Global Pulse

分类： world

  • Iran says ‘low’ possibility of return to war with US

    Iran says ‘low’ possibility of return to war with US

    Tensions across the Middle East remain at a fever pitch this week, even as a senior Iranian military official has downplayed the risk of a return to open war between Tehran and Washington. The cautious assessment comes just days after fresh cross-border hostilities violated the fragile ceasefire that has held between the two sides since April, raising new fears of a wider regional escalation.

    Mohammad Akbarzadeh, deputy political chief of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) Navy, told state-owned Tasnim News Agency on Wednesday that the possibility of full-scale conflict with the United States remains low, citing what he described as growing weakness among American forces. “The possibility of war is low because of the enemy’s weakness, the armed forces are lying in wait with full magazines,” Akbarzadeh said. He issued a stark warning to any potential aggressors, adding: “Do not doubt that we will turn the area from Chabahar to Mahshahr into a graveyard for aggressors,” referencing the two coastal cities that bookend Iran’s 1,000-mile southern coastline along the Gulf of Oman and Persian Gulf.

    Akbarzadeh’s comments came one day after Iranian officials accused the U.S. of multiple deliberate violations of the April ceasefire, following the downing of an American drone that entered Iranian airspace near the key Strait of Hormuz and anti-aircraft fire directed at a U.S. F-35 fighter jet. Hours before those Iranian defensive actions, U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) spokesperson Captain Tim Hawkins confirmed that American forces had carried out new self-defense strikes against targets in southern Iran. “US forces conducted self-defence strikes in southern Iran today to protect our troops from threats posed by Iranian forces,” Hawkins said, confirming that the strikes targeted Iranian missile launch sites and boats suspected of attempting to lay naval mines, offering few additional details.

    The Iranian foreign ministry issued a formal condemnation of the strikes, noting that the “US terrorist army, continuing its illegal and unjustified actions since the ceasefire… has, in the past 48 hours, committed a gross violation of the ceasefire in the Hormozgan region.” The statement added that Tehran “will not leave any evil unanswered and will not hesitate to defend the Iranian nation,” without specifying what form retaliation would take.

    Peace talks between Washington and Tehran have been ongoing for weeks, with Pakistan leading third-party mediation efforts to end the regional war that erupted in late February, when U.S. and Israeli forces launched opening strikes against Iranian targets across the Middle East. The conflict quickly spread across multiple fronts, upended global energy markets, and pushed the region to the brink of a catastrophic regional war. As of this week, both sides remain deadlocked on core sticking points, including control of the Strait of Hormuz – the world’s most critical chokepoint for global oil and liquified natural gas shipments – and the future of Iran’s nuclear program. Neither side has shown willingness to compromise on these core issues, despite the fact that the conflict has failed to produce a clear winner for either camp. After Iran blockaded the Strait of Hormuz in retaliation for the opening strikes, the U.S. responded with its own counter-blockade of major Iranian export ports. Tehran has also announced plans to impose new “navigational fees” on commercial shipping passing through the waterway, a move that has already rattled energy markets.

    U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio maintained on Tuesday that a final peace deal remains achievable, repeating Washington’s demand that the Strait of Hormuz must be reopened to full commercial navigation “one way or the other.” Iranian officials confirmed this week that they are working to finalize a 14-point framework for a peace agreement, and Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian told Qatari ruler Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani in a Tuesday phone call that Tehran remains “ready to reach a respectful framework to end the war,” according to Iranian state broadcaster IRIB. A top Iranian negotiating delegation returned from a two-day exploratory visit to Qatar on Tuesday, signaling continued behind-the-scenes progress toward a potential agreement.

    In a written statement marking the start of the Eid al-Adha holiday, Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei argued that U.S. influence across the Middle East is steadily eroding. He warned regional countries against hosting American military bases that can be used to launch attacks on Iranian targets, saying: “the United States, in addition to no longer having any safe haven in the region for aggression and the establishment of military bases, is moving further and further away from its former position with each passing day.”

    The spillover of the wider conflict has continued to escalate in southern Lebanon, where a separate ceasefire between Israel and Iran-aligned militant group Hezbollah has failed to stop regular deadly violence. On Tuesday, Israeli air and ground strikes killed 31 people across southern Lebanon, including at least four children, according to Lebanon’s health ministry. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowed Monday to “crush” Hezbollah, and a senior Israeli military official confirmed to AFP on Wednesday that Israeli forces are expanding ground operations deeper into Lebanese territory, far from the shared border. Iran has made it a core demand of any U.S.-Iran peace deal that any final accord must also cover the Lebanese front, a condition Israel has so far rejected.

    Global financial markets reacted with cautious optimism to ongoing diplomatic efforts this week, with major stock indexes ending the trading day mixed amid hopes that a final agreement can be reached to de-escalate the crisis.

  • Berlin police arrest man suspected of being an accomplice to Holocaust Memorial stabbing

    Berlin police arrest man suspected of being an accomplice to Holocaust Memorial stabbing

    BERLIN – German law enforcement officials have taken a suspected accomplice in a 2025 terror-related stabbing attack at Berlin’s iconic Holocaust Memorial into custody, more than a year after the violent incident left a Spanish tourist seriously injured. Federal public prosecutors announced Wednesday that the suspect, a Syrian national identified only as Khalaf A. in compliance with Germany’s strict personal privacy regulations, faces formal charges of accessory to attempted murder and aggravated bodily harm.

