Global Pulse

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  • Top Army general who was last US soldier to leave Afghanistan is suddenly leaving his post

    Top Army general who was last US soldier to leave Afghanistan is suddenly leaving his post

    WASHINGTON — The U.S. Army confirmed late Tuesday that the commander of American ground forces across Europe and Africa, a four-star general best known for making history as the final American service member to exit Afghanistan in 2021, is stepping down from his command role unexpectedly after just 18 months on the job.

    Gen. Christopher Donahue, who holds dual posts leading both U.S. Army Europe and Africa and NATO’s Allied Land Command, will officially hand over his command on July 2, according to an official Army statement shared with The Associated Press. His early departure marks the 20th near-top military leader to retire or leave their post prematurely since Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth took office, launching a high-profile push to reduce the number of senior general officers under his slogan “less generals, more GIs.”

    Maj. Gen. Christopher Norrie, Donahue’s current deputy, will step in to handle all command responsibilities on an acting basis while a permanent replacement is finalized, the statement added.

    A graduate of the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, Donahue built his decades-long military career as a special operations leader, heading elite Delta Force units during combat tours in Iraq and Afghanistan before taking command of the 82nd Airborne Division from 2020 to 2022. It was during that tenure that he oversaw security operations at Kabul’s Hamid Karzai International Airport during the chaotic 2021 U.S. troop withdrawal from Afghanistan. On August 30 that year, Donahue became the final American soldier to leave the country, bringing an end to a nearly 20-year war launched after the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks. This historic moment was captured in an iconic night-vision photograph showing the general boarding the final U.S. C-17 cargo plane to depart Afghanistan.

    Hegseth, alongside President Donald Trump, has repeatedly targeted the 2021 Afghanistan withdrawal for political criticism, launching a new Pentagon review of the operation despite multiple prior assessments. The original withdrawal agreement with the Taliban was negotiated during the Trump administration’s first term, and last May Hegseth ordered a fresh probe even after the Pentagon, U.S. Central Command, the State Department, and Congress had already completed exhaustive reviews that included hundreds of witness interviews and analysis of thousands of pages of visual and documentary evidence. It remains unclear what new insights the latest review is intended to uncover.

    Despite the political controversy surrounding the withdrawal, Donahue’s leadership during the Kabul evacuation earned bipartisan praise from lawmakers across the political spectrum. Within Army ranks, he was long viewed as a rising star, with many senior observers expecting he would eventually go on to lead the Army service or be selected as Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

    One senior Army official, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss internal sensitive deliberations, told the AP that Donahue’s exit aligns with ongoing discussions to downgrade the U.S. Army Europe and Africa command from a four-star billet to a three-star position. The proposed restructuring comes amid repeated public criticism of European NATO allies from Hegseth. Just last week, the defense secretary announced a six-month Pentagon review of U.S. force posture in Europe, framing the assessment as an effort to push NATO toward an irreversible shift that puts European allies in the lead for their own territorial defense. “It’s a review that some countries will fail and others will pass with flying colors,” Hegseth told alliance representatives last week.

    The Pentagon has not issued an immediate formal response to news of Donahue’s departure, which was first broken by The Atlantic.

  • Clean sweep for Mamdani-backed candidates in New York’s Democratic primary

    Clean sweep for Mamdani-backed candidates in New York’s Democratic primary

    In a seismic political shift that has upended New York’s Democratic landscape, three progressive candidates endorsed by New York City’s Democratic Socialist Mayor Zohran Mamdani have secured a clean sweep in key congressional primary elections, ousting moderate incumbents and party establishment favorites in a result that underscores the growing influence of the party’s far-left wing ahead of November’s midterms.

    The highest-profile upset came in New York’s 10th Congressional District, where left-wing challenger Brad Lander defeated two-term incumbent Dan Goldman, an heir to the Levi Strauss denim fortune who rose to national prominence leading the first impeachment inquiry into former President Donald Trump in 2019. With nearly all ballots counted, Lander won by a lopsided margin of 65.7% to 34.1%, drawing backing from high-profile progressive leaders including Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders. The race became a flashpoint for national intraparty tension over the Israel-Gaza war: Lander has openly accused Israel of genocide in Gaza, a claim Israel denies, while Goldman enjoyed robust support from national pro-Israel groups. Goldman’s vocal defense of Israeli policy sparked fierce backlash from progressive activists across New York, culminating in a widely circulated incident over the weekend where a Brooklyn coffee shop publicly banned the congressman, calling him a “genocide enabler” in a since-deleted social media post. Notably, both Lander and Goldman identify as Jewish.

