Global Pulse

分类： politics

  • Bessent says new US sanctions aim to block all potential sources of revenue for Iran

    Bessent says new US sanctions aim to block all potential sources of revenue for Iran

    The United States has launched a new round of harsh economic penalties against Iran, with Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent announcing Monday that the measures are designed to cut off every potential revenue stream for Tehran, warning any nation maintaining economic ties with the Iranian government will face U.S. retaliation.

    In remarks to a Washington press conference, Bessent emphasized that operating in ambiguous gray economic zones related to the ongoing Middle East conflict is no longer tolerated by the U.S. “Let there be no ambiguity as to the position of the United States,” he stated. “An economic engagement of any kind with this murderous regime will expose those responsible to the full reach of American power.”

    While Bessent declined to name specific countries that could face secondary U.S. sanctions, the move targets China, Turkey, and the United Arab Emirates—Tehran’s three largest remaining trade partners. Just one week before the announcement, the UAE, long a key hub for Iranian imports, already suspended all bilateral trade with Iran in a pre-emptive step to comply with the incoming U.S. measures.

    The announcement comes as Iran’s national currency, the rial, has plummeted to an all-time historic low. When currency markets opened Monday, the free-market exchange rate hit 2.02 million rial to one U.S. dollar, far outstripping the Iranian central bank’s official pegged rate of roughly 1.5 million rial to the dollar, which has little bearing on most ordinary Iranians’ daily transactions.

    Economic pressures on Iran have been mounting for months: even before the U.S. and Israeli military strike on Iran on February 28, the country was grappling with double-digit inflation and negative GDP growth. Nearly six months of open conflict have worsened the crisis, pushing the rial to repeated record lows and making basic food staples unaffordable for many Iranian households. Since the outbreak of war, domestic rice prices have surged roughly 60%, while beef prices have jumped more than 150%. The International Monetary Fund now projects Iran’s gross domestic product will contract by more than 5% this year.

    To date, however, crippling economic pressure has failed to translate into meaningful domestic political pressure on the Iranian regime, which has retained a critical strategic leverage over global energy markets by shutting down most traffic through the Strait of Hormuz— the strategic waterway that carried one-fifth of the world’s traded oil before the conflict began. Iran’s repeated attacks and threats against commercial shipping in the strait have brought transit to a near-standstill, inflicting widespread damage on the global economy and increasing political pressure on U.S. President Donald Trump ahead of upcoming congressional elections.

    The conflict has since devolved into a standoff over control of the key waterway. Tehran has refused to fully reopen the strait to international traffic unless it is allowed to charge transit fees to commercial vessels. Regional diplomatic efforts are ongoing: Tehran and Muscat are reportedly in the final stages of negotiating a joint management plan for the strait, and Oman’s foreign minister is scheduled to travel to Tehran Tuesday to advance the talks.

    The Trump administration says the expanded sanctions are an effort to break the current impasse. Ahead of Bessent’s announcement, Trump took to social media to declare, “IRAN IS COMPLETELY COLLAPSING!!!” In a Sunday opinion piece published in the *Financial Times*, Bessent argued that Trump’s existing policies have already gutted Iran’s economy to an unprecedented degree. “President Trump decimated Iran’s economy to a point where the rial has never been weaker and inflation has rarely been higher,” Bessent wrote. “The regime’s final refuge now lies in the self-deception of fearful nations that still believe accommodating aggression can secure a durable peace.”

    Iran has already warned that it will respond harshly to the new U.S. measures. “Any escalation of this situation will undoubtedly bring about consequences,” Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Esmail Baghaei told reporters in Tehran Monday. “Our hands are not tied,” he added.

    Amid rising escalation, regional diplomatic efforts to de-escalate tensions continue. Pakistan, which brokered a 60-day ceasefire between Washington and Tehran in June, has sent a high-level delegation headed by army chief Field Marshal Asim Munir to Tehran Monday, with the goal of encouraging both sides to return to negotiating the table. Two senior Pakistani officials confirmed the trip on condition of anonymity, as they were not authorized to speak publicly about the sensitive diplomatic mission.

    A person familiar with private discussions confirmed to reporters that Trump spoke with Munir ahead of the army chief’s trip to Iran, a conversation first reported by Reuters citing Pakistani sources. Pakistan’s military has only publicly confirmed Munir’s visit, saying its goal is to reduce regional tensions. Munir was accompanied by Pakistani Interior Minister Mohsin Naqvi and other senior security and diplomatic officials, and met with Iranian Interior Minister Eskandar Momeni shortly after arriving in Tehran. He is expected to stay overnight in the Iranian capital for additional meetings with Iranian President and other top government officials before returning to Pakistan. This marks Munir’s second trip to Tehran this year; his May visit helped lay the groundwork for the June ceasefire memorandum signed by the U.S. and Iran.

