Global Pulse

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  • How one German artist’s remembrance stones turn Berlin sidewalks into Holocaust memorials

    How one German artist’s remembrance stones turn Berlin sidewalks into Holocaust memorials

    On a gray, rainy spring afternoon in central Berlin, 78-year-old German artist Gunter Demnig knelt to press a palm-sized polished brass plaque into the cracked sidewalk of a busy intersection. Engraved with short, unflinching details, the stone honors Johanna Berger: born 1893, resided at this address, deported November 17, 1941, murdered eight days later.

    Once Demnig brushed sand away from the four plaques marking Berger, her husband, and their two sons, a dozen of the family’s descendants stepped forward from the crowd of onlookers. They laid down crisp white roses at the site and recited Kaddish, the ancient Jewish prayer for the dead, as rush-hour traffic rumbled past just feet away. These small, sunken memorials are known as Stolpersteine — German for “stumbling blocks” — a name that references their ability to make passersby literally and figuratively pause in their tracks.

    Thirty years have passed since Demnig laid the very first Stolperstein in Berlin. Today, more than 11,000 of these memorials dot the German capital’s sidewalks, with a total of 126,000 installed across Germany and 31 other European nations. Unlike large, centralized Holocaust memorials that draw intentional visitors, Demnig’s project brings memory directly into daily life: embedded in pavement outside former homes of victims, the shiny brass squares force commuters, shoppers, and children to stop, bend down, and confront the history that unfolded in the very neighborhood they inhabit. It is not uncommon to see young children leaning in to read the inscriptions and ask their parents to explain who the people named on the stones were, and why they are honored there.

    In an interview with the Associated Press Wednesday, Demnig explained the core vision that has driven his work for three decades: “My basic idea behind this was that wherever in Europe the German Wehrmacht, the SS, the Gestapo, and their local collaborators committed murders or carried out deportations, symbolic stones should be placed there.”

    For many families of Holocaust victims, these small stones serve a purpose no other memorial can fill. Most victims of the Nazi genocide were killed in concentration camps, their bodies disposed of in mass graves or crematoria, leaving no place for surviving relatives to mourn. That is why relatives travel from across the globe to attend each stonelaying ceremony. “The Stolpersteine are some kind of substitute for the missing gravestones,” explained Michael Tischler, 72-year-old Berlin resident and great-nephew of Johanna Berger, who lost multiple family members to the Holocaust. “I think this brings the family history to a certain conclusion, or at least a provisional one.”

    Beyond bringing solace to grieving families, the Stolpersteine project has grown into a grassroots movement that unites local neighborhoods, schools, and religious communities in researching Nazi-era history. Young and old volunteers alike dive into city archives and pore over yellowed resident lists to trace where victims of Nazi persecution — including Jews, Roma, LGBTQ+ people, political dissidents, and disabled people — once lived. Once a victim’s former residence is confirmed, the community organizes a public laying ceremony and commits to polishing the brass plaque regularly to keep its shine, ensuring the inscription remains legible for years to come.

    Wednesday, a group of 10th graders from Berlin’s Friedrich-Bergius-Schule joined a second stonelaying ceremony on Stierstraße, a street once home to a dense Jewish community. The three new stones added for the Krein family — Michael, Maria, and their daughter Dalila — brought the street’s total count of Stolpersteine to 62. While Maria escaped to the United States and Dalila fled to British Mandate Palestine, Michael Krein, a professional musician, died as a forced laborer under Nazi rule in Berlin in 1940.

    Sixteen-year-old student Sibilla Ehrlich watched as violinists played a slow, solemn melody and elderly neighbors shared stories of the Krein family’s lives before the Nazi regime. “It is just so horrible, all this the hatred of others,” she said. “I keep thinking: what if this had been my family.”

    Before the Nazis seized power in 1933, Berlin was home to the largest Jewish community in Germany, with roughly 160,500 Jewish residents. By the end of World War II in 1945, emigration and systematic extermination had reduced that number to just 7,000. Overall, an estimated 6 million European Jews and millions of other marginalized groups were murdered in the Holocaust.

    This May 8 marks 81 years since the Allied powers defeated Nazi Germany and liberated its concentration camps. As the anniversary approaches, many Germans have grown increasingly concerned that the lessons of the Holocaust are at risk of being forgotten, as far-right extremist parties gain political influence and antisemitic harassment and violence rise across the country.

    Tischler shares these worries about his nation’s future, but he says the Stolpersteine project offers a small, persistent source of hope. “I hope that these Stolpersteine will still give some people pause for thought,” he said.

  • Mount Everest season opens late, with climbers undeterred by huge ice block and high travel costs

    Mount Everest season opens late, with climbers undeterred by huge ice block and high travel costs

    Every spring, Mount Everest draws hundreds of ambitious mountaineers to its slopes, drawn by the challenge of conquering the world’s highest peak. This year is no exception: even with a looming threat of a collapsing massive ice block, soaring expedition expenses and increased government permit fees, around 820 total climbers and experienced Nepali Sherpa guides are gathered at Everest’s 5,300-meter base camp, preparing for their ascent during the narrow annual window of favorable spring weather.

    Climbers began arriving at base camp last month, but progress up the mountain stalled for more than two weeks due to a giant unstable ice formation, called a serac, that hangs directly over the Khumbu Icefall — the treacherous first section of the route to the summit, located just above base camp. This constantly shifting glacier is widely regarded as one of the most dangerous segments of any Everest ascent, dotted with deep hidden crevasses and massive overhanging ice blocks that can reach the size of 10-story buildings.

    Each year, a specialized team of veteran Nepali guides known as “icefall doctors” — deployed by the Sagarmatha Pollution Control Committee (SPCC) — clears and secures the route, installing fixed ropes and aluminum ladders across gaping crevasses. The team typically completes this critical work by mid-April, but unpredictable glacial shifts this year delayed the route opening until April 29. Even after opening the path, SPCC issued an urgent warning to all climbing teams: the oversized serac carries multiple deep cracks and could collapse at any moment, requiring extreme caution from all who pass. The newly carved route still passes directly beneath the unstable ice formation, as the serac is too large to avoid entirely.

