分类： politics

In a landmark announcement Monday, Belgian Foreign Minister Maxime Prevot confirmed he has directed his ministerial team to finalize preparations for Belgium’s formal recognition of an independent Palestinian state. The long-awaited policy shift comes just after Hamas carried out a key prerequisite set by the Belgian government: dissolving its 18-year governing administration in the Gaza Strip.

Speaking to public broadcaster VRT, Prevot acknowledged uncertainty over whether the preparations will be completed in time for this Friday’s scheduled council of ministers meeting, but emphasized that the issue will be brought to the body for a vote in the near future. “I don’t know if we will be ready by Friday, but it will be on the table soon,” Prevot told reporters.

Hamas’s formal dissolution of its Gaza governance clears the path for a handover of power to the National Committee for the Administration of Gaza (NCAG), a Cairo-based body made up of independent Palestinian technocrats drawn from the Gaza Strip. This new administrative structure was designed to oversee daily civilian affairs in the enclave under the terms of the September 2025 ceasefire agreement mediated by the United States, Qatar, and Egypt.

The pathway to this step was laid out more than a year ago, when Belgian Prime Minister Bart De Wever announced at United Nations headquarters in New York that Belgium would recognize Palestinian statehood only after two core conditions were met: the release of all remaining hostages held in Gaza, and the full withdrawal of Hamas from the territory’s governing institutions. A member of the Belgian parliament whose party had long pushed for recognition noted Monday that a cross-party agreement with the federal government had been reached the previous summer after months of negotiations, saying “Belgium must not break its word” on its commitment to recognize Palestine once conditions were met.

If Belgium proceeds with recognition, it will join a growing wave of European nations that have formalized their recognition of Palestinian statehood following the outbreak of Israel’s military campaign in Gaza in October 2023, which the report notes has killed more than 73,000 Palestinians to date, with thousands more still missing and presumed dead under rubble. Spain, Ireland, and Norway became the first Western European states to grant formal recognition in 2024, joining more than 140 existing United Nations member states that already recognize Palestinian statehood. Most recently, the United Kingdom, Canada, and Australia announced their recognition in September 2025, a move that was quickly followed by France and Portugal. The wave of recognitions has drawn sharp condemnation from both the United States and Israel, which have opposed unilateral recognition of Palestine by Western nations.

BEIJING – China has issued a firm formal protest to Tokyo over Japanese interference with the lawful operations of Chinese research vessels in waters adjacent to the Diaoyu Islands, according to Foreign Ministry spokesperson Mao Ning, who made the announcement Tuesday.

The diplomatic pushback came after the Japan Coast Guard claimed that a Chinese maritime survey ship had lowered a cable into the water last Friday in an area Japan claims as its exclusive economic zone.

In her official remarks, Mao Ning reaffirmed China’s long-held and unambiguous position: the Diaoyu Islands and their affiliated islets have been an inherent part of Chinese territory since ancient times. Conducting regular research activities in adjacent waters falls fully within China’s sovereign rights, and the operations of Chinese vessels are entirely lawful and unquestionable, she added.

The diplomatic exchange marks the latest escalation in ongoing territorial tensions over the Diaoyu Islands, a strategically significant island chain in the East China Sea that has been a point of contention between the two neighboring countries for decades.

A top congressional panel focused on U.S.-China policy is escalating pressure on the owner of Washington D.C.’s major professional sports teams to end all business partnerships with Alibaba Group, the Chinese technology giant that is currently challenging a recent Pentagon designation labeling it a “Chinese military company.”

Rep. John Moolenaar, the Republican chair of the U.S. House Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party, made the formal demand in a written letter sent to Ted Leonsis, founder and CEO of Monumental Sports & Entertainment (MSE). MSE is the parent company that owns both the NBA’s Washington Wizards and the NHL’s Washington Capitals, two of the capital city’s most high-profile professional sports franchises.

Copies of the correspondence, obtained by The Associated Press, show Moolenaar tied his request directly to a decision made by the U.S. Department of Defense one month earlier, which added Alibaba to a growing roster of entities accused of supporting China’s state-led military-civil fusion strategy. The lawmaker gave Leonsis a deadline of July 15 to confirm MSE has ended or will end all active commercial ties with Alibaba and its subsidiaries.

