Global Pulse

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  • Israel pursuing ‘undeclared annexation’ of West Bank, Peace Now says

    Israel pursuing ‘undeclared annexation’ of West Bank, Peace Now says

    A prominent Israeli anti-settlement advocacy group, Peace Now, has issued a damning new report accusing Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s current government of carrying out a coordinated, undeclared campaign to annex the occupied West Bank in violation of the decades-old Oslo Accords, the landmark 1990s framework that established a temporary power-sharing arrangement between Israel and the Palestinian people.

    Peace Now, which has long tracked Israeli settlement expansion and violations of interim agreements in the West Bank, outlined a series of interconnected steps the administration has taken to extend Israeli civilian control, expand illegal settlements, and systematically erode the authority of the Palestinian Authority across all regions of the West Bank. The report, which was first obtained and published by Israeli outlet Ynet on Tuesday, warns that these incremental actions put Israeli security at grave risk by breaking long-standing international commitments.

    “Netanyahu’s government is playing with fire, disregarding its international commitments and endangering Israel’s security – all in order to take control of more territory and land in the West Bank,” the movement wrote in its findings.

    One of the most consequential policy shifts came in February of this year, when Israel’s security cabinet approved expanding the authority of the Israeli Civil Administration – a department within Israel’s defense ministry that manages civilian affairs in occupied territories – to enforce regulations and oversee environmental protection, water management, and archaeological projects in West Bank Areas A and B. Previously, Israeli civilian interventions in these zones were largely restricted, even as Israeli military operations have frequently been carried out there for years.

    Israeli government officials defended the move, framing it as a necessary step to mitigate environmental risks and prevent damage to culturally significant heritage sites. But Peace Now argues the broad wording of the new regulatory framework gives Israeli civilian authorities carte blanche to interfere with nearly all Palestinian construction projects across most of the West Bank.

    To understand the significance of this shift, it is necessary to revisit the terms of the 1995 Oslo II Accords, which divided the West Bank into three administrative zones as a temporary interim arrangement that remains in place decades later: Area A, which contains major Palestinian population centers and is designated to fall under full Palestinian Authority control for both civil governance and internal security; Area B, which includes smaller towns and rural communities, where the Palestinian Authority manages civil affairs while security responsibilities are split between Israel and the Palestinians; and Area C, which makes up roughly 60 percent of the total West Bank territory, is under full Israeli civil and security control, and hosts the vast majority of Israeli settlements and military outposts built on seized Palestinian land.

    In June, the Civil Administration moved to strip the Palestinian municipal government of Hebron – a flashpoint city in the southern West Bank – of its broad planning and construction authority over territory surrounding Israeli settlements and several key holy sites located in the city’s central district. Just one month later, in July, the Israeli military issued formal land requisition orders seizing Palestinian private property inside Area A to build a new road connecting two existing Israeli settlements. Peace Now notes that this marks the first time since the Oslo Accords were signed that Israel has used military seizure orders in Area A for an explicitly civilian settlement purpose, rather than for officially declared military needs.

    The advocacy group’s researchers also documented at least 23 new unauthorized settler outposts established in Area B over the past 30 months. Even in rare cases where the Israeli military removes these illegal outposts, Peace Now found, settlers quickly return to rebuild and expand the sites, often adding permanent concrete structures. These outposts have been paired with the construction of unauthorized access roads, the seizure of critical Palestinian water sources, and the forced displacement of local Palestinian communities. In addition, settlers have taken over abandoned Palestinian homes in both Areas B and C after original residents were forced to flee their properties following repeated violent attacks by Israeli settler groups.

    Crucially, the report emphasizes that these actions are not random, isolated incidents: instead, they form a deliberate, coordinated state policy whose end goal is to force the collapse of the Palestinian Authority, create widespread political chaos across the occupied territories, and clear the way for further Israeli settlement expansion deep into Palestinian population centers across the West Bank. Beyond territorial changes, the report adds, the government is waging a consistent, organized campaign to weaken the Palestinian Authority across economic, political, and security domains.

    One of the most powerful tools the Israeli government uses to pressure the Palestinian Authority is the withholding of tax and customs revenues that Israel collects on the Palestinian government’s behalf under the 1994 Paris Protocol economic agreement. These revenues add up to roughly 11 billion Israeli shekels, equal to around $3.66 billion, annually, and historically make up more than 60 percent of the Palestinian Authority’s total operating budget, per Ynet data.

    Peace Now’s analysis found that only around half of the funds owed to the Palestinian Authority have been transferred by the current Netanyahu government between 2022 and 2025. As of June 2025, no funds have been transferred at all, according to the report.

    While the Israeli government has not formally taken legislative action to abolish the Oslo Accords, officially annex the entire West Bank, or dissolve the Palestinian Authority, Peace Now argues that the cumulative effect of all these incremental measures adds up to a process of undeclared de facto annexation on the ground.

    Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, a far-right proponent of full West Bank annexation, rejected the report’s criticism and instead framed its findings as a victory for the current administration. “What they call ‘the erosion of Oslo’ we call correcting an injustice resulting from 30 years of neglect,” he told Ynet. “What they call ‘de facto annexation’ we call establishing Israel’s security belt. I am proud of the settlement revolution I have led to prevent the establishment of a Palestinian terrorist state in the heart of the country. This is only the beginning.”