    Veteran mountain guide Lukas Furtenbach, who is leading an expedition of 40 international climbers supported by 101 guides and Sherpas, called the serac a tangible, unavoidable danger. “Anyone who says they’re not concerned is either inexperienced or not paying attention,” Furtenbach told reporters from base camp. He noted that this year’s route is more technically complex and more exposed to falling ice than the 2023 path, with glacial melt forcing the trail into a precarious alignment directly under unstable glacial features. To mitigate risk, Furtenbach’s team has cut the weight each climber carries through the icefall, limited the time climbers spend in the hazard zone, restricted crossings to carefully timed windows, and delegated risk assessment only to the most seasoned Sherpa guides.

    Other leading expedition operators echo the call for caution. Ang Tshering Sherpa, a senior leader of Kathmandu-based Asian Trekking, explained that timing crossings reduces risk: early morning travel is safer because freezing temperatures lock the ice in place, while warmer afternoon temperatures increase melt and the risk of falling ice debris. “It is very necessary to be cautious this year,” he emphasized.

    The hazard comes amid a grim history of deadly serac accidents on the Khumbu Icefall: a collapsing serac triggered a massive avalanche in 2014 that killed 16 Nepali climbing guides and support workers. The increased glacial instability this year aligns with broader scientific warnings about accelerating Himalayan glacial melt driven by climate change. In 2023, United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres visited Nepal’s glacial mountains and warned that Himalayan glaciers are melting at a devastating, unprecedented rate that poses severe risks to mountain communities and mountaineers alike.

    Despite the multiple risks and growing costs, climber turnout remains strong this spring climbing season. Ang Tshering Sherpa noted that while conflicts including the Iran war and rising global travel prices have reduced the number of climbers from Western nations such as the U.S. and Western Europe, this drop has been offset by a sharp increase in climbing participation from Asian mountaineers. This season also sees all climbing attempts concentrated on Nepal’s southern side of the mountain: Everest straddles the Nepal-China border, but China has closed its northern route to foreign climbers for 2024, directing all summit attempts to Nepal.

    Since the first recorded successful ascent by New Zealander Edmund Hillary and Nepali Sherpa Tenzing Norgay on May 29, 1953, thousands of mountaineers have reached Everest’s 8,849-meter summit, and the draw of the world’s highest peak remains undiminished, even in the face of growing climate-driven risks.

  • Ukraine is a global surrogacy hub – but that could be about to end

    Ukraine is a global surrogacy hub – but that could be about to end

    Six months into her pregnancy, 22-year-old Karina Tarasenko carries an embryo created from the egg and sperm of a Chinese couple, a path she never would have chosen if war had not destroyed her life. A native of Bakhmut, the eastern Ukrainian city that became one of the bloodiest frontlines of Russia’s full-scale invasion in 2022, Karina lost her home at 17. She and her partner fled to Kyiv, where they found themselves trapped in chronic unemployment, unable to make ends meet for their 18-month-old daughter. The breaking point came during a routine grocery trip, when Karina barely had enough cash to cover basic staples of bread and baby nappies. In that moment, she made the decision to become a paid commercial surrogate.

    Today, Karina lives on Kyiv’s outskirts in an apartment provided by her surrogacy clinic, carrying a baby girl for the overseas couple. She is set to earn £12,500 ($17,000) for the pregnancy – nearly double Ukraine’s average annual salary – with most of the payout due after she gives birth. Her pay was originally set at £15,500 ($21,000), but a contractual clause reduced the amount after one of the twins she was initially carrying died. Though she felt anger and disappointment in the early days of her decision, Karina has now made long-term plans: she intends to carry as many surrogate pregnancies as her body will allow, saving every penny to finally buy a permanent home of her own, something unthinkable for her family without the income surrogacy provides.

    Karina’s story is far from unique in post-invasion Ukraine. Long established as the world’s second-largest commercial surrogacy hub after the United States, the industry saw a sharp dip when the war first broke out, but experts tell the BBC it has now nearly rebounded to pre-conflict levels. The combination of mass unemployment, plummeting GDP, and soaring inflation has left thousands of low-income Ukrainian women desperate for stable income, creating a growing pool of potential surrogates for clinics that primarily serve overseas intended parents – who make up 95% of the industry’s client base.

    But that status quo is at risk of being upended. Ukraine’s parliament is currently debating a new bill that would impose sweeping new regulations on the surrogacy sector and effectively bar all foreign intended parents from accessing services, a proposal that already holds widespread support among lawmakers. Critics of the unregulated industry argue it reduces human reproduction to a commercial commodity and exploits vulnerable women pushed into the work by war-related poverty. Supporters of the ban also point to Ukraine’s collapsing national birthrate following the invasion, arguing that the country should not facilitate surrogate pregnancies for foreigners when native population growth is at a historic low.

    Women’s rights activist Maria Dmytrieva, who opposes all surrogacy on ethical grounds, says the proposed legislation does not go far enough. She argues that war has exponentially increased the number of desperate women in the country, and clinics deliberately target this vulnerability to supply low-cost surrogate babies to wealthy Western couples. Dmytrieva points to problematic advertising campaigns that explicitly leverage the widespread economic hardship of war to recruit surrogates: an AI-generated advert from January 2024 showed a woman choosing between heating fuel and new clothes for her children, a direct appeal to the struggles millions of Ukrainians face daily. In 2021, Ukraine’s largest surrogacy clinic, BioTexCom Centre for Human Reproduction, drew widespread condemnation for running a “Black Friday sale” on its surrogacy packages.