    According to the prosecution’s official statement, evidence indicates Khalaf A. spent the full afternoon of February 20, 2025 — the day ahead of the stabbing attack — with the perpetrator of the violence, Wassim Al M., also a Syrian citizen who was convicted of his role in the attack earlier this year. During that meeting, prosecutors confirm Khalaf A. actively encouraged Wassim Al M. to move forward with his planned attack.

    Wassim Al M. was found guilty by the Berlin District Court in March on a multi-count indictment that included attempted murder and attempted membership in a proscribed foreign terrorist organization. He was sentenced to a 13-year prison term, the maximum penalty available under the convictions. Court documents from the trial confirm Wassim Al M. traveled from his residence in Leipzig to central Berlin specifically to carry out an attack on behalf of the Islamic State terror group.

    Presiding judge Doris Husch explained during the sentencing proceedings that the perpetrator deliberately selected the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe as his target because “he believed he would find people of Jewish faith there.” After carrying out the throat stabbing of the Spanish tourist, witnesses confirm he shouted “Allahu akbar,” or “God is great,” as he claimed the attack for the terror organization.

    The Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe, one of Germany’s most prominent sites of national memory, sits just steps from the Brandenburg Gate in central Berlin. The sprawling memorial consists of 2,700 uneven gray concrete slabs, erected to honor the 6 million Jewish people murdered by the Nazi regime during the Holocaust.

    The 2025 attack took place just 48 hours before a critical German federal parliamentary election, a contest where migration policy had emerged as the defining campaign issue. The debate over immigration had been intensified by a string of deadly attacks carried out by recent immigrant arrivals in the months leading up to the vote.

  • Penpa Tsering sworn in for a second term to lead Tibet’s government-in-exile

    Penpa Tsering sworn in for a second term to lead Tibet’s government-in-exile

    DHARAMSHALA, India – On Wednesday, Penpa Tsering formally took the oath of office for his second consecutive five-year term as the elected president of the Central Tibetan Administration, the body that functions as Tibet’s government-in-exile based in the northern Indian hill town of Dharamshala. The 58-year-old leader first assumed the top executive post in 2021, after securing an initial victory in exile community elections, and won re-election in February’s vote that was open to Tibetans residing across India and other countries around the globe. Tsering’s long career in Tibetan exile governance stretches back to 1996, when he won his first seat in the Tibetan Parliament-in-Exile, and he went on to serve as the body’s speaker from 2008 until his election to the presidency.

    Founded in 1959 after the 14th Dalai Lama fled into exile, the Central Tibetan Administration – formerly known as the Tibetan government-in-exile – operates as a full decentralized governance structure with separate executive, judicial, and legislative branches to serve the global Tibetan exile community, which numbers roughly 150,000 people around the world. This year’s February election marked the fourth direct vote for the exile leadership, a milestone that comes 13 years after the Dalai Lama, Tibet’s revered spiritual leader, formally devolved all governing authority to the elected leadership and stepped back from any formal role in the administration.

    The swearing-in ceremony unfolded with traditional Tibetan Buddhist ritual, with the 89-year-old Dalai Lama escorted to the event venue by a procession of red-robed monks, accompanied by the sound of ceremonial drums and chanted prayers. In front of an audience of hundreds of monks, community leaders, and ordinary Tibetans, Yeshi Wangmo, Chief Justice Commissioner of the Tibetan Supreme Justice Commission, administered the oath of office to Tsering.

    In his first public remarks after taking office, Tsering reaffirmed the exile administration’s longstanding commitment to the Middle Way Policy, a framework first articulated by the Dalai Lama that seeks a negotiated resolution of the Tibet issue through nonviolent means and bilateral dialogue with Beijing, with the goal of achieving a lasting mutually beneficial outcome for all parties. “Until a resolution is achieved, we will continue the back-channel communications with caution and steadiness with the Chinese government,” Tsering stated in his address.

    The inauguration comes against a backdrop of long-running geopolitical and diplomatic tensions surrounding the status of Tibet. China maintains that Tibet has been an inalienable part of its sovereign territory since the mid-13th century, and that the Chinese Communist Party has administered the Himalayan region since 1951. However, a large share of the global Tibetan community rejects this claim, arguing that Tibet functioned as an effectively independent state for most of its modern history, and that Beijing has systematically exploited the region’s rich natural resources while eroding and suppressing its distinct cultural and religious identity.

    The Chinese government does not recognize the legitimacy of the Central Tibetan Administration, and has not held formal dialogue with envoys representing the Dalai Lama since 2010. While India officially recognizes Chinese sovereignty over Tibet, it has allowed the Tibetan exile administration to maintain its headquarters in Dharamshala since the 1950s. Beijing has long accused the Dalai Lama of pursuing a secret agenda to separate Tibet from China, a claim the spiritual leader has repeatedly denied, noting that the Middle Way Policy does not seek full independence but rather genuine autonomy for Tibet within the Chinese constitutional framework. Still, a growing number of radical Tibetan community groups have pushed for full independence in recent years, as the lack of progress in talks with Beijing has left many exiles frustrated with the existing policy framework.