    Two other Mamdani-endorsed candidates also claimed primary victory on Tuesday. In the 7th District, Assemblywoman Claire Valdez unseated incumbent Brooklyn Borough President Antonio Reynoso. In the 13th District, Darializa Avila Chevalier, a doctoral student and prominent participant in pro-Palestinian protests at Columbia University, won her race to claim the Democratic nomination. All three winning progressive candidates have campaigned on two radical progressive pledges: abolishing U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and implementing higher taxes on wealthy Americans.

    In another high-profile primary race, political newcomer Jack Schlossberg, grandson of former President John F. Kennedy and son of former U.S. Ambassador Caroline Kennedy, fell short in his bid for the 12th District seat being vacated by long-serving Congressman Jerry Nadler. The 33-year-old Harvard Law graduate and Vogue correspondent, who built a following for his quirky social media content, lost to Assemblymember Micah Lasher, a former aide to Nadler. Mamdani declined to endorse any candidate in that open race.

    Speaking to supporters ahead of the final vote counts, Mamdani framed the progressive primary wins as part of a broader ideological project to reorient the Democratic Party around working-class interests. “It’s not just a question of electing more Democrats. It’s a question of electing better Democrats,” he said. “When I look at these candidacies, I see in them a willingness to also put working people back at the heart of our politics.”

    The wave of progressive victories has sparked concern among establishment Democratic leaders in Washington, who warn that far-left candidates may struggle to win over critical swing voters in the general election this November. House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries pushed back on the idea that the primary results signal a permanent ideological shift for the congressional caucus. “We have agreed to strongly disagree,” Jeffries said of Mamdani’s progressive project. “A handful of primaries that go in one direction or the other, in a given state or two, aren’t going to reshape who we are as House Democrats.”

  • UN warns Palestinian children ‘defenceless’ amid Israeli crackdown on NGOs

    UN warns Palestinian children ‘defenceless’ amid Israeli crackdown on NGOs

    On Monday, the United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child issued a stark public warning: escalating restrictions imposed by Israel on independent human rights and humanitarian organizations operating across the occupied Palestinian territories have left Palestinian children growing more exposed and unprotected by the day.

    The 18 independent child rights experts that make up the committee, which operates under the umbrella of the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (UN OHCHR), issued sharp condemnation of Israel’s policy of labeling Palestinian civil society organizations as terrorist entities. According to the committee, this designation provides Israel with legal justification to disrupt critical life-saving and advocacy work, through tactics that include military raids on organization offices, travel bans targeting staff, personal financial penalties, threats of arrest, deliberate destruction of organizational documentation, and in multiple cases, threats of secondary sanctions against international partners that work with the targeted groups.

    While the committee’s latest warning did not name the specific groups referenced, the pattern of restrictions stretches back years. In 2021, Israel formally outlawed six leading Palestinian human rights and advocacy organizations, among them Defense for Children International – Palestine, Al-Haq, Adameer, the Bisan Center for Research and Development, the Union of Agricultural Work Committees, and the Union of Palestinian Women’s Committees – all of which have a decades-long track record of defending Palestinian children’s rights.

    More recently, new bureaucratic registration requirements imposed by Israel have threatened to force even more groups to end their operations at a moment of catastrophic humanitarian need in the Gaza Strip. On December 30 of last year, 37 international non-governmental organizations received official notification that their operating registrations would expire the following day. After a two-month grace period, the organizations would be legally required to cease all activity across Gaza, the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem. By January of this year, 53 international NGOs operating in the occupied territories issued a joint statement warning that these new measures would bring a complete halt to critical humanitarian programming.

    Israel’s Ministry of Diaspora Affairs defended the new restrictions publicly, claiming that organizations that failed to meet the country’s “security and transparency requirements” would have their operating licenses suspended. The ministry added that the restrictions also apply to any group that “refused to submit a list of their Palestinian employees in order to rule out any links to terrorism.” The 53 NGOs pushed back against this framing, noting that attempts to evaluate the impact of the deregistration policy using narrow, selective metrics fail to account for the on-the-ground realities of how humanitarian aid is actually delivered to vulnerable communities.

    Since a ceasefire took effect in Gaza on October 10, Israel has expanded this crackdown across all occupied Palestinian territories. One high-profile case involves Doctors Without Borders (Médecins Sans Frontières, MSF), which Israel moved to ban after the organization refused to hand over a list of its Palestinian staff. In February, 17 international aid organizations filed a petition with Israel’s Supreme Court to block the ban. While a temporary court injunction currently allows MSF to continue its operations, the Israeli government is still pushing for a permanent ruling to end the group’s work entirely.