  • Miss Universe Canada contestants apologise for wearing indigenous dress

    Miss Universe Canada contestants apologise for wearing indigenous dress

    The 2026 Miss Universe Canada pageant has become the center of a national debate over cultural appropriation, after two contestants drew widespread criticism for wearing designs that borrowed sacred and culturally significant elements from Indigenous communities. The controversy unfolded during the competition’s annual national costume segment, which requires participants to showcase looks inspired by Canadian history, traditions and national heritage.

    Contestant Karisa Haverkamp stepped onto the stage in a look centered on a feathered headdress — a garment traditionally reserved for highly respected Indigenous leaders across North America — alongside a red handprint painted across her face, a symbol widely used to show solidarity with the Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women (MMIW) movement. The second contestant, Jasleen Kaily, presented an outfit themed “Arctic Beauty” that featured a full fur dress, traditional fur boots called mukluks, and two styled braids, a hairstyle that carries deep cultural meaning for many First Nations peoples across Canada.

    After public backlash erupted over the costumes, both contestants issued public apologies acknowledging the harm their outfits caused. “I acknowledge and recognise that my outfit for the national costume caused hurt and offence to people in the indigenous community,” Haverkamp wrote in an Instagram post, adding, “I appreciate what I have learned from this experience.” Kaily echoed the apology, noting that while her goal had been to honor and celebrate one of Canada’s First Peoples, she never intended to misrepresent or disrespect Indigenous culture.

    The pageant’s organizing body also released an initial statement, saying, “If any costume caused offence, hurt, or misunderstanding, please know that it was never our intention.” But the response failed to satisfy Ashley Callingbull, a former Miss Universe Canada winner and a Plains Cree woman from the Enoch Cree Nation, who was co-hosting the competition’s final event. Callingbull interrupted the live broadcast to publicly address the controversy, saying, “It’s 2026, we should know better.” Callingbull, who was not present when the costumes were shown and first saw footage of the segment after the fact, explicitly labeled the designs an act of cultural appropriation against Indigenous peoples.

    Speaking later to CBC Indigenous, Callingbull shared her shock at seeing the costumes on stage. “This cannot be real. I just couldn’t get over that this was happening,” she said. “Who allowed this on stage? Who approved this? Anything traditional or sacred should not be allowed. I was very, very upset.”

    Following Callingbull’s intervention, pageant leadership took additional accountability. Director Sonny Borrelli accepted full responsibility for the oversight, saying, “We will learn from it, we will make it better, we will make it right.” Organizers have since announced concrete changes to prevent similar missteps in future competitions: a new comprehensive costume guide will be introduced to establish clear standards and expectations for all contestants, and Callingbull — who made history as the first First Nations woman to win the Miss Universe Canada title — has been invited to serve as the official liaison for the national costume segment moving forward.

    Callingbull praised organizers for their willingness to engage with criticism and implement change, framing the moment as a step forward for reconciliation. “A part of reconciliation is that we educate and learn and understand and move on from these things in a good way,” she said, adding that the new framework would “make sure that everyone is going to be respected and honoured properly.”

    This is not the first time Miss Universe Canada has faced criticism for cultural appropriation in the national costume segment. Back in 2015, contestant Paola Nunuz Valdez wore a totem pole-themed costume, which both she and organizers later clarified was intended to reference her Dominican heritage, with the organization calling the backlash a misunderstanding. Even then, Callingbull publicly recommended that the pageant hire a permanent cultural consultant to review designs before they reach the stage, a suggestion that is now being implemented a decade later through the new liaison role.

  • Inside the growing rift between Iran’s dealmakers and ultraconservatives

    Inside the growing rift between Iran’s dealmakers and ultraconservatives

    Iran’s domestic political arena has entered a period of unprecedented polarisation, with two deeply opposed ideological and political camps now vying for control over the country’s future direction. At the heart of the confrontation is a critical debate over whether to move forward with a negotiated agreement with the United States that would bring an end to nearly six months of open hostilities between the two nations. On one side are moderate and pragmatic factions led by reformist President Masoud Pezeshkian and conservative Parliament Speaker Mohammad Baqer Ghalibaf, both of whom have publicly committed to advancing diplomatic talks with Washington. On the opposing side are hard-line Principlists, who have launched a coordinated campaign to derail any potential agreement and remove the two top leaders from their positions of influence.

    Principlists have explicitly framed their opposition as a fight to protect their political standing: they warn that any successful deal with the US would empower moderate political forces, ultimately marginalising hard-liners and eroding their decades-long grip on Iran’s key institutions. This high-stakes internal power struggle erupted into public view last week when a leaked video of Mohammad-Bagher Kharrazi – brother-in-law to Masoud Khamenei, the younger sibling of Iran’s Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei – was distributed to media outlets. Critics of the hard-line camp describe the leak as a core part of a broader smear campaign orchestrated by Principlists to undermine support for negotiations.

    In the leaked recording, Kharrazi made explosive claims, asserting that the Supreme Leader had issued a formal public warning that if President Pezeshkian attempted to resign one more time, his departure from office would be immediately accepted. Kharrazi added that Pezeshkian, who he claimed had threatened to step down between 27 and 28 times during his tenure, no longer had the political courage to raise the prospect of resignation. He also alleged that Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi, a key architect of the US negotiation effort, had been completely sidelined from talks following a direct order from the Supreme Leader.

