Global Pulse

分类： world

  • Rich nations topped $100 bn climate finance goal again in 2023, 2024: OECD

    Rich nations topped $100 bn climate finance goal again in 2023, 2024: OECD

    For the third consecutive year, high-income economies have exceeded the $100 billion annual climate finance commitment to low- and middle-income nations, new data from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) confirms. Yet growing geopolitical and economic headwinds have cast serious uncertainty over whether wealthy countries can deliver on an even larger, newly agreed climate aid target, leaving vulnerable nations waiting for much-needed support to tackle the climate crisis.

    The original promise to mobilize $100 billion per year for climate action in developing countries by 2020 was a landmark commitment to address climate inequality: developing nations contribute the least to historical greenhouse gas emissions, yet bear the brunt of worsening extreme weather and need investment to shift to clean energy and adapt to climate impacts. For years, wealthy nations failed to hit the target, only hitting the mark for the first time in 2022 after an extension of the deadline to 2025. Since then, contributions have steadily grown: OECD tracking data shows total climate finance hit $115.9 billion in 2022, jumped to $132.8 billion in 2023, and rose slightly to $136.7 billion in 2024.

    Breaking down the 2024 figures reveals a shifting mix of funding sources. Public sector climate finance fell 2.6% year-over-year to $101.6 billion, but private sector contributions surged 33% to reach $35 billion. Raphael Jachnik, who led the OECD’s analysis, told AFP the dip in bilateral public funding largely reflected a return to pre-2023 trends after an unusually large one-year increase in public contributions the previous year. The OECD also noted that full data for 2025, the final year of the original $100 billion commitment, will not be available until 2027 at the earliest.

    Climate finance has been one of the most divisive issues at UN climate talks for decades, with developing nations growing increasingly frustrated by repeated delays and unmet promises from wealthy governments. At the 2024 COP29 summit held in Azerbaijan, rich nations agreed to a new collective target: $300 billion in annual climate finance by 2035. They also set a broader, less specific goal of mobilizing $1.3 trillion per year from combined public and private sources by 2035. But even this new target is widely viewed as insufficient by vulnerable developing countries, and multiple major headwinds now threaten its delivery.

    The most significant disruption comes from the United States, where climate sceptic Donald Trump returned to the presidency in 2024. Since taking office, Trump has withdrawn the US from active global climate diplomacy and made deep cuts to the country’s foreign aid programs, eliminating a core source of global climate finance. The European Union, currently the largest single contributor to international climate finance, is grappling with domestic budget pressures and has redirected large sums of public spending to military investment amid ongoing conflicts in Ukraine and the Middle East, leaving less fiscal space for climate aid.

    Turkey’s Climate Minister Murat Kurum, who will chair the upcoming COP31 climate summit hosted by Ankara this November, has made clear he will pressure wealthy nations to deliver on their new commitments. Speaking at a climate ministerial gathering in Copenhagen this week, Kurum said: “It is easy to say we support global climate action. But promises must be kept. I will hold donors accountable for the commitments they made under the $300 billion Baku finance goal.”

    Wealthy Western nations have pushed to expand the pool of climate finance contributors, arguing that major economies still classified as developing – including China and Saudi Arabia – should now take on a larger share of funding. Rich countries, many facing their own domestic debt and budget crises, have also pushed for the private sector to play an increasingly central role in meeting future targets.

    OECD data also shows that 36% of 2024 climate finance went to projects in Asia, making it the largest recipient region, while Africa received 31% of total contributions. In a trend that has sparked widespread criticism from developing country governments and activists, the majority of public climate finance continues to be issued as loans rather than grants: loans made up 73% of total public climate finance in 2023 and 67% in 2024. Developing nations argue that relying on loans pushes already vulnerable economies deeper into debt, at a time when they are forced to respond to a climate crisis they did little to cause.

    Mohamed Adow, director of Nairobi-based climate think tank Power Shift Africa, called the reliance on loans an outrage. “The rich world profits from the loans they provide to poor countries who are desperately trying to deal with climate change caused by the rich world. It’s a total scandal,” Adow said. “The countries least responsible for the climate crisis are being asked to take on debt to survive it.”

  • Myanmar military recaptures 2 strategic border towns from ethnic militias

    Myanmar military recaptures 2 strategic border towns from ethnic militias

    BANGKOK – In a significant shift in Myanmar’s four-year-long civil conflict, the country’s military-led junta has announced it has reclaimed control of two strategically critical border towns, one abutting India and another near Thailand, in what marks the latest gains for government forces after they regained the upper hand nationwide earlier this year.

    State-run Myanma Alinn newspaper published the announcement Thursday, confirming that Tonzang, a town in northwestern Chin State roughly 15 miles east of India’s border, fell back into army hands on Wednesday following a 10-day offensive. The publication released accompanying imagery showing junta troops posing in front of Tonzang’s main administrative buildings after the operation concluded.

    The Tonzang announcement came just one day after the state outlet confirmed the recapture of Mawtaung, a key trade gateway on Myanmar’s border with Thailand located 390 miles southeast of Yangon, the country’s most populous city. That offensive took two weeks of sustained combat to conclude, according to the junta’s official account.

    The territorial gains are the latest successes for the junta, which has reversed earlier resistance advances and seized the momentum in nationwide fighting since the middle of 2025. Analysts attribute this shift in fortunes to two key factors: China-brokered ceasefire agreements that split opposition blocs, and a controversial new conscription law that has dramatically expanded the junta’s available troop numbers.

    The announcement also comes roughly one month after junta leader Min Aung Hlaing extended a public invitation to the country’s disparate armed resistance groups to enter into a new round of peace negotiations, a proposal that has not yet drawn a formal unified response from opposition forces.