    UN OHCHR emphasizes that these Israeli measures have left organizations unable to guarantee the safety of Palestinian children and families seeking life-saving support and legal advocacy, resulting in a situation where children are effectively left defenseless. “For more than three decades, these organisations have played a vital role in defending Palestinian children, including in the Israeli military courts, and in documenting grave violations against Palestinian children at the hands of Israeli forces,” the committee said in its statement.

    The committee warned that without the work of these independent groups, Palestinian children will be left even more exposed, and violations of their fundamental rights could continue without any accountability for perpetrators. The committee’s statement called on Israel to immediately lift all restrictions and barriers that target child rights defenders in the occupied Palestinian territories. It also urged the international community to use all available diplomatic and political tools to hold Israeli authorities accountable for these actions, and to prioritize the protection of Palestinian children’s fundamental rights.

    “Despite grave risks and limited resources, child rights defenders have continued to stand with Palestinian children and families in extraordinarily dangerous conditions,” the committee added. “They must be protected, not punished.”

  • Watch: Football fans celebrate in Ghana after draw with England

    Watch: Football fans celebrate in Ghana after draw with England

    In a display of unbridled passion and national pride, thousands of Ghanaian football supporters gathered at Accra’s iconic Black Star Square on Wednesday to celebrate their national team’s impressive 0-0 draw against England in the 2022 FIFA World Cup group stage.

    Ghana-based correspondent Thomas Naodi was on the ground at the central public space to capture the electric atmosphere, reporting on sea of black, red, yellow and green Ghanaian flags that waved across the plaza as fans sang traditional battle chants, danced to upbeat afrobeats, and embraced one another in shared excitement.

    Many supporters had crowded around public screenings across the country to watch the Qatar-based match, and after the final referee’s whistle blew, thousands made their way to Black Star Square— the historic heart of Ghana’s national identity, where the country’s independence was declared in 1957— to mark the moment. The Black Stars, making their fourth World Cup appearance, held off repeated attacks from the higher-ranked three-time tournament champions, securing a hard-fought point that gave the side a fighting chance to advance to the knockout stage of the competition.

    Even with the result falling short of a win, fans said the team’s performance against one of the world’s top football sides exceeded expectations and filled them with national pride. “We came into this match written off by everyone, but we held our own against England,” one long-time Black Stars supporter told Naadi on site. “That’s a win for us in our hearts.”

    The gathering stretched late into the night, with street vendors selling national memorabilia and local snacks to the crowd, and the sound of vuvuzelas and celebratory horns echoing across central Accra.

  • Sydney woman wakes from induced coma more than a week after shark attack

    Sydney woman wakes from induced coma more than a week after shark attack

    Nearly two weeks after a brutal shark attack left her fighting for life at one of Sydney’s most popular public beaches, a local teacher has achieved a surprising early recovery milestone that has lifted the spirits of her family and the broader community.

    Leah Stewart, a 34-year-old mother of one, was mauled by a shark while swimming close to shore at Coogee Beach on Saturday, June 13. The attack left her with multiple lacerations across her arms and legs, massive blood loss, and required emergency medical intervention that included the amputation of one of her arms and multiple consecutive surgical procedures.

    Immediately after the attack, Stewart was rushed to a nearby hospital in critical condition, where medical teams placed her in an induced coma to support her recovery. More than a week later, on the following Tuesday, her brother Joshua shared that clinicians had lowered her sedative medication, allowing Stewart to wake briefly for the first time since the incident.

    During that brief period of consciousness, Stewart told her mother and partner, who were at her bedside, that she loved them, and asked after the wellbeing of her young daughter. In a public online update shared with the hundreds of community members who have offered support to the family since the attack, Joshua described the early awakening as nothing short of a miracle.

    “This is a lot faster than anyone expected, and for us this feels like a miracle and is everything so many of us have hoped and prayed for over the past week,” Joshua wrote.

    He went on to confirm that Stewart remains in intensive care, having undergone five full days of surgery in the week following the attack, with more planned reconstructive procedures scheduled in the coming weeks. While warning that the 34-year-old still faces a long, challenging road to recovery and remains in critical care, Joshua emphasized that the early awakening is a hugely encouraging first step that has given the entire family renewed hope for her long-term recovery.

    Stewart’s attack is one of a growing string of deadly shark encounters recorded across Australia in 2025. In January, four separate attacks occurred across the country in just a 48-hour window, including one on a young boy at a Sydney beach who later died from his injuries. Just last month, two more fatal attacks were recorded: a spearfisher was killed by a shark in Queensland, and 38-year-old Steven Mattaboni, a father of two, died after being bitten by a 4-meter great white off the coast of Western Australia.