    When questioned by the BBC about whether these adverts were unethical, BioTexCom defended the campaigns, noting they successfully raised awareness of the opportunity for women seeking work. The clinic has faced far more serious scrutiny than problematic advertising, however: in 2018, Ukrainian prosecutors launched a criminal investigation into BioTexCom CEO Albert Tochilovsky and two former staff members, on suspicion of human trafficking and other offences. Prosecutors say the pre-trial investigation was suspended to allow for international cooperation and information gathering from overseas, but have not released further details. BioTexCom and Tochilovsky categorically deny all allegations, claiming the investigation stems from a DNA mismatch between one set of intended parents and a baby that occurred during sperm collection in another country, for which the clinic bears no responsibility. The clinic argues it operates fully within the law, provides a valuable service to people struggling with infertility, and offers legal income, free medical care, housing, and food to surrogate mothers.

    Beyond regulatory and ethical concerns, the industry also grapples with the ongoing issue of abandoned children. Under Ukrainian law, intended parents are legally responsible for a child after birth, and abandonment is illegal. But cross-border enforcement is extremely difficult, and stories of unclaimed children have fueled calls for reform. Five-year-old Wei, who was born prematurely in 2021 and suffered severe permanent brain damage, is one such case. Arranged through BioTexCom, the pregnancy was commissioned by a couple from Southeast Asia, who abandoned the child after learning about his disability. Neither the couple, who disappeared and could not be recontacted by authorities or the clinic, nor Wei’s surrogate mother, who had no legal obligation to care for him under Ukrainian law, stepped forward to take him.

    Today, Wei lives in a state-run residential home for disabled children in Kyiv, where he requires 24-hour care: he cannot sit up on his own, hold his head up, or see clearly. While BioTexCom’s CEO has called Wei’s case a tragedy and said the clinic accepts partial responsibility for abandoned children, there is no legal requirement for clinics to contribute to the cost of caring for unclaimed surrogacy babies, and BioTexCom has not provided any financial support for Wei. Children with disabilities as severe as Wei’s are almost never adopted: 15 families have reviewed Wei’s adoption file to date, and none have expressed interest in welcoming him. Valeria Soruchan, a Health Ministry official supporting the new bill, says “a lot” of surrogacy-born children are left abandoned in state care, though the government does not track exact numbers. Soruchan says she is not inherently opposed to surrogacy, but supports the foreign ban to address the industry’s current lack of oversight.

    Despite the criticism and calls for reform, supporters of Ukraine’s commercial surrogacy industry argue it can deliver life-changing benefits for all parties involved. London-based couple Himatraj and Rajvir Bajwa spent five years struggling to conceive, including two failed rounds of IVF, before turning to Ukrainian surrogacy. Rajvir, 38, lives with severe endometriosis and multiple sclerosis, both of which drastically reduced her chances of carrying a child. The couple ruled out surrogacy in the UK, where only altruistic surrogacy (which allows only reimbursement of expenses, no payment to the surrogate) is legal, and where surrogates retain legal parental rights until a formal parental order is issued. Fearing uncertainty around legal ownership, they turned to Ukraine, attracted by the formal, organised structure of the industry and much lower costs: they paid £65,000 ($87,770) through BioTexCom, less than 60% of the average cost of surrogacy in the United States, which can exceed $150,000.

    The couple created an embryo in London via IVF, shipped it to Kyiv for implantation, and returned to Ukraine for the birth in June 2023, just months after Russia had launched widespread bombing campaigns targeting the capital. Delays in processing UK paperwork for their son’s passport forced the couple to spend the first three months of their baby’s life shuttling in and out of Kyiv bomb shelters. “It was scary and surreal,” Rajvir recalled. The pair finally returned to the UK in late August 2023, and will soon celebrate their son’s first birthday. For the Bajwas, the experience was entirely positive: they met their surrogate, brought her gifts, and reject claims that Ukrainian surrogates are exploited. “They gave us something we never thought possible – they’ve made us a family,” Himatraj said, noting that the work is a voluntary choice that provides critical income for women who need it. The couple oppose the proposed Ukrainian ban, saying it would cut off a path to parenthood for thousands of infertile couples around the world.

    For Karina, who was initially courted by BioTexCom but chose another clinic after finding BioTexCom’s service cold and impersonal, the argument of exploitation misses the mark. “No-one is forcing us. This is my body, my decision… I’ll get my reward for giving them happiness,” she says. The proposed ban would destroy her plans to buy a home, she adds, and she is hopeful the legislation will not pass. As she rests her hand on her pregnant stomach, she says of the baby girl she carries: “I know this is not my child, but I love her. I talk to her. When she kicks, I tell her that her parents are waiting for her. I just hope she has a good life.”

  • Russia is ramping up its attempts to kill opponents in Europe, intelligence officials say

    Russia is ramping up its attempts to kill opponents in Europe, intelligence officials say

    For Russian opposition activist Vladimir Osechkin, even routine daily tasks like dropping his children at school or picking up groceries require a call to local law enforcement. Since 2022, he has lived under constant French police protection after authorities concluded the Kremlin was plotting to kill him, and new unsealed court documents obtained exclusively by the Associated Press reveal how close that plot came to execution.

    In April 2025, a four-man team of Russian nationals staked out Osechkin’s home in the southwestern French seaside resort of Biarritz for hours, capturing detailed photos and video of the property as pre-operational surveillance for a planned assassination, the documents confirm. This is not an isolated incident: Osechkin recalls years earlier, a telltale red dot, consistent with a firearm’s laser sight, appeared on the interior wall of his residence, an early warning of the danger closing in.

    Osechkin’s case is just one thread in a far broader pattern of targeted violence and plots stretching across the European continent. Over the past two years alone, European security officials have disrupted multiple planned attacks: Lithuanian authorities foiled two separate assassination plots last year targeting a pro-Ukraine Lithuanian citizen and a Russian opposition activist; German security services broke up two plots, one aimed at the chief executive of a German arms manufacturer supplying Kyiv and another targeting a senior Ukrainian military official; Polish authorities arrested a suspect in 2024 over a plan to assassinate Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy during a visit to the country; and that same year, a defected Russian helicopter pilot was shot and killed in Spain, with Russian intelligence operatives identified as the prime suspects.

