words after speaking to Starmer? It must have been discussed.”

    In recent months, British courts have already begun applying terrorist designations to Palestine Action activists convicted only of property damage, a move that legal experts call unprecedented in UK history. In June 2025, four Palestine Action defendants were sentenced as terrorists in connection with a 2024 raid on an Elbit Systems factory near Bristol. Crucially, the jurors that convicted them of general criminal charges were never informed that prosecutors would seek a terrorist designation, which was determined by the presiding judge during a separate sentencing hearing. This marked the first time British courts applied a terrorist label to direct action protesters who had not been convicted of terrorist offences or intentional violence. In a separate case, Judge Phillip Parry initially announced he would consider applying a terrorist connection to five activists who vandalized a Barclays Bank branch in Lancashire, but Judge Altham rejected the designation at a recent hearing, ruling the damage caused was not substantial enough to warrant the label.

    The US designation of Palestine Action adds the group to the Specially Designated Global Terrorist (SDGT) list, a regime created just days after the 9/11 attacks in 2001 via then-President George W. Bush’s Executive Order 13224. The first target of the list was the Holy Land Foundation, the largest Muslim charity operating in the US at the time, which resulted in five Palestinian-American men being sentenced to between 15 and 65 years in prison on charges of funding Hamas-linked groups. Notably, no court ever presented evidence linking the men to violent activity.

    In its official statement, the US Treasury Department claimed “The United States does not sanction persons for engaging in political speech or other constitutionally protected activities.” But Geller says the designation places Palestine Action in the same legal category as extremist groups like Boko Haram and al-Qaeda, and warns it signals a broader crackdown on dissent. “It seems to be a harbinger for where things are headed. A lot of people might soon find themselves in this position,” he said.

    The US action aligns with a broader administration-wide push to crack down on left-wing activist groups under the framing of countering a global “resurgence of far-left political terrorism”. The latest sanctions build on a November 2024 executive order signed by Trump that designated the loose anti-fascist network Antifa as a domestic terrorist organization. In June 2025, a Texas court sentenced anti-ICE protesters accused of Antifa ties to up to 100 years in prison, a verdict widely seen as a test case for the national crackdown on left-wing activism. In July, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio hosted an international summit focused on countering what he called “a deliberate, ideologically motivated strategy to destabilize free societies by violently targeting our political and economic systems”.

    Many campaigners have questioned the timing of the US announcement, which comes just weeks after the UK Supreme Court granted Ammori permission to challenge the British government’s proscription of Palestine Action. “Is the Trump administration worried that Palestine Action might prevail at the European Court of Human Rights or in the British Supreme Court?” Geller asked.

    The designation also comes shortly after Spanish police arrested US citizen and left-wing humanitarian financier James “Fergie” Chambers at the request of US extradition authorities. Chambers has acknowledged participating in a Palestine Action protest and covering legal fees for some group members, and his lawyers confirm he has donated roughly $1 million to humanitarian projects in Gaza. Ammori revealed that the US submitted its indictment against Chambers on the exact same day the Treasury Department announced the Palestine Action sanctions. Geller argues the timing is no coincidence: “It feels like it’s truly only being done as a PR stunt to build a groundswell of public support for either extraditing Fergie or preempting another Palestine Action legal victory.”

    Middle East Eye, which originally reported this story, provides independent coverage of the Middle East, North Africa and global affairs.

  • Sarfaraz denies knowing about Pakistan threat to end tour

    Sarfaraz denies knowing about Pakistan threat to end tour

    A diplomatic and sporting controversy has overshadowed the second Test between Pakistan and England at Lord’s, after reports emerged that the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) threatened to abandon the ongoing three-match tour over a planned Sky Sports interview with the imprisoned former Pakistani prime minister and cricket legend Imran Khan’s two sons.

    The interview, featuring Suleiman and Kasim Khan, aired during the lunch break on the opening day of the Lord’s Test. In the sit-down conversation hosted by former England captain Michael Atherton, the pair raised urgent concerns about the prison treatment and personal security of their 73-year-old father, while also criticizing the British government’s public response to his detention. Imran Khan, who led Pakistan to its historic 1992 Cricket World Cup victory and served as the country’s prime minister from 2018 to 2022, has been held in prison since 2023 on corruption charges he has repeatedly and vehemently denied.