Alibaba has already pushed back against the Pentagon’s classification, filing a federal lawsuit seeking to have its name struck from the government’s blacklist. The current list of designated Chinese military companies includes 188 total entities, spanning from state-owned defense manufacturing conglomerates to private Chinese technology firms such as Alibaba. This designation reflects a sharp rise in longstanding concerns among U.S. national security officials over Beijing’s strategy of leveraging private and non-state commercial enterprises to advance its military modernization and technological development goals.

As of Monday, MSE officials had not issued an immediate response to AP’s request for comment on the congressional demand. Notably, MSE is far from the only U.S. professional sports organization with financial or commercial connections to Alibaba. Joseph Tsai, the co-founder of Alibaba who remains a major stakeholder in the firm, owns the NBA’s Brooklyn Nets and the WNBA’s New York Liberty, meaning the Chinese tech giant has deep existing ties to North American professional sports.

The House select committee, which was first established in 2023 to coordinate congressional oversight and policy on U.S.-China relations, has increasingly turned its attention to global sports in recent months. Earlier this year, Moolenaar and the committee’s top Democratic member, Raja Krishnamoorthi of Illinois, sent a joint letter to the International Olympic Committee (IOC) raising concerns over the World Anti-Doping Agency’s handling of a doping case involving 23 Chinese swimmers who tested positive for performance-enhancing substances.

Twelve months ago, the panel also sent a letter to then-Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, voicing concerns about Alibaba’s global sponsorship deal with the IOC, and warning that the partnership could lead to a similar commercial agreement between the firm and organizers of the 2028 Los Angeles Olympic Games. The letter at the time highlighted steps that Paris 2024 organizers had taken to reduce Alibaba’s operational role in the 2024 Summer Games.

Weeks after the committee sent that 2023 letter, Los Angeles Olympic organizers announced that Google, one of Alibaba’s major global technology competitors, would serve as the official cloud services provider for the 2028 Games, ending speculation that Alibaba would secure that high-profile contract.

On Tuesday, Kazakhstan’s highest judicial body delivered a landmark ruling that paves the way for incumbent President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev to run for a third seven-year term when his current term ends in 2029. The decision hinges on constitutional amendments approved by national referendum in March that entered into legal force earlier this month, which reset presidential term count rules entirely.

Under the revised constitutional framework, Tokayev’s current tenure, which began after he took power in 2019, does not count toward the new two-term limit established by the amendments. This ruling aligns Kazakhstan with a broader trend across several former Soviet states including Russia, Belarus, Uzbekistan and Tajikistan, where ruling leaders have modified national constitutions to expand executive authority and extend their time in office.

At 73, Tokayev brings decades of diplomatic and government experience to the role: a former Soviet official and veteran United Nations diplomat, he has governed the oil-rich Central Asian nation, home to 20 million people, since he stepped into the acting presidency in 2019 following the resignation of Nursultan Nazarbayev, the autocrat who led Kazakhstan through its post-Soviet independence for nearly 30 years. Widely viewed as Nazarbayev’s handpicked successor, Tokayev has navigated complex geopolitical currents since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, maintaining a carefully calibrated balancing act between Moscow and Western powers amid sweeping sanctions imposed on Russia.

The constitutional overhaul that cleared the way for his potential re-election won overwhelming support in the March referendum, and has significantly consolidated Tokayev’s hold on national power. The package of changes merged Kazakhstan’s previously bicameral parliament into a single chamber, restored the dormant vice presidential post, and granted the president authority to appoint all top government officials subject only to parliamentary approval. It also established a new legislative advisory body, the People’s Council, whose members are all appointed directly by the president and granted the power to initiate new legislation and call referendums.

Tokayev has defended the constitutional amendments as a necessary adjustment for a rapidly shifting global landscape, arguing the changes will enable faster, more decisive policy-making to address evolving challenges. However, the changes come against a backdrop of limited political opposition in Kazakhstan: mainstream opposition groups hold no seats in government institutions and lack the capacity to shift widespread public opinion. Tokayev’s tenure has also been marked by controversy: in 2022, he ordered a harsh crackdown on widespread nationwide protests that became known as “Bloody January” to locals, which left 238 people dead and thousands more injured. In the wake of the unrest, Tokayev positioned himself as a pro-reform candidate and called an early presidential election later that year, which he won by a landslide.