    For many ordinary Iranians, however, there is little optimism for a near-term resolution to the crisis. In downtown Tehran, 73-year-old Sadegh Mahmoudi told reporters he joined a queue of a dozen Iranians to exchange his remaining rial savings for U.S. dollars to protect his savings from further devaluation. “There is no hope for a deal and peace,” he said.

  • A political amnesty law takes effect in Thailand but excludes lese majeste

    A political amnesty law takes effect in Thailand but excludes lese majeste

    BANGKOK – A long-awaited amnesty covering political offenses committed across Thailand over the past 20 years officially entered into force on Monday, but targeted exclusions for high-profile and controversial crimes – most notably violations of the country’s harsh lese-majeste law that criminalizes defamation of the monarchy – have left advocates of national reconciliation skeptical of the policy’s ability to heal deep-seated political rifts.

    First introduced as a measure to mend divisions sparked by decades of political unrest, violent mass protests, and repeated military coups, the amnesty is projected to apply to roughly 6,000 eligible individuals, according to parliamentary estimates. Formally named the Peaceful Society Promotion Act, the legislation passed its final parliamentary vote in July and was officially published in the Royal Gazette on Sunday, clearing the final procedural hurdle before it could take effect.

    A special committee led by Thailand’s prime minister will be tasked with reviewing applications and confirming which individuals qualify for amnesty. The panel is required to convene its first meeting within 30 days of the law’s entry into force, though no official timeline has been set for how long the full eligibility review process will take.

    The amnesty covers a broad spectrum of political offenses committed between January 1, 2005, and July 15, 2025. For qualifying recipients, the law will not only secure the release of currently imprisoned individuals, but also terminate open investigations and prosecutions, dismiss pending court cases, and permanently expunge related criminal records. Beyond lese-majeste offenses, the policy also excludes convictions for public corruption and any political crimes that resulted in death or severe bodily harm.

    Critics have centered their pushback on the exclusion of lese-majeste cases, formally codified as Article 112 of Thailand’s Criminal Code. The law has long been a flashpoint of national controversy: critics argue it is routinely weaponized to suppress political dissent, with penalties including a maximum prison sentence of 15 years per conviction. Complaints can be filed by any private citizen, not just government or royal officials, and most defendants are ordered to remain in detention for the duration of often years-long legal proceedings. Even minor acts, such as liking a critical social media post on Facebook, have resulted in charges in recent years.

    Mass student-led pro-democracy protests that erupted across Thailand in 2020 centered calls for reform of Article 112, only for many of the movement’s leading organizers to be charged with lese-majeste offenses themselves. Thai Lawyers for Human Rights, a Bangkok-based legal advocacy organization, reports that more than 290 people – the majority of whom are young student activists – have faced Article 112 charges since early 2020. As of July this year, at least 54 people remain imprisoned in connection with political cases, and only around 10 of those detainees are expected to qualify for release under the new amnesty, the group confirmed, because all others are being held on lese-majeste charges.

    Thailand’s long-running political divides have largely centered on the polarizing figure of former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra, who was removed from office in a 2006 military coup. Thaksin’s populist policy agenda earned him fierce loyalty among low-income and rural voters, particularly in the country’s northern and northeastern regions, but his widespread popularity and assertive governing style created deep, lasting fractures between his political base and the kingdom’s conservative establishment: urban elites, traditional royalists, and the military. Over the past two decades, parties aligned with Thaksin have repeatedly won general elections and returned to power, while Thaksin himself lived in self-imposed exile abroad for many years to avoid prison time on past political convictions. Just last week, Thaksin was granted an early royal pardon and released from parole just over a year after he returned to Thailand, a development that has reignited debate over the country’s uneven application of political justice.

  • Burnham and European leaders arrive in Kyiv as Ukraine marks Independence Day

    Burnham and European leaders arrive in Kyiv as Ukraine marks Independence Day

    On Monday, a landmark day that marks Ukraine’s 35th anniversary of independence from the Soviet Union, United Kingdom Prime Minister Andy Burnham touched down in Kyiv for his first foreign visit since assuming office. The high-profile trip brings him together with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy for key bilateral talks, and he will co-lead a gathering of the global coalition backing Ukraine alongside a cohort of other top international leaders.

