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  • ‘A loss for Irish football’: Ireland victory over Israel leaves sour taste

    ‘A loss for Irish football’: Ireland victory over Israel leaves sour taste

    A UEFA Nations League fixture between the Republic of Ireland and Israel, played out on a neutral pitch in Budapest, Hungary, on Sunday night, ended in a decisive 3-0 Irish victory – but the result has been overshadowed by widespread controversy over whether the match should ever have been allowed to proceed, amid ongoing public outrage over Israel’s military campaign in Gaza.

    The contest, relocated from Israel due to regional security concerns, became a stage for political protest from the Irish side ahead of kickoff. Irish players wore black armbands to honor the more than 74,000 Palestinians killed in Gaza since the October 7 2023 attacks, a death toll that includes over 21,000 children, which the Irish players and pro-Palestine activists frame as a genocide. They also observed a moment of silent reflection by bowing their heads during the playing of the Israeli national anthem, and declined to pre-match handshakes with their Israeli opponents.

    The gesture drew immediate anger from the small contingent of Israeli fans in attendance, who responded with boos, chants of “IDF, IDF” in support of the Israeli military, and verbal abuse directed at the Irish squad. Former Israeli soldier turned right-wing political influencer Yoseph Haddad, who is standing for a seat in the Knesset with the new Amcha Yisrael party, filmed the crowd chants and posted the clip to social media with a provocative message.

    “Israel’s national team lost to Ireland on the field, but let the antisemites not celebrate too much – because what really matters is that the IDF will defeat the terrorists that they support!” Haddad wrote. In an accompanying video, he added: “So yes, we lose on football, yes. But you know where we don’t lose? The IDF. We always win. So maybe the football Irish team beat us on the football field, but they will never ever break the Israeli spirit.”

    Israeli captain Manor Solomon, who plies his club trade with English Premier League side West Ham United, doubled down on that criticism, accusing Irish players of open animosity. “The Irish players had said stupid things during the game. Obviously they hate us and we don’t like them,” Solomon told reporters. “We have a country ten times better than theirs… We’re proud to be Israelis, proud of our country, proud of our soldiers…”

    On the pitch, Ireland took control of the contest within the opening 25 minutes, with goals from Troy Parrott, Adam Idah and Jack Moylan securing a comfortable win. But off the pitch, another controversy emerged during the match: Irish midfielder Jayson Molumby stopped play to draw the referee’s attention to alleged racial abuse directed at Idah, who has a Nigerian father. Photographs from the stadium appear to confirm Israeli fans were shouting toward Idah, but UEFA dismissed the claim, stating that no official complaint was submitted following match protocols, so no disciplinary action would be taken.

    The debate over whether the match should have been held at all has dominated reactions to the result, with pro-Palestine campaigners saying Irish football authorities failed to show moral leadership. Rebecca O’Keeffe, a former Irish international basketball player and campaign organizer with Irish Sport for Palestine, called the decision to play “a loss for Irish football” in comments to Middle East Eye, which first reported on the match.

    “Stepping on that pitch was a loss. Playing that game was a loss. They had stood to gain so much and had the opportunity to do the right thing, but they lost when they stepped on the pitch,” O’Keeffe said. “Ultimately the power lies with Football Association of Ireland, UEFA, the Irish government, and it was a complete absence of moral authority there.”

    The debate over the fixture stretched back seven months, when the match schedule was first announced, and has been shaped by deep tensions between Irish public opinion and competing geopolitical and economic pressures. The Irish public has broadly stood in solidarity with Palestinians throughout the Gaza conflict, a bond often rooted in shared experiences of anti-colonial struggle against British rule. That popular stance, however, clashes with Ireland’s deep economic dependence on the United States, Israel’s closest global ally.

    Data from the American Chamber of Commerce Ireland shows that more than 1,000 U.S.-owned companies operate in Ireland, employing 245,000 Irish workers across sectors. American investment has also reshaped European football in recent years: a 2025 report from CIES Sports Intelligence found that 144 European clubs count at least one American investor, many of whom hold pro-Israel views. U.S. politicians have also openly lobbied against any Irish move to sanction the Israel Football Association.