    Within hours of the video’s circulation, the public relations office of the Supreme Leader issued a formal denial of the claims attributed to Kharrazi, though it did not name him directly. Just days later, however, a separate leaked audio recording emerged that complicated the narrative, featuring Ali Saeedi, a senior conservative figure with close ties to the Supreme Leader’s office. In the recording, Saeedi claimed that the Supreme Leader not only supports the ongoing negotiation efforts but has publicly criticised hard-line opposition to diplomacy.

    According to Saeedi’s account, the Supreme Leader told one of his brothers: “I have never opposed negotiations, and I still do not. I was the one who authorised the negotiations, and I am not satisfied with the hard-line positions adopted by some people.” Saeedi also added that the Supreme Leader holds Parliament Speaker Ghalibaf in high regard, comparing him to the revered late Quds Force commander Haj Qassem Soleimani and confirming his continued support for Ghalibaf’s role in the negotiation process.

    Background reporting from senior political sources reveals that the current confrontation is rooted in long-running tensions over the supreme leadership succession. A senior reformist source told Middle East Eye that Principlists did not initially support Mojtaba Khamenei’s ascent to the supreme leadership following his father’s passing. Instead, the hard-line faction backed their own candidates for Iran’s top post: the former president Ebrahim Raisi, who died in a 2024 helicopter crash, and hard-line cleric Mohammad Mahdi Mirbaqeri, a prominent advocate of civilisational confrontation with the West who rejects most forms of modernity and Western-origin technology.

    In the years leading up to Khamenei’s ascension, the reformist source added, Principlists have repeatedly targeted members of Khamenei’s inner circle to undermine their credibility. Most recently, they levelled corruption accusations against Mahdi Khamoushi, a senior official widely tipped to become the next chief of staff to the Supreme Leader, as part of their effort to weaken Khamenei’s core support base.

    The source also noted that while Khamenei holds some ideological views that align with hard-line positions, he was not the public face of the ultraconservative movement over the past decade. Instead, he was caught in a bitter succession struggle, during which influential hard-line figures including Raisi’s political camp worked to block his rise to power. The source credits a shift in regional dynamics triggered by former US President Donald Trump’s policies with altering the internal political landscape, creating a more favourable path for Khamenei to assume the supreme leadership.

    A separate conservative source, speaking to Middle East Eye on condition of anonymity, confirmed that Principlists are currently working to mobilise their grassroots base of conservative and hard-line supporters against Ghalibaf specifically. Their strategy, the source explained, is to position themselves as the only truly reliable defenders of the Supreme Leader among Iran’s religious and political class, while painting Ghalibaf as disloyal. As part of this push, Principlists have repeatedly accused Ghalibaf of bypassing the Supreme Leader to advance his own negotiation agenda, in an effort to erode Khamenei’s trust in the parliament speaker.

    Despite these ongoing attacks, the conservative source confirmed that the Supreme Leader continues to trust and support Ghalibaf, noting that if Khamenei had lost confidence in Ghalibaf, he would have already removed him from his role overseeing negotiations with the US.

    A reformist political analyst, speaking on condition of anonymity to Middle East Eye, summed up the core goal of the Principlist campaign: “They want to turn Pezeshkian and Ghalibaf into political outcasts and ultimately push the supreme leader into turning against them.” The analyst explained that ultraconservatives see any successful deal with the US as an existential threat to their power, because an agreement would empower moderate factions and significantly reduce hard-line influence over Iranian policy. As a result, they are determined to obstruct the negotiation process by any means necessary.

    Crucially, the analyst added, the ultraconservative camp does not hold enough sway in Iran’s key centres of power to derail negotiations on their own. To compensate for this gap, they have increasingly mobilised their grassroots supporters, organising a series of angry sit-ins and public protests targeting the negotiation team. These demonstrations are designed to raise the political cost for Pezeshkian and Ghalibaf as they push forward with diplomatic efforts, making it more difficult for them to sustain momentum for a deal.

