Every spring, a centuries-old traditional ritual that welcomes the changing of seasons brings hundreds of faithful worshippers to a rugged, largely unspoiled mountain just outside Tokyo’s bustling urban core. Known as the Hinode Sai, or Sunrise Festival, this annual two-day Shinto celebration traces its origins back to the Middle Ages, when wandering ascetics first scaled Mount Mitake in their search for spiritual enlightenment. Located roughly 55 kilometers from central Tokyo, the mountain’s remote summit remains largely untouched by modern development, making it a serene setting for one of Japan’s most enduring cultural traditions. The core ritual of the festival centers on the sacred deity enshrined at the mountain’s top shrine. Carefully wrapped in plain white silk and kept hidden from public view at all times, the deity is carried down from the summit to a temporary resting place at the mountain’s base, a site believed to be where the deity first descended from the heavens centuries ago. The slow, silent procession began on Tuesday evening, guided only by the warm glow of lanterns as it wound through a quiet mountain village, passing gathered devotees and shuttered local storefronts while extending blessings to all along the route. After the deity spends the night at its lower resting place, the celebratory ascent back to the summit begins at dawn. This year, robed Shinto priests were joined by participants clad in replica traditional samurai armor and children wearing formal ceremonial attire for the one-kilometer climb. The pilgrimage reached its climactic moment when the procession finished the final 330 stone steps to the mountaintop shrine, with the deep, resonant echo of conch shells ringing out through the surrounding evergreen forest. For attendees from across Japan, participation in the festival is more than a cultural tradition: shrine officials explain that those who take part receive the deity’s blessing, which is believed to grant household protection and freedom from illness for the coming year. Beyond its spiritual significance, the festival also acts as a centuries-old public marker for the arrival of spring, connecting modern Japanese devotees to generations of ancestors who have marked the changing seasons on the same remote slopes.
作者： admin
-
Australia’s ‘most beautiful’ street fed up with viral fame
Across the globe, iconic travel hotspots from Barcelona to Venice have pushed back against the chaos of overtourism — and now a tiny Australian coastal hamlet is the latest community to draw a line in the sand. Tasman Drive, a tree-lined road in Gerringong, a quiet town two hours south of Sydney, has been labeled the country’s ‘most beautiful street’ in viral social media content, and the flood of visitors drawn by the posts has left long-term residents fed up with the constant disruption to their daily lives.
Gerringong has long been a postcard-perfect spot along Australia’s east coast, where multi-million-dollar clifftop homes overlook the bright turquoise expanse of the Tasman Sea, drawing a steady trickle of holidaymakers. But in recent months, viral reels, photos and posts across Instagram, TikTok, and even China’s RedNote platform have turned the quiet residential street into a bucket-list destination, attracting thousands of tourists every month. For locals who moved to the town to escape the hustle of big cities, the sudden fame has turned their peaceful paradise into an endless traffic jam and photo shoot.
81-year-old local resident Peter Hainsworth told Agence France-Presse that the constant stream of visitors has turned life on the street into a farce. Tourists regularly block the entire road to take selfies, execute clumsy three-point turns in their rental cars, and leave discarded trash scattered across public spaces and private lawns. Nearby, as a group of tourists posed for photos in the middle of the pavement, one angry local cyclist hurled expletives at the group before declining to speak with reporters.
The backlash in Gerringong mirrors a growing global trend: as social media turns little-known hidden gems into overnight viral destinations, communities are dealing with the fallout of unplanned overtourism. In 2024, Japanese officials even installed a concrete barrier to block the most popular viewing spot for Mount Fuji, fed up with unruly tourist behavior and overcrowding that disrupted local life.
Fed up with the disruption, some Gerringong residents have taken matters into their own hands. Multiple homeowners have turned on their garden sprinklers to deter tourists from tramping across their lawns to get the perfect viral shot. A group of residents is now organizing a formal committee to lobby the local council to reclassify Tasman Drive as a one-way street, a move designed to cut down on the constant line of cars stopping mid-road to film the iconic view. The tension has gotten so bad that at least one resident has already sold their home and moved away to escape the chaos.
76-year-old local Linda Bruce, who lives steps from the famous viewpoint, said while she understands the draw of the landscape, the volume of visitors has become unsustainable. “It’s nice to see people enjoying it, but really, it’s just getting a bit too much,” she said, noting that tourists are now traveling from across Asia to see the street — a level of international interest that is unprecedented for the small town. “I mean, it’s an amazing country, and it’s there to share… it’s just a bit much for the locals.”