    In the lead-up to this week’s inauguration, Yu Jing, a spokesperson for the Chinese Embassy in New Delhi, issued a formal rejection of the exile body’s legitimacy, claiming that “it is not recognized by any sovereign country in the world” and has no authority to speak on behalf of the Tibetan people or oversee the future reincarnation process of the Dalai Lama. The question of the Dalai Lama’s succession has emerged as a major point of tension in recent years: on his 90th birthday last year, the spiritual leader publicly asserted that Chinese authorities would have no legitimate role in selecting his successor after his death, and that the centuries-old institution of the Dalai Lama would continue regardless of Beijing’s objections.

  • First Ghanaians set to be repatriated from South Africa over anti-immigrant protests

    First Ghanaians set to be repatriated from South Africa over anti-immigrant protests

    In the early hours of Wednesday, the first cohort of Ghanaian citizens began their journey home from South Africa, amid growing fears of renewed xenophobic violence sparked by a recent wave of anti-illegal immigration protests across the country. Dozens of buses chartered by the Ghanaian embassy arrived at Johannesburg’s OR Tambo International Airport by 3 a.m. local time, dropping off hundreds of departing passengers spanning all age groups, including men, women, and children. A small subset of travelers was transported separately in a police van, kept isolated from the main group under constant police observation, according to on-the-ground reporting from the BBC.

    This mass repatriation effort comes in response to weeks of demonstrations led by March and March, a grassroots citizen movement pushing for stricter South African immigration reform. The group has set a June 30 deadline for all undocumented migrants to leave the country, a timeline that has stoked widespread anxiety among foreign residents. Among those departing is Rudolph, a Ghanaian small business owner who has operated a hair salon in South Africa for a decade. In a rare interview with the BBC, Rudolph explained that the shifting social climate had made staying in the country untenable. “It’s not comfortable for us to stay here anymore, so we have to go. I think we will find peace at home,” he said, echoing the fears of many other foreign residents. He added that the protests, which originated in Durban before spreading to multiple other provinces, could easily escalate into targeted violence ahead of the deadline, and that he had no plans to ever return to South Africa.

    Ghanaian authorities confirmed that only 300 of the roughly 800 registered citizens would depart on Wednesday, with the remaining travelers undergoing additional security and eligibility screenings before boarding future flights. Officials estimate that roughly 25,000 Ghanaians currently reside in South Africa, a large portion of whom have been affected by the recent unrest. Ghanaian High Commissioner Benjamin Quashie emphasized that the repatriation effort is rooted in the government’s core responsibility to protect its citizens abroad. “The Ghanaian government listened to the plight of its citizens in South Africa, who felt that their lives were in danger, who felt like the economic activity that they were engaging in had come to a standstill, who felt unwelcome in this country, and it is the responsibility of every government to ensure that its citizens are taken care of both home and abroad,” Quashie told the BBC.

    Quashie also outlined the Ghanaian government’s plan to support returning citizens, noting that a comprehensive reintegration strategy is already in place to help returnees reestablish their businesses and livelihoods back home. He added that the effort also aligns with South Africa’s own goals around immigration management: “The government is willing to establish them into whatever business they were doing in South Africa. In a way, we’re also helping the South African economy, because it’s clear that some of them are undocumented. So taking them out of here will let them know that we are not people who condone undocumented people in countries.”

    Political analysts have pointed to upcoming local elections scheduled for November as a potential driving factor behind the recent resurgence of anti-migrant sentiment in South Africa. The country has a bloody history of large-scale xenophobic violence: in 2008, attacks targeting foreign nationals left 62 people dead, and another 12 people were killed in similar unrest in 2019. Organizers of the current wave of protests have maintained that their demonstrations have been entirely peaceful, a claim echoed in recent statements from the South African government. Earlier this month, government officials condemned any criminal targeting of foreign residents while acknowledging that the country faces legitimate challenges around managing undocumented immigration that must be addressed.

  • For one Ukrainian war amputee, rebuilding is painful after a Russian strike killed her husband

    For one Ukrainian war amputee, rebuilding is painful after a Russian strike killed her husband

    In the central Ukrainian city of Kryvyi Rih, 50-year-old Iryna Nakonechna carries a quiet, unbreakable resolve forged in unthinkable tragedy. Last year, a Russian missile strike took everything she once knew: it killed her husband Serhii Nakonechnyi and tore away her left leg, leaving her with lasting mobility damage to her arms.

    In the immediate aftermath of the attack, which struck as the couple enjoyed an unseasonably warm post-dinner stroll near a downtown hotel on March 5, 2025, Nakonechna made a deliberate choice to let go of the life she had shared with Serhii. She cut off her long dark wavy hair, cleared almost every memento—furniture, clothing, personal trinkets, and most photos—from the apartment they once shared. Only one portrait of the couple remains, a quiet anchor to the past while she forges a new future. “Shedding my old identity was the only way I could endure the painful reinvention I needed to build a new life with my prosthetic,” she explains.

    Today, Nakonechna cuts a sharp, vibrant figure: her signature pixie cut frames a face lit by quick, loud laughter, and bold red cat-eye glasses sit atop her nose. But beneath her effervescent wit lies a deep, unspoken grief that is rarely centered in mainstream narratives of wartime resilience. She is one of tens of thousands of Ukrainians—both soldiers and civilians—who have lost limbs to Russia’s full-scale invasion, a growing population whose invisible wounds often go unmentioned.