  • AI firm Manus to resume ‘independent’ operations after China blocks Meta deal

    AI firm Manus to resume ‘independent’ operations after China blocks Meta deal

    Less than six months after Chinese regulatory authorities blocked U.S. tech giant Meta’s multi-billion dollar acquisition of Singapore-based AI startup Manus, the company announced Tuesday it will restart operations as a standalone independent entity.\n\nFounded by Chinese developers and registered in Singapore, Manus was slated to be acquired by Meta in a deal reportedly valued at approximately $2 billion. The acquisition, announced last December, aligned with Meta’s strategic goal of integrating a cutting-edge AI agent tool into its product ecosystem, bringing advanced autonomous AI capabilities to billions of global users and opening new commercial opportunities across the firm’s social media platforms. AI agents, which are designed to complete complex tasks without continuous human intervention, have emerged as a high-priority area of innovation for major tech firms competing in the global AI race.\n\nBut in April, China’s top economic planning body stepped in to block the transaction and ordered the two companies to unwind the acquisition. Local reports also indicate Chinese authorities restricted international travel for two of Manus’s co-founders, barring them from leaving the country. Meta has repeatedly maintained that the deal fully complied with all applicable global regulations.\n\nThe blocked acquisition is part of a broader Chinese government crackdown on a practice widely labeled “Singapore-washing”, a strategy where Chinese-founded companies rebase their headquarters in Singapore to access looser regulatory frameworks, broader global customer bases, and more abundant international funding. While Beijing tolerated this practice for years, experts say the Manus case marks a clear turning point amid escalating US-China competition in advanced artificial intelligence.\n\n“This crackdown is first and foremost a signal to China’s own technology leaders that attempts to bypass national regulatory oversight will not be tolerated,” explained Wendy Chang, a China technology analyst at the Mercator Institute for China Studies, in an April interview with AFP.\n\nAs part of the separation process from Meta, Manus confirmed it will delete some user data dating back to late December, and has urged all users affected by the operational shift to back up their personal information as soon as possible. “This is part of our separation from Meta; we must take this step to comply with regulatory requirements in specific parts of the world,” the startup explained in an official blog post announcing the transition.\n\nAccording to reporting from the Financial Times, Manus’s original investors are currently in advanced discussions to retake ownership stakes in the company at a $2 billion valuation, matching the price tag of the scrapped Meta deal. Chinese tech giant Tencent is set to become the startup’s largest single shareholder if the agreement is finalized.\n\nFor Meta, the unwinding of the Manus acquisition represents a temporary setback to the company’s aggressive push to expand its footprint in the global AI market, a race that has intensified over the past two years. The development comes as Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg laid out his long-term vision for the future of artificial intelligence in a public manifesto published Monday, calling on the U.S. to step up competition with China to shape the global trajectory of AI development.\n\nZuckerberg argued in the essay that the U.S. should prevent what he called “government tyranny” over AI development, and advance policies that ensure cutting-edge “superintelligence” — a theoretical threshold where AI capabilities outpace all human cognitive ability — is accessible broadly to the public rather than concentrated in the hands of a small number of state or corporate actors.\n\nAlongside releasing his vision for AI, Meta announced a new open-weight AI model called Glimmer on Monday, built partially on the foundation of the closed-source Muse Spark model the company unveiled in April. Unlike closed AI models offered by competitors such as OpenAI and Anthropic — which function as “black boxes” that external users cannot inspect or modify — open-weight models allow users to download and alter the core algorithmic parameters that govern AI behavior. Zuckerberg framed open access as a core pillar of a healthy global AI ecosystem, writing: “Rather than centralizing superintelligence, we should distribute it widely and give every person the ability to direct it.”\n\nThe announcement comes amid evolving AI policy in the U.S. under the Trump administration. Multiple reports confirm that leading AI developers including OpenAI, Anthropic, Google, Nvidia, Microsoft, and Meta have held closed-door discussions with White House officials in recent months. In June, President Trump signed an executive order requiring major AI developers to submit new high-risk models for federal security review 30 days before public release, and gave federal regulators a 60-day deadline to finalize the full framework for the review process. Open-weight AI models, like the one Meta launched this week, are widely expected to be exempt from the new voluntary review requirements. The 60-day deadline for the framework passed on August 1 with no public announcement from the administration.

  • Candlelight vigil in Islamabad honors 10 climbers killed on Broad Peak

    Candlelight vigil in Islamabad honors 10 climbers killed on Broad Peak

    On a rainy Tuesday evening in Pakistan’s capital Islamabad, hundreds of mourners including mountaineers, diplomatic representatives and civil society members gathered on the open lawns of a local sports complex to hold a somber candlelight vigil for 10 climbers who lost their lives in a catastrophic avalanche on Broad Peak, one of the world’s highest mountains. As attendees shielded flickering candle flames from the steady downpour, they offered prayers and remembered the climbers who never came back from their expedition.

    The disaster unfolded on July 30, when a massive avalanche swept across an international climbing expedition operating on the 8,051-meter Karakoram range peak, the 12th tallest mountain on the globe located just kilometers from K2, the world’s second-highest mountain. Among the deceased was celebrated British-Nepali mountaineer Nirmal Purja, a leading figure in the global climbing community. Six of the 10 confirmed victims were Nepali citizens, and the international expedition included climbers from six nations: Nepal, Oman, Pakistan, China, Britain and the United States.

    Days after the tragedy, search and recovery teams wrapped up their on-mountain operation, recovering the remains of eight victims. Two climbers’ bodies remain trapped in the avalanche debris and have not yet been retrieved. Rita Dhital, Nepal’s ambassador to Pakistan, attended the vigil to honor the fallen climbers, and shared memories of meeting Purja at her residence before the expedition began. “Giving up is not in my blood,” Dhital recalled Purja telling her, repeating his mantra that defined his decades of high-altitude climbing. She confirmed that all six Nepali climbers’ remains have already been returned to their waiting families.

    Dhital extended public gratitude to the Pakistani mountaineers, rescue teams, government authorities and military personnel who risked their own lives to carry out the recovery operation in dangerous, unstable alpine conditions. She gave special recognition to renowned Pakistani climber Sirbaz Khan, who led the recovery team on the mountain, as well as the Alpine Club of Pakistan for coordinating the mission.