For tourists, the viral fame has been a chance to see one of Australia’s most talked-about new destinations. Sagar Munjal, a 28-year-old taxi driver from Sydney’s western suburb of Parramatta, made the two-hour drive with friends after seeing the view on Instagram. “My eyes were totally stunned,” he said. “You can enjoy the coastal drive with the beach plus beautiful mountains. I was amazed to see that.”
Andy Liao, a Chinese-born property developer based in Sydney, told AFP he brought his family to Gerringong after seeing posts of the street on RedNote. “The landscape is so beautiful. That’s why I drove two hours,” he said, adding that he sympathized with frustrated locals. “If I’m living here, I don’t want too many people coming to my backyard.”
Not all tourists share that understanding, however. 22-year-old Colombian cook Kevin Medina sparked an angry outburst from a local when he posed for selfies in the middle of the road, arguing that residents should be grateful for the attention. “They should be really happy, because [now] more people get to know this beautiful place,” he said.
One of the core complaints from locals is that most tourists do not contribute to the local economy: they pull over, snap their photos, and drive away without stopping to shop, eat or stay in the town. Deputy Mayor Melissa Matters, who also owns a local business, said the economic impact of the viral fame has been split. Some local cafes and shops have seen a notable bump in sales, she said, while other businesses have seen almost no increase in custom from the flood of day-trippers. Matters also noted that Gerringong has always relied on tourism, but the sudden, unregulated influx of viral visitors is unprecedented.
As tourists continued to pose for photos beside a speed bump sign on Tasman Drive this week, with glowering residents watching on, Bruce questioned the motivation behind the viral travel trend. “You sort of wonder, why are they doing this?” she said. “Is it because they really, really love the area and think it’s so wonderful to see the view, or are they just ticking off another box on their to-do list?”
-
Head of organization overseeing nuclear test ban treaty issues warning to US and Russia
UNITED NATIONS — As the United Nations launches a high-stakes review of global nuclear non-proliferation efforts, the top leader of the body tasked with enforcing the global ban on nuclear testing has issued an urgent warning: any resumption of nuclear tests by major nuclear powers including the United States and Russia could trigger an unstoppable cascade of testing across the globe. Robert Floyd, executive secretary of the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty Organization (CTBTO), laid out this stark assessment during a press briefing with U.N. correspondents on Wednesday.
Floyd’s warning comes in the wake of mounting tensions that emerged late last year, when the world’s two largest nuclear-armed states — the U.S. and Russia — both openly floated the possibility of resuming nuclear testing, a move that sent shockwaves through the international non-proliferation community. “That is a spiral that we do not want to see start, because it may never be able to be stopped, Floyd emphasized, highlighting the irreversible risk of breaking the decades-long de facto moratorium on tests.
Three decades have passed since the CTBT first opened for global signatures back in 1996. Floyd noted that in the century prior to the treaty’s adoption, more than 2,000 nuclear tests had been conducted across the world. Since 1996, that number has dropped to fewer than a dozen, with six of those tests carried out by North Korea — a sharp decline that demonstrates the treaty’s quiet, ongoing impact on global security, even in its current provisional state.
Despite this progress, the CTBT has yet to formally enter into force. The treaty’s rules require ratification by 44 specific nuclear-capable states to take full legal effect, and nine of those countries have not completed this step. Among the holdouts, the United States, China, Iran, Egypt and Israel have signed the treaty but not ratified it; India, Pakistan and North Korea have neither signed nor ratified; Russia, which completed ratification years ago, took the unprecedented step of revoking its ratification in 2023.
Against this backdrop, the U.N.’s ongoing review of the separate Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT) puts renewed focus on the fragility of the global nuclear order. This year’s review is already shaped by geopolitical tension, particularly over Iran’s nuclear program, which former U.S. President Donald Trump has cited as justification for past aggressive action against Tehran.
Floyd has been pushing for coordinated action from the world’s major powers to break the current deadlock. He told reporters that he recently traveled to Moscow for high-level talks, where he argued to Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov that an unconstrained return to nuclear testing runs counter to the national interest of every country on Earth. He has also held talks with U.S. State Department officials, and said he is eager to meet with U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio to advance the treaty’s goals. Floyd proposed that a joint ratification push by China, Russia and the United States would be a transformative, confidence-building step that could put the CTBT on track for full implementation.