    Three senior Western intelligence officials from separate countries confirmed to AP that what was once a sporadic program to eliminate Kremlin opponents abroad has exploded into a systematic, widely expanded campaign of targeted killings following Vladimir Putin’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022. Speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive intelligence matters, all three officials agreed that Russian security services have grown dramatically bolder in their selection of targets, expanding beyond the traditional list of defectors and double agents to include opposition activists, independent regional campaigners, and even foreign citizens who openly support Ukraine’s war effort. One senior European intelligence official stressed that the campaign is not random: “There is political authorization.”

    Intelligence analysts, senior counterterrorism officials, and Lithuanian prosecutors link this stepped-up campaign to Russia’s broader asymmetric war against European nations that back Ukraine. Since the invasion began, AP has mapped more than 191 confirmed acts of sabotage, arson, and disruptive attacks across Europe that Western officials attribute to Russian actors. In most of these incidents, Russian intelligence relies on low-cost local proxies rather than deploying its own trained officers — a model Moscow has now adapted for its assassination campaign, according to court documents and official briefings.

    When contacted by AP for comment on the reports, Putin’s spokesperson Dmitry Peskov declined to comment, saying he saw “no need” to address the claims. Russian officials have consistently denied any involvement in targeted killings of opponents abroad.

    Digging into the details of the plot against Osechkin, court records show three of the four detained suspects traveled to Biarritz specifically to surveil the activist, with the explicit goal of killing Osechkin to intimidate all anti-Kremlin opponents residing in France. All four suspects were born in Russia’s Dagestan region; one has a long record of violent criminal convictions, while another told investigators he fled Russia after being arrested by the Federal Security Service (FSB) to avoid being forcibly conscripted and deployed to fight in Ukraine. Osechkin, who founded a prominent human rights organization focused on exposing abuse in Russia’s prison system, said threats against him escalated sharply after he expanded his work to document Russian war crimes in Ukraine and help Russian soldiers defect to avoid combat. He relocated to France in 2015 and entered police protection in 2022 after intelligence confirmed his life was in immediate danger. “If it weren’t for them, I probably would have been killed,” Osechkin told AP.

    Half a continent away in Lithuania, another target, Ruslan Gabbasov, an activist campaigning for independence for Russia’s Bashkortostan region, survived a 2025 plot after a lucky discovery. Gabbasov found an Apple AirTag tracking device hidden on the undercarriage of his car in February 2025. Lithuanian police left the device in place and tracked the surveillance team back to their network. Weeks later, as Gabbasov attended a national independence day celebration with his wife and five-year-old son, police called and warned him not to return home. The next day, investigators told him a gunman had been waiting outside his residence overnight, ready to kill him on his return. Lithuanian authorities offered Gabbasov a chance to enter witness protection: to change his name, relocate, and abandon his political activism entirely. He refused, noting that he is seen as a leading voice for independence aspirations in his resource-rich home region, which has sent thousands of men to fight in Ukraine. “I can’t betray them all by simply disappearing, especially out of fear,” Gabbasov said. “If I stop my work or hide, that’s exactly what the Kremlin wants — that’s their win.”

    Lithuanian pro-Ukraine activist Valdas Bartkevičius was also offered the same deal after authorities uncovered a plot to plant a bomb in his home mailbox in March 2025. He also rejected going into hiding, saying that withdrawing from public life would amount to “social death.” Bartkevičius, who has gained attention for his high-profile anti-Russia actions, including a protest at a Soviet war memorial, said he will not stop his work fundraising for Ukraine’s military.

    To date, Lithuanian prosecutors have charged 13 people from at least seven countries in connection with the two plots against Gabbasov and Bartkevičius, part of a group of at least 20 suspects detained, charged, or identified across Europe in assassination-linked cases over the past 12 months. Prosecutors confirm the suspects were acting on direct orders from Russian military intelligence, and many have ties to Russian organized crime networks that have also been linked to arson and espionage plots across the European Union.

    Security analysts say the shift to using proxies stems from a major change after the 2018 poisoning of former Russian spy Sergei Skripal in Salisbury, England. That attack, which the UK government proved was carried out by Russian military intelligence officers, prompted Western nations to expel more than 300 Russian diplomats, most of whom were covert intelligence officers operating under diplomatic cover. That mass expulsion made it far riskier and more difficult for Russian intelligence officers to operate openly on European territory, according to Cmdr. Dominic Murphy, former head of counterterrorism at London’s Metropolitan Police and lead investigator on the Skripal case.

    While most publicly reported plots since 2022 have been foiled by European security services, one senior Western intelligence official noted that proxy operatives are generally less skilled and less resourced than trained Russian intelligence officers, which contributes to the higher rate of failed attacks. Even so, the official explained, the plots achieve key Russian goals even when they fail: they intimidate opponents into self-censorship, force European law enforcement to devote massive ongoing resources to protecting potential targets, and signal the Kremlin’s willingness to punish dissent anywhere in the world.

    Pointing to the 2024 killing of defector Maxim Kuzminov in Spain, who was publicly threatened by masked Russian servicemen on state-controlled television before his death, the official said it is clear that when the Kremlin prioritizes a target, it can still carry out an assassination in Europe despite the increased security pressure. For this reason, potential targets will never be fully safe, the official warned: “Even if you thwart an operation once, you still need to be ready in case they strike again.”

  • Southeast Asian leaders will reaffirm core values in veiled Mideast war rebuke

    Southeast Asian leaders will reaffirm core values in veiled Mideast war rebuke

    As Southeast Asian heads of state prepare to gather for their annual regional summit in Cebu, the Philippines on Friday, a leaked draft declaration obtained by the Associated Press shows the bloc is set to adopt a sweeping contingency plan that prioritizes international law, national sovereignty, and unobstructed navigation – a move widely interpreted as a quiet pushback against the escalating Middle East conflict that has sent ripple effects across the globe.

    The 11-nation bloc, which admitted East Timor as its 11th full member in October 2024, will formally approve the plan during the gathering hosted by Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr., this year’s ASEAN chair. Marcos has already scrapped the lavish ceremonial traditions that typically accompany the summit, a choice made to acknowledge the harsh global economic headwinds hitting regional communities.