    According to insider sources, the PCB warned the England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) that it would call off the Lord’s Test and the remaining matches of the tour if the interview went ahead. Despite receiving a pre-broadcast complaint about the segment, Sky Sports went ahead and aired a edited version of the conversation. Pakistani public broadcaster PTV, which holds domestic rights to the tour and uses Sky’s broadcast footage, opted to cut the interview from its domestic transmission.

    In the wake of the incident, Pakistan’s head coach Sarfaraz Ahmed has claimed he and the full national squad had no advance knowledge of the PCB’s threat. Speaking to reporters at the close of play on day two, the former Pakistan wicketkeeper dismissed any suggestion that the team considered refusing to return to the field after lunch for the afternoon session.

    “I don’t know anything. I’m just focusing on the match,” Sarfaraz said. “You’re talking about the interview? We don’t know about the interview. All are OK. We were having lunch at that time.”

    The ECB confirmed it sought official guidance from the UK Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office amid rising tensions over the broadcast. Ultimately, the Pakistan side did return to the pitch after the lunch break, and the Test has proceeded without further disruption through the end of day two. As of the close of play on day two, England held a 261-run first innings lead, moving to 81 for three in their second innings. Sky Sports also confirmed it received no additional formal complaints regarding the interview after broadcast.

    Notably, this incident marks a rare high-profile moment of off-field tension in recent cricket relations between the two nations. After a 17-year hiatus in England tours to Pakistan driven by widespread security concerns, this will be the fourth separate England tour to Pakistan in four years, when the side travels to the country in October for a tri-series against Pakistan and Sri Lanka.

    The controversy also echoes an unprecedented incident from 2006, when a Test between the two sides at The Oval was abandoned after Pakistan refused to return to the field following tea on day four, in protest at a ball-tampering accusation from match officials. That match ended with Pakistan being forfeited — the only instance of a Test match forfeiture in the 147-year history of international Test cricket.

    The PCB is currently led by chairman Mohsin Naqvi, who also holds the official position of Pakistan’s interior minister.

  • What will Jackson bring to Villa with Watkins set for exit?

    What will Jackson bring to Villa with Watkins set for exit?

    Aston Villa has finalized the club-record acquisition of striker Nicolas Jackson from Chelsea in a deal that could reach £65 million, with long-serving frontman Ollie Watkins poised to complete a transfer to Saudi Pro League side Al-Hilal. The transfer caps a dramatic summer of squad overhaul for Unai Emery’s side, which has already seen multiple key first-team players, including Morgan Rogers, Ezri Konsa, Youri Tielemans and Lucas Digne, depart Villa Park.

    Jackson, 25, becomes the club’s most expensive signing ever, surpassing the club’s previous addition Johan Manzambi. He joins a new cohort of Villa recruits that also includes Joao Gomes, Zion Suzuki and Matteo Ruggeri, arriving as the club confronts the early fallout of its dramatic squad reshuffle. On the opening weekend of the new Premier League season, Emery’s side suffered a demoralizing 4-0 defeat to Brighton, forced to field Emiliano Buendia as an makeshift centre-forward after Watkins was sidelined, Tammy Abraham picked up an injury, and 17-year-old rookie Brian Madjo was also unavailable.

    The arrival of the Senegal international fills the critical gap for a specialist striker, and comes as Villa prepares to end Watkins’ six-year tenure at the club. During his time at Villa Park, the 30-year-old England international scored 108 goals in 278 appearances, establishing himself as one of the foundational players that drove the club’s dramatic rise under Emery’s leadership. However, statistical analysis shows that Jackson is far more than a like-for-like replacement, bringing a distinctly different playing profile to the central striking role.

    A deep comparison of the two players’ performance data from last season highlights Jackson’s sharp attacking output. During his 2025-26 season-long loan at Bayern Munich, Jackson notched 11 goals and 3 assists across all competitions in just 1,320 minutes of play, averaging 1.0 goal involvements per 90 minutes – a rate well clear of Watkins’ 0.6 per 90, which came from 21 goals and 5 assists across 3,837 minutes for Villa. Jackson also outperformed Watkins in nearly every underlying attacking metric: he averaged 3.8 shots per 90 to Watkins’ 2.6, 2.2 shots on target per 90 to Watkins’ 1.2, an expected goals (xG) rate of 0.7 per 90 to 0.5, and 8.5 touches in the opposition box per 90 compared to Watkins’ 5.6.