    Both Chin State and Tanintharyi Region, where Mawtaung is located, have been hotbeds of anti-junta violence since the military ousted the democratically elected government led by Aung San Suu Kyi in a 2021 coup. After peaceful mass protests against the coup were violently crushed with lethal force, opponents of military rule took up arms, spawning a widespread civil war that has left large swathes of the country under the de facto control of resistance and ethnic militia groups.

    Tonzang had been held by an alliance of Chin ethnic militias and local anti-junta resistance forces since May 2024, while Mawtaung was controlled by the Karen National Union (KNU), one of the oldest and largest ethnic armed opposition groups in the country, and its local allied resistance factions.

    In its official report on the Mawtaung offensive, the state newspaper stated that junta forces conducted more than 207 separate armed engagements to retake the town, recovered the bodies of 24 KNU fighters and seized caches of opposition ammunition. The report also acknowledged that a number of junta security force members were also killed in the fighting, though no exact casualty count for government troops was released.

    As of Thursday, the KNU and other local resistance groups have not issued any immediate response to the junta’s claims, nor have they formally challenged the announcement of the recaptures. Stringent media restrictions imposed by the junta across most of Myanmar make independent on-the-ground verification of the territorial claims impossible for outside journalists and observers.

  • Tourists in Thailand plan for coming cuts to visa-free stays

    Tourists in Thailand plan for coming cuts to visa-free stays

    Thailand’s upcoming policy to shorten maximum visa-free stays for travelers from over 90 nations is already prompting concerns among visitors scattered across the country’s most popular tourist hubs, as the government moves to crack down on foreign-linked crime. The change has upended long-held travel flexibility that long-term backpackers and casual explorers have come to rely on, adding an unexpected layer of planning to trips in one of Southeast Asia’s most visited destinations. On Bangkok’s iconic Khao San Road, a magnet for budget backpackers and nightlife lovers, the announcement this week has given travelers an extra source of stress ahead of the rule change.

    Twenty-four-year-old Irish digital engineer Alex Brady, who was waiting near Tha Tian Pier for a ferry to the world-famous Wat Arun temple, said the new 30-day cap would have drastically altered his current 5-week trip across the country. Under the current policy, in place since 2022 to revive pandemic-battered tourism, visitors from eligible countries can stay visa-free for up to 60 days. That open-ended flexibility allowed Brady and his friends to travel without a rigid itinerary, with plans to explore Bangkok, travel to the diving mecca of Koh Tao, then head north to the mountainous regions of Chiang Mai and Chiang Mai. “If you’re paying for an expensive flight ticket out here, you want to spend a good amount of time out here,” Brady explained, adding that the shorter limit would really narrow what regions and attractions travelers can fit into a single visit.

    The policy shift comes as Thailand faces growing public pressure to address a string of high-profile incidents involving foreign nationals, including drug violations, public indecency, and unlicensed business operations ranging from hotels to language schools. Tourism contributes more than 10% of Thailand’s total gross domestic product, but international visitor numbers have still not recovered to pre-pandemic levels, despite the government’s previous 60-day visa-free policy designed to boost longer stays and higher tourist spending. It remains unclear exactly how shorter visa-free stays will reduce rates of overstaying, illegal business activity or public offenses, and officials have not yet announced an official effective date for the new rules.

    Under the proposed framework, travelers will be allowed to extend their 30-day visa-free stay once for an additional 30 days, at the discretion of Thai immigration officials. Per year, visitors can also complete one “visa run” – a trip to a neighboring country to reset their visa status – that grants an extra 60 days of stay. After that period, visitors must exit Thailand again and re-enter on a different type of visa, such as a work, student, or retirement visa. For frequent visitors like Elin Ovrebo, who directs a study abroad program for a U.S. university and has brought student groups to Thailand for 28-day annual trips for more than a decade, the rule change will cut short her habit of extending her own stay by an extra week after students depart. While she says the change will likely mean giving up that post-trip extension, it will not stop her from continuing to bring groups to the country.

    The new rules are already shifting demand for visa run services, and industry operators say the impact could cut both ways. Eighty-year-old German traveler Anna Heindrich, for example, was waiting for a minibus outside a Bangkok shopping mall earlier this week to embark on a nearly 16-hour round trip to Laos just to reset her visa and extend her stay by two extra weeks. “I spoke with the agency and it sounded easy on paper. Not necessarily very comfortable, but easy,” she told AFP before departing. Tanya Chansuwan, manager of Bangkok Buddy, the visa run agency Heindrich booked with, says the new rules could grow her business as more travelers need to complete visa runs to extend their stays. Still, she acknowledges the added hassle could push some budget travelers to choose cheaper regional destinations like Vietnam instead of extending their time in Thailand. “It will be tougher for the clients, and some might choose to go somewhere else,” she noted.

  • Europe faces stray Ukrainian drones as Kyiv targets Russian oil exports

    Europe faces stray Ukrainian drones as Kyiv targets Russian oil exports

    Over recent months, a string of unintended Ukrainian drone incursions into the airspace of NATO and European Union Baltic member states has exposed gaps in regional air defenses, sparked political upheaval, and escalated geopolitical tensions along the alliance’s eastern border. What began as a series of isolated incidents has evolved into a major security challenge, with far-reaching implications for NATO cohesion and Ukraine’s efforts to disrupt Russia’s energy revenue streams.

    The incursions trace back to Kyiv’s expanded military campaign targeting Russian Baltic Sea ports that serve as critical hubs for Moscow’s oil exports. With oil prices pushed higher by U.S. involvement in the Iran conflict, these energy exports represent a core source of funding for the Kremlin’s war effort in Ukraine, making port and energy infrastructure a top strategic target for Kyiv. Ukraine has concentrated its strikes on key Russian ports of Ust-Luga and Primorsk, located just kilometers from the Estonian and Finnish borders. In one major May attack on Primorsk that ignited large port fires, regional Russian governor Alexander Drozdenko confirmed more than 60 Ukrainian drones were intercepted and downed during the assault.