    Burnham is not arriving empty-handed. According to statements from his official office, the British premier is set to announce a critical policy shift: the UK government has given approval for defense manufacturer MBDA to declassify technical details of British-built components integrated into the SCALP long-range cruise missile. This regulatory and security move clears a major bureaucratic hurdle that has blocked progress on a joint plan between France and Ukraine to manufacture the SCALP weapon domestically on Ukrainian soil.

    A string of other senior European leaders also made their way to the Ukrainian capital to join the commemorations and talks. Among those in attendance are European Council President Antonio Costa, Moldovan President Maia Sandu, Luxembourg Prime Minister Luc Frieden, and Estonian President Alar Karis, a showing that underscores the continued unified European support for Kyiv amid its ongoing conflict.

    For context, the SCALP missile, developed and produced by France, shares deep technological roots with the UK’s own Storm Shadow long-range missile. Both weapons rely on shared technology developed jointly by French and British defense industries, making the declassification of UK-built components a critical step for any domestic production effort in Ukraine.

    Beyond the missile announcement, Burnham’s schedule includes taking part in official Independence Day remembrance events and leading discussions at the coalition of the willing meeting, where participating leaders will debate the future of ongoing international military, economic and political support for Ukraine as the war with Russia continues.

  • New Zealand’s prime minister proposes banning children from using social media

    New Zealand’s prime minister proposes banning children from using social media

    WELLINGTON, New Zealand — Prime Minister Christopher Luxon has introduced a landmark draft law that would bar all children under the age of 16 from accessing major social media platforms, framing the proposal as an urgent response to what he described as widespread, generational harm to New Zealand’s young people. Announced on Monday, the policy joins a growing global wave of age-based restrictions on big tech, but faces immediate gridlock within Luxon’s own ruling coalition, leaving its path to passage deeply uncertain.

    The proposed legislation targets leading platforms including Instagram, TikTok, Snapchat, and Facebook, requiring these companies to implement verifiable age-checking measures to exclude underage users. Acceptable verification methods outlined in the policy document from Luxon’s center-right National Party include existing user account data, facial age estimation technology, digital identity services, and formal government-issued identification. Critical carve-outs exclude one-on-one messaging services such as WhatsApp, user-generated online gaming platforms like Roblox, and productivity-focused artificial intelligence tools including ChatGPT, Google Gemini, and Microsoft Copilot.

    Notably, the draft law imposes no penalties on children or parents who access platforms in violation of the ban. Instead, enforcement falls entirely on tech companies, which could face fines of up to 10 percent of their annual global revenue for failing to meet their compliance obligations. The bill also mandates that platforms with significant child user bases must conduct regular public risk assessments and publish reports detailing potential harms to young users on their networks.

    Luxon framed the policy as a necessary intervention based on local data, noting that 2025 research found one-third of New Zealand teenagers spend at least five hours per day on social media. “Social media is exposing them to harmful content, addictive technology and pressures they are not equipped to deal with and it’s affecting their family life, mental health, sleep, and education,” he told reporters on Monday.

    Luxon’s push for the ban follows Australia’s implementation of a world-first under-16 social media ban that took effect in December 2025. Since Australia’s ban came into force, Canada, Brazil, and Indonesia have also enacted similar age restrictions, while dozens of other nations are currently drafting or evaluating their own rules. Early results from Australia show that just one month after the ban took effect, major platforms reported revoking access to roughly 4.7 million accounts confirmed to belong to underage users. The policy has divided global stakeholders: child safety advocates and many parents have praised the measures as a long-overdue protection for young people, while digital privacy organizations argue age-verification rules are easily circumvented and create unacceptable risks to users’ personal data.

    Despite the prime minister’s support, the bill faces steep procedural and political obstacles. Two of the three parties in Luxon’s ruling coalition — the libertarian ACT Party and populist NZ First — have repeatedly and vehemently opposed the legislation, and confirmed Monday they will vote against it. For the bill to advance, Luxon will need backing from opposition lawmakers, who have not yet committed to supporting the proposal. Chris Hipkins, leader of the center-left Labour Party, the largest opposition bloc, said Monday his caucus has not reached a final decision on how to vote.

    Complicating matters further, Luxon confirmed there is insufficient time to complete the legislative process before Parliament dissolves on October 1, ahead of New Zealand’s general election scheduled for November. Under New Zealand law, all bills must pass three separate rounds of parliamentary voting, a process that typically takes several months, before they can be signed into law. If Luxon’s National Party is reelected to lead the next government, he has pledged to reintroduce and advance the bill to make New Zealand the latest nation to implement strict age limits for social media access.