    The exact number of Ukrainian war amputees remains unknown, but the count climbs steadily every day. Landmines planted across occupied territory, relentless artillery barrages, and ongoing missile and drone strikes continue to inflict catastrophic, life-altering injuries on people across the country. This surge has pushed Ukraine to rapidly expand rehabilitation and prosthetic services, and it has reshaped Ukrainian society at large: prosthetic limbs are no longer hidden, but have emerged as bold, visible symbols of survival and defiance against aggression.

    For Nakonechna, the journey of recovery is both physical and psychological. She still walks with a cane, learning to trust the prosthetic that extends to her upper thigh, and her injured arms leave her unable to lift heavy objects. Every week, she attends an hour-long physical therapy session with Anastasiia Stetsenko, a therapist who is guiding her toward the next milestone: walking without assistance.

    Their sessions follow a gentle but rigorous routine. Nakonechna begins by removing her prosthetic to rest it against the wall, then moves through seated weight lifts timed to her breathing, slow circular rotations of her residual limb to test range of motion, and eventually squats while gripping a ballet barre—one of the hardest movements to relearn. When exercises grow grueling, Nakonechna jokes with Stetsenko, calling her therapist a “demon” and quips that the routine feels like an extreme sport. When challenged to attempt a difficult squat, she laughs and deadpans, “I will respond as my grandson would: Just no.” The room fills with shared laughter, the dynamic between the two women far closer to old friends than clinician and patient.

    The work is not just about building physical strength; it is about rebuilding the confidence to complete everyday tasks most people take for granted: climbing stairs, bending to pick up a dropped item, navigating cracked, uneven city streets, and chasing her 2-year-old grandson Tymofii across a playground.

    That fateful March day stripped Nakonechna of more than her limb and her husband. After the missile detonated, throwing the couple dozens of meters apart, she woke to find herself separated from Serhii, admitted to a different hospital. He died the next day, and she never got to say goodbye. “I wasn’t even at his funeral,” she says quietly. For two months, she endured two surgeries a week, her days blurring into a fog of pain and recovery. By May, she could finally sit up on her own—a small relief, but only the first step of a far longer journey.

    Now, the apartment she once shared with Serhii is almost unrecognizable from its former self. “I had to get rid of everything from the past,” she says. “I had to focus on living my life, even if it was only half the life I had before.” She invited her 77-year-old mother, who lives with dementia, to move in, and builds small moments of joy around their daily routines. The one thing she still grieves is that she cannot lift her grandson into her arms. Not long ago, Tymofii stuck a cartoon sticker of a capybara wearing a prosthetic leg onto her prosthetic—she has never peeled it off.

    A skilled craftswoman, Nakonechna found a new purpose through Superhumans, a modern Ukrainian trauma center that specializes in prosthetics and rehabilitation for war survivors. She began knitting small toy capybaras, a gentle animal that has become an unofficial symbol of resilience for Ukrainian amputees. The trend started when veterans began placing capybara toys and stickers on their prosthetics to put strangers at ease; over time, the fuzzy, playful animal has grown to represent the quiet determination to reclaim joy after utter devastation.

    Nakonechna’s hand-knit capybaras quickly became popular with other survivors, and she spends hours every week working on the toys. For her, the repetitive craft is a form of healing: “When I count the stitches, I think only about the stitches, not about the life that could have been and unfortunately is not,” she says. Her favorite part of the process is assembling the pieces, turning separate bits of yarn into a whole, finished toy—a small mirror of the work she is doing on herself.

    Recently, she notched a small but transformative personal victory: for the first time since her injury, she put on a pair of shorts and went out in public, no longer hiding her prosthetic from the world. The small act marked a huge internal shift. “I accepted myself as I am,” she says.

    For Nakonechna, and for thousands of Ukrainian amputees like her, resilience is not just about surviving. It is about learning to live with invisible wounds, rebuilding an identity from scratch, and finding small, precious moments of joy in a life forever changed by war.

  • Renewable energy is overtaking traditional power projects across Africa, industry leaders say

    Renewable energy is overtaking traditional power projects across Africa, industry leaders say

    Across the African continent, a profound shift is unfolding in energy infrastructure development, as governments and private investors increasingly pivot away from fossil fuels and large-scale hydropower to prioritize solar, wind, and battery storage projects. This transition is driven by demand for cheaper, more rapidly deployable, and more reliable electricity access to power growing populations and industrial expansion.

    The changing landscape of African energy development came into sharp focus in early May, when China and Zambia announced a $1.5 billion energy package that includes three 300-megawatt projects spanning solar, wind, and coal-fired power. While the inclusion of coal highlights Africa’s ongoing need for consistent baseload power to support unstable grids, the broader trend is clear: countries grappling with soaring fuel import costs triggered by geopolitical tensions like the Iran conflict, inconsistent grid reliability, and rising industrial demand are turning overwhelmingly to renewable energy, which can be brought online far faster and at lower cost than traditional fossil fuel or large hydropower facilities.