    But as Ukraine’s long-range drones travel north to reach these targets, several have gone off course, crossing into NATO territory. Incidents have included a drone crashing into a power plant chimney in Estonia, another striking empty fuel storage tanks in Latvia, and a third being shot down by a Romanian fighter jet deployed to Lithuania as part of NATO’s rotational defense mission. Most recently, on a Wednesday in Vilnius – the capital of NATO member Lithuania – residents were ordered to shelter in underground parking garages amid official warnings of unidentifiable drone activity near the Belarusian border. It marked the first time a NATO capital has implemented such shelter protocols since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022. To date, no fatalities or injuries have resulted from the stray incursions, but the repeated airspace violations have triggered significant political and security fallout: in May, the incursions directly contributed to the collapse of Latvia’s sitting government, with both the prime minister and defense minister stepping down after the incident.

    Ukrainian officials have repeatedly apologized for the unintended incursions, blaming Russia’s widespread electronic jamming and spoofing operations for pushing the drones off their intended course. The explanation has been backed by Baltic leaders, who have long documented consistent Russian interference with global navigation satellite systems (GNSS) across the region. Russia uses two primary tactics to disrupt drone navigation: jamming, which overwhelms satellite navigation receivers with strong competing radio frequencies that block location calculation, and spoofing, which transmits fake satellite signals to trick a drone’s navigation system into believing it is operating in a different location. Lithuanian Foreign Minister Kęstutis Budrys has explicitly stated Russia is deliberately redirecting stray Ukrainian drones into NATO airspace to sow chaos and stoke tensions between Kyiv and the alliance.

    The repeated incursions have also drawn renewed attention to longstanding gaps in air defense coverage across NATO’s eastern flank. A September 2025 incident that saw 20 Russian drones enter Polish airspace – which required scrambling expensive multirole fighter jets to intercept – first exposed these vulnerabilities, as the drones were not detected prior to crossing the border. Last week, an armed Ukrainian drone crashed in Lithuanian territory after also evading early detection, according to Vilmantas Vitkauskas, head of Lithuania’s National Crisis Management Centre. While Poland and Romania have already deployed new purpose-built anti-drone defense systems, the first of their kind used by the alliance, this specialized technology has not been rolled out across the entire Baltic region. Estonian Defense Forces Colonel Janno Märk notes that countering drone incursions is an inherently complex challenge: drones operate across a wide range of speeds and altitudes, requiring a layered, multi-system defense approach rather than a single one-size-fits-all solution. Despite the tensions, Budrys says Baltic nations are looking to Ukraine itself for support: as Kyiv has led the world in developing advanced counter-drone technology amid its two-year war with Russia, Ukrainian expertise offers the most effective path to mitigating future incursions, especially as Kyiv now holds the capability to strike targets deep inside Russian territory, increasing the volume of drone traffic near NATO borders.

    The drone incidents have also prompted aggressive rhetoric from Moscow, which has sought to frame the incursions as proof that NATO is directly involved in the war against Russia. Russia’s Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR) recently made an unsubstantiated claim that Ukraine plans to launch drone strikes against Russia from Baltic territory, and alleged Ukrainian military personnel have already deployed to Latvia. The SVR warned that Latvia’s NATO membership would not shield the country from what it called “just retribution.” Both Ukraine and Baltic leaders have rejected the claim outright. Ukrainian foreign ministry spokesman Heorhii Tykhyi confirmed no Baltic state or Finland has ever permitted Ukraine to use their territory for strikes against Russia, while Budrys dismissed the SVR’s allegation as a “transparent act of desperation” designed to distract from Ukraine’s successful strikes against Russia’s military supply chains. NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte has echoed that framing, praising the alliance’s calm, decisive, and proportional response to the drone incidents, and placed full blame for the incursions on Russia’s illegal war of aggression against Ukraine.

  • The United Nations’ top court will issue an advisory opinion on the right to strike

    The United Nations’ top court will issue an advisory opinion on the right to strike

    THE HAGUE, Netherlands — A highly anticipated landmark ruling from the United Nations’ highest judicial body is scheduled for Thursday, which will bring long-awaited clarity to the long-debated question of whether workers hold a legally recognized right to walk off the job. Back in 2023, the International Labour Organization (ILO), a specialized United Nations agency focused on global labor standards, turned to the 15-judge panel of the International Court of Justice (ICJ) to resolve an ongoing internal disagreement: does one of the ILO’s core labor conventions explicitly enshrine the right to strike for employees around the globe?

    The convention at the center of the dispute has already been ratified by 158 countries around the world. Its standards are already embedded in binding United Nations labor frameworks, official guidance from the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, and countless international trade agreements that govern cross-border commerce. Notably, while the United States holds membership in the ILO, it has not completed the ratification process for this specific convention.

    While ICJ advisory opinions are not formally legally binding on sovereign states, they carry substantial moral and political weight in international law, and Thursday’s decision is widely expected to reshape labor regulations across every region of the world. This is not the first time the ICJ has delivered a high-stakes advisory opinion on a matter of global interest in recent years: in 2023, the court issued a groundbreaking ruling that found countries can be held in violation of international law if they fail to enact adequate measures to protect the global climate system from dangerous anthropogenic climate change.

    When the ICJ held public hearings on the right to strike case last October, legal representatives from 18 sovereign countries and five major international organizations (including the ILO itself) presented oral arguments before the court. Dozens of other governments submitted formal written arguments for the judges to consider, and the clear majority of participating stakeholders voiced support for recognizing an explicit right to strike under the convention.