    This is not the first time Luxon’s government has taken action to limit young New Zealanders’ screen time: in 2024, the administration enacted a nationwide ban on cellphone use during school hours for students of all age groups.

  • Japanese lawmakers visit Beijing seeking to mend ties after fallout from Takaichi’s Taiwan remark

    Japanese lawmakers visit Beijing seeking to mend ties after fallout from Takaichi’s Taiwan remark

    TOKYO — In a bid to reverse a dramatic breakdown in China-Japan relations triggered by a controversial statement on Taiwan from Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi that inflamed Beijing and spilled over to damage economic ties, a multi-party delegation of Japanese legislators departed for Beijing on Monday. The four-day visit, scheduled to run through Thursday, will see the group hold formal talks with officials from the Chinese Communist Party, in what supporters frame as an opening to restart frozen diplomatic communication.

    The cross-party delegation includes Gaku Hashimoto, a former health and welfare vice minister from Takaichi’s own ruling Liberal Democratic Party, one lawmaker from the Komeito opposition, and a representative from the Centrist Reform Alliance (CRA). Shinichi Isa, the CRA spokesperson and a former diplomat posted to the Japanese Embassy in Beijing, spoke to reporters ahead of the delegation’s departure from Tokyo’s Haneda Airport, emphasizing the urgency of the mission.

    “Communication has been severed in all areas, and we are already seeing negative impacts ripple across multiple sectors,” Isa told reporters. “Our goal is to find a path forward that can restart constructive dialogue between the two sides.”

    The crisis erupted immediately after Takaichi took office, when she stated that a Chinese military action targeting Taiwan would qualify as a “survival-threatening situation” for Japan, potentially justifying the deployment of Japanese military force. The comment crossed a well-established red line for Beijing, which claims the self-governing island of Taiwan as its sovereign territory, and triggered furious pushback from Chinese authorities.

    Weeks later, Isa warned on social media platform X that bilateral relations had fallen to their lowest point since the two countries normalized diplomatic ties in 1972. Unlike previous periods of tension, when low-level official communication remained open to prevent escalation, Isa noted that “now all official channels between government agencies and ministries have been completely cut off.” He added that the ongoing frozen relationship serves no national interest for either China or Japan, and confirmed that Beijing had granted the delegation’s request to open a limited “window for dialogue” between the two sides.

    Earlier last week, China’s Foreign Ministry acknowledged that cross-party “people of insight” from Japan had recognized the severity of the current bilateral standoff and were seeking concrete steps to put relations back on a stable footing. “We urge those running the Japanese government to take these voices seriously … and take concrete actions to create the necessary conditions for normal exchanges between the two countries,” the ministry said in a statement Friday.

    Takaichi has so far refused to retract her original comment on Taiwan. In a small conciliatory gesture amid rising tensions, however, she chose to pray remotely rather than make an in-person visit to Tokyo’s controversial Yasukuni Shrine during the annual Aug. 15 commemoration of Japan’s World War II surrender. The shrine, which honors convicted Japanese war criminals alongside the country’s war dead, is widely viewed by China and South Korea as a symbol of unrepentant Japanese wartime militarism and aggression.

  • New Zealand moves to ban social media for under-16s

    New Zealand moves to ban social media for under-16s

    Almost 18 months after neighboring Australia introduced what was then the world’s first national ban on social media use for children under 16, New Zealand’s center-right government is officially bringing forward its own sweeping legislation to restrict underage access to major platforms, in one of the most ambitious global attempts to curb youth exposure to online harm. Prime Minister Christopher Luxon’s ruling National Party has spent more than a year reviewing Australia’s policy and designing its own regulatory framework, which is set to be introduced to parliament this coming Monday.

    The core of the proposal, titled the Online Safety Bill, prohibits any child under the age of 16 from creating and using personal accounts on major social media platforms including Meta-owned Instagram and Facebook, ByteDance’s TikTok, and Snap Inc.’s Snapchat. To enforce the rule, the legislation requires platforms to take legally mandated reasonable steps to verify the age of all new users, mandating verification methods ranging from existing account metadata and formal government-issued identification to digital ID services and AI-powered facial age estimation tools. Beyond age checks, platforms will also be required to conduct regular mandatory assessments of the risks their platforms pose to underage users and publish public reports detailing their efforts to mitigate those harms.

    The stakes for non-compliance are steep: platforms that fail to meet their regulatory obligations could face fines equal to as much as 10% of their annual global revenue, a penalty structure aligned with strict digital regulations introduced by the European Union in recent years. Crucially, the bill does not impose any fines or legal penalties on children who access platforms, nor on their parents or caregivers, a clarification Education Minister Erica Stanford emphasized as the government rolled out the proposal.