    Data from energy research firm Electron Intelligence underscores this momentum. Of the 322 new energy projects announced across Africa in 2025, 173 were solar developments, followed by hydropower at 46, wind at 34, natural gas at 22, and hybrid energy projects at 14. The International Renewable Energy Agency reports that Africa added a record-breaking 11.3 gigawatts of new renewable energy capacity in 2025, three times the volume added in the previous year. South Africa, Egypt, and Ethiopia accounted for the bulk of this growth.

    “Africa is not on the periphery of the global energy transition, it is sitting at its center,” explained Mugwe Manga, climate finance lead at FSD Kenya. “The continent holds the world’s best renewable resources, and the economics have now decisively turned in favor of clean energy.”

    Olamide Niyi-Afuye, CEO of the Africa Minigrid Developers Association (AMDA), noted that the shift goes beyond project numbers to represent a complete strategic rethinking of how energy infrastructure is built. African nations are now prioritizing modular systems that can be deployed quickly and expanded incrementally with flexible financing models, a framework that plays to the strengths of small-scale and distributed solar in particular.

    Plummeting technology costs have been the single biggest driver of this renewable boom. Globally, utility-scale solar costs have fallen by nearly 90% since 2010, while onshore wind costs have dropped roughly 70%. These price declines have made renewables the least expensive option for new electricity generation across most African markets.

    “Renewable energy is now unequivocally the fastest, cheapest, and most bankable way to connect people, companies and economies to the megawatts they need to grow,” said Matt Tilleard, CEO of CrossBoundary Energy, a firm that invests in African renewable projects. Much of the recent growth has come from distributed solar and battery systems, which are installed directly at mines, manufacturing facilities, telecom towers, and residential properties, eliminating the need for connection to overstretched central national grids.

    Official statistics often undercount this distributed growth, Tilleard noted, because traditional counting methods only track capacity connected to main national grids. Data from the Africa Solar Industry Association recorded 23.4 gigawatts of operational solar capacity across Africa by the end of 2025, but Chinese export data shows 58.1 gigawatts of solar panels have been shipped to African countries since 2017, suggesting actual adoption is far outpacing official tracking.

    For investors, renewables hold another key advantage: faster returns on investment and lower exposure to volatile global fossil fuel price shocks. Unlike coal-fired plants, which can take up to 12 years to complete, and large hydropower dams that often require a decade or more of construction, utility-scale renewable projects can generate revenue within 18 months of breaking ground.

    At the Kamoa-Kakula copper complex in the Democratic Republic of Congo, one of Africa’s largest copper mines, CrossBoundary Energy is developing a 233-megawatt solar and battery storage project. Tilleard said the project moved from contract signing to more than 80% completion in just 12 months. “Solar and wind projects are especially attractive at this moment because they combine strong commercial fundamentals with relatively lower investment risk,” Niyi-Afuye added.

    Progressive policy changes across the continent have also accelerated the renewable push. Ethiopia became the first country in the world to ban imports of internal combustion engine vehicles, spurring faster adoption of electric vehicles that in turn drives demand for new clean electricity generation. In South Africa, regulatory changes relaxing caps on private power generation have opened the door to a massive wave of new industrial renewable projects.

    Despite this rapid growth, significant barriers remain. Many African national utilities face deep financial instability, making lenders hesitant to sign onto long-term power purchase agreements. Perceived country risk also pushes financing costs for African renewable projects up to three times higher than costs for similar projects in advanced economies, according to data from the International Energy Agency.

    Multilateral development finance institutions, including the African Development Bank and the International Finance Corporation, have stepped in to bridge this gap, offering concessional loans, credit guarantees, and risk-sharing frameworks to de-risk private investment. Manga argues that the main obstacles to faster expansion are no longer technological or cost-related.

    “What remains is not a question of technology or cost,” he said. “It is a question of finance, political will and preparing bankable projects that will drive demand for power on the continent.”
    This reporting from The Associated Press on climate and energy transition is supported by funding from multiple private foundations, with the AP retaining full editorial control over all content.

  • Palestinian Authority warns against ‘dangerous’ plan to strip Jordan of Al-Aqsa custodianship

    Palestinian Authority warns against ‘dangerous’ plan to strip Jordan of Al-Aqsa custodianship

    A fresh and explosive controversy has erupted over the future of Jerusalem’s Al-Aqsa Mosque compound, after Palestinian officials issued a stark warning against reported US and Israeli efforts to dismantle Jordan’s century-old historic custodianship of the revered Islamic site, a shift that would reorient the holy space to align closely with Israeli interests.

    The public warning came just hours after Middle East Eye (MEE) first published its exclusive reporting revealing the ongoing US-Israeli push for a new governing arrangement at the site. In an official statement released Tuesday by the Palestinian Authority’s Jerusalem governorate, officials warned that the leaked proposal would effectively impose Israeli sovereignty over the holy compound and destroy the long-standing diplomatic status quo that has governed the site for decades.

    “The Hashemite custodianship of the Islamic and Christian holy sites in Jerusalem is an internationally recognised historical, legal and political authority,” the governorate affirmed in its statement. “It serves as a fundamental safeguard for protecting the Al-Aqsa Mosque complex and preserving its Arab and Islamic identity.”