  • From AI to interceptors, Ukraine is trying to drone-proof its skies

    From AI to interceptors, Ukraine is trying to drone-proof its skies

    The distant wail of air raid sirens hung over Kyiv this week as mourners gathered to bury 12-year-old Liubava and 17-year-old Vira, two sisters whose lives were cut short in one of the deadliest Russian aerial strikes of the ongoing war. The pair were among 24 civilians killed when a Russian missile turned their apartment building into rubble earlier this month. They had already lost their father to combat on the front line, leaving their grief-stricken mother as the only surviving member of their family.

    This devastating loss underscores the brutal human toll of Russia’s largest continuous aerial campaign against Ukraine to date, which saw more than 1,500 drones and 56 missiles launched across Ukrainian territory in just 48 hours. But officials say the death toll would have been far higher without marked improvements in Ukraine’s air defense capabilities. According to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, Ukrainian forces successfully intercepted 94% of the long-range drones and 73% of the missiles fired in that assault – a sharp improvement from the 55% interception rate recorded in a nationwide strike back in May 2025. Ukraine, it is clear, is rapidly growing more effective at protecting its skies.

    “Unfortunately for us, we are now the best in the world at this,” noted Lieutenant Colonel Yuriy Myronenko, an inspector general with Ukraine’s Ministry of Defence. He did, however, acknowledge that intercepting Russia’s ballistic missiles remains a particularly daunting challenge.

    More than four years into Russia’s full-scale invasion, Ukraine has built an increasingly advanced, layered air defense network that blends Western-supplied systems with innovative domestic development. At the outbreak of the full-scale war, Ukraine relied heavily on aging Soviet-era weaponry. Western partners later bolstered its defenses with high-end, costly systems including Patriot air defense missiles. But alongside imported systems, Ukraine has poured resources into homegrown solutions, ranging from mobile machine gun teams mounted on trucks to low-cost, mass-produced interceptor drones.

    Homegrown technological innovation has emerged as a key advantage for Ukraine’s air defense campaign. At the core of the country’s integrated network is Sky Map, a proprietary tracking software that monitors every glide bomb, missile and drone launched by Russian forces. The platform combines data from radar arrays, thousands of ground sensors, real-time video feeds and artificial intelligence to detect incoming threats and redirect air defense assets to intercept them. In the early days of the war, Ukraine relied on a jerry-rigged network of mobile phones mounted on telephone poles to detect the distinctive engine sound of approaching Russian drones. Today, the system relies on far more sophisticated sensors, and its effectiveness has even drawn international interest: the U.S. military now uses Sky Map to protect one of its major bases in the Middle East.

    But the workhorse of Ukraine’s counter-drone campaign is one simple, low-cost domestic innovation: domestically built interceptor drones. Among the most effective of these is the P1-SUN, a bullet-shaped interceptor powered by four base rotors that Ukraine now produces at an unprecedented scale of more than 1,000 units per day. According to Ukrainian air force data, these interceptor drones destroyed more than 30,000 Russian attack drones in March alone.

    In a field outside the southern city of Kherson, Ukraine’s Marine Corps Unmanned Systems Regiment recently demonstrated the P1-SUN’s capabilities. Launched from a static position, the interceptor can hit speeds in excess of 300km/h (186mph) with an operational range of more than 30km. The unit had just returned from a successful mission intercepting incoming Russian drones when they demonstrated the system.

    Welkos, the regiment’s commander, described the P1-SUN as a “very serious weapon.” “It shows how quickly we can adapt, how we can hold the line and how much we can develop even amid ongoing war,” he said. What makes the P1-SUN particularly revolutionary is its low cost: the 3D-printed interceptor costs roughly $1,000 (£750) to build, a tiny fraction of the $50,000 price tag of the Iranian-made Shahed one-way attack drones it is designed to destroy.

    Ukraine’s domestic air defense effort has also tapped into the resources of the country’s private sector, with dozens of local companies joining a coordinated national initiative. “We need to cover all of Ukraine and track every incoming target, so we use every resource we have available,” Myronenko, who oversees the public-private partnership program, explained. For private companies, the incentive is clear: defending civilian and industrial infrastructure directly protects their own operations and workforces, after repeated Russian strikes on energy infrastructure left millions of Ukrainians without power during past winter months. So far, 25 companies have signed on to the program.

    One of the participating firms, Carmine Sky, now provides air defense coverage for other private sector clients across northeastern Ukraine. The company has already built a network of defensive towers fitted with remotely operated machine guns in the Kharkiv region, just kilometers from the Russian border. During a visit to the company’s underground control room, rows of monitors display the Sky Map tracking feed as it plots the position of Russian drones and jets across the region. Most of the operators manning the screens are ordinary civilians – working mothers, former taxi drivers, and military veterans – who have completed a multi-week vetting and training program before taking up their posts.

    Ruslan, a spokesman for Carmine Sky, said the work is surprisingly straightforward. Operating the remote-controlled guns to shoot down incoming drones “is just like a computer game – like playing Xbox or PlayStation,” he explained. Ruslan emphasized that private participants act strictly as a complement to state-run air defenses, not independent actors. “We are fully integrated into the military command structure,” he said. “This is not the Wild West; we follow all military instructions and commands.” He added that private participation brings a key benefit: private companies can scale up defensive capabilities far faster than government bureaucracies can. Though the program is still in its early stages, private air defense teams have already shot down dozens of Russian drones.

    Alongside improving its defensive capabilities, Ukraine has ramped up its own long-range strikes on Russian territory. Recent Ukrainian attacks have sparked massive infernos at oil refineries across Russia and reached deep into major Russian cities including Moscow and St. Petersburg. The strikes have even forced the Kremlin to scale back its annual May Victory Day parade over fears of an attack.