    Luxon made the case for the controversial legislation in stark terms, framing it as a necessary intervention to protect a generation of young New Zealanders. Citing public health data, he noted that one in three teenagers between 13 and 17 currently spend at least five hours per day on social media platforms. “Social media is exposing them to harmful content, addictive technology and pressures they are not equipped to deal with, and it’s affecting their family life, mental health, sleep, and education,” Luxon said. “We simply cannot accept the harm being done to a generation of New Zealand children.”

    Despite the government’s push for the bill, its path to becoming law remains far from certain. The National Party holds a plurality in parliament, governing in coalition with two smaller parties – the libertarian ACT Party and the populist NZ First – both of which have already publicly announced their opposition to the proposal. NZ First cited what it calls the “colossal failure” of Australia’s similar policy, which was implemented in December 2023, to justify its opposition. ACT, meanwhile, has argued the ban is unworkable, claiming that tech-savvy teenagers will easily find ways to bypass age verification checks.

    Critics of the ban can already point to independent research out of Australia that casts doubt on the effectiveness of the under-16 ban. A peer-reviewed study conducted by Australian researchers, published in June 2024, found little empirical evidence that the ban had led to a meaningful drop in social media use among Australian teenagers. New Zealand joins a growing number of countries around the world that are exploring strict age-based restrictions on social media access, as policymakers grapple with rising concerns about the impact of unregulated social media use on youth mental health and well-being.

  • What to know about Iceland’s vote on whether to restart talks to join the EU

    What to know about Iceland’s vote on whether to restart talks to join the EU

    On a crisp election weekend in Reykjavik, Iceland’s 400,000 eligible voters headed to the polls to decide one of the most consequential questions in the small Nordic nation’s modern history: whether to restart accession negotiations for membership in the European Union. What many observers did not expect was that a series of offhand remarks from former U.S. President Donald Trump would accelerate the vote and shift the tone of the entire national debate.

    Earlier this year, as Trump pushed repeatedly for the U.S. to gain control of Greenland, the self-governing Danish territory bordering Iceland, he made a repeated public gaffe: he called the territory “Iceland” no fewer than four times, describing it as “a piece of ice, cold and poorly located” that he wanted to acquire. The mistake sent immediate shockwaves through Icelandic public opinion. Even though Trump’s target was Greenland, not Iceland, the blunder stoked long-simmering anxieties about great power interference in the small Arctic nation’s sovereignty. The government, which had originally planned to hold the referendum by 2025, moved the vote up to Saturday, citing shifting geopolitical risks that demanded an urgent decision.

    The anxiety was compounded by a separate misstep from the incoming U.S. ambassador to Iceland, William Long, who joked shortly after his appointment that he hoped Iceland would become the 51st U.S. state, and he would serve as its governor. Though Long quickly apologized for the offhand comment, it prompted thousands of angry Icelanders to sign a public petition calling on the prime minister to reject his credentials. For pro-EU campaigners, the two incidents crystallized a core argument: in an era of unpredictable great power competition, Iceland’s hard-won independence is better protected within a unified European bloc than going it alone.

    “We can’t really trust the U.S. anymore,” said Hildur Knútsdóttir, an Icelandic horror fiction writer who plans to vote in favor of restarting accession talks. “Trump was not joking about Greenland. There was a lot of fear here in Iceland because if he takes Greenland with force, we’re probably going to be next.”

    Iceland already has deep ties to the European bloc: as a member of NATO, it participates in the EU’s single market through the European Economic Area agreement and is part of the Schengen Area, which allows unrestricted cross-border travel across most of Europe. Proponents of full membership argue that joining the EU would insulate Iceland from growing global geopolitical instability, deliver tangible economic benefits including a more stable currency, lower long-term interest rates, and reduced inflation, while strengthening the nation’s sovereignty through collective European security guarantees.

    Foreign and Defense Minister Thorgerdur Katrín Gunnarsdóttir, a leading proponent of EU membership, notes that small European member states report no erosion of their sovereign authority. “When I ask people from smaller countries such as Ireland, Finland or Luxembourg, whether they feel they’ve lost their sovereignty, they look at me like I’m a crazy woman and say membership has made them stronger,” she explained. Gunnarsdóttir added that Trump’s saber-rattling over Greenland underscored the value of collective European action: “That is so important for us to see a group of like-minded nations stand together on principles and values. That is also what I’m looking at when I see the European Union in this volatile world.”