    Sirbaz Khan told the Associated Press that his team began the mission with high hopes of finding the missing climbers alive. “I had hoped that I would hug them after finding them alive,” he said. Instead, the team discovered the fallen climbers buried deep under thick layers of avalanche snow, digging through the frozen drifts by hand with shovels to extract each body one by one. Recovering the bodies and moving them down the steep, hazardous mountain slope was an equally grueling challenge, he explained: rescuers used fixed ropes and improvised stretchers to carry the remains off the high mountain, after finding the strength to continue despite the emotional shock of finding their fellow mountaineers dead. Khan said he remains deeply grieved by the tragedy, but finds small comfort in knowing most families have been able to lay their loved ones to rest.

    Irfan Arshad Khan, president of the Alpine Club of Pakistan (who is not related to recovery team leader Sirbaz Khan), confirmed that the remains of seven climbers, including all six Nepali victims, have already been sent back to their home countries. He explained that severe, unrelenting bad weather repeatedly blocked rescue helicopters from reaching the remote avalanche site, forcing the entire search and recovery team to carry out most of the work on foot across dangerous, snow-covered terrain. Eventually, the team brought eight recovered remains to a landing zone accessible by air, allowing them to be airlifted off the mountain.

    Addressing attendees at the vigil, Irfan Arshad Khan said the gathering was to honor the memory of fallen climbing comrades. “The days following the avalanche tested not only the endurance of those searching the mountain but also the courage of rescuers who continued on foot when helicopters could not reach them,” he told the crowd. High-altitude mountaineering accidents are an all-too-common risk in northern Pakistan, which is home to five of the world’s 14 highest peaks above 8,000 meters, including Broad Peak and K2.

  • Caught between great powers: the cautionary tale of Manus

    Caught between great powers: the cautionary tale of Manus

    For ambitious young tech entrepreneurs building cutting-edge artificial intelligence tools, the intersection of innovation and great power competition has long been a risky tightrope. Now, the collapsed acquisition of AI agent platform Manus by US tech giant Meta stands as one of the clearest cautionary examples of how geopolitical friction between the world’s two largest economies can upend even the most promising startup journeys.

    The story of Manus begins in 2022, when Beijing-based startup Butterfly Effect launched to build AI-powered tools that can complete end-to-end tasks for users. By early 2025, ahead of Manus’ official public launch, the startup had already captured global tech industry attention. More than 3.5 million users rushed to secure early access invitation codes, with some rare codes reselling for thousands of dollars on secondary online markets. Chinese state media even celebrated Manus as a standout example of homegrown Chinese technological innovation, positioning the startup as a potential global leader in the fast-growing AI agent space.

    The momentum continued in May 2025, when leading US venture capital firm Benchmark Capital led a $75 million funding round that valued Butterfly Effect at nearly $500 million. At the time, it looked like CEO Xiao Hong’s goal of building a globally recognized Chinese AI company was well within reach. “In a world untouched by geopolitical tension, the Manus story would be a straightforward tale of an extraordinary startup earning a transformative big exit,” noted Kyle Chan, a technology policy researcher at the Brookings Institution, in an interview with AFP.

    But the startup’s trajectory shifted dramatically just months after its launch. In mid-2025, Butterfly Effect cut dozens of roles at its Beijing and Wuhan offices, relocated all core leadership and engineering teams to Singapore, blocked access to the platform for Chinese users, and deleted all its official presences on Chinese social media. The relocation strategy, often referred to colloquially as “Singapore-washing,” has become a common path for Chinese startups seeking easier access to international capital and global user bases while distancing themselves from Beijing’s regulatory and political oversight.

    However, a source familiar with Butterfly Effect’s internal decision-making told AFP that the full relocation was not the company’s original plan. The shift was triggered by an unexpected US investigation into Benchmark Capital, launched under Washington’s 2025 Outbound Investment Security Program, which restricts American investment in Chinese companies operating in sensitive sectors including artificial intelligence, semiconductors and quantum computing. What was initially supposed to be a small US-facing team based in Singapore became a full relocation of all company operations, the source added. AFP reached out to Butterfly Effect for official comment on the report but received no response.

    By the end of 2025, the deal that would bring Manus into the global spotlight was announced: Meta, the parent company of Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp, confirmed it would acquire the Manus team for a reported $2 billion, marking the third-largest acquisition in Meta’s corporate history, following its purchases of WhatsApp and Scale AI. “We’re excited about what the future holds,” Xiao said at the time of the announcement.

    Almost immediately, regulatory headwinds began to build. Beijing has long pushed for its top homegrown tech startups to pursue public listings on domestic exchanges in Hong Kong and Shanghai, rather than relocating overseas, cutting domestic jobs and selling to foreign firms, Chan explained. By March 2026, reports emerged that Chinese regulators had launched a national security review of the Meta acquisition, and had even barred two Singapore-based Manus co-founders from leaving mainland China.

    In April 2026, China’s top economic planning body issued a formal ruling blocking the transaction. Under 2021 national security regulations that give regulators authority to review all foreign investments for potential risks to state security, the agency prohibited the foreign acquisition and ordered all involved parties to unwind the transaction completely.