Currently, both China and Russia have publicly reaffirmed their commitment to maintaining a voluntary moratorium on nuclear testing. However, since 2019, the U.S. State Department has repeatedly raised public concerns about what it says are suspicious nuclear-related activities in both countries. Late last year, Trump leveled accusations that Russia and China were already conducting covert tests, and announced he had ordered the U.S. Defense Department to prepare to resume U.S. testing to match what he claimed other powers were doing.
In response to Trump’s announcement, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov clarified Russia’s position: Moscow would only resume its own nuclear testing if Washington broke the moratorium first.
Floyd also pushed back against any claims that secret testing could go undetected, noting that the CTBT’s global monitoring network is a highly sophisticated system capable of picking up even very small nuclear detonations anywhere on the planet. For any state seeking to develop a functional nuclear weapon, testing is a mandatory step — and if any country moves forward with a test, “if they did it will be known to all, Floyd said.
The warning comes as global leaders grapple with growing nuclear risk, from rising great power competition to escalating regional tensions, making the preservation of the global testing moratorium a core priority for international security in the coming years.
-
Countries end Colombia fossil fuel summit with focus on next steps and financing
On Wednesday, a groundbreaking international conference focused on phasing out fossil fuels drew to a close in the Caribbean coastal city of Santa Marta, Colombia, marking a historic shift in global climate policy conversations. For the first time in three decades of formal climate negotiations, delegates from 56 countries gathered to directly address the question of how to wind down oil, gas, and coal production — the primary driver of anthropogenic global warming — rather than debating whether such a transition is necessary. What began as an exploratory dialogue has laid the foundation for ongoing global cooperation, with financing for developing nations emerging as the most pressing obstacle to a just, widespread transition.
The gathering brought together a diverse cross-section of stakeholders beyond national government negotiators, including climate advocates, financial experts, Indigenous community leaders, youth representatives, and subnational authorities. Unlike formal United Nations climate conferences (known as COPs), which are often rigid and marked by pre-negotiated positional stances, participants described the Santa Marta meeting as having an unusually open, collaborative atmosphere. Former Irish President Mary Robinson, a leading voice for climate justice, noted that the tone of dialogue set this gathering apart from traditional UN talks, with participants engaging in more human, cooperative problem-solving rather than sticking to inflexible official lines.
Prior global climate negotiations have long centered on cutting end-use emissions rather than targeting the root of the climate crisis: fossil fuel extraction and production itself. This landmark meeting reoriented the conversation to tackle the full scope of the transition, including coordination between fossil fuel producing and consuming nations, support for workers shifting out of fossil fuel sectors, and managing the broader economic impacts of winding down production. While the conference did not produce legally binding commitments, it delivered tangible initial outcomes: agreements for ongoing cross-country collaboration, the establishment of dedicated working groups focused on financing and just labor transitions, and renewed momentum for future global negotiations to coordinate a coordinated fossil fuel phaseout.
Discussions repeatedly centered on financing as the single most urgent barrier to progress. Many low- and middle-income nations in the Global South face unsustainable debt burdens, high global borrowing costs, and limited access to affordable capital for renewable energy development, even as renewables have become cheaper than fossil fuels in most parts of the world. Tzeporah Berman, founder and chair of the Fossil Fuel Non-Proliferation Treaty Initiative, explained that many developing countries are pushed to expand new fossil fuel projects solely to service their existing debt, trapping them in a cycle of dependency that is incompatible with climate action. Participants also highlighted how restrictive domestic fiscal policies and structural inequities in the global financial system slow transition progress, noting that traditional macroeconomic responses to inflation can inadvertently hamper investment in the clean energy transition. Ana Toni, CEO of the upcoming COP30 hosted by Brazil, called for greater engagement from finance ministers to develop targeted solutions to the fiscal challenges of the transition.
The conference also forged a new, inclusive alliance that brings together major economies and the world’s most climate-vulnerable nations, a dynamic that participants said has been missing from many prior climate efforts. While the U.S. federal government was not invited — organizers framed the gathering as a space for nations already aligned on the goal of phasing out fossil fuels — a senior official from California attended as an independent observer, noting that clear policy and regulatory certainty is critical to unlocking private sector investment for the transition.