    But for Euroskeptic opponents, the core issue remains sovereignty, which they argue Iceland already holds in full after winning independence from Denmark in 1944. The nation has thrived as an independent state outside the EU, enjoying all the economic benefits of European single market access without being subject to EU laws and regulatory authority. Opponents see no reason to surrender that autonomy, particularly when Iceland’s economy is already performing strongly.

    “The independence of Iceland is the most precious resource that we have,” said Haraldur Olafsson, a physics professor and chairman of Heimssýn, Iceland’s leading Euroskeptic advocacy group. “The possibility of making your own law and deciding how things are done is essential.”

    University of Iceland political science professor Hulda Thorisdottir explains that sovereignty frames the entire debate, with both sides framing their position as the best defense of Iceland’s national autonomy. “For both sides of the debate, it’s really a matter of sovereignty,” she said. “Opponents argue that the nation that won its independence in 1944 enjoys all the benefits of European integration with no drawbacks. Why surrender that when they’re doing so well? EU proponents, however, see it through the lens of a rapidly changing world in which shifting alliances pose a security risk. Being outside the EU makes Iceland vulnerable and that threatens its sovereignty.”

    This is not Iceland’s first flirtation with EU membership. The country first applied for membership in 2009, shortly after its entire overleveraged banking sector collapsed in the 2008 global financial crisis. At the time, no public referendum was held to authorize the application bid. Accession negotiations began but were suspended in 2013 after a center-right Euroskeptic government took power, and talks were formally ended in 2015. The current center-left coalition government led by Prime Minister Kristrun Frostadottir was elected in 2024 on a platform that promised a public vote on restarting negotiations, delivering on that promise with Saturday’s referendum.

    Voters are being asked a simple yes-or-no question: Should Iceland resume accession negotiations with the European Union? A no vote would take the issue of EU membership off the national agenda for the foreseeable future. A yes vote would launch a multiyear negotiating process, where the European Commission would assess Iceland’s alignment with 35 separate EU policy sets, ranging from financial regulation and fisheries management to transport infrastructure, agricultural rules, and fundamental freedoms of speech and religion. Any final accession agreement would require approval from all 27 current EU member states, followed by a second final public referendum in Iceland for final approval.

    The single biggest sticking point in any future negotiations is almost certain to be Iceland’s fishing industry, which is not just the nation’s most valuable economic sector but a core part of its cultural identity as a descendant of Viking maritime communities. Iceland fought two hard-fought “Cod Wars” against the United Kingdom in the 1970s to secure full control over its exclusive economic zone and rich North Atlantic fishing grounds, and any deal that forces Iceland to open its waters to other EU fishing vessels under the bloc’s Common Fisheries Policy is widely seen as politically untenable.

    Pro-EU officials insist they will not accept any deal that does not guarantee full Icelandic control over its fisheries. “We are a superpower when it comes to fisheries,” Gunnarsdóttir said. “We will not sign any agreement which will not underline our sovereignty and full control of our fisheries.” Heiðrun Lind Marteinsdóttir, CEO of the industry trade group Fisheries Iceland, says the sector does not oppose EU membership outright, but only if Iceland secures a permanent opt-out from the Common Fisheries Policy – a concession that has never been granted to any previous accession candidate. “I think we need to be very realistic on the negotiation process and what we can get out of the negotiations,” she said. “To be honest, I think, we’re aiming high.”

    Still, many industry leaders remain skeptical that any protections for Icelandic fisheries would hold up over time, particularly for highly migratory open-ocean species such as herring, capelin, and mackerel that move freely between international fishing zones. “We are going to see European fishing vessels here in Iceland,” predicted Einar Sigurdsson, chairman of leading Icelandic fishing firm Isfelag.

  • Israel warns of strikes, evacuations over kites launched by Palestinian children in Gaza

    Israel warns of strikes, evacuations over kites launched by Palestinian children in Gaza

    A seemingly innocuous childhood activity in the Gaza Strip has spiraled into a major escalation threat, after the Israeli military has framed the kites flown by Palestinian children as a security threat justifying expanded military operations and forced displacement across the blockaded enclave.

    On Sunday, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office issued a formal statement announcing that Israel had issued Hamas a 72-hour deadline to end all kite launches from Gaza. If the activity continued, the statement warned, Israel would launch a wide-ranging air assault, and would evacuate populated Gaza regions from which kites, incendiary balloons, and unmanned aerial devices have reportedly been launched.

    The current tensions were sparked over the weekend, when Israeli media outlets reported that several kites launched from Gaza had touched down near Nahal Oz Kibbutz, an Israeli settlement built illegally on Palestinian territory adjacent to the Gaza border. Though Israeli military sources confirmed the kites were launched by local Palestinian children, and that no hazardous materials were found on any of the devices, confirming they posed no threat to public safety, the incident did not end there.