    This trend of strong underlying attacking numbers predates Jackson’s spell in Germany. Among all Premier League players with at least 5,000 minutes of league action since January 2020, only Erling Haaland has posted a higher non-penalty xG per 90 than Jackson’s 0.55. While Jackson’s ability to consistently get into high-quality scoring positions is not in question, his finishing has been the subject of ongoing scrutiny across his two seasons at Chelsea. Across his two campaigns in west London, he scored 14 goals from an xG of 18.7 in 2023-24, followed by 10 goals from an xG of 12.3 the next season, converting just 18 of 61 clear big chances. Notably, however, Watkins has also had similar finishing inconsistencies, converting 24 of 73 big chances since joining Villa in 2020, and last season the gap between the two players’ conversion rates was negligible: Jackson converted 19.6% of his total shots and 40.9% of his big chances, compared to 18.9% and 43.2% for Watkins.

    An important caveat shapes the statistical comparison: Jackson made only 15 starts in 34 appearances for Bayern, with most of his minutes coming off the bench. Opta analysts note that this limited, substitute-heavy sample size can inflate per-90 performance metrics, as players often enter matches against fatigued defenses. That said, the tactical alignment of their roles makes the comparison largely fair: both played almost exclusively as centre-forwards last season, with 92% of Watkins’ minutes coming as the central striker in Villa’s 4-2-3-1 system, and 86% of Jackson’s minutes at Bayern coming in the same role in an identical formation.

    Beyond scoring, the two strikers have fundamentally different styles of play. Jackson averaged 46.6 open-play touches per 90 and 24 completed passes per 90, compared to just 29.5 touches and 11.6 passes for Watkins. He is also far more involved in build-up and attack progression: he records twice as many shot-ending carries (1.6 per 90 vs 0.8), successful take-ons (1.6 per 90 vs 0.82) and passes into the penalty area (2.5 per 90 vs 0.7) compared to Watkins. Opta touch maps confirm this divide: Watkins’ involvement is heavily concentrated in the central areas of the final third and penalty box, while Jackson picks up possession across a much broader range of attacking zones.

    When compared to a 10-year sample of 1,577 strikers across Europe’s top five leagues, Jackson ranks in the 85th percentile for chances created, 77th for progressive carries and 73rd for total touches, while Watkins ranks 28th, 53rd and 8th in the same categories. This shift signals a major tactical change for Villa, moving away from a low-touch, fixed focal point striker to a more dynamic forward who integrates into build-up play early.

    Defensively, Jackson also brings a more aggressive high-pressing profile. He averaged 34 high pressures per 90 (compared to 31.4 for Watkins) and won 2.7 possessions per 90 compared to 1.8 for Watkins, with 0.9 of those recoveries coming in the final third, versus 0.6 for Watkins. Jackson ranks in the 88th percentile for attacking third possessions won among the Opta striker sample, compared to Watkins’ 43rd. The two are nearly identical in their rate of runs in behind defences (13 per 90 for Jackson vs 12.7 for Watkins), though Watkins makes slightly more of those runs into the penalty area, and holds an edge in aerial duels, winning 1.2 per 90 compared to Jackson’s 0.7.

    Villa’s move for Jackson is rooted in existing familiarity: Emery first coached the striker at Villarreal, where Jackson made 27 appearances, scoring three goals and notching three assists in 1,195 minutes after arriving from Senegal. Jackson has openly credited Emery with transforming his game, noting that when he first arrived in Europe he had natural dribbling talent but little structured understanding of off-ball movement, and Emery helped turn his raw instinct into a polished, tactical skill set.

    Jackson’s development accelerated rapidly after Emery left Villarreal. During the 2022-23 La Liga season, he posted a non-penalty xG plus expected assists rate of 0.56 per 90, a mark bettered by only seven players with at least 1,500 minutes that season – all of whom played for elite Spanish sides Barcelona, Real Madrid or Atletico Madrid. Ten of his league goal involvements that season came after he carried the ball into dangerous areas, a total trailing only Vinicius Jr despite Jackson playing far fewer minutes. That form earned him a 2023 transfer to Chelsea, where he scored 30 goals and added 12 assists in 81 appearances before last season’s loan move to Bayern.