    Beyond upholding core international principles, the plan outlines concrete crisis mitigation measures to address energy shortages and other cross-border disruptions triggered by the ongoing Middle East war. The summit’s core agenda centers on three critical priorities: shoring up regional energy security, stabilizing food supply chains, and protecting the more than 1 million Southeast Asian workers and seafarers currently based in the conflict zone. Already, two Filipino workers and an uncounted number of other Southeast Asian nationals have been killed in the fighting, forcing thousands of migrant workers to evacuate back to their home countries with government assistance.

    Southeast Asia, a dynamic 680 million-person region with robust economic growth, already grapples with a host of persistent security flash points: decades-old territorial disputes in the South China Sea, a five-year devastating civil war in Myanmar, and a recent deadly border clash between Thailand and Cambodia. Even so, regional leaders have singled out the Middle East conflict as an urgent outsized threat, due to its far-reaching global economic fallout and direct risk to regional citizens.

    The Asian Development Bank sounded an early alarm in March, roughly one month after hostilities broke out in the Middle East, warning that prolonged disruption to regional energy supplies could curb economic growth and drive up inflation across Asia and the Pacific. The bloc relies heavily on Middle Eastern oil and gas exports to power its industrial and consumer economies, leaving it extremely vulnerable to supply chain disruptions and shipping lane blockages.

    The draft declaration reaffirms ASEAN’s commitment to upholding foundational rules-based order, stating: “We emphasized the importance of upholding international law and ensuring that regional cooperation remains anchored in dialogue, trust and respect for sovereignty.” It goes on to commit the bloc to maintaining “open, transparent and predictable markets as well as secure and open sea lanes, and ensure freedom of navigation, the safe, unimpeded and continuous transit passage of vessels and aircraft in straits used for international navigation.”

    All these measures are framed as a way to “preserve the unimpeded flow of essential goods, including food, energy and key inputs, in accordance with international law, particularly the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea,” the draft reads. ASEAN leaders will formally affirm their shared commitment to strengthening regional resilience through coordinated action.

    Key actionable steps in the contingency plan include the potential ratification this year of a regional agreement enabling coordinated emergency fuel sharing, advancing development of an integrated regional power grid, diversifying crude oil import sources across the bloc, accelerating adoption of electric vehicles, and exploring new energy technologies including civilian nuclear power. The bloc is also drafting a dedicated ASEAN crisis communication and coordination protocol to ensure a cohesive, rapid, and unified regional response to future global and regional shocks.

  • Israeli court rejects flotilla activists’ appeal challenging detention

    Israeli court rejects flotilla activists’ appeal challenging detention

    In a decision that has drawn sharp condemnation from human rights groups and global authorities, an Israeli district court rejected an appeal Wednesday challenging the continued detention of two foreign activists seized by Israeli forces from a humanitarian flotilla heading to blockaded Gaza.

    The two detainees — Saif Abu Keshek, a Spanish national of Palestinian descent, and Thiago Avila, a Brazilian citizen — were among more than 30 activists traveling on an international flotilla that was intercepted last week in international waters off the coast of Greece. While all other activists on board were diverted to the Greek island of Crete and released shortly after the interception, Israeli commandos seized Abu Keshek and Avila, transferring them to Israeli territory for interrogation.

    Earlier this week, a lower Israeli court granted authorities an extension of the pair’s detention through Sunday to allow additional questioning. Defense lawyers immediately appealed that ruling to the Beersheva District Court, but the court on Wednesday ruled in full favor of the prosecution, leaving the original detention extension in place. “Today, the district court of Beersheva denied our appeal and basically accepted all of the arguments that the state or the police have represented before the court, keeping the previous decision in place,” lead defense attorney Hadeel Abu Salih told reporters.

    An AFP journalist present at the court hearing observed that the two activists, who launched a hunger strike shortly after their arrest, appeared in court with their ankles shackled. Abu Keshek, who has stopped consuming both food and water according to his legal team, appeared visibly exhausted throughout the proceeding, while Avila remained calm.

    Abu Salih and the legal team have decried the entire detention as a violation of international law, arguing that the Israeli operation was carried out without any legitimate authority in international waters. “This was an illegal arrest that took place in international waters where the activists were kidnapped by the Israeli navy,” Abu Salih said, adding that the court ruling effectively gives Israeli forces “a free hand… to do it again and again.”

    Adalah, the leading Israeli human rights organization representing the two activists, issued a statement calling Wednesday’s ruling “unlawful and unreasonable.” The group emphasized that the flotilla vessel sailed under an Italian flag, placing all people on board under exclusive Italian jurisdiction, making the Israeli abduction a violation of maritime law. Adalah also leveled allegations of mistreatment in detention, saying that Avila has been held in a consistently cold cell, and that both men are subjected to extended interrogations lasting most of the day about the flotilla and its organizers.

    Israeli authorities have denied all claims of abuse, but have not yet filed any formal criminal charges against the pair. Israeli officials have stated the pair face accusations of “assisting the enemy during wartime” and “membership in and providing services to a terrorist organization.” Israeli authorities link the two activists to the Popular Conference for Palestinians Abroad (PCPA), an organization that the United States has accused of secretly operating on behalf of Hamas, the de facto governing authority of Gaza.

    The detention has already sparked international pushback: the governments of Spain and Brazil, as well as the United Nations, have publicly called for the immediate and unconditional release of the two men. “It is not a crime to show solidarity and attempt to bring humanitarian aid to the Palestinian population in Gaza, who are in dire need of it,” UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights spokesman Thameen Al-Kheetan said in an official statement.

    The flotilla, which departed from ports in France, Spain and Italy, was organized with the explicit goal of challenging Israel’s 16-year blockade of the Gaza Strip and delivering badly needed humanitarian supplies to the territory, which has been devastated by months of ongoing military conflict. Israel has enforced a complete land, air and sea blockade of Gaza since 2007, controlling all access points into the enclave and severely restricting the flow of food, medicine, fuel and other essential goods.