Indigenous participants raised important questions about inclusive decision-making, noting that Indigenous communities have long been frontline stewards of forest ecosystems that absorb carbon, but their knowledge and voices are often sidelined in global climate processes. Patricia Suárez, an adviser to the National Organization of Indigenous Peoples of the Colombian Amazon, emphasized that any just transition must center Indigenous territorial rights and acknowledge the critical role these communities play in addressing the climate crisis, while calling for meaningful representation in all upcoming transition initiatives.
In a moment that drew resounding applause from delegates, attendees announced that the next fossil fuel transition conference will be co-hosted by Tuvalu, a low-lying Pacific island nation extremely vulnerable to sea-level rise, and Ireland. The pairing of a climate-vulnerable developing state and a wealthy developed European nation reflects a deliberate effort to bridge global divides in perspective and responsibility for the transition. Tuvalu’s Minister of Home Affairs, Climate Change and Environment Maina Vakafua Talia noted that hosting the conference will highlight the lived, on-the-ground impacts of fossil fuel emissions, and that future talks will prioritize delivering concrete, actionable outcomes rather than non-binding statements. “If we are to address the climate change issue, we have to address the root cause, and the root cause is the fossil fuel industry,” Talia said, adding that delegates are eager to put concrete solutions and actionable steps on the table at the next gathering.
Senior policy observers noted that the conference signals a growing global appetite for moving beyond broad climate pledges to targeted, practical action on the core driver of climate change. “Santa Marta has delivered something valuable: a genuine demonstration that climate action remains a priority, and real appetite for specific solutions,” said Vance Culbert, senior policy adviser at the International Institute for Sustainable Development, adding that the initiative will help give the global fossil fuel transition a more coherent, powerful foundation.
-
New Zealand court rejects appeal by mosque gunman to abandon his guilty pleas
WELLINGTON, New Zealand – In a ruling that brings renewed closure to survivors and grieving families of the 2019 Christchurch mosque attacks, New Zealand’s Court of Appeal has dismissed white supremacist Brenton Tarrant’s bid to reverse his guilty pleas on charges of terrorism, murder, and attempted murder.
Tarrant, a 35-year-old Australian national, carried out one of the worst mass shootings in New Zealand’s modern history in March 2019. Targeting two Christchurch mosques during Friday prayers, he opened fire with semiautomatic weapons, killing 51 Muslim worshippers and wounding dozens more. He streamed the attack live online and published a lengthy manifesto detailing his violent white supremacist ideology under his real name.
In March 2020, Tarrant entered guilty pleas to all charges against him, a decision that spared the nation the trauma of a prolonged high-profile trial that many feared would give the extremist a platform to amplify his hateful rhetoric. On Thursday, a three-judge panel rejected Tarrant’s latest claim that harsh prison conditions had forced him to enter the guilty pleas against his will, noting first that the appeal was filed a staggering 505 days after the statutory deadline.
During a five-day hearing held in February, Tarrant, who has since dismissed his original legal team, also argued that his guilty pleas were the product of “irrationality” caused by poor mental health, claiming he had temporarily abandoned his racist views at the time of the plea deal. The three judges on the panel uniformly rejected this argument, finding Tarrant’s accounts of mental illness to be inconsistent and unsupported by evidence from prison staff, independent mental health professionals, and his former legal representatives.
In their written ruling, the judges emphasized: “He was not suffering from a mental impairment or any other form of mental incapacity which rendered him unable to voluntarily change his pleas to guilty. He endeavoured to mislead us about his state of mind in a weak attempt to advance an appeal in circumstances where all other evidence demonstrated that he made an informed and totally rational decision to plead guilty.”
The ruling also revealed an unusual procedural twist: shortly after Tarrant presented his case at the February hearing, he attempted to abandon the appeal himself. Judges rejected that request, noting that the case carried profound public importance and required a final, formal resolution. Court documents suggest Tarrant made the move to drop the appeal after recognizing his argument was unlikely to succeed, but New Zealand law does not require courts to allow appellants to withdraw a pending appeal once proceedings are underway.
Tarrant is currently serving a life sentence without the possibility of parole at Auckland Prison, a sentence handed down in August 2020. The Court of Appeal did grant Tarrant’s request to abandon a separate planned appeal of his life sentence, which had been scheduled for hearing in 2026.