    Kibbutz residents pushed back against the characterization of the flights as harmless isolated incidents, releasing a collective statement rejecting any passive approach to what they framed as a breach of their security. “We will not accept a policy of containment when it comes to our security,” the statement read.

    Within days, top Israeli security officials convened for an emergency strategy session. Netanyahu joined Defense Minister Israel Katz, Israel Defense Forces Chief of Staff, the head of the National Security Council, and other senior security leaders for a special closed-door meeting focused exclusively on the kite issue on Sunday.

    Following the meeting, Katz announced he had instructed Israeli military units to respond to the kite launches with overwhelming force, and take all necessary measures to halt the activity. He went so far as to classify the children’s activity as an “act of war”, equating unarmed paper kites to hostile drones and saying the military would treat them identically. As part of the response measures, Katz confirmed that Israeli forces would target Hamas commanders deemed “responsible” for the launches. In a remark that underscored the severity of the Israeli stance, he added: “A balloon is like a kite, and a kite is like a drone, whether it carries explosives or not.”

    For Gazans, however, kites have carried a far different meaning for nearly two decades, shaped by the ongoing Israeli siege that has confined the strip’s 2 million residents since 2007. Cut off from freedom of movement beyond the enclave’s borders, flying homemade kites has become a quiet symbol of the desire for freedom for Palestinians, particularly for children growing up under blockade.

    The deep cultural roots of the activity stretch back more than a decade. In 2010, thousands of Gazan children gathered on Gaza’s Mediterranean coast to fly kites as part of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) Summer Games, breaking the Guinness World Record for the largest number of kites flown simultaneously. A total of 6,302 handmade kites, built by the children themselves, were launched into the sky that day, drawing international attention to life under blockade. To this day, building and flying homemade kites remains one of the most popular pastimes for children and young people across Gaza, even as they remain trapped behind the Israeli and Egyptian barriers that enclose the small coastal enclave.

  • Melbourne Lord Mayor calls for federal funds to protect religious events

    Melbourne Lord Mayor calls for federal funds to protect religious events

    As public hearings wrap up at Australia’s Royal Commission into Anti-Semitism and Social Cohesion, Melbourne’s top local official has made an urgent push for federal financial support to boost security at religious gatherings across cash-strapped municipal jurisdictions.

    Appearing before the inquiry on Monday, Lord Mayor Nicholas Reece emphasized that Melbourne is home to Australia’s largest Jewish community, a group that has been woven into the cultural, social and civic fabric of the city since its founding. He then detailed his firsthand experience responding to a 2023 firebombing attack on a Melbourne synagogue, carried out while families were gathering inside for Shabbat dinner.

    Reece described the scene as one of the most distressing he has ever witnessed: children and families displaced onto the street, emergency responders from the fire service and Victoria Police surrounding the site, and the entire area cordoned off as an active crime scene. “This is not the Melbourne I have known for most of my life,” he told commissioners, adding that the act of violence was terrifying and entirely unacceptable in a democratic Australian city. The attack, he confirmed, has been linked to an extremist conspiracy originating overseas.

    Beyond addressing immediate security needs, Reece also weighed in on the role of local government in debating complex global conflicts, referencing an hours-long council motion held during his time as acting mayor about the Gaza war. He called the process deeply challenging and a poor use of local government resources. While Reece acknowledged that local councils have a legitimate role in international engagement – from supporting cultural exchanges for international students to fostering university partnerships – he argued that nuanced, high-stakes geopolitical conflicts fall outside the core remit of local government.

    Instead, Reece recommended that the federal Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT) take the lead in facilitating community input on these global issues, modeling the work of community forums previously run by the Australian Agency for International Development (AusAID). He clarified that he does not oppose councils hosting open community debate on any topic, but DFAT is far better positioned to collect and address community perspectives on international matters.

    Turning back to security for multicultural religious events, Reece noted that the Melbourne City Council has already been forced to add security measures to major public celebrations for Hanukkah, Ramadan, and Diwali to address rising concerns about social fracturing and the threat of antisocial or violent incidents. So far, the extra precautions have not been needed for active incidents, which Reece called a positive outcome, but the need for the measures themselves underscores the growing risk facing faith communities.

    Most critically, Reece stressed that the vast majority of Australian local governments operate under severe resource constraints, with little to no budget available to cover the extra costs of enhanced event security. “I cannot overstate how resource constrained local government is,” Reece told the commission. “Most councils don’t have financial capacity to provide that safety support at some of those events. One of the things the Commission might like to consider is if we do want to see more celebration of faith events, social, multicultural events … then that might be something that requires some funding support in order to deliver.”