  • North Korea’s Kim claims progress on nuclear-armed navy as new warship is placed into service

    North Korea’s Kim claims progress on nuclear-armed navy as new warship is placed into service

    In a significant milestone for Pyongyang’s expanding maritime military ambitions, North Korea has officially brought a 5,000-ton guided-missile destroyer into active naval service, with leader Kim Jong Un framing the new vessel as a public symbol of the country’s advancing naval and nuclear development programs, state media confirmed this week. The official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) reported that Kim Jong Un attended the formal commissioning ceremony held Tuesday in the western port city of Nampo, where he emphasized that the launch of the destroyer, named the *Choe Hyon*, proves North Korea’s plan to equip its entire navy with nuclear-capable systems is progressing on schedule.

    Following the ceremony, the *Choe Hyon* was formally assigned to the defense of North Korea’s western coastal waters, the report added. Kim first unveiled the vessel to the public in April 2025, and has since positioned it as a transformative leap forward for the country’s military, expanding its operational reach at sea and boosting its capacity to launch preemptive strikes against adversary targets. According to KCNA, the warship comes outfitted with a full suite of advanced weaponry, including anti-aircraft defense systems, anti-ship missiles, and both nuclear-capable ballistic and cruise missiles. In the months leading up to its deployment, North Korea conducted a series of sea trials for the *Choe Hyon*, multiple of which included test launches of cruise missiles Pyongyang claims are capable of carrying nuclear warheads.

    In his keynote address at the commissioning, Kim marked a clear break from North Korea’s past naval posture. “It has clearly become a thing of the past when our navy existed as a force for defending the sea off our land,” he said. “It is rising into a full-fledged service equipped with strategic means as the program of equipping the Navy with nuclear weapons is following its planned course unerringly.”

    For years, Kim Jong Un prioritized the development of land-based ballistic missile programs, but in recent years he has shifted his focus to expanding naval capabilities as a core pillar of North Korea’s military modernization. Work is already ongoing on a nuclear-powered submarine, and expanding naval power was a central priority when Kim outlined his five-year military development plan at the Workers’ Party Congress last February. That plan included explicit calls for developing intercontinental ballistic missiles capable of being launched from underwater platforms.

    After a March missile test conducted from the deck of the *Choe Hyon*, Kim stated that his push to nuclear-arm the navy would “constitute a radical change in defending our maritime sovereignty, something that we have not achieved for half a century.” While state media did not elaborate on the context of this remark, many outside analysts believe the comment signals North Korea may be preparing to formally announce a new maritime boundary that would overlap with waters currently controlled by South Korea. Tensions between the two Koreas have risen sharply in recent months, and Kim has repeatedly rejected the legitimacy of the Northern Limit Line, the disputed sea boundary drawn by the U.S.-led United Nations Command at the close of the 1950-1953 Korean War. This poorly demarcated line has been the site of multiple deadly inter-Korean skirmishes over the past decades.

    The *Choe Hyon* is the first of two planned 5,000-ton destroyers in its class. North Korea unveiled a second hull, the *Kang Kon*, at its northern Chongjin shipyard in May 2025, but the vessel suffered significant damage during a botched launch ceremony that prompted a public rebuke from Kim. After emergency repairs, Pyongyang announced the *Kang Kon* was relaunched in June, though outside defense experts have cast doubt on whether the vessel is fully seaworthy and operational. Kim confirmed Tuesday that the *Kang Kon* will be commissioned for active service in the near future, and added that North Korea has separate plans to construct an even larger 10,000-ton destroyer in coming years.

    South Korean government officials and independent defense analysts largely believe the *Choe Hyon* was constructed with significant technical assistance from Russia, amid rapidly deepening military cooperation between Moscow and Pyongyang over the past several years. Even so, some experts have raised questions about whether the new destroyer is actually ready for full, frontline active service, casting doubt on the reliability of its onboard systems.

    Since Kim Jong Un’s high-profile nuclear diplomacy with then-U.S. President Donald Trump collapsed in 2019, Pyongyang has dramatically accelerated the expansion of its nuclear weapons arsenal, while deepening its political and military alliances with both Russia and China. Though Kim has maintained a hard-line confrontational stance toward Seoul’s current conservative government, he has left open the possibility of resuming diplomatic talks with Washington, repeatedly reiterating Pyongyang’s core demand that the U.S. abandon its precondition of denuclearization to restart negotiations.