    Jackson’s spell at Bayern was limited by squad depth rather than poor performance. The club’s loan agreement included an obligation to buy triggered by a demanding appearance threshold, but Harry Kane stayed fully fit and in prolific form, while the strong performances of Luis Diaz and Michael Olise further cut into Jackson’s opportunities. Even so, he still scored 11 goals across all competitions, and only Kane recorded a better rate of open-play goals per 90 in the Bundesliga for Bayern last season. Then-Bayern coach Vincent Kompany publicly defended Jackson from criticism, highlighting the quality of forwards ahead of him in the pecking order and affirming that Jackson had trained and performed to a high standard.

    For Villa, the trade-off represents a clear strategic shift. Watkins delivered consistent goals, power and reliability during one of the most successful eras in the club’s modern history. Jackson, five years younger than Watkins, brings a more dynamic, all-around attacking profile that aligns with Emery’s evolving tactical plans. While questions remain over whether Jackson’s strong per-90 numbers will hold up over a full season of regular starts, and his inconsistent finishing at Chelsea has fueled ongoing doubts, Villa is not taking a gamble on an unproven talent. Emery already knows Jackson’s game from their time together at Villarreal, and the club is replacing a 30-year-old striker with a 25-year-old whose underlying numbers suggest he still has significant room for growth.

    If the deal cycle concludes with Watkins’ departure to Al-Hilal confirmed, the 2024/25 Europa League winners will not just have replaced their starting centre-forward – they will have redefined the role their number nine plays in Emery’s system.

  • Virginia family with 4 relatives missing in the Nepal-China floods pleads for more rescue help

    Virginia family with 4 relatives missing in the Nepal-China floods pleads for more rescue help

    Days after catastrophic flash floods tore through the Nepal-China Himalayan border region, dozens of North American relatives of missing trekkers join thousands of grieving families worldwide clinging to fragile hope that their loved ones could still be found alive.

    Among those waiting for answers is 27-year-old Mukti Patel, who has gathered with close friends and remaining family at her parents’ home in Richmond, Virginia, since learning the devastating news. Five members of her extended family are among the missing: her 56-year-old father Umesh Kumar, her 32-year-old sister Akanksha Patel, Akanksha’s 32-year-old husband Ishan, and Ishan’s 59-year-old mother Shilpa. The four had joined a 14-day organized trek run by Himalayan Glacier Adventure and Travel Company, a firm with a U.S. office in Baltimore. The entire group of 40 guests and 7 tour guides on the excursion has been unaccounted for since the flood hit.

    Patel recounted that the final contact the family had with the trekking group came on Wednesday, the day the flood struck, when the domestic team called to wish Ishan a happy 32nd birthday. The group was staying in a local hotel near the flood zone that was completely swept away by the surging waters, but Patel refuses to give up on their survival. “I shouldn’t talk in past tense yet,” she said Friday while sharing memories of her loved ones. “We don’t know anything.”

    She described her sister Akanksha, a psychiatrist who dedicated her career to dismantling stigma around mental illness, as a kind and guiding force in her life. “Everything I’ve done in life has been off the blueprint of my sister. There’s no ounce of meanness in her.” Her father Umesh, a long-time adventure enthusiast who had dreamed of making the Himalayan trek for decades, is known for his generous spirit and volunteered to support COVID-19 pandemic victims during the public health crisis. Ishan, an orthopedic surgeon, brought constant joy to his wife’s life, Patel added. The four missing relatives hold dual citizenship between North American nations: Umesh and Akanksha are Canadian citizens, while Ishan and Shilpa hold both Canadian and U.S. passports.

    As of the latest update, more than 2,000 people remain listed as missing following the disaster, which has already confirmed hundreds of fatalities. The U.S. State Department reports that approximately 90 American citizens are among those unaccounted for. Rescuers are still working to extract survivors from layers of mud and debris left by the flood, but progress has been slow and difficult in the hard-hit mountainous region.

    Sanket Pandey, managing director of the tour company organizing the trek, told reporters that during a recent Zoom call with family members of the missing trekkers, many asked if they could travel to the disaster site to support search efforts, and questioned whether any of their loved ones could be trapped in surviving air pockets in collapsed structures. “It’s really difficult to have nothing,” Pandey said of the ongoing uncertainty for waiting families.