    According to MEE’s Monday reporting, the draft plan seeks to end the 102-year governance of the Jordanian-backed Islamic Waqf, the religious trust that has overseen the site since the British Mandate era. Under the proposed changes, the Al-Aqsa compound would be rebranded as a “multi-faith centre”, granting Jews equal access to the site and formally allowing organized large-group Jewish prayer. The proposal would also grant Israel significant power over key administrative decisions, including the appointment of imams, senior mosque staff, and preachers, as well as formal oversight over the content of weekly Friday sermons.

    Two anonymous U.S. officials confirmed to MEE that Washington has already drafted a policy document outlining its vision for the site’s future. The officials noted that the previous Trump administration aimed to strip Al-Aqsa of its exclusive Muslim identity, repositioning the compound as a global tourist landmark open to all three Abrahamic faiths.

    The Palestinian Jerusalem governorate called the proposal a “dangerous escalation” if implemented, noting that its core goal is the deliberate erasure of the mosque’s exclusively Islamic character.

    Jordan’s Hashemite monarchy has held custodianship over both Muslim and Christian holy sites in Jerusalem since 1924, during the period of British Mandate rule over Palestine. This role was formally codified in Jordan’s 1994 peace treaty with Israel, which explicitly recognized Amman’s “special role” in overseeing Jerusalem’s Islamic holy sites.

    Despite this formal recognition, Palestinian and Jordanian leaders have warned for years that the status quo has been gradually eroded by successive Israeli governments, as well as increasingly emboldened far-right Israeli groups that demand greater Jewish control over the Al-Aqsa compound. Frequent Israeli police raids inside the mosque compound, a steady rise in visits by ultranationalist Jewish activists, and repeated public calls from sitting Israeli ministers for official Jewish prayer rights at the site have all fueled claims that Israel is quietly chipping away at the existing governing arrangement.

    Waqf officials have also repeatedly told MEE that beyond imposing harsh restrictions on Palestinian worshippers, Israel has systematically blocked the Waqf from carrying out critical maintenance and repair work across the Al-Aqsa compound.

    Jordan’s King Abdullah II has repeatedly issued public warnings against any attempts to alter the site’s status quo. Addressing the United Nations General Assembly last year, the king emphasized that any attack on Jerusalem’s holy sites would “ignite the feelings of more than a billion Muslims around the world.”

    The controversy comes amid a separate provocative move by Israeli authorities Tuesday: Israel’s civil administration, the body that enforces Israeli law and policy in the occupied West Bank, announced it was seizing full control of the tomb of the Prophet Samuel (Nabi Samuel), another major religious landmark currently managed by the Islamic Waqf.

    In its statement, the Palestinian Jerusalem governorate issued an urgent call for international intervention, urging the United Nations, UNESCO, the Organization of Islamic Cooperation, and the Arab League to step in immediately to block any attempts to undermine the status quo in occupied Jerusalem.

    The governorate warned that any move to weaken Jordan’s custodianship or alter the fundamental Islamic identity of Al-Aqsa Mosque would carry “serious repercussions for security and stability in the region.”

  • Deforestation in Brazil’s Amazon drops to lowest level since 2019

    Deforestation in Brazil’s Amazon drops to lowest level since 2019

    A landmark new report from Brazilian environmental monitoring network MapBiomas has confirmed that deforestation across Brazil’s Amazon rainforest dropped to its lowest annual level in 2025 since consistent recording began in 2019, delivering a key environmental win for the administration of leftist President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva ahead of national elections this October.

    MapBiomas, a collaborative consortium of leading Brazilian universities, non-profit environmental organizations, and technology firms, released its findings Wednesday. Data shows Brazil lost 985,000 hectares (approximately 2.4 million acres) of native vegetation across all its biomes in 2025, marking a 20.6% decline in total forest and vegetation clearance compared to 2024. While the official count does not include vegetation destroyed primarily by wildfire, the 2025 fire season brought far less extreme destruction to the region after the all-time record blazes recorded in 2024.

    Deforestation reductions were recorded across all six of Brazil’s major ecosystems, with the Amazon seeing the steepest drop of 23.5% year-over-year. MapBiomas technical coordinator Marcos Rosa linked the downward trend directly to sweeping policy changes implemented by Lula after he took office, noting that sharp increases in federal enforcement operations and penalties for illegal logging have corresponded directly with falling clearance rates nationwide.

    Lula has positioned the fight against Amazon destruction as a core policy priority of his administration, after four years of surging unregulated logging under his far-right predecessor Jair Bolsonaro. The Brazilian president has pledged to eliminate all illegal deforestation across the country by 2030, a goal rooted in the global scientific consensus that intact old-growth Amazon forests are critical natural carbon sinks that slow global climate change. Last year, Lula leveraged Brazil’s role as Amazon steward to host the COP30 United Nations climate summit in the northern Amazonian city of Belém, using the gathering to highlight his environmental agenda.

    Despite the historic decline, the report underscores that mass deforestation remains a pressing crisis for the world’s largest rainforest. Even with the slowdown, an average of five trees are cut down every single minute second *[correction: every second*] in the Amazon. The Cerrado, a biodiverse tropical savanna ecosystem located south of the Amazon basin, remained the hardest-hit region, accounting for more than half of all vegetation clearance recorded in 2025. MapBiomas data confirms that agricultural expansion continues to drive nearly 99% of all native vegetation loss across Brazil.