  • Protests as Venice Biennale opens in turmoil over Russian presence

    Protests as Venice Biennale opens in turmoil over Russian presence

    The 2024 Venice Biennale, one of the world’s most prestigious and longest-running contemporary art events, kicked off its press preview period this week mired in geopolitical controversy, sparked by the controversial inclusion of Russia in the festival for the first time since Moscow’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022. What was meant to be a global celebration of artistic vision has instead become a flashpoint for international tensions, drawing mass protests, institutional resignations, funding threats, and boycott calls that have thrown the entire event into turmoil.

    The most high-profile demonstration took place outside the Russian pavilion on Wednesday, when bare-breasted activists from two iconic protest groups—Ukrainian feminist collective Femen and Russian opposition punk band Pussy Riot—took united action against Russia’s participation. Dressed in matching pink balaclavas, the activists set off pink smoke bombs to draw attention to their cause, as they denounced the presence of a Russian national pavilion amid the ongoing full-scale war.

    “We are here to remind that the only Russian culture, the only Russian art today is blood,” Femen leader Inna Shevchenko told assembled reporters. “This pavilion stands on Ukrainian mass graves.” This marked the first time the two groups have collaborated on a public protest, a sign of the widespread anger the decision has sparked across both Ukrainian and anti-war Russian circles.

    The controversy over Russia’s inclusion has rippled across the entire event, triggering cascading consequences that have forced major changes to the 2024 Biennale’s structure. Last week, the entire international jury resigned in protest, announcing they would refuse to award prizes to nations led by officials facing arrest warrants from the International Criminal Court—a designation that covers both Russia and Israel. In response to the unrest, organizers have postponed the Biennale’s traditional opening awards ceremony from May 9, the festival’s first public day, all the way to November 22, the final day of the six-month run. Organizers have instead restructured awards to allow public voting, extending eligibility to all national participants including Russia, a move they framed as upholding “the principle of inclusion and equal treatment.”

    The decision to allow Russia’s participation this year came despite the fact that Russia was not extended an official invitation, and despite widespread opposition from European and Italian political leaders. The European Union has threatened to cut 2 million euros ($2.3 million) in core grant funding for the Biennale over the decision, arguing that European taxpayer money should not support events that include Russian participation amid the ongoing war. A European Commission spokesman emphasized that cultural events backed by the bloc must uphold democratic values, freedom of expression, and inclusive dialogue—values the bloc says are not respected in modern Russia. The EU has also requested formal clarification from the Italian government over whether hosting the Russian delegation violates existing European sanctions against Moscow.

    Italy’s national government has also openly opposed Russia’s inclusion, with Culture Minister Alessandro Giuli confirming he will boycott the event entirely in protest of the decision.

    In a compromise reached amid escalating pressure, the Russian pavilion will not be open to the general public for the entire run of the Biennale, which is open to visitors from May 9 through November 22. Instead of in-person public exhibits or live performances, the Russian pavilion’s show, titled “the tree is rooted in the sky,” will only be recorded during this week’s press previews, with footage later projected on large outdoor screens for public viewing. Russia’s ambassador to Italy, Aleksei Paramonov, confirmed that restrictions tied to European sanctions bar any live public performances by Russian artists beyond the press preview period, and condemned the restrictions as unreasonable.

    “There is truly something painful and unreasonable about the European Union’s obsession with targeting Russian culture and art with sanctions and restrictions of all kinds,” Paramonov said in a statement posted to Facebook.

    Biennale President Pietrangelo Buttafuoco, who has repeatedly defended the decision to include Russia, argued that the festival has always served as a space for global dialogue even amid geopolitical division. “If the Biennale were to start selecting not works but affiliations, not visions but passports, it would cease to be what it has always been: the place where the world comes together, and all the more so when the world is torn apart,” Buttafuoco told reporters Wednesday.

    Controversy is not limited to the Russian pavilion, however. Pro-Palestinian activists also staged a large demonstration outside the Israeli pavilion Wednesday, drawing roughly 100 participants who carried banners reading “No artwashing genocide” amid ongoing Israeli military operations in Gaza. Just as with Russia, the ICC has issued an arrest warrant for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, a key reason the Biennale jury resigned last week. Iran, which was originally scheduled to participate in the 2024 Biennale, withdrew entirely after Israeli strikes on Iranian targets in late February.

    This year’s controversy marks a sharp shift from the 2022 Venice Biennale, held shortly after Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. At that event, Russian artists and curators voluntarily withdrew from the pavilion in protest of the war, and Biennale organizers banned all Russian government officials from attending the event.

  • Mamdani slams Israeli real estate event in NYC as ‘effort to displace Palestinians’

    Mamdani slams Israeli real estate event in NYC as ‘effort to displace Palestinians’

    A controversial real estate event promoting properties in Israel’s illegal West Bank settlements has sparked fierce debate in New York City, drawing condemnation from Mayor Zohran Mamdani and mass demonstrations from pro-Palestinian activists this week. The expo, hosted Tuesday at Manhattan’s Park East Synagogue, marked the second such event held at the venue since November, showcasing homes in the Israeli settlements of Kfar Eldad and Karnei Shomron alongside guidance for buyers on tax and mortgage arrangements.

    Under international law, Israel’s 1967 occupation of the West Bank is deemed illegal by the United Nations, and all Israeli settlements constructed on occupied Palestinian territory are classified as unlawful. The Fourth Geneva Convention explicitly prohibits occupying powers from transferring their own civilian populations into occupied territory, a core legal principle that underpins global opposition to Israeli settlement expansion.

    Speaking to reporters Wednesday, one day after the event, Mamdani made clear his firm opposition to the expo. “When we have a real estate expo that is promoting the sale of land, which includes the sale of land in occupied West Bank in settlements that are a violation of international law, that is something that I firmly disagree with,” the mayor said. He added that the event ran counter to the views of most New Yorkers, noting that settlement expansion is a core driver of the ongoing displacement of Palestinian people from their ancestral land.