    The rapid innovation on Ukraine’s side has spurred an arms race of sorts, with Russia also rushing to develop new aerial technologies to gain an edge. Russia has begun deploying faster jet-powered attack drones and uses decoy drones to bait Ukrainian air defenses into revealing their positions.

    Even with these advances, critical gaps remain in Ukraine’s air defense network. At the high end, Ukraine still faces a shortage of the advanced, expensive Patriot missiles that are currently the only proven effective defense against Russian ballistic missiles. Global supply chains have been strained by ongoing conflicts in other regions, leaving Ukraine struggling to secure enough of the systems it needs. Along the front line, both sides have struggled to counter the threat of small, first-person-view (FPV) drones, which are operated remotely by Russian forces and remain one of the leading causes of infantry casualties on the Ukrainian side. Even with all the latest technological advances, basic defensive measures like roadside netting, rifles and shotguns still serve as the last line of defense against these small, agile threats.

    Defending Ukraine’s skies will remain an enormous challenge. Zelensky has warned that Russia’s strategy of mass aerial strikes is explicitly designed to overwhelm Ukrainian air defenses by sheer force of numbers. When hundreds of drones and dozens of missiles are launched in a single 48-hour window, it is inevitable that some will get through – meaning more families will face the same unthinkable grief that left Lyubava and Vira’s mother the only survivor of her family.

  • Israeli minister sparks outcry over video of bound flotilla activists

    Israeli minister sparks outcry over video of bound flotilla activists

    A controversial move by Israel’s far-right national security minister has ignited a firestorm of global condemnation after he publicly shared footage of bound Gaza-bound flotilla activists held in humiliating conditions by Israeli authorities. Itamar Ben Gvir, a hardline politician known for inflammatory rhetoric, posted the video to the social platform X this Wednesday, just hours after Israeli naval forces intercepted a convoy of activist vessels headed for the blockaded Gaza Strip and detained hundreds of international participants at Israel’s southern port of Ashdod.

    The shocking footage, captioned with the provocative line “Welcome to Israel”, shows dozens of detained activists forced to kneel on the ground with their hands bound behind their backs and their foreheads pressed to the pavement. The Israeli national anthem plays over the footage in the background at multiple points, and Ben Gvir can be seen personally confronting the detained activists, heckling them while waving an Israeli flag.

    The video drew immediate international backlash, and even drew criticism from top figures within Israel’s own government. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu publicly distanced himself from the minister, stating that Ben Gvir’s treatment of the detained activists ran “not in line with Israel’s values and norms”. Netanyahu added that Israeli authorities would move to deport all the detained activists “as soon as possible”. Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar went even further in his rebuke, calling the incident a “disgraceful display” and accusing Ben Gvir of “knowingly caused harm to our State in this disgraceful display — and not for the first time”.

    Criticism also poured in from diplomatic circles around the world. Even the United States ambassador to Israel, Mike Huckabee, denounced Ben Gvir’s actions as “despicable”, writing on X that “Universal outrage & condemnation from every high-ranking Israeli official… for despicable actions by Ben Gvir. Flotilla was stupid stunt, but Ben Gvir betrayed dignity of his nation”. European Commissioner Hadja Lahbib also publicly condemned the minister, noting that “no one should be punished for defending humanity”. Both Belgium and France formally summoned their respective Israeli ambassadors to respond to what Paris called Ben Gvir’s “unacceptable actions”.

    The flotilla in question, organized under the banner of the Global Sumud Flotilla, launched from Turkey last week with around 50 vessels participating. It marks the second major attempt by international activists to breach Israel’s 17-year blockade of Gaza in as many months; a similar convoy was intercepted by Israeli forces in international waters off the coast of Greece last month, with most activists expelled to European countries.

    Israeli officials confirmed that roughly 430 international activists were aboard the intercepted flotilla, with all transferred to Ashdod port for processing and detention. The Israeli legal rights group Adalah, which sent attorneys to the detention facility to represent the detainees, issued a statement condemning both the treatment of activists and Israel’s broader policy towards Gaza. “Israel is employing a criminal policy of abuse and humiliation against activists seeking to confront Israel’s ongoing crimes against the Palestinian people,” the group said.

    By Thursday, multiple other countries had joined the chorus of condemnation, including Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Spain, Poland, and Turkey. Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney called the treatment of detained civilian activists “abominable” and announced that Canada would summon the Israeli ambassador to the country to respond. Ireland’s Foreign Minister Helen McEntee said she was “appalled and shocked” by the video, and called for the immediate release of all detained activists, which include the sister of Irish President Catherine Connolly.

    Ben Gvir has refused to back down from his actions, doubling down in a speech to Israeli parliament. “I am proud to be the minister in charge of the organisations that operated today against those supporters of terror,” he said. “Yes, there will be all sorts of pictures that Gideon Saar does not like, but I think they are a great source of pride.”

    Netanyahu had earlier framed the entire flotilla effort as “a malicious scheme designed to break the blockade we have imposed on Hamas terrorists in Gaza”. Hamas, the Palestinian militant group that governed Gaza before the October 2023 war and currently controls less than half of the enclave, released a statement calling the video proof of Israeli leaders’ “moral depravity and sadism”.

    Israel has maintained a full land, air, and sea blockade of Gaza since 2007, when Hamas took control of the territory. The ongoing war between Israel and Hamas, sparked by Hamas’ October 7 2023 attack that killed roughly 1,200 people in Israel, has led to catastrophic shortages of food, medicine, and other essential supplies in Gaza, with Israel repeatedly halting all aid deliveries into the enclave over the course of the conflict.