    Patel has issued a call for greater international support to speed up rescue and recovery operations in the affected region, as waiting families continue to hold out hope, however thin, that their loved ones will be brought home safely. “I want my family to come home,” she said.

  • Driven by distraction? Trump steps up stunts as US midterms loom

    Driven by distraction? Trump steps up stunts as US midterms loom

    As the high-stakes November 2025 US midterm elections approach, President Donald Trump has sharply escalated a familiar political playbook: rolling out headline-grabbing stunts to redirect public attention away from issues weighing on his approval ratings and toward his preferred political narrative. The 80-year-old former reality television star, who has long relied on the tactic of shifting conversations when headlines turn unfavorable, is now targeting his diversions with unusual precision to drown out coverage of the ongoing Iran conflict and economic anxiety hitting American households.

    “This president specializes in diversions,” William Galston, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, told Agence France-Presse. After six months of open conflict, the Iran war has emerged as a major drag on Trump’s approval numbers, with independent polling consistently placing his support in the low 30s. With no clear end to the conflict in sight, The Atlantic has reported that the White House’s core strategy is to push the war out of public consciousness: avoiding large new military deployments and instead focusing on low-profile economic sanctions against Tehran, while creating new newsworthy moments to draw the press and voters elsewhere.

    The most striking of these diversions came last Thursday, when Trump summoned reporters to the Oval Office to make an unprecedented announcement: he had signed an executive order to rename Lake Ontario—the shared transboundary water body between the United States and Canada—”Lake America.” The provocative move comes on the heels of a days-long, headline-dominating trade dispute with Ottawa, and fits neatly into the “America First” messaging that Trump has centered for his core political base.

    Democrats across the Capitol were quick to condemn the action as a juvenile, transparent bid to distract from pressing national issues. “It’s a pathetic attempt at distraction, and it’s working families who are paying the price,” Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said in a formal statement following the announcement.

    The Lake Ontario renaming is far from an isolated incident. Just a week earlier, Trump unexpectedly revived discussions of potential new talks with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un—a topic he had not addressed publicly since his second inauguration in January 2025. He heaped praise on Kim, whom he met three times during his first term, while criticizing US long-time ally South Korea and announcing further cuts to joint military exercises with Seoul. He has also leaned into more personal, viral-friendly topics, sharing frequent updates on his planned renovations to the White House on his Truth Social platform—most recently posting about “cleaning and regrouting the Granite” at the building’s main entrance, a move Democrats argue highlights how out of touch he is with everyday voter concerns.

    Beyond diverting attention from problematic issues, Trump’s stunts also serve a second goal: keeping all political focus centered on himself ahead of the midterms. After his hand-picked endorses won a string of key Republican primaries, the two-term president has publicly argued he is the GOP’s biggest asset in the upcoming vote. “Pretend I’m on the ballot,” he told Fox News in a recent interview. Drawing from a $400 million campaign war chest, Trump is also set to roll out a national television ad campaign touting his own presidential record, as many within the party fear Republicans could lose their narrow control of both chambers of Congress.

    The White House has also amplified a curated list of administration wins this week, highlighting 14 policy achievements ranging from new restrictions on mail-in voting to expanded migrant deportations to energize the base.

    Even with these aggressive tactics, Trump faces significant barriers to shifting the national conversation to his preferred ground. The Iran conflict remains a persistent political quagmire for a president who campaigned on keeping the United States out of costly new foreign wars. If global oil prices remain elevated, driving up overall cost of living for households, economic issues will likely remain the top priority for voters regardless of viral stunts. “It’s hard to change people’s minds when you’re talking about things they’re experiencing directly,” Galston noted.

    The White House has also recently lost one of its most effective communications leaders, after popular Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt stepped down to spend more time with her children, leaving a gap in the administration’s ability to message around key issues. After the midterms, Trump is also set to enter the lame-duck phase of his presidency, which could dim his political star unless he finds new ways to stay in the national spotlight.

    One potential path to remaining center stage is building suspense around his 2028 political plans. Trump has already dropped repeated hints that he could run for a third presidential term—a move barred by the 22nd Amendment to the US Constitution, but political observers have long learned that betting against Trump’s willingness to challenge established norms is rarely a safe wager.