    Hundreds of demonstrators organized by the Palestinian advocacy group Pal-Awda gathered near the synagogue Tuesday to protest the event. A heavy deployment of NYPD officers and barricades corralled the crowd a full block away from the venue, and Pal-Awda issued a scathing statement Wednesday accusing police of widespread excessive force. The organization claims law enforcement violently kettled and barricaded peaceful pro-Palestinian protesters while allowing pro-Zionist counter-protesters to operate freely, adding that officers used pepper spray on demonstrators and physically assaulted attendees through aggressive grabbing and shoving.

    Video footage provided to independent outlet Middle East Eye by Pal-Awda captured a tense late-night standoff, with officers shouting orders for protesters to pull back from the barricades as the crowd pushed against the barriers. In his remarks Wednesday, Mamdani struck a careful balance, affirming that the city upholds the fundamental right to peaceful protest while also guaranteeing that all New Yorkers can access houses of worship safely. The mayor declined to criticize police conduct, saying officers “ensured [both rights] yesterday.”

    The incident comes amid long-simmering tension over the Mamdani administration’s approach to policing pro-Palestinian activism. Before his inauguration in January, the mayor confirmed he would retain outgoing Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch, a move that drew condemnation from more than 100 grassroots organizations across the country in December. Critics argue Tisch has overseen a harsh crackdown on pro-Palestinian demonstrators, and note she hails from one of New York’s wealthiest and most politically influential families. In their December statement, the advocacy groups said retaining Tisch aligns the Mamdani administration with the NYPD’s long history of racialized policing, surveillance and political repression, representing a retreat from the justice and liberation values the mayor campaigned on.

    Pal-Awda has also leveled a separate legal criticism against the expo, saying organizers required entry to be cleared through a stringent vetting process that uses religious and political screening criteria. The group argues these requirements violate the U.S. Fair Housing Act and federal anti-discrimination laws, particularly for the event’s Manhattan-based real estate offerings that were only open to a pre-approved select group. Pal-Awda condemned what it called “shameful that Zionist agencies continue to hide their illegal activities in houses of worship.”

    The controversy is not the first effort by Palestinian advocates to challenge the marketing of occupied West Bank land to New York residents. Back in March 2024, Palestinian lawyers and advocates submitted an official demand letter to New York’s attorney general, calling for a formal audit and investigation into these sales. A demand letter typically serves as the final step before legal action is filed, and Pal-Awda confirmed this week that no official response has been received from the attorney general’s office.

    In his Wednesday remarks, Mamdani also sought to draw a clear line between political criticism of Israeli government policy and religious bigotry, reaffirming that “there is no tolerance for antisemitism” in New York City. “Critique of the policies of a government are very much separate from bigotry towards the people of a specific religious faith,” he said.

  • Under rubble and rain, Gaza women try to save rare books in centuries-old library

    Under rubble and rain, Gaza women try to save rare books in centuries-old library

    Against the backdrop of relentless conflict and widespread destruction across Gaza, a small, determined group of Palestinian women volunteers is waging a quiet, urgent battle to save one of Gaza’s most significant cultural treasures from total loss. Their mission centers on the centuries-old library of the Great Omari Mosque, a historic institution reduced to rubble by repeated Israeli bombardment amid the ongoing Gaza genocide.

    Raneem Mousa, a 35-year-old master’s graduate in Arabic language, is one of the volunteer leads on this improvised rescue effort. As she carefully dislodges a water-damaged volume from a war-shattered shelf, she uses a simple hand brush to sweep away decades of dust mixed with rubble and shrapnel before passing the text to a teammate for a gentle wipe down. The recovered book is then carried to the group’s self-designated “safest corner” — a tiny, makeshift holding space tucked away in the damaged mosque, where all salvageable texts are stored.

    When Mousa first arrived at the site after the most recent strikes, the scene was one of total devastation. “The library was filled with shrapnel, rubble, and dung from stray animals taking shelter,” she recalled in an interview with Middle East Eye. “Hundreds of shattered books and torn papers were scattered on the ground, covered in stones.”

    The volunteers, all affiliated with Gaza City’s Eyes on Heritage Institute, have framed their work as a “first-aid mission” to stabilize and preserve whatever can be saved from the library’s irreplaceable collection. Working without any specialized conservation tools, professional cleaning supplies, or formal institutional support, the group has relied on the most basic of materials: dry cloths, simple household brushes, and open air to dry waterlogged volumes damaged by seasonal rain.

    The Great Omari Mosque itself carries profound historical weight: as Gaza’s largest and oldest place of worship, it sits on a site that has hosted sacred structures for millennia, evolving from a Philistine temple to a Roman place of worship, then a Byzantine church, before being converted to a mosque in the 13th century. Its library, ranked the third-largest in all Palestine, once held roughly 20,000 volumes, including 187 rare manuscripts, some of which dated back more than 500 years. Over the course of the ongoing conflict, Israeli forces have bombed the mosque at least three times, leaving the structure in ruins and the library’s collection decimated.

    Despite the crippling challenges of ongoing siege, mass displacement, and a total lack of resources, Mousa and her teammates refuse to abandon their work. For them, this effort is about far more than saving old books: it is a defense of Palestinian identity and historical claims to their land. “This library has an educational and historical value that underscores the Palestinian historical right to their home,” Mousa explained.

    Time is not on their side. Months of exposure to Gaza’s humid, wet winter conditions have accelerated decay, with fungi growing on paper pages and the ink slowly eroding away. “Every time a page crumbles in my hand, I feel a pang of guilt, as if a witness to history is dying,” Mousa said.

    Every step of the rescue work is an exercise in improvisation and sacrifice. Coordinated via a simple WhatsApp group chat, volunteers must arrange trips to the mosque amid conditions that have made travel across Gaza nearly impossible: most of the territory’s population is displaced, nearly all vehicles have been destroyed, and fuel is so scarce that even short journeys cost more than most Gazans can afford. Mousa herself lost her home in Jabalia, northern Gaza, to an Israeli strike, and now lives in a makeshift tent in Deir al-Balah — a displacement that leaves her constantly worried about being able to afford the trip to continue her work.