  • The world built more coal power in 2025, but used less

    The world built more coal power in 2025, but used less

    A new analysis released Thursday reveals a striking global contradiction in coal power development for 2025: while nations continued to build and bring online new coal-fired generating capacity at a 3.5% annual growth rate, total global electricity generated from the polluting fossil fuel actually declined over the same period. Only one major world economy bucked this trend, recording a substantial increase in coal generation, according to data from Global Energy Monitor (GEM), an organization that has tracked global coal infrastructure development for more than a decade.

    As the single largest source of anthropogenic planet-warming greenhouse gas emissions, phasing out coal power is widely recognized as a core priority for limiting global temperature rise and mitigating the worst impacts of climate change. In recent years, plummeting costs and widespread deployment of wind and solar power have allowed these clean energy sources to meet nearly all new global electricity demand, a shift that pushed total 2025 global coal generation down 0.6% from 2024 levels.

    Nearly all of the new coal capacity added in 2025 – 95% of total new construction – was concentrated in just two nations: China and India. Even in these two major coal markets, the disconnect between growing capacity and falling generation held: China’s total coal capacity expanded 6% over the year, but coal-generated electricity fell 1.2% thanks largely to the country’s explosive growth in renewable energy capacity. India followed a nearly identical pattern, with coal capacity growing almost 4% while generation fell nearly 3% year-over-year.

    Christine Shearer, project manager of GEM’s Global Coal Plant Tracker and lead author of the report, explained that regional economic incentives drive continued coal construction in both nations. “Many of the provinces and states leading coal development are major coal-producing regions,” Shearer told AFP, noting these areas hold “strong industrial incentives to keep building coal.”

    Broader systemic factors also sustain coal growth in the two countries. For China, coal is viewed as a reliable backup to offset the intermittency of wind and solar power, a policy shaped by widespread power shortages experienced several years ago. For India, the world’s most populous nation, coal has long been relied on to meet rapidly rising electricity demand, even as non-fossil sources now make up 50% of the country’s installed capacity. Persistent transmission and grid infrastructure gaps mean India still generates roughly three-quarters of its total electricity from coal.

    Beyond new construction, the report also found that the global pace of retiring old, uneconomical coal plants slowed sharply in 2025, with nearly 70% of coal units originally scheduled for decommissioning instead remaining operational. In Europe, most delayed retirements trace back to policy decisions made during the 2022–2023 global energy crisis triggered by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, when nations scrambled to secure alternative energy supplies. In the United States, by contrast, delayed retirements and rising coal use stem directly from intentional government policy, Shearer said.

    “US coal-fired generation rose by more than 80 terawatt hours year-on-year, a figure so large that no other country came close,” Shearer noted. This surge “was not simply a function of demand growth, it reflected a policy environment that actively encouraged it,” she added.

    More recent geopolitical instability has also pushed some nations to reverse course on coal phase-outs: the global energy market volatility sparked by the US-Iran conflict linked to the Israel-Gaza war has led some countries to reactivate idled coal units and extend the lifespan of operating plants.

    In China, coal generation saw an early-year spike in 2025 driven in part by lower-than-expected output from wind and nuclear power, but Lauri Myllyvirta, co-founder of the Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air and a report contributor, said systemic bias toward coal played an outsize role. “The oversupply and favouritism of coal power is an important factor,” he told AFP. While data from May 2025 indicates China’s coal generation has since returned to a downward trajectory, “the problem of excess coal capacity and entrenched favouritism of coal in the grid remain,” he added.

    As of mid-2025, global coal-fired generation is up just 0.3% year-to-date, while combined wind and solar generation has jumped 10% over the same period. Shearer emphasized that this split makes clear a key global trend: clean energy is absorbing almost all new global electricity demand, leaving coal with almost no growth in actual use.

  • The fight against foreign developers buying Caribbean beaches

    The fight against foreign developers buying Caribbean beaches

    Against the backdrop of post-hurricane recovery and a booming global luxury tourism market, grassroots activists across multiple Caribbean islands are waging a growing battle to protect local communities’ long-held access to public coastlines, as wealthy foreign developers push to transform prime beachfront into exclusive, high-end resorts.

    One of the most high-profile cases centers on the tiny Caribbean island of Barbuda, where for more than two decades, Pink Sands Beach Bar served as the beating heart of local social life. Owned by Miranda Beazer, the open-air spot — named for its iconic rose-hued shoreline — drew generations of locals for Sunday post-church relaxation, domino tournaments, and casual community gatherings. That all changed in 2017, when Category 5 Hurricane Irma swept across the island, destroying every structure in its path, including Beazer’s bar and family home. All 2,000 Barbudans were evacuated to neighboring Antigua, and Beazer later lost her husband before she could begin rebuilding. When she returned to reclaim her plot, foreign developers quickly offered massive sums to buy out her claim, offers she rejected outright. “It’s not the money that I’m after,” Beazer explains. “I actually want to retain my land.”

    Barbuda’s unique land tenure system, rooted in post-emancipation justice, adds layers of complexity to Beazer’s fight. When slavery was abolished on the island in 1834, collective land ownership was established to guarantee all Barbudans access to territory. This system was formally enshrined in national law with the 2007 Barbuda Land Act, which states that all land on the island is communally owned; individual citizens can secure long-term leases to occupy plots, but the community retains collective oversight and final say over major development projects. Beazer holds a valid lease for 30 acres of southern Barbuda coastline, but today she can only access 8 of those acres. The Global Legal Action Network (GLAN), the international legal advocacy group supporting her case, alleges that the remaining 22 acres are being illegally occupied by two foreign developers: Murbee Resorts and Peace Love and Happiness (PLH). Both developers have denied any wrongdoing, with Murbee stating it only operates on land for which it holds valid legal leases, and PLH asserting it has never occupied Beazer’s plot and has strictly followed all local regulations since securing its own Barbuda lease in 2017. Beazer alleges that developers even bulldozed what was left of her damaged bar after the hurricane, leaving her locked in a protracted court battle to reclaim access to her leased land.