    The progress on deforestation has also been tempered by ongoing criticism from environmental advocates, who have pushed back against Lula’s approval of a controversial large-scale oil exploration project near the mouth of the Amazon River, a development that threatens marine and terrestrial ecosystems in the estuary. With Lula campaigning for a fourth presidential term in October’s general election, the conflicting pressures of environmental protection and economic development look set to remain a central dividing issue in the race.

  • Haftar’s forces arrest Gaza aid convoy in Libya

    Haftar’s forces arrest Gaza aid convoy in Libya

    A group of international humanitarian activists traveling with a Gaza aid mission has been taken into custody by forces loyal to prominent eastern Libyan military leader Khalifa Haftar in the coastal city of Sirte, according to announcements from the aid organizing group. The Global Sumud Convoy, the coordinating body behind the mission, confirmed via a post on its official Instagram page that the last communication with the detained volunteers was logged at 3:22 p.m. local time on Tuesday. Among those held are civilian volunteers from eight nations across Europe, the Americas, North Africa and the Middle East: Spain, Poland, the United States, Argentina, Uruguay, Portugal, Tunisia and Italy. Most of the detainees work as medical professionals or veteran human rights advocates, who joined the mission voluntarily to deliver critical humanitarian assistance to residents of the Gaza Strip and express solidarity with the Palestinian people. The convoy organizers explained that the group entered the 5+5 Joint Military Commission security zone – a buffer area established under the October 2020 Libyan national ceasefire agreement that remains one of the country’s most contested territorial spaces – to coordinate and negotiate safe passage for the convoy onward to Gaza. Following the detention, the group confirmed that the activists are being held by the Government of National Stability (GNS), the eastern Libyan authority aligned with Haftar’s Libyan Arab Armed Forces (LAAF). The Global Sumud Convoy has issued an urgent call, asking citizens of the home countries of the detained activists to reach out to their respective national embassies in Libya and pressure diplomatic missions to secure the immediate release of the volunteers. Since the outbreak of large-scale conflict in Gaza in October 2023, grassroots activist groups have organized dozens of independent humanitarian missions to deliver aid to the besieged enclave, where widespread food, medicine and clean water shortages have pushed the population into a catastrophic humanitarian crisis. Most attempts to reach Gaza by sea have been intercepted early by Israeli naval forces, while overland missions aiming to cross through the Egyptian border with Gaza have repeatedly encountered a cascade of legal barriers and security disruptions that block their progress. According to reporting from Italy’s independent news agency Nova, Haftar’s security forces have already moved the two Italian citizens detained in the operation to the eastern Libyan city of Benghazi, where local authorities plan to classify the pair as potential irregular migrants rather than detained humanitarian volunteers. As of Thursday, Libyan security institutions operating under eastern Libyan control have not released any public statement explaining the motivation for the arrests, nor have they provided any update on the legal process or current status of the detained activists. The incident unfolds against a backdrop of more than a decade of prolonged political division across Libya, a split that followed the 2011 NATO-backed military intervention that ousted and killed longtime Libyan ruler Muammar Gaddafi. Today, the country is split between two competing governing blocs: the UN-backed interim Government of National Unity that controls western Libya, including the capital Tripoli, and the GNS led by Haftar, which controls most of eastern Libya and receives open military and political backing from the United Arab Emirates and Egypt.

  • Polish-Palestinian survivors take Israeli leaders to court over Gaza genocide

    Polish-Palestinian survivors take Israeli leaders to court over Gaza genocide

    Trauma does not easily loosen its grip, even when the bombs have fallen silent thousands of kilometers away. For five-year-old Malik Agha, the echoes of war live in small, daily habits: he still tucks extra bits of food next to his pillow each night, a quiet instinct born of months of hunger in a Gaza displacement camp. His four-year-old sister Razan automatically sets aside a portion of every meal, even when their plate in their new home in southern Poland is full. Malik mixes up the words “tent” and “home,” and both children flinch at the smell of smoke and the flash of red emergency lights, their small bodies bracing instinctively for another incoming strike. More than two years after their family escaped the deadly conflict in Gaza, these deep emotional scars remain.

    On a Monday in Wrocław, the children’s father Amjad Agha stepped into the city’s district prosecutor’s office alongside a second Palestinian-Polish survivor, prominent plastic surgeon Ahmed Elsaftawy, to file a landmark criminal complaint. The document accuses senior Israeli officials of genocide, war crimes, and crimes against humanity committed against Palestinian civilians in the Gaza Strip. Named in the complaint are former Israeli defense minister Yoav Gallant, his current successor Israel Katz, sitting and former Israel Defense Forces chiefs of staff, the Israeli navy commander, Israel’s energy and water minister, and current and former heads of the Coordination of Government Activities in the Territories (Cogat) – the Israeli body that controls all humanitarian access into Gaza and the occupied West Bank.

    This case marks one of the first formal legal actions of its kind in Europe brought by named, dual-citizen survivors of the Gaza conflict. Legal teams backing the complaint say the action is intended to test whether Polish prosecutors will uphold international law by holding alleged perpetrators of crimes against Polish citizens and their family members accountable, in line with legal obligations.