  • Eight people with alleged ties to Antifa collectively sentenced to 450 years in prison over ICE centre protest

    Eight people with alleged ties to Antifa collectively sentenced to 450 years in prison over ICE centre protest

    On a Fourth of July holiday last summer, a chaotic demonstration outside a federal immigration detention facility in rural Prairieland, Texas — just south of Dallas — ended with a law enforcement officer shot in the neck, extensive property damage, and this week, historic lengthy prison sentences for eight people U.S. prosecutors have linked to the leftist anti-fascist movement Antifa. Collectively, the group has been sentenced to 450 years behind bars, in a case that has reignited fierce national debates over political protest, domestic terror labeling, and the scope of federal punishment for ideological activism.

    The harshest sentence, 100 years in prison, went to Benjamin Hanil Song, the 38-year-old former U.S. Marine Corps reservist prosecutors identified as the cell’s leader. Song was convicted of attempted murder of a law enforcement officer, after the officer was wounded by gunfire during the unrest. Per U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) records, Song faced a mandatory minimum sentence of just 20 years for the conviction, making the 100-year term a far harsher penalty than required by statute.

    In a written statement released Tuesday through defense advocates and multiple media outlets, Song claimed he fired his weapon only because he believed the officer was about to open fire on an unarmed protester. His mother, Hope Song, has pushed back against all allegations that her son intended to harm anyone, telling the Associated Press that the narrative of the attack has been distorted to fit a broader political narrative. The other seven defendants received sentences ranging from 30 to 70 years: Maricela Rueda was handed 70 years, five co-defendants (Cameron Arnold, also known as Autumn Hill, Savanna Batten, Zachary Evetts, Bradford Morris, also known as Meagan Morris, and Elizabeth Soto) each received 50 years, and Daniel Rolando Sanchez-Estrada was sentenced to 30 years.

    Acting U.S. Attorney General Todd Blanche issued a blunt statement following the sentencing, framing the penalties as a clear warning to ideologically motivated violent actors. “The sentences handed down today make clear that Antifa terrorists who attack law enforcement and federal facilities will face swift and uncompromising justice,” Blanche said, reiterating the DOJ’s commitment to cracking down on violent extremism that targets government institutions.

    According to the DOJ’s official account of the incident, the eight operatives belonging to what the agency calls the North Texas Antifa Cell launched the attack by launching and throwing explosive fireworks at the Prairieland detention center, before vandalizing multiple government vehicles and an on-site guard kiosk. The officer shot in the neck ultimately survived the attack, but the incident prompted a wide-ranging federal investigation and eventual 12-day jury trial that concluded earlier this year, after opening arguments on February 23.

    All eight defendants were convicted on a sweeping array of charges including felony rioting, illegal possession of weapons and explosives, providing material support to a terrorist organization, and obstruction of justice. But the case has been steeped in controversy from the start, with supporters and family members of the convicts arguing that the government has overstated the group’s ties to Antifa and imposed excessively harsh punishments for what was originally billed as a demonstration against U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detention policies.

    All eight defendants have repeatedly denied any formal affiliation with Antifa, saying they only attended the July 4 gathering to advocate for detained immigrants, a cause that has drawn widespread, mostly peaceful protest across the country for years. Multiple attendees of the demonstration have stated that the event was initially planned as a peaceful “noise demonstration” and that the outbreak of violence was unplanned and unexpected. Before the 2025 protest, the Prairieland facility had not seen any major disruptive activity, unlike many other ICE detention centers that have seen regular protests and even official visits from Democratic members of Congress.

    One additional defendant, Ines Soto, is scheduled to receive her sentence on July 1, and seven other people who pleaded guilty to one count of providing material support to terrorists ahead of trial will also be sentenced the same day.

    The labeling of the defendants as Antifa-affiliated domestic terrorists ties back to a 2025 executive order signed by former President Donald Trump, who formally designated the loosely organized movement as a domestic terrorist organization last September. Trump has long targeted Antifa as a core ideological enemy, blaming the movement for widespread violent unrest during multiple national protest waves in recent years.

    Critics of the designation and of the recent sentencing have pushed back on the DOJ’s framing, noting that Antifa is not a formal, centralized organization with fixed membership or leadership, but rather a loose ideological umbrella for groups and individuals that oppose far-right, fascist and racist politics. They also argue that holding individuals criminally liable for subscribing to a specific ideological belief violates fundamental First Amendment protections. The DOJ, however, has defended its framing, saying in a statement that the North Texas Antifa Cell is part of a larger militant network whose explicit ideological goal is the violent overthrow of the U.S. government, federal law enforcement, and the existing American legal system.

  • Iran’s ballistic missiles were ‘never on the table’ in US talks

    Iran’s ballistic missiles were ‘never on the table’ in US talks

    In a landmark confirmation made Tuesday during Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian’s official visit to Islamabad, Pakistan’s Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif has publicly clarified that Iran’s ballistic missile program was never part of the agenda for ongoing US-Iran negotiations, contradicting long-standing claims from Washington and Tel Aviv that the program was a core casus belli for their conflict with the Islamic Republic.