    Industry observers say Beijing’s decision stemmed from concerns that allowing a leading Chinese-born AI startup to transfer its top talent and core technology to a major US corporation would set a problematic precedent that could undermine China’s growing AI industry. Beijing’s move also sent an unambiguous message that attempting to distance startups from their Chinese identity via overseas relocation is no longer a viable strategy, said Sherlock Xia, a corporate tech lawyer at Yenlex Law Firm.

    After months of negotiations and regulatory pressure, Manus officially confirmed its separation from Meta this week in a public statement posted to the company’s website. “We will soon return to operating as an independent company,” the statement read. “This is part of our separation from Meta; we must take this step to comply with regulatory requirements in specific parts of the world.” Prior to the official confirmation, The Wall Street Journal reported that Meta was already preparing to walk away from the deal, a complex reversal that required returning investor payouts from the original transaction. Bloomberg also reported in June that Meta had already cut off the Manus team from access to its internal engineering systems as the unwinding process moved forward.

  • Syria: Court sentences Bashar al-Assad to death in absentia in landmark trial

    Syria: Court sentences Bashar al-Assad to death in absentia in landmark trial

    In a landmark ruling marking the first major legal action against ousted former Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad since his flight from power, a Damascus court issued death sentences on Tuesday to Assad, his younger brother Maher al-Assad, and former senior security official Atef Najib. The convictions center on charges of premeditated murder, systematic torture, and incitement to targeted killing that span more than a decade of conflict.

    Court documents confirm Bashar al-Assad was found guilty on multiple counts, including the premeditated killing of civilians — among them children — alongside arbitrary detention, widespread torture, and crimes against humanity. Atef Najib, a cousin of the former president who was taken into custody by new authorities in January 2024, was convicted in person on identical charges, with specific convictions for the intentional killing of children under 15 years old and torture that resulted in death. Both Bashar and Maher al-Assad were tried in absentia, after the pair fled Syria for Moscow in December 2024 as armed opposition groups advanced on Damascus and toppled the decades-long Assad family regime.

    The verdict is the first high-profile conviction of former Assad regime figures issued by Syria’s new transitional government, which launched a widespread prosecution campaign this year targeting former officials both in custody and at large. The case closes a 14-year chapter of authoritarian rule that began when Bashar al-Assad, born in 1965, took power in 2000 following the death of his father and long-time ruler Hafez al-Assad. For 24 years, the Assad family maintained tight authoritarian control, cementing the political dominance of the minority Alawite sect in Syria’s majority Sunni population, and aligning the country closely with Iran while maintaining persistent hostility toward Israel and the United States.

    The eruption of mass pro-democracy protests during the 2011 Arab Spring marked the turning point for Assad’s rule. When government forces led by Assad launched a brutal violent crackdown on peaceful demonstrators, the unrest escalated into a full-scale armed uprising that plunged the country into 14 years of catastrophic civil war. The conflict quickly drew in global and regional powers, with Russia and Iran providing consistent military and political backing to the Assad regime, while the United States, Turkey, and other nations supported various opposition factions at different stages of the war.

    By the end of Assad’s rule, the United Nations estimates the conflict had killed hundreds of thousands of people, flattened critical civilian infrastructure across the country, and forced more than half of Syria’s pre-war population to flee their homes as internally displaced persons or refugees. The UN has confirmed the 14-year conflict left Syria grappling with an unprecedented, multi-layered political, economic, and humanitarian catastrophe that will require decades of recovery.

    Throughout the conflict, international investigators and human rights groups documented widespread abuses tied directly to the Assad government. Credible reports confirm the regime carried out mass arbitrary detention, systematic torture, enforced disappearances, extrajudicial killings, and deliberate attacks on civilian populations. A United Nations-backed investigative mechanism found overwhelming evidence of a systematic pattern of abuse, including torture, sexual violence, and enforced disappearances, operating across more than 100 government-run detention facilities throughout Assad’s rule.

    While the fall of the Assad regime opened a new political transition for Syria, UN experts have warned that human rights risks remain pervasive, with ongoing allegations of summary executions, forced displacement, and other abuses against civilian populations across different areas of the country as new governing structures take shape.

  • 2.4 million Afghan girls shut out of secondary school 5 years after Taliban takeover, UN says

    2.4 million Afghan girls shut out of secondary school 5 years after Taliban takeover, UN says

    Five years have passed since the Taliban retook control of Afghanistan, and a shocking 2.4 million Afghan adolescent girls are still barred from accessing secondary education, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) confirmed in an announcement Tuesday from Ankara, Turkey. The UN agency has reiterated its urgent call for the immediate reversal of the ban that shuts women and girls out of formal education at the secondary and post-secondary levels.

    As the only country globally with a formal, nationwide ban on secondary and higher education for female learners, Afghanistan’s policy represents a severe breach of basic human rights, according to Hoda Jaberian, UNESCO’s program coordinator for education in emergency contexts. Speaking via video link at a press briefing, Jaberian emphasized that a five-year exclusion from schooling is far more than a temporary disruption to a young person’s life: it effectively erases an entire secondary school cycle for millions of girls.

    “UNESCO continues to call for the immediate and unconditional restoration of girls and women’s right to secondary and higher education. It is not negotiable. It’s a basic human right and we reiterate that there is no substitute for this,” Jaberian stated.