  • Russia ramps up rhetoric but wants to avoid war with Nato, Western officials say

    Russia ramps up rhetoric but wants to avoid war with Nato, Western officials say

    Senior anonymous Western officials have shared their latest assessment of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s strategic intentions amid soaring tensions over the Ukraine conflict, concluding that Putin’s primary goal remains avoiding direct military confrontation with the NATO alliance — even as his government ramps up aggressive rhetoric targeting the United Kingdom and other Western backers of Kyiv.

    Recent public speculation has framed this week’s high-profile visit of CIA Director John Ratcliffe to Moscow as a mission centered on delivering a stark warning: that any attack on a NATO member state would trigger severe consequences. But Western officials push back on that framing, noting that recent threatening statements from Moscow — including hints that British military personnel and weapons manufacturing facilities could become legitimate targets — are far from unprecedented. Instead, they argue, these verbal barrages align perfectly with long-standing Russian military doctrine designed to test Western unity and erode public support for continued aid to Ukraine.

    Beyond external pressure tactics, officials say the heated rhetoric also mirrors growing domestic strains on Putin’s regime. Months of grinding, costly progress in Ukraine, paired with increasingly frequent Ukrainian long-range strikes that hit targets deep inside Russian territory, have piled unrelenting pressure on the Kremlin leader.

    Putin and his senior aides have repeatedly dismissed claims that Russia plans to attack NATO members as baseless fearmongering, a framing that has found acceptance from U.S. President Donald Trump, who stated publicly this week that he is convinced Putin will never launch an attack on NATO sovereign territory. This stands in sharp contrast to the period just before Russia’s 2022 full-scale invasion of Ukraine, when Putin repeatedly gave public assurances he had no plans to attack his neighbor even as U.S. intelligence documented large-scale military preparations underway along the border.

    While direct military confrontation is not seen as imminent, Western officials warn that Russia will continue to ramp up so-called hybrid activities that fall below the threshold of open war. These tactics include cyberattacks against critical infrastructure, covert sabotage operations, and targeted assassination attempts on European soil, all designed to fracture Western resolve and force a reduction in military and political support for Kyiv. Officials also emphasize a key underrecognized risk: this gradual escalation of hybrid action increases the chance of a strategic miscalculation that could accidentally spiral into full-scale military conflict between Russia and NATO.

    In recent weeks, a series of unexplained drone incidents across multiple NATO member states have deepened these concerns. Earlier this month, an explosive-laden drone crashed on the runway of Leipzig Airport in Germany, a critical logistics hub that handles much of the Western military equipment bound for Ukraine. While no conclusive evidence has linked the incident directly to the Kremlin, and Russia has repeatedly denied any involvement, this event is only the latest in a string of drone sightings over European military bases and major airports stretching back to 2024 — all of which Western intelligence agencies suspect are tied to Russian operatives.

    The Leipzig incident prompted the head of France’s domestic intelligence agency to issue a stark warning, urging European governments to prepare for the possibility of more frequent, more violent direct hostile actions on European national soil. Despite these risks, one senior Western official stressed that NATO allies must maintain a measured posture: remaining alert to emerging threats without giving in to panic, while also avoiding the complacency that could leave vulnerabilities open to exploitation. The UK government has already reaffirmed its commitment to Ukraine, stating that recent Russian threats will not alter its policy of military and political support for Kyiv.

    Western officials’ assessment also paints a detailed picture of the current state of the war in Ukraine, noting that the conflict has escalated noticeably in 2025, with both Russian and Ukrainian forces expanding their long-range strike campaigns against each other’s territory. Contrary to some speculation, officials say Putin has not softened his maximalist territorial goals for Ukraine, even as mounting frustrations build within Russian domestic circles.

    The report notes that growing petrol shortages across Russia have started to erode public backing for the war, putting increasing political pressure on Putin. Still, officials emphasize that this pressure does not currently amount to an existential challenge to his hold on power. On the battlefield, Russia continues to make incremental territorial gains in the eastern Donbas region, but the advance comes at a devastating cost: Western intelligence estimates Russia is sustaining 6,000 more killed and wounded soldiers per month than it is able to recruit through existing enlistment channels. Despite this severe manpower shortage, officials say there is currently no indication that Putin will order a new wave of mass mobilization to replenish ranks, a move that could spark further domestic unrest.