    Speaking on the record about the Islamabad Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) that paused hostilities between the US and Iran to open diplomatic space, Sharif emphasized, “This MOU does not mention ballistic missiles. It was never on the table, it was never on the agenda and the Iranian side never even wanted to discuss it. This is not an impression, but a fact of the matter.”

    Sharif also pushed back against what he called global double standards on missile proliferation, saying, “There cannot be double standards; that some countries can have ballistic missiles and Iran shouldn’t have them. You cannot digest this kind of duplicity.”

    Iran’s president echoed and amplified Sharif’s remarks, stressing that his country’s defensive missile program will never be up for negotiation under any circumstances. “Iran will never compromise on our missile programme and capabilities and this shall never be part of any agreement between Iran and any other party,” Pezeshkian stated. He added that the country’s defensive arsenal acts as a critical deterrent: “If the missiles we have for our defence did not exist, Israel and the United States would have ploughed Iran just like Gaza, showing no mercy to either the old or the young.”

    The confirmation aligns with a recent shift in US policy: during last week’s G7 summit hosted in Paris, US President Donald Trump acknowledged that demanding the missile program be placed on the negotiating table was never a realistic goal. “I’m saying that if other countries have them, it’s a little bit unfair for them not to have some,” Trump told reporters in Paris.

    This public shift marks a stark reversal from the US’s opening war aims, which explicitly identified the elimination of Iran’s ballistic missile arsenal and production capacity as a non-negotiable core objective. A declassified 1 April US presidential memo made clear: “From day one, the objectives have been clear and unwavering: obliterate Iran’s ballistic missile arsenal and production capability… That is the clear objective of this mission.”

    Since the end of formal US military operations against Iran, none of Washington’s original primary war objectives—including regime change, the total destruction of Iran’s missile program, the elimination of Iran’s naval capabilities, and the seizure of Iran’s uranium stockpiles—have been achieved. Today, Washington has reframed its negotiation priorities around two core goals: keeping the Strait of Hormuz open (a status that held before the US launched its invasion) and preventing Iran from developing a nuclear weapon.

    Diplomatic progress has moved forward rapidly in recent days. On Monday, the US suspended economic sanctions against Iran as part of the first round of high-level talks held under the Islamabad MOU framework. US Vice President JD Vance, who leads the US negotiation team, described the day of talks as having yielded “good progress.”

    The lifting of US sanctions is expected to deliver major economic relief to Iran: before the US blockade was imposed in response to Iran’s temporary closure of the Strait of Hormuz, Iran produced roughly 4.6 million barrels of crude oil per day and exported 1.5 million barrels daily. The Islamabad MOU, which was mediated by Pakistan and Qatar, halted all US-Iran hostilities for a 60-day period to allow for in-depth technical negotiations. Following Monday’s successful High-Level Committee Meeting, Sharif announced that negotiators had finalized a roadmap to reach a comprehensive final agreement within the 60-day window. Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf leads Iran’s negotiation delegation. On Tuesday, Trump reaffirmed that Washington is seeking a fair agreement with Tehran, adding that relations between the two countries are currently positive.

    Beyond bilateral US-Iran negotiations, the MOU also includes a commitment to end all ongoing hostilities in Lebanon. However, achieving a ceasefire there has proven far more complicated, as Israel has openly defied US efforts to end the conflict. Parallel direct negotiations between Israel and Lebanon are already underway independently of US-Iran talks.

    On Tuesday, the two countries launched their fifth round of direct negotiations in Washington. Lebanon’s delegation is pushing to revive earlier proposals that would require a full Israeli withdrawal from southern Lebanon. The three days of talks come after four prior negotiating rounds failed to deliver a permanent ceasefire or close the substantial gaps between the two sides’ positions.

    Beirut is expected to push for four core demands during this round: a binding timetable for Israeli withdrawal, the safe return of hundreds of thousands of internally displaced Lebanese people, the release of Lebanese detainees held by Israel, and the launch of post-conflict reconstruction efforts. For its part, Israel has linked any full withdrawal to the complete disarmament of Hezbollah, and insists that Israeli forces will maintain control over a large security buffer zone inside southern Lebanon until it is convinced that the Lebanese army can prevent Hezbollah from re-establishing a military presence in the area.

    The US-Iran MOU frames the Lebanon conflict as part of a broader regional ceasefire framework, and earlier talks near Lake Lucerne, Switzerland, produced a draft framework for a de-escalation mechanism between Israel and Hezbollah. This latest diplomatic development means the Washington talks are no longer the only diplomatic channel working to end the Lebanon war.