    The Taliban first seized national power on August 15, 2021, coinciding with the full withdrawal of U.S. and NATO military forces after 20 years of conflict in the country. Within weeks of taking control, the group implemented a ban on girls’ attendance at secondary schools, and later expanded restrictions to bar women from higher education, most formal employment, and multiple other sectors of public life, effectively sidelining half of Afghanistan’s population from public society.

    Despite repeated appeals from the United Nations, global humanitarian organizations, human rights defenders, and even multiple majority-Islamic nations, the Taliban government has refused to lift the ban, framing the policy as an internal Afghan matter that is not subject to international pressure.

    Jaberian noted that the current restrictions have completely undone nearly two decades of incremental progress in expanding female access to education across Afghanistan. When the Taliban was first ousted from power in 2001, access to schooling for girls was extremely limited across most of the country. By 2021, just before the group’s return to power, nearly 1 million Afghan girls were enrolled in secondary education, marking major gains for gender equity in learning. Today, that progress has been almost entirely erased.

    “But unfortunately, much of that progress now has been completely reversed,” Jaberian added.

    In response to the formal ban, UNESCO has shifted to supporting alternative learning pathways for Afghan learners through community-based education programs, literacy classes, and vocational skills development initiatives. These programs operate out of informal community spaces—most often in the private homes of trained literacy facilitators—with the tacit approval of Taliban authorities. Currently, more than 1,000 local facilitators, most trained by UNESCO and its local partner organizations, run these community learning programs across the country.

    “While the restriction remains, we cannot abandon Afghan learners,” Jaberian said. “UNESCO work with communities and our partners from the communities to preserve every possible pathway to learning.”

  • Over 16,000 civilians detained by Russia during the war in Ukraine are still held, UN estimates

    Over 16,000 civilians detained by Russia during the war in Ukraine are still held, UN estimates

    On Monday, the United Nations Human Rights Office delivered a damning new briefing to the UN Security Council, detailing widespread unlawful detention, systematic torture, and deadly abuse of Ukrainian civilians and prisoners of war held by Russian authorities since Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. The informal meeting, convened by Latvia and the United Kingdom, was organized to center the long-unaddressed plight of people captured amid the ongoing conflict, which has seen a sharp escalation of offensive operations from both sides in recent months.

    Claudia Fuentes Julio, UN Assistant Secretary-General for Human Rights, told the assembled council that UN investigators estimate more than 16,000 civilians captured by Russian forces remain illegally deprived of liberty, with many held incommunicado in violation of international legal standards for detention. The UN has not been granted access to any detention facilities operating on Russian-controlled territory to independently verify conditions, meaning the agency’s current count cannot break down figures to reflect how many of the detained are children or adults.

    Julio’s briefing drew on first-hand testimony gathered from 910 released Ukrainian prisoners of war and 403 released civilian detainees interviewed by UN human rights staff after they regained freedom. The data revealed staggering rates of abuse: more than 95% of released prisoners of war and 85% of released civilian detainees reported repeated torture and cruel, inhumane treatment during their captivity, including incidents of sexual violence. Survivors also described severe inadequate conditions, including deliberate food deprivation and almost no access to life-saving medical care.

    Beyond ongoing abuse, the UN has documented confirmed deaths in custody: 129 Ukrainian prisoners of war were executed immediately after capture, while an additional 48 died in detention due to torture, denied medical care, and other deadly inhumane conditions, Julio confirmed.

    The meeting also heard harrowing, personal accounts from two survivors of Russian detention. Khuan Leyva Garsiya, a Ukrainian soldier born in Mariupol who was among the hundreds of fighters who held out against the Russian siege at the Azovstal steel plant before surrendering in May 2022, spent 1,183 days as a prisoner of war. When he was released, he weighed just 120 pounds, and displayed a photo of his emaciated frame to the council to illustrate the conditions he endured. Garsiya explained he faced harsher abuse than other prisoners because Russian captors suspected he was a foreign mercenary due to his Cuban father and an American spy because he completed college in the United States. He described systemic methods of psychological torture designed to force false confessions, including prolonged exposure to freezing temperatures, repeated beatings, electrocution, and sexual abuse. “Two of my friends were beaten to death in detention centers in the Donetsk region,” Garsiya told the council. “Two of my friends died because of the conditions they were put in in Russian prisons and were returned in plastic bags to the homeland.”

    Leniie Umerova, a Crimean Tatar human rights activist, also shared her experience of nearly two years as a self-described political prisoner under Russian occupation. Her detention began in 2022 when she attempted to cross from Georgia into Russian-occupied Crimea to visit her terminally ill father. She was immediately detained on what she called fabricated charges, and though a court ordered her release three months into her detention, she was abducted from prison gates immediately after gaining her initial freedom. Over six months, she was transferred to seven separate detention facilities, a practice she described as a “carousel of repression” designed to disorient detainees and cut off any contact with the outside world. Umerova emphasized that her experience was not an isolated incident, but part of a coordinated state system of unlawful detention, political repression, and abuse targeting Ukrainian civilians in occupied territories. She noted that at least 84 women have faced politically motivated criminal prosecution in Russian prisons, with dozens still remain in custody today.

    In a rare development, the UN briefing also acknowledged reports of abuse by Ukrainian forces. Julio told the council that UN investigators have interviewed 816 Russian service members and 57 third-country national prisoners of war captured by Ukraine, finding that roughly half reported experiencing torture or ill-treatment during initial capture and interrogation. However, Julio clarified that once detainees are transferred to formal Ukrainian detention facilities, conditions generally meet international humanitarian law standards and have improved significantly since 2022.