    Just a few miles up the coast from Beazer’s plot, one of the Caribbean’s most high-profile luxury resort projects is nearing completion. The Beach Club Barbuda, a 400-acre development from Paradise Found, a venture backed by Oscar-winning actor Robert De Niro and Australian billionaire James Packer, will include a 17-villa Nobu Beach Inn and 25 private luxury beachfront homes, with plot prices starting at $7 million. Locals report that a new bypass road built to ringfence the resort has already blocked public access to the beach the project sits on. The development’s approval highlighted how national governments have changed local land laws to clear the way for foreign investment: in 2015, the Antigua and Barbuda government passed the Paradise Found Act, which explicitly exempts the resort complex from the protections of the 2007 Barbuda Land Act. Local campaigners challenged the law all the way to the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council (JCPC) in London, Antigua and Barbuda’s highest court post-independence. In 2022, the JCPC ruled in favor of the government, stating that collective rights held by Barbudans do not constitute a formal property interest that can block development. Paradise Found has said it complied with all national laws, and that public access to Princess Diana Beach, now part of the resort, “remains unchanged.” John Mussington, chair of the Barbuda Council, the island’s local governing body, argues that the development only moved forward by violating the 2007 Land Act that protects community land rights. Beazer’s stretch of coastline is now the last remaining section of southern Barbuda’s shoreline still open to local access, making her fight all the more critical. “If you were to ever come here and experience it yourself, you would really understand why we’re so committed to this little piece of rock that we have,” she says.

    Barbuda’s battle is not an isolated case. It reflects a growing crisis across the Caribbean, where outdated colonial-era land laws and surging demand for luxury Caribbean getaways have combined to erode local access to public beaches. Some 1,600 kilometers west of Barbuda, Jamaica has been grappling with its own long-running dispute over beach access. Devon Taylor, president of the Jamaica Beach Birthright Environmental Movement (Jabbem), says current Jamaican land law explicitly denies locals any formal rights to the country’s foreshore, effectively handing control of most coastlines to private developers. The Jamaican government recently proposed a new bill meant to expand local beach access, but Taylor argues the legislation actually tightens restrictions by framing access as a paid benefit, requiring locals to purchase beach passes from large hotels. “You’re selling back the access to the people,” Taylor says, arguing that this echoes the exclusionary “colonial logic” of the past. According to Jabbem, less than 1% of Jamaica’s entire coastline remains freely open to local residents, and the group is currently involved in five separate legal challenges against the government and private developers to defend public access. The Jamaican government has not yet responded to requests for comment on the proposed legislation.

    Even smaller, less developed Caribbean islands such as Grenada are already facing similar tensions as international tourists seek out lesser-known, off-the-beaten-path destinations. Kriss Davies, chair of local advocacy group Grenada Land Actors, warns that unchecked large-scale resort development risks stripping the island of the cultural and natural charm that draws visitors in the first place, while displacing local communities from their traditional coastlines.

    According to the United Nations Development Programme, the Caribbean is the most tourism-dependent region in the world, with nearly half of all visitors arriving from the United States. For cash-strapped regional governments, foreign investment in luxury tourism offers an undeniably appealing path to economic growth and job creation. But local activists argue that this growth comes at a steep, irreversible cost to the communities that have shaped the Caribbean’s cultural identity. “Travel is never neutral — it carries both an economic and moral weight,” Taylor says. “These developments often displace residents from ancestral coastlines, restrict public access to beaches, and channel wealth away from the very people whose culture sustains the tourism experience.” As global demand for exclusive Caribbean paradise continues to rise, local land defenders warn that unregulated tourism could permanently alter the home they have stewarded for generations, erasing public access to the natural treasures that make the region unique.

  • Monarchists’ Savak marches revive memories of the shah’s torture state

    Monarchists’ Savak marches revive memories of the shah’s torture state

    In recent weeks, public marches organized by supporters of Reza Pahlavi, the son of Iran’s ousted former shah, across multiple European capitals have ignited fierce controversy for their open display of symbols tied to Savak, the widely condemned secret police force that oversaw systematic torture and political repression during the Pahlavi monarchy.

    Participants in these demonstrations have marched in coordinated military-style formations, carried large portraits of Pahlavi – who has publicly endorsed recent U.S. and Israeli military strikes against Iran – and openly called for repeated attacks on Iranian territory and the restoration of the former crown prince to power. Leading the processions have been flags emblazoned with the Savak insignia, a symbol that for generations of Iranians immediately evokes decades of state-sponsored violence.

    The first of these high-profile events took place in London on April 26, shortly after a bilateral ceasefire halted direct military clashes between the U.S. and Iran. London marchers dressed head-to-toe in black, marched in rigid military formations with arms folded behind their backs, chanted slogans praising the deposed shah, and some hid their identities behind balaclavas, with the Savak flag at the head of the parade. A nearly identical demonstration followed in Copenhagen on May 9, where participants wore khaki military-style uniforms. A third event was later held in Regensburg, Germany, where attendees wore printed T-shirts marked with the Savak official emblem.

    To understand the outrage these parades have sparked, it is necessary to revisit the history of Savak, formally the State Security and Intelligence Organisation, founded in 1953 with direct training and assistance from the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency and Israel’s Mossad. For nearly 25 years under Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, Savak functioned as the primary tool of state repression to crush all political dissent against the monarchy. International human rights groups have documented decades of abuses committed by the agency, including widespread arbitrary detention, forced disappearances, extrajudicial executions, systematic torture of political prisoners, coercion against the families of detainees, and intimidation campaigns targeting Iranian dissidents living abroad. A 1976 Amnesty International investigation into Savak’s operations formally documented the agency’s pattern of torture and extrajudicial killing, describing it as an organization that operated “with extreme ruthlessness.”