    This report was sourced from independent coverage by Middle East Eye, a outlet specializing in on-the-ground reporting and analysis of the Middle East, North Africa and global affairs.

  • ‘VAR went for a coffee’ – should Ghana have had penalty against England?

    ‘VAR went for a coffee’ – should Ghana have had penalty against England?

    A tense goalless friendly draw between England and Ghana ahead of the 2026 FIFA World Cup has ignited widespread debate over Video Assistant Referee (VAR) protocols, after a clear foul inside the England penalty area went unpunished by on-field officials and was not reviewed by VAR.

    Ghana boss Carlos Queiroz did not hold back after the match, venting his frustration over the late-game incident that saw his midfielder Prince Kwabena Adu brought down by England defender Ezri Konsa as Adu charged toward goal. Replays confirmed Konsa made contact with Adu’s knee and failed to touch the ball, a challenge that Queiroz insisted should have resulted in both a penalty and a red card for England.

    In a sarcastic rebuke of VAR’s performance, Queiroz questioned whether the system was even operational during the fixture. “Once again VAR went for a coffee,” he told reporters. “I’m not sure VAR is still working in the World Cup. We still have VAR? It’s working? It was a clear penalty, red card. You have any doubts about that?” He added a lighthearted caveat to his criticism, noting: “I’m sorry for my sarcasm, but if I say these kind of things seriously they punish me, so I hope you understand that I’m joking.”

    Queiroz’s complaints were echoed by multiple prominent football pundits and former elite players covering the match for the BBC, including several former England internationals. Former England and Manchester United striker Wayne Rooney said straight away that he believed the challenge deserved a penalty award. “Konsa takes a huge risk. His feet are off the floor when he comes flying in and he gets the man, not the ball. That could easily have been given in my view,” Rooney explained.

    Fellow ex-England defender Micah Richards echoed that assessment, noting that while England was pushing for a late winning goal, the rules of the game still required clear fouls inside the box to be punished. “On another day, that could have been a penalty,” Richards said.

    Even former 2010 World Cup assistant referee Darren Cann, who identifies as an England supporter, admitted the decision was incorrect. “As an England fan I am delighted that it wasn’t given, but I have to be honest, for me this should have been referred [to VAR], Cann told BBC One. “Konsa makes absolutely no contact at all with the ball, he brings down his opponent. He is airborne, he is out of control, he makes contact with the attacker. For me this was a penalty kick.”

    The incident has raised questions about why VAR did not intervene to review the call, a step that would be standard in most top-tier club competitions including the English Premier League. The difference, however, comes down to new protocol guidelines put in place for the 2026 World Cup by FIFA’s head of referees Pierluigi Collina. Collina has mandated a higher threshold for VAR overturns, with a policy of limiting interventions to preserve the flow of the game and defer more decisions to on-field officials. That policy is widely seen as the reason no review was initiated for the Konsa challenge.

    While Ghana walked away with a hard-fought respectable draw against England, the controversy has put renewed focus on FIFA’s adjusted VAR rules ahead of the tournament, sparking debate over whether the new threshold will lead to more contentious incorrect decisions as teams prepare for the 2026 World Cup.

    This report was first published in June by BBC Sport, ahead of the 2026 FIFA World Cup.

  • Crimson Thread: The new Israeli separation wall that cuts through the ‘breadbasket of Palestine’

    Crimson Thread: The new Israeli separation wall that cuts through the ‘breadbasket of Palestine’

    The rolling fertile fields of the Buqe’aa Plain, long known as the breadbasket of Palestine, have become ground zero for a sweeping Israeli land seizure initiative that is upending the lives of hundreds of Palestinian farming and herding families in the northern Jordan Valley. For Khairallah Bani Odeh, a lifelong Palestinian herder and farmer who once worked his family’s lands in the village of Atouf, displacement has turned his new home in Tammoun, south of Tubas, into nothing short of an open-air prison.

    Months after being forced to abandon his ancestral lands, Bani Odeh is one of dozens of families pushed out by a confluence of escalating settler violence, deliberate water access cuts, and the ongoing construction of Israel’s “Crimson Thread” infrastructure project. The ambitious initiative calls for a 22-kilometer, 50-meter-wide separation wall and adjacent military road to be carved through eastern Tubas, cutting off Palestinian communities from vast swathes of their most productive agricultural and grazing land.