    Agha’s path to this moment traces back decades. Born in Khan Younis in southern Gaza, he moved to Poland to study, earning advanced degrees in food chemistry and management from Lodz University of Technology before returning to Gaza in 2005 to care for his aging parents. He took a role at the Palestinian agriculture ministry, running a laboratory that taught local Gaza farmers how to cultivate oyster mushrooms – an affordable source of protein and a rare small income stream in Gaza’s long-besieged economy. It was there he met Alaa, a microbiologist who would become his wife. The couple married in 2020, settling on the ground floor of a family home in central Khan Younis, with Agha’s brother and his family living upstairs, and a wide network of cousins, friends, and neighbors surrounding them. Their son Malik arrived in 2021, followed by daughter Razan a year later; both children inherited Polish citizenship through their father.

    When Israel launched its military campaign in Gaza in October 2023, Malik was just two years old, and Razan had only just turned one. One week into the conflict, on 14 October, the family was woken before dawn by an Israeli airstrike that hit their apartment building. They had already moved their mattresses into the home’s hallway, the most sheltered spot in the structure – a choice Agha says saved all their lives. Had they stayed in their bedrooms, with the children in their cots, he is certain none would have survived.

    Agha described the chaos that followed: “It was dark and very hot, and dust hung thick in the air. The children were crying desperately.” Shards of glass, chunks of ceiling, and broken concrete rained down around the family. Agha grabbed Malik, who had been sleeping beside him, before his wife screamed out asking where Razan was. Agha’s brother rushed down from the upper floor with a phone flashlight. Agha passed Malik to his uncle, then found Razan buried under debris. Both children were crying at first, but Razan quickly fell silent, terrifying her parents. Agha’s brother carried the two children out to a waiting ambulance, while Agha stayed behind to free Alaa, who was trapped up to her neck in rubble. By the time the ambulance reached the nearest hospital, Razan had stopped breathing. “At that moment, we were convinced that our little girl was already dead, that she was gone,” Agha recalled. It was only after Agha rescued his wife and reached the hospital himself that doctors told the couple Razan had been successfully resuscitated.

    Thirteen members of Agha’s extended family were killed in that single strike. The surviving family members lost every possession they owned, and spent months sheltering in overcrowded displacement tents. “It was cold, the water was contaminated, and there wasn’t enough food, especially for the children,” Agha said. Both children developed chronic diarrhoea and severe dehydration; Razan slipped into life-threatening malnutrition, while Malik developed anaemia. The family was finally able to evacuate Gaza in May 2024, relying on the children’s Polish citizenship to exit the strip. They now live in Wrocław, where Malik and Razan attend local preschool alongside Polish peers. Agha says his son’s first clear words after the strike were about a “broken window”: “His favourite spot was the windowsill, from which he watched the street, children playing with a ball, cars passing by. That space was his world, his point of reference. Suddenly, it was gone. He didn’t know who did it; he just said that they ‘broke it’, that ‘it’s gone’. He was not quite two years old, and those were practically his first words.”

    Elsaftawy, the second complainant, brings his own generations-long history of displacement and grief to the case. A leading plastic surgeon who heads a department at a hospital in Trzebnica, just outside Wrocław, he has lived in Poland for more than 30 years. His own family’s story of displacement began in 1948, during the Nakba – the mass expulsion of Palestinians that accompanied the creation of Israel. His father, then eight years old, was forced out of al-Majdal, the territory that is now the Israeli city of Ashkelon. The family ended up living in refugee tents in Gaza, turned into stateless refugees overnight. Elsaftawy himself was born in Qatar, where his parents moved in the 1960s searching for work. He moved to Poland at 17 to study medicine – a field that was closed to non-citizens in Qatar at the time – and has built his life and career there ever since. After the Oslo Accords in the 1990s, many of his relatives moved back to Gaza. Since October 2023, 34 members of his extended family have been killed in Gaza. The most devastating loss, he says, was his sister, who died from complications of malnutrition after being denied access to urgent medical care. “This tragedy will forever remain a part of my life,” he told Middle East Eye.

    To evacuate his elderly father and his brother’s family from Gaza last year, Elsaftawy traveled to Egypt and paid $27,500 in cash to Hala, the Egyptian private company that controlled access to the Rafah crossing evacuation list for most of 2024. The fee was $5,000 for his father, and $2,500 for each of his brother’s three children. “In a world where freedom is not a right but a commodity, everything has a price,” he noted.

    The legal complaint argues that the ongoing humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza is not an accidental side effect of military operations, but the result of a deliberate, coordinated strategy that meets the international legal definition of genocide. It specifically highlights the use of starvation as a prohibited weapon of war, and the deliberate obstruction of life-saving humanitarian aid to Polish citizens and their family members in Gaza. The complainants are backed by the Hind Rajab Foundation, the Polish-Palestinian justice initiative Kaktus, and Polish activists Nina Ptak and Ewa Jasiewicz from the Global Sumud Flotilla mission.

    Elsaftawy emphasized he is not seeking special treatment, only equal application of the law. “I am demanding only the right to the truth, accountability and the protection of fundamental humanitarian values, which should apply regardless of nationality, religion or origin,” he said. “Poland has a duty to adhere to the principles of international law, the protection of human rights and responsibility for the safety of its citizens.” In a statement, Kaktus framed the case as a critical test for Polish democratic institutions, asking: “Will the law be applied equally to everyone, or selectively, depending on origin?”