    The group also lacks safe storage for the books they recover. All volunteers live in overcrowded temporary shelters, so there is no space to move salvaged volumes off-site. The small corner they have set aside in the damaged mosque remains under constant threat from the elements. “We often have to clean them again because the building is still in ruins and offers no real protection,” Mousa noted. “We are racing against the weather; the winter rain and wet wind are just as much an enemy as the bombs were.”

    Mousa says the group’s long-term hope is to secure international funding for proper storage shelves, professional conservation materials, and the equipment needed to digitize the entire surviving collection, preserving these texts digitally even if the physical copies are lost. “People in Gaza have always taken pride in education and culture,” she said. “If we, the educated generation, do not protect these books, who will preserve them for those who come after us?”

    Haneen al-Amasi, 33, director of the all-women Eyes on Heritage Institute, founded the organization in 2009 with a core mission: to rescue, restore, and digitize rare books, manuscripts, and historical documents across Gaza, to safeguard Palestinian cultural heritage for future generations. It was not until a brief ceasefire in March 2025 that al-Amasi was able to visit the Great Omari Mosque library for the first time since the current conflict began — and she said she was unprepared for the scale of the destruction. “Entire archives of books, manuscripts and historical documents were burned or shattered in Israeli attacks,” she told Middle East Eye. “Many others were damaged, eaten by rodents, or taken by displaced people to be used as fuel amid severe gas shortages in Gaza.”

    Many of the lost and damaged texts are irreplaceable: original documents recording centuries of Palestinian life, including scholarly works on jurisprudence, geography, and social customs, with many capturing unique details of life in the Palestinian territories before the 1948 Nakba.

    Al-Amasi argues that the deliberate targeting of libraries and cultural institutions is part of a broader Israeli campaign to erase Palestinian collective memory by destroying the physical evidence of their history and connection to the land. This is not the first time the institute has lost its work to Israeli strikes: during the 2014 Gaza offensive, the group’s original office in eastern Gaza City was bombed, killing five volunteer women who had fled their homes in Shujaiya and taken shelter in the building, and destroying hundreds of books and manuscripts that the team had already archived.

    After that attack, the devastated but determined team rebuilt their operations in a new location, and over the following years managed to recover and digitize hundreds more rare manuscripts, some dating back to the medieval period. In September 2025, that second office was also destroyed in an Israeli air strike. “Once again, we lost our library,” al-Amasi said simply.

    Even after repeated loss, the group has refused to end their work. “We feel it is our duty to keep striving to preserve and revive Palestinian cultural heritage in Gaza,” al-Amasi said. She has reached out to multiple international humanitarian and cultural organizations to request support, but says most global actors prioritize immediate needs like food and medical care in Gaza, ignoring the crisis facing Palestinian cultural heritage. “I believe cultural heritage is just as important,” she emphasized. “Future generations in Palestine will ask what we did to preserve our history.”

    Back at the Great Omari Mosque, the volunteers continue their slow, painstaking work, even as violence and crisis unfold around them. Al-Amasi recalls a time before the current war, when Gaza’s schoolchildren took part in regular reading competitions at the mosque library, an event that drew eager crowds of young learners. Today, Gaza’s children spend their days queuing for food aid and clean water, growing up surrounded by constant trauma from war. “By saving these books, we are trying to ensure that when the war ends, our children have something to read other than news of death,” al-Amasi said.

  • Satellite imagery suggests far more US assets in Middle East hit by Iran than reported

    Satellite imagery suggests far more US assets in Middle East hit by Iran than reported

    Fresh analysis of declassified satellite imagery has uncovered that the true scale of damage inflicted by Iranian strikes on United States military infrastructure across the Middle East has been dramatically understated in earlier public disclosures and media reporting, according to a sweeping new investigation.

    The Washington Post’s inquiry, which cross-referenced high-resolution satellite data with on-the-ground intelligence, has concluded that Iranian aerial attacks have damaged or completely destroyed at least 228 distinct structures and pieces of military equipment at US-operated sites throughout the region since the outbreak of the current conflict in late February. The targeted assets include critical military infrastructure: aircraft hangars, troop barracks, fuel storage depots, fixed-wing aircraft, and high-value radar, communications, and air defense systems that underpin US military operations in the Gulf.

    The outlet’s findings confirm that the total scope of destruction far exceeds the casualty and damage figures that the US government has previously acknowledged publicly. To date, Iranian attacks have claimed the lives of seven US service members: six based in Kuwait and one in Saudi Arabia, while more than 400 additional troops have sustained a range of injuries from the strikes, according to the investigation.

    The wave of Iranian strikes across regional targets was launched in response to the joint US-Israeli assault on Iran, which has killed more than 3,500 Iranian people, per data compiled by Hrana, a US-based Iranian human rights organization. The majority of Iranian counterattacks have focused on US military assets positioned across Gulf Cooperation Council states.

    On Tuesday, the United Arab Emirates confirmed that Iran had launched a second consecutive day of strikes on its territory, unleashing a heavy barrage of drone and missile attacks. Abu Dhabi officials added that one of the strikes ignited a large fire at an oil refinery in Fujairah, leaving three Indian nationals wounded.

    The escalation comes amid chaotic shifts in US military strategy around the Strait of Hormuz, the world’s most critical energy chokepoint. Iran closed the strategic waterway in response to the US-Israeli assault, triggering a global energy crisis. An estimated 20% of the world’s daily crude oil shipments and a fifth of global liquefied natural gas supplies pass through the strait, which sits between Iran and Oman. The International Energy Agency has confirmed that the closure has caused the largest single loss of global energy supply in history, cutting more than 10 million barrels of daily oil output from global markets and reducing worldwide LNG supplies by one-fifth.

    Just one day after the Pentagon launched a new escorted shipping operation through the strait dubbed “Project Freedom” – a mission supported by more than 100 aircraft and roughly 15,000 US military personnel, according to US Central Command – former President Donald Trump announced Tuesday that he was halting the operation in an unexpected move to pursue a negotiated agreement with Iran to de-escalate the conflict.