Court records confirm that Tarrant relocated to New Zealand from Australia in 2017, already planning the mass attack. He spent nearly two years accumulating weapons and conducting surveillance on the target mosques before carrying out the shooting. At the time of his guilty plea, he acknowledged the overwhelming weight of evidence against him, including the self-filmed livestream of his attack and his own publicly released manifesto laying out his racist motivations. Thursday’s ruling closes another chapter in the aftermath of the attack, preventing a retrial that would have re-traumatized victims and their families.
-
Joy as record-breaking runner Sawe returns home
Thousands of cheering Kenyans have packed the streets of Sawe’s hometown to welcome back the man who made global athletic history: Sebastian Sawe, the first runner ever to complete a full marathon in less than two hours. The groundbreaking achievement, first reported by the BBC, has sent ripples of joy and national pride across the East African nation, long renowned as a breeding ground for world-class long-distance runners.
Local communities held impromptu celebrations, with traditional dancing, flag-waving, and street parties marking the occasion. Government officials have also joined in the tributes, highlighting Sawe’s milestone as a testament to Kenya’s enduring legacy in distance running. For decades, Kenyan athletes have dominated global marathon and long-distance track events, but Sawe’s sub-two-hour finish breaks a barrier that many in the sport once considered biologically impossible for a human runner.
Athletics experts across the globe have already hailed the run as one of the most transformative achievements in modern sports history, opening new conversations about the limits of human endurance. Back on home soil, Sawe has been greeted as a national hero, with young runners lining the routes of his homecoming procession to catch a glimpse of the trailblazer who redefined what the sport believes is possible.
-
Trump says Iran is ‘choking like a stuffed pig’, as he mulls extending blockade
As the protracted US-Israeli military campaign against Iran shows no immediate sign of de-escalation, former US President Donald Trump rejected a landmark Iranian peace initiative on Wednesday that aimed to lift reciprocal blockades of the strategically critical Strait of Hormuz and postpone divisive nuclear negotiations to a future date.
Multiple independent US media outlets have confirmed that the White House is actively considering extending its naval blockade of Iranian ports and oil infrastructure for multiple months, a plan that was outlined directly to senior US oil industry executives during a closed-door meeting with Trump. The news of the extended blockade triggered immediate volatility in global energy markets, a key barometer of geopolitical risk in the Middle East. Brent Crude, the global benchmark for international oil trade, jumped 7.5% by mid-day Wednesday to settle at $107.49 per barrel.
On his social media platform Truth Social, Trump doubled down on his hardline stance toward Tehran, writing, “Iran can’t get their act together. They don’t know how to sign a nonnuclear deal. They better get smart soon!” The post was paired with a doctored image showing Trump carrying a rifle against a backdrop of explosions destroying a desert fortress, overlaid with the slogan: “No more Mr. Nice Guy!”
According to US media reports, Trump’s closed-door talks with oil executives centered on two core goals: maintaining pressure on Iran via the naval blockade, and mitigating the economic fallout of higher energy prices for American consumers. Since the start of hostilities, average US retail gasoline prices have climbed roughly 35%, a smaller increase than what consumers have seen in Europe and Asia, but still a significant burden for household budgets. On Wednesday, the American Automobile Association reported the current national average price for a gallon of regular gasoline stands at $4.23.
In an interview with Axios News published Wednesday, Trump framed the blockade as a more effective tactic than sustained aerial bombardment. “The blockade is somewhat more effective than the bombing. They are choking like a stuffed pig. And it is going to be worse for them. They can’t have a nuclear weapon,” he told reporters. The former president insisted the blockade will only be lifted once a comprehensive nuclear agreement is reached — a negotiation process he acknowledged could stretch on for months, if not years.
While Trump declined to confirm upcoming military action during the Axios interview, unnamed senior defense officials have disclosed that US Central Command is drafting contingency plans for a series of “short and powerful” targeted strikes against Iranian assets to break the current diplomatic deadlock. The planning follows a major disruption to diplomatic efforts last week, when Trump canceled a planned trip by his negotiation envoys to mediating Pakistan just after Iran’s foreign minister had already arrived in the country, leaving talks completely in limbo.