    For generations, Bani Odeh and his neighbors sustained themselves through sheepherding and small-scale agriculture, their livelihoods tied directly to access to the Buqe’aa Plain’s fertile soil and local water networks. But from the moment construction crews moved in earlier this year, that foundation collapsed. According to Bani Odeh, Israeli settlers used bulldozers to destroy main water lines that fed hundreds of hectares of farmland across the plain, killing growing crops and cutting off critical water supplies for livestock. Without access to water, he was forced to buy expensive water from neighboring villages, walking miles to haul what he could for his herd. When settlers burned his standing barley crop, life in Atouf became untenable, forcing his family to relocate.

    Three months after leaving, Bani Odeh says he still feels trapped. He struggles to find new grazing land for his remaining livestock, and he counts every day until he can return to his ancestral home. His experience is far from unique. Across Atouf and surrounding communities, thousands of residents are facing catastrophic losses of land, water, and livelihoods as the Crimson Thread project progresses.

    Local estimates show more than 20,000 dunams (2,000 hectares) of agricultural land are already suffering severe drought and damage as a result of destroyed water infrastructure. For communities that rely almost entirely on livestock farming, shrinking pastureland and limited water access are pushing production costs sharply higher and forcing farmers to cull their herds, eroding their primary source of income.

    Anis Bisharat, a local vegetable farmer who once tended thriving plots of melons, okra, cucumbers, and zucchini, has watched his entire season wither after the water cuts. With irrigation no longer possible, his crops have suffered irreversible damage, and the project has also closed the traditional access road to the plain, forcing him to travel twice the distance and pay double the fuel costs to reach what little of his land he can still access.

    Muhammad Gharaibeh, another long-time farmer in the region, says the project is part of a far broader plan to seize more than 70,000 dunams of Palestinian land, facilitated by a settler outpost built on a hill overlooking the plain that has enabled repeated targeting of local agricultural activity. “This plain is the breadbasket of Palestine, and most of the fruits and vegetables distributed in the West Bank come from here,” Gharaibeh explained. With water lines cut, more than 40,000 dunams of standing crops are now without irrigation. With the scorching Palestinian summer just beginning, Gharaibeh says the entire growing season is at risk of total loss. “My crops have been without water for two weeks, and this is just the beginning,” he lamented.

    Preliminary data from the Atouf Village Council confirms the scale of the crisis: 24,000 dunams of land belonging to roughly 300 local farmers are currently facing drought and damage from ongoing bulldozing operations. That affected area makes up roughly a quarter of the entire 96,000-dunam Buqe’aa Plain.

    Details of the Crimson Thread project first emerged publicly in November last year, when Israeli newspaper Haaretz reported that the barrier and military road would stretch across Palestinian territory from Ein Shibli in the central Jordan Valley to the Tayasir military checkpoint. Shortly after the report, Israeli authorities issued formal military seizure orders for 1,042 dunams of Palestinian land along the planned route. Since the start of 2024, construction crews have operated continuously to advance the project, which researchers and local residents say will ultimately cut off thousands of additional dunams from Palestinian access entirely.

    The humanitarian and political fallout of the project is rooted in long-standing Israeli restrictions on Palestinian presence in the Jordan Valley, which makes up roughly 30 percent of the occupied West Bank. A recent April report from Israeli human rights organization B’Tselem found that the Jordan Valley has some of the strictest limits on Palestinian access and residency in the entire occupied territory. As of April, the group reported that more than 4,100 Palestinians across 62 communities in Areas B and C have already been displaced by a combination of Israeli state restrictions and settler violence. Currently, 53.4 percent of the Jordan Valley is classified as Israeli “state land,” 45.7 percent is designated as military firing and training zones, and roughly 20 percent is set aside as nature reserves — designations that all but bar Palestinian access and use.

    Mu’taz Bisharat, a leading expert on Israeli settlements in the West Bank, told Middle East Eye that the Crimson Thread project represents a dramatic tightening of Israeli control over the Jordan Valley, and a direct threat to the continued existence of Palestinian communities in the region. Bisharat noted that the deliberate destruction of water infrastructure is an intentional attack on the foundation of Palestinian life in the area, leaving little option for families but displacement. “Today, 70 percent of the land in this area has been lost due to the compounded crimes committed by the Israeli occupation against the Palestinian people, the Palestinian presence, and Palestinian agriculture. Nothing remains for the Palestinian citizen,” he said.

    Bisharat added that the new barrier and road are intended to redraw de facto boundaries in the Jordan Valley, cutting the region off from the rest of the occupied West Bank in a quiet, ongoing process of annexation that continues out of the global media spotlight. “The annexation process is taking place on the ground in full view of the entire world,” he said. “It has been halted in the media, but it hasn’t stopped on the ground.”