    Russia’s Deputy UN Ambassador Maria Zabolotskaya pushed back against the briefing, claiming Russian armed forces fully comply with international humanitarian law governing detention and prisoner treatment. She repeated Russian claims that Russian prisoners held by Ukraine face routine torture and abuse, and dismissed the entire Security Council meeting as a NATO-backed “disinformation campaign against Russia.” The meeting’s true goal, she claimed, “is to derail efforts towards a peace settlement and to justify strikes on the territory of Russia and against civilians.”

    Ukraine’s Deputy UN Ambassador Volodymyr Pavlichenko responded by noting that Russian representatives refused to engage on discussions surrounding the repatriation of all detainees — including Russian prisoners of war held by Ukraine and Ukrainian civilians and soldiers held by Russia, as well as the thousands of Ukrainian children forcibly abducted by Russia since the invasion began.

  • Turkey’s Kurdish region greets a conditional PKK pardon with relief, joy and doubt

    Turkey’s Kurdish region greets a conditional PKK pardon with relief, joy and doubt

    After four decades of violent insurgency that left thousands dead across southeastern Turkey, a landmark piece of legislation aimed at ending long-running conflict between the Turkish state and the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) has cleared parliament, triggering a complex mix of relief, optimism and unresolved concern among residents of the country’s majority-Kurdish southeastern region.

    Lawmakers cast overwhelming votes in favor of the conditional pardon bill on Monday, a core step in advancing the ongoing peace process launched after the PKK announced last year it would lay down its arms. The legislation will not enter into force immediately: it only takes effect once Turkish authorities confirm the PKK has completed full disarmament, a key condition set by the state.

    The bill outlines a clear framework for qualifying militants: it suspends prison sentences for convicted PKK members and pauses ongoing investigations and trials for other suspects for periods of five to 10 years, with the length determined by the severity of alleged offenses. If recipients do not commit any additional terror-linked crimes during the waiting period, all charges against them will be dismissed entirely. Turkish media estimates thousands of militants could benefit from the policy, including members based in exile across Europe, as well as those stationed in Iraq and Syria. Notable exceptions are militants convicted of intentional murder and those handed life sentences before 2005, a group that includes PKK leader Abdullah Ocalan and other senior figures of the organization.

    The PKK first launched its insurgency in 1980s, originally seeking to establish an independent Kurdish state in southeastern Turkey. Over decades of conflict, the group shifted its goals to demanding greater autonomy and expanded rights for Turkey’s Kurdish population, which makes up an estimated 15 to 20 percent of the country’s total population. Last year, responding to a call from Ocalan—who has been imprisoned since 1999—the PKK announced it would dissolve the organization, held a symbolic disarmament ceremony at its base in northern Iraq, and withdrew its remaining fighters from Turkish territory to northern Iraq.

    In Diyarbakir, the largest city in southeastern Turkey, local residents greeted the parliamentary vote with cautious optimism rooted in decades of unfulfilled hopes for peace. Many voiced expectation that the end of violence would unlock long-stalled economic growth for the region, which has long lagged behind the rest of Turkey in development and prosperity.

    Seventy-year-old retired resident Ali Akdogan called the vote a moment of personal joy. “I was really very happy. I even applauded the result in my own home,” he said. “The economy will improve, good things will happen, people will start doing business. I believe it will bring peace. Since the peace process began, we haven’t had any conflict-related deaths, and this conflict killed thousands of civilians, soldiers and militants over more than 40 years.”

    Hasan Gecti, a 56-year-old shop owner in Diyarbakir, agreed that an end to violence would bring tangible economic and social benefits to local communities, but warned that core political demands of Turkey’s Kurdish population remain unaddressed by the pardon bill. Kurds have long pushed for expanded rights including broader access to Kurdish-language education and public services, as well as greater political autonomy, including an end to the central government’s policy of removing locally elected Kurdish mayors and replacing them with state-appointed administrators.

    “Has the Kurdish issue been directly solved? That’s a bit of a question mark,” Gecti said. “In my opinion, only the terrorism problem has been solved. Unfortunately, the Kurdish issue still remains where it is.”

    Local business leaders echoed this nuanced perspective. Mehmet Kaya, head of the Diyarbakir Chamber of Trade and Industry, welcomed the broad parliamentary support for the bill as a positive signal for the region. “It signals that violence is ending and the doors of politics are opening,” he noted. But Kaya emphasized the legislation alone cannot resolve decades of political tension, adding that further targeted reforms are needed to build lasting peace.

    “If the step taken now leads to sustainable democratization, and the social and economic policies the region expects are put in place, then the region will enter an important new phase,” Kaya said.

    The PKK itself offered a similarly mixed assessment in a statement published Monday by the PKK-linked ANF news agency. The group framed the legislation as a “beginning” toward resolving outstanding disputes between the PKK and the Turkish state, but criticized the bill for “serious shortcomings and deficiencies.” The PKK repeated its core demands, including the immediate release of Ocalan from prison, the implementation of broad democratic reforms, and formal recognition of expanded Kurdish rights.