A three-week-old ceasefire between US and Iranian forces has largely held across the theater of operations up to this point, giving a much-needed reprieve to Tehran, which suffered heavy damage from weeks of coordinated US and Israeli airstrikes. At the same time, US regional allies in the Persian Gulf have faced thousands of retaliatory ballistic missile and drone strikes from Iranian-aligned forces. More than 3,000 Iranian civilians and combatants have been killed in the 40 days of bombardment that preceded the ceasefire.
After the initial ceasefire took hold, Trump replaced large-scale airstrikes with the naval blockade, a move he says responds to Iran’s seizure of partial control over the Strait of Hormuz, through which roughly 20% of the world’s daily oil shipments pass. Tehran has selectively allowed commercial vessels to transit the waterway amid the ongoing standoff. “They want to settle. They don’t want me to keep the blockade,” Trump told Axios. He added that the blockade has crippled Iran’s oil export sector, claiming that Iranian tankers and domestic oil infrastructure “are getting close to exploding” from backed-up crude supplies.
On Wednesday, Iran’s state-run Press TV released a statement from an unnamed senior security source pushing back on Trump’s hardline position. The source noted that Iran’s military has shown deliberate restraint in recent weeks “intended to give diplomacy a chance”. The ceasefire, the source explained, was designed to give Trump “an opportunity to pull the United States out of the current quagmire it finds itself in”, but warned that Washington will face “practical and unprecedented action” from Iran if it refuses to end its naval blockade.
-
Bali drowning in trash after landfill closed
The idyllic Indonesian resort island of Bali, globally celebrated for its lush natural landscapes and golden coastlines that draw millions of visitors annually, is currently grappling with an escalating public health and economic crisis after authorities moved to enforce a decade-old ban on open dumping by closing the island’s largest landfill to incoming organic waste earlier this April. With no viable alternative waste disposal infrastructure rolled out ahead of the policy change, rotting garbage is now piling up along sidewalks, tourist hubs, and residential streets across the island, bringing with it foul odors, rodent infestations, and dangerous acrid smoke from illegal trash burning that has sparked widespread health concerns among locals and visitors alike.
For small business owners like Yuvita Anggi Prinanda, who runs a popular sidewalk flower stall in central Bali, the crisis has hit directly to the bottom line. Even the sweet fragrance of her fresh bucketed blooms cannot cut through the stench of accumulated waste that has gathered near her shop. Yuvita, who produces four large bags of organic waste daily from discarded leaves and flower trimmings, told reporters she has been forced to dip into her already thin profits to pay a private waste hauler to remove the trash. “Some customers, bothered by the persistent smell, end up leaving without making a purchase,” the 34-year-old entrepreneur explained. Her daily waste is just a tiny fraction of the roughly 3,400 tons of garbage Bali generates every single day, a volume inflated by the seven million international tourists that visited the island in 2024 – far outnumbering the island’s native population of just 4.4 million.
The policy shift that sparked the crisis is not new: Indonesia formally banned unregulated open landfills back in 2011 as part of a national waste management reform, but widespread enforcement never followed. Thirteen years on, fewer than a third of the country’s 485 original open landfills have been permanently shuttered, and only around 30% of the nation’s annual 40 million tons of waste is properly processed or recycled, according to government data. The remaining 70% is dumped illegally into rivers, oceans, or open unregulated sites. Now, the national government is moving to finally implement the full ban, targeting August for a complete phase-out of all open landfills across the country – but officials have yet to outline a clear, funded plan for alternative waste processing to take effect by that deadline.
At one of Bali’s most iconic tourist destinations, Kuta Beach, the crisis is on full public display: waist-high piles of sealed garbage bags now line the popular beachfront parking lot, adding to the island’s long-running struggle with plastic debris that regularly washes up on its shores. Australian tourist Justin Butcher, who has visited the beach for years, called the situation unacceptable. “You have dozens of rats here after dark, the smell is unbearable, and this just isn’t a good look for one of the world’s top vacation spots,” he said.
Local authorities have confirmed that anyone caught dumping or burning trash illegally now faces up to three months in prison and a fine of 50 million rupiah (nearly $3,000), but frustrated residents and waste workers say they have no other legal option to dispose of waste. On April 16, hundreds of Bali sanitation workers staged a protest outside the governor’s office, driving their waste-filled trucks to the site to demand solutions. “If we refuse to collect trash from residents, we get in trouble. If we do collect it, we have nowhere legal to take it,” explained protester I Wayan Tedi Brahmanca. In response to the growing unrest, the local government announced a temporary compromise: limited organic waste disposal will be allowed at the closed Suwung landfill until the end of July, buying officials a few months of time to finalize long-term plans.