    Reece also shared shocking data on the scale of persistent antisemitic vandalism across Melbourne over the past two years: his council has removed more than 3,000 pieces of offensive graffiti, with between 800 and 1,000 of those tagged with explicitly antisemitic messaging. In total, the council has cleared nearly 4,000 square meters of antisemitic graffiti, posters, and stickers, he said. To address the ongoing crisis, the city has launched a rapid response program that aims to remove hateful vandalism within one hour of it being reported, though the service does not cover most private property outside of pre-arranged automatic arrangements for public transport assets like trains and trams.

    Earlier in the hearing, Tony Jackson, president of the Southbank Elsternwick Rotary club, told commissioners he felt he had failed his members after hearing widespread reports of fear and anxiety among club members about rising antisemitism in the local community. The Royal Commission, overseen by Commissioner Virginia Bell, is drawing to a close after months of public testimony from community leaders, officials, and residents across Australia.

  • Syria says Israel talks addressed de-escalation, staying out of Israel-Turkey tensions

    Syria says Israel talks addressed de-escalation, staying out of Israel-Turkey tensions

    In a rare high-level diplomatic meeting mediated by the United States and hosted by Jordan, Syria and Israel have convened talks focused on rolling back recent cross-border violence and preventing Israel’s growing standoff with Turkey from spilling onto Syrian territory. The Sunday negotiations mark the first formal direct dialogue between the two sides in several months, building on an earlier January agreement to establish a joint intelligence-sharing framework as they edge toward a broader regional security deal.

    The talks come on the heels of two key destabilizing events: an Israeli airstrike earlier that week on the abandoned Abu Duhur airbase in northwest Syria, and a deadly targeted strike in southern Syria just one day before the negotiations. Israel justified the Abu Duhur attack by claiming it aimed to block an impending deployment of Turkish forces to the site, a claim Ankara has firmly denied. A day before the Jordan meeting, Israel carried out another strike targeting an alleged militant in southern Syria, leaving one person wounded and drawing condemnation from Damascus as a blatant violation of Syrian sovereignty.

    According to a diplomatic source quoted by Syrian state news agency SANA, the Syrian delegation was led by Foreign Minister Assad al-Shaibani and included the heads of both general and military intelligence, while the Israeli side was headed by Roman Gofman, director of Israel’s Mossad intelligence agency. Sources confirmed to Agence France-Presse that core agenda items included the creation of a joint US-supervised special operations room based in Jordan, tasked with preventing unintended confrontations on Syrian soil, particularly those that could draw in third-party actors like Turkey.

    The overarching goal of the dialogue, the Syrian foreign ministry source noted, is to de-escalate tensions following a string of recent Israeli bombardments on Syrian territory that have raised the risk of broader conflict in southern Syria. Discussions also centered on bridging gaps between Ankara and Jerusalem to ensure that the ongoing public feud between Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan does not draw Syria into the crossfire. Tensions between Turkey and Israel have surged since the Abu Duhur strike, with the two leaders exchanging sharp public criticism in recent days.

    The airstrike on the abandoned airbase drew unusual pushback from the United States, with US Syria envoy Tom Barrack describing the attack as an unnecessary escalation that undermines, rather than advances, regional stability. Since the December 2024 overthrow of longtime Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad by Islamist forces that Israel classifies as jihadist, Israel has launched hundreds of strikes across Syrian territory. It has also deployed troops into the UN-patrolled buffer zone on the Israeli-annexed Golan Heights, maintained a permanent military presence in a self-declared security buffer in southern Syria, and repeatedly pushed for a full demilitarization of the southern region.

    Sunday’s talks are part of a broader US-brokered process that began with earlier negotiations in Paris in January, where the two sides first agreed to set up a US-supervised communication cell to reduce bilateral friction. An Arab diplomat based in Damascus confirmed earlier that the proposed joint operations room in Jordan would oversee both security coordination and border management efforts. While US President Donald Trump has actively pushed for a formal security agreement between Israel and Syria’s new transitional authorities, Israeli leadership remains deeply distrustful of Damascus’s new governing institutions, slowing progress toward a final deal.

    The Golan Heights, which Israel captured from Syria in the 1967 Arab-Israeli War and unilaterally annexed shortly after, remains a core long-standing point of contention between the two states. The annexation has only been recognized by the United States and, earlier this month, Colombia, with most of the international community continuing to regard the territory as occupied Syrian land.