    Reactions to the public display of Savak symbols have split along generational and political lines within Iranian communities both inside the country and in the global diaspora. Many younger Iranian opponents of the current Islamic Republic government, who were born after the 1979 revolution that ousted the shah and never experienced Savak’s rule firsthand, have dismissed the marches as a desperate, absurd publicity stunt. A 27-year-old opponent of the Islamic Republic living inside Iran told Middle East Eye, “I could not stop laughing when I saw them wearing T-shirts with the Savak emblem. They could have identified themselves with something linked to knowledge, change, freedom or justice. Anything. But Savak? Really?” He described the marches as a “clown show” and a “pathetic reaction to losing momentum” among monarchist groups, which have seen domestic support collapse in Iran since the start of the U.S.-Israeli military campaign against the country in February.

    Older Iranians who survived Savak’s repression, however, view the parades as a deeply alarming normalization of state brutality that echoes the rise of fascist movements in 20th century Europe. Behrouz Farahani, a veteran anti-Islamic Republic activist who has lived in exile in Paris for 20 years and worked closely with French labor organizers, argued that the marches are part of a growing aggressive push by monarchists to marginalize and silence other Iranian opposition groups that oppose foreign military intervention in Iran. He noted that monarchists have increasingly resorted to online harassment, verbal attacks, and even physical confrontations against anti-war demonstrators at opposition events outside Iran. “Anyone with historical memory, anyone aware of the rise of fascism in Italy and Germany, would immediately think of these movements,” Farahani said. “When I saw the black-clad march, I was reminded of Mussolini’s supporters in Italy and pro-Hitler militia groups in Germany.”

    Farahani added that the current political shift toward far-right, authoritarian-leaning politics in many Western countries has allowed Iranian monarchists to organize these events openly without pushback. He outlined two core goals behind the public parades beyond silencing dissent within the Iranian diaspora: first, to recruit younger Iranians who have no direct memory of the Pahlavi era and lack awareness of Savak’s widespread atrocities, and second, to build strategic alliances with far-right political movements currently holding power across Europe. “They want to signal to fascist and far-right parties in power that they share the same views, in order to gain their support,” he explained.

    Sudabeh Jazani, a former political prisoner under the Islamic Republic who now lives in U.S. exile, shared Farahani’s comparison of the marches to interwar fascist rallies. Jazani’s own family suffered direct loss at the hands of Savak: her brother Bijan Jazani and uncle Saeed Kalantari were among nine political prisoners executed without trial by Savak in 1975 in the hills north of Tehran, and the regime never permitted the family to hold a public funeral for the victims. She warned that the open intimidation displayed by monarchists already holding no official power offers a clear preview of what rule by Pahlavi would mean for Iranians. “These people, who still have no power, are creating fear and terror. Those who did not live through Iran under the Shah need to ask themselves what they would do if they came to power,” Jazani said. Like Farahani, she argued that Pahlavi and his supporters, who receive political and financial backing from foreign interests including Israel, are deliberately distorting modern Iranian history to recruit younger Iranians who lack firsthand knowledge of the monarchy’s abuses. She expressed particular shock that the march in Germany – a country with strict legal restrictions on displays of fascist and violent authoritarian symbols – was allowed to proceed openly, and called on international human rights groups to condemn the events.

    Recounting her own experience with Savak, Jazani described being arrested in 1975 after she offered condolences to the family of a political prisoner killed by the agency. During her interrogation, she was forced to flip through a photo album filled with graphic images of tortured bodies and executed political prisoners. “The interrogator gave me the album and said, ‘I will give you time to look at these carefully. If you don’t speak, the same will be your fate,’” she recalled. “When I hear the name Savak, I feel enraged, because they destroyed my family. For me, Savak means destruction, suffering, and torture.”

    Multiple survivors of Savak detention who currently oppose both the current Iranian government and the restoration of the monarchy shared similar firsthand accounts of the climate of fear Savak imposed across Iranian society for decades. A sociology professor based inside Iran, who asked to remain anonymous for security reasons, was arrested during the shah’s rule for possessing a dissident political pamphlet and spent one year in Savak custody, where he endured what he described as “soft torture”: prolonged sleep deprivation, being forced to stand for hours at a time, and repeated physical abuse including pulling of his hair, moustache, and ears. “The very conversation we are having now, during the shah’s time, even a father and son would be afraid to have it, because there was a belief that Savak could be listening and that it could lead to arrest and torture,” he said.

    The professor also noted that public, military-style marches by pro-shah groups are not a new phenomenon, tracing the pattern back to the early 1950s, when a pro-shah neo-Nazi group called Sumka, which promoted an ideology of Iranian Aryan racial superiority, carried out violent attacks on leftist and nationalist opposition gatherings with clubs and knives ahead of the 1953 CIA-backed coup that overthrew Iran’s democratically elected Prime Minister Mohammad Mossadegh and restored the shah to power. It was after the 1953 coup that Savak was formally established to consolidate the shah’s control over every sector of Iranian society, targeting students, political activists, intellectuals, and even independent poets.

    An Iranian writer based inside Iran, who has been interrogated by intelligence agencies both under the monarchy and after the 1979 revolution for his literary work, echoed these memories of terror. “The name Savak reminds me of horror and torture; of when I was sitting in an interrogation room and waiting for the interrogator, looking at the shah’s picture on the wall,” he said. He cited a poem by prominent Iranian poet Mehdi Akhavan-Sales, who was himself detained and interrogated by Savak, as the most accurate depiction of the constant fear the agency imposed: “And I am frightened by this image on the wall. In this image, that man, with the ominous and merciless whip of Xerxes, lashes out like a madman, but not at the sea; at my back, at my withered veins, at what lives in you, at what is dead in me.”