Waste management experts warn that the decades-long overreliance on overcrowded open landfills has already created catastrophic safety risks. Nur Azizah, a waste management researcher at Gadjah Mada University, noted that the Suwung landfill alone was taking in 1,000 tons of waste per day, 70% of it organic, and has been operating far over capacity for years. “Organic waste trapped in unregulated landfills produces dangerous methane gas over time, which can cause explosions and trigger catastrophic landslides,” she explained. That risk is not hypothetical: in March, a collapse at Indonesia’s largest open landfill outside Jakarta killed seven people, burying nearby food stalls and parked trucks under tons of rotting waste.
Nur and other experts say the only sustainable long-term solution to the crisis is a mass public education campaign focused on home composting for organic waste, which makes up nearly 40% of all waste generated across Indonesia. Yuvita, the flower seller, agrees with that assessment. “People need clear guidance and support,” she said. “This is like telling someone who can’t swim to jump straight into the ocean – you can’t just impose a ban without giving people the tools to comply.” Local environment agency officials say they have run public awareness campaigns since last year and distributed free composting bins to households, but rollout has been slow and uneven across the island.
Indonesia’s national government says it plans to break ground on several new waste-to-energy processing projects in June, including one facility in Bali that will be able to process up to 1,200 tons of waste per day. But even if construction stays on schedule, these large facilities will take years to become fully operational, leaving Bali and other regions across Indonesia stuck in a waste management emergency that former environment minister Hanif Faisol Nurofiq recently acknowledged has reached crisis proportions across every major city and region in the country.
-
‘Attacked 28 times in a day’ – BBC visits heavily targeted US-UK base in Iraq
A recent on-the-ground reporting trip by the BBC has pulled back the curtain on one of the most violently targeted American and British military installations in the entire Middle East, a site that endured an astonishing 28 separate attacks in a single 24-hour period before a fragile ceasefire agreement brought a temporary lull in hostilities.
Located within Iraqi territory, this base has long sat at the center of escalating regional frictions, becoming a primary focal point for anti-coalition strikes that have put the lives of both American and British service members stationed there in constant danger. In the period leading up to the current fragile truce, attacks against the outpost grew not just in frequency, but in intensity, culminating in the record-breaking 28-attack barrage that underscored just how precarious the security situation around the installation had become.
During their visit to the base, BBC correspondents documented the visible aftermath of repeated strikes: damaged infrastructure, reinforced defensive positions, and service members who had grown accustomed to regular air raid sirens and incoming fire. The ceasefire that has paused the near-constant attacks remains shaky, with no long-term political agreement in place to resolve the underlying tensions that drive attacks on coalition forces in Iraq. Analysts warn that even with the current lull, the base remains at high risk of resumed hostilities if ceasefire terms break down, continuing to serve as a flashpoint for broader regional unrest that has roiled the Middle East for months.
-
Karim Khan describes threats from David Cameron and Lindsay Graham in new interview
More than a year after stepping back from his role at the International Criminal Court (ICC) amid a United Nations investigation into sexual misconduct claims, Chief Prosecutor Karim Khan has spoken publicly for the first time, forcefully asserting his innocence and revealing unprecedented political intimidation from Western leaders over his push to prosecute Israeli officials for alleged war crimes in Gaza.
In a wide-ranging interview with journalist Mehdi Hasan published on Zeteo, Khan laid out details of direct threats from senior Western politicians, corroborating earlier exclusive reporting from Middle East Eye (MEE) that exposed a coordinated campaign to undermine his leadership over the Gaza investigation. The probe into Khan’s conduct was triggered after misconduct allegations emerged last year, and a independent panel of judges appointed by the ICC’s governing Assembly of States Parties (ASP) Bureau already reviewed the UN investigation and concluded no evidence of misconduct or breach of duty had been proven against Khan. Yet despite the panel’s exoneration, Khan has not been allowed to resume his post, after a bloc of mostly Western and European states voted to set aside the judges’ findings and launch their own separate assessment based on the UN report.
Khan told Hasan he was stunned and confused by the decision to keep the case open after he was cleared. “I cooperated with the process, and the process exonerated me. I’m just concerned that…why is it not being closed straight away?” he said. Addressing the sexual misconduct allegations directly, Khan noted that the 137 findings contained in the UN investigation contained zero conclusions that labeled any of his behavior as inappropriate in any form. “So it’s as clear as cut as that,” he emphasized, adding that the ongoing delay is no longer about the original allegations. “What is being proposed is for political state officials to somehow hear more representations to get the result [they want]. It is not acceptable.” The UN Office of Internal Oversight Services’ original report included competing evidence from both the complainant and Khan, and the judges’ panel later confirmed the investigation either failed to reach conclusive factual findings or found it impossible to do so based on available evidence.
The misconduct investigation has unfolded against a backdrop of growing global pressure on Khan and the ICC, sparked by the prosecutor’s move to pursue arrest warrants for senior Israeli leaders over alleged war crimes committed during the Gaza conflict. Pressure began mounting in early 2024, as Khan finalized plans to apply for warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant. To date, Khan, his two deputies, and multiple ICC judges have already been subjected to official US sanctions over the investigation.
Last August, MEE reporting detailed a sprawling intimidation effort that included threats from high-profile politicians, coordinated negative briefings against Khan by close associates, safety concerns triggered by the presence of a Mossad team in The Hague, and pre-planned media leaks of the sexual misconduct allegations. While Khan declined to directly accuse any intelligence service of infiltration, he confirmed that Netanyahu has repeatedly worked to weaponize the allegations against him. “Netanyahu has clearly amplified and has sought to instrumentalise, at the very least, these allegations,” he said, adding that both Russian foreign intelligence and Israeli intelligence have carried out close surveillance of his activities.
When asked about MEE’s June 2024 exclusive report of a threat from then-British Foreign Secretary David Cameron that the UK would withdraw from the ICC and cut funding if the court moved forward with arrest warrants for Israeli officials, Khan confirmed the account was accurate. The April 23, 2024, phone call marked a clear moment of public pressure from one of the ICC’s founding member states. “Yes, it’s been reported, and it’s true,” he said. “I was sad. I wasn’t angry, I was sad. I’m not sure if it was [the] UK government, it was a very senior state official representing the UK government.” When pressed to confirm the caller was Cameron – a former British prime minister and current Conservative peer – Khan affirmed it was. Describing the conversation as difficult, he noted Cameron appeared visibly upset during the call. Khan struck a more optimistic note about the new British Labour government, saying Attorney General Richard Hermer has reaffirmed the UK’s commitment to respecting international law, a shift from the previous administration’s stance. As a British national and the ICC’s chief prosecutor, Khan emphasized the UK’s special responsibility as a UN Security Council permanent member: “If it stands for anything, it must stand for international law, and rules and complying and doing the right thing. And if the UK does the right thing, it’ll be good for the UK, and it’ll be good for the international community. And if we don’t, it’ll be the kiss of death for the standing of this great country.” Cameron has not responded to requests for comment on the call, and the British government has repeatedly declined to address the issue despite repeated questions from Labour MPs.
Khan also confirmed remarks first reported by MEE from a May 2024 conference call with US Senator Lindsey Graham, in which Graham claimed the ICC was only intended to prosecute African leaders and figures like Russian President Vladimir Putin, not Israeli or American officials. Graham’s comment echoed the dismissive attitude many Western leaders have taken toward the Gaza investigation, Khan argued.
The prosecutor also pushed back against claims that he advanced the arrest warrants to distract public attention from the misconduct allegations against him, calling the claim “baloney” in an American turn of phrase. He laid out a clear timeline to prove the warrants were planned long before the allegations became public: he traveled to the region in late 2023, visiting Israel, Palestinian communities, and Rafah, and publicly stated that all parties would be held accountable for violations. As early as March 2024 – weeks before the allegations emerged – he had already briefed senior US officials that he planned to file arrest warrant applications for the Palestine situation by the end of April, confirming the investigation’s timeline was never linked to the misconduct claims.
Today, Khan’s future at the ICC remains uncertain. The ASP Bureau is scheduled to deliver a final ruling on the allegations in early June, and Khan is set to deliver a high-profile public address at the Oxford Union next Tuesday, in what will be one of his first major public appearances since stepping back from his post.