    Before his passing, senior U.S. Republican senator Lindsey Graham, a close ally of former President Donald Trump and staunch Israel supporter, issued a direct threat to Ireland. If Ireland moved to bar Israel from European tournaments, Graham said, it would amount to “punishing the Jewish people 80 years after the Holocaust.” He added: “If these attacks against Israel continue, I will do everything in my power to make those who participate in this effort to marginalise Israel in sports, and elsewhere, pay a heavy price when it comes to access to the American economy.”

    The question of whether the match would go ahead remained unresolved until 24 hours before kickoff, with the FAI ultimately leaving the decision to the playing squad. Roughly one-third of the squad voted to boycott the contest, and starting goalkeeper Gavin Bazunu withdrew from the team entirely over his objections.

    “My decision is based purely upon my personal belief that the killing of innocent people is wrong,” Bazunu said in a public statement announcing his withdrawal.

    The Football Association of Ireland (FAI) has faced widespread condemnation as cowardly and incompetent for its handling of the controversy. In the aftermath of Sunday’s match, FAI president Paul Cooke defended the decision to play, arguing that the lead-up “went as well as could be expected in the face of unprecedented coverage.”

    FAI officials have cited two key reasons for pushing ahead with the fixture: the association is currently carrying more than $40 million in debt, so losing match revenue from canceled games would have created a catastrophic financial hole, and the FAI claimed it faced unspecified sanctions from UEFA if it boycotted. Critics, however, have pushed back on that justification. Irish Times journalist Ken Early questioned how severe the “unspecified sanctions” could have been if Ireland had publicly taken a stand that Israel violated multiple UEFA statutes banning political and military breaches of governing body rules.

    O’Keeffe echoed that criticism, pointing to the months of advance notice the FAI had to organize a response. “This is the FAI’s doing. The lead-up exemplifies the lack of leadership, the FAI’s total incompetence,” she said. “They had months to act on this but again it descended into last-minute chaos.”

    Despite Sunday’s result, the controversy is far from over. O’Keeffe noted that public anger over the match has only energized Ireland’s pro-Palestine movement, with new demonstrations planned for Ireland’s upcoming Nations League fixture against Austria in Dublin this Thursday. A second leg between Ireland and Israel is scheduled for October 4 in Serbia, ensuring the debate over sports and the Gaza conflict will remain front and center in Irish public life for weeks to come.

  • Shobeiri Zanjani: The quiet ayatollah who bridged Iran’s political divide

    Shobeiri Zanjani: The quiet ayatollah who bridged Iran’s political divide

    On September 20, one of the most uniquely positioned religious figures in modern Iranian history, Grand Ayatollah Mousa Shobeiri Zanjani, passed away at the age of 98, leaving behind a legacy of rare political independence that transcended the deep ideological divides shaping the Islamic Republic’s politics.

    Shobeiri Zanjani carved out an unparalleled role in Iran’s clerical ecosystem: a senior religious scholar who intentionally held himself apart from formal state political power, yet commanded respect and influence that stretched across every faction of the country’s political and religious landscape. His student body included figures from opposite ends of Iran’s political spectrum: former reformist president Mohammad Khatami, and according to a senior source at the influential Qom Seminary, Mojtaba Khamenei, son of Iran’s current supreme leader Ali Khamenei. For generations, politicians and clerics from competing factions turned to Shobeiri for credibility and mediation precisely because his moral and religious authority was never tied to partisan or state interests.

    That deliberate political detachment made him a critical go-between at moments when Iran’s religious and state institutions collided. In the 1990s, the Qom Society of Seminary Scholars named Shobeiri one of just seven senior clerics qualified to serve as a marja – the highest rank of Shia religious authority, whose rulings on Islamic law are followed by believers around the world.

    Shobeiri belonged to a longstanding strand of Iranian traditional clerical thought that holds senior religious leaders should not seek direct involvement in political office or state power. This camp, which also includes another highly respected Qom-based cleric Ayatollah Vahid Khorasani, prioritizes three core missions: protecting the institutional independence of Iran’s seminaries from state interference, preserving the centuries-old marjaʿiyyah system of independent religious authority, and addressing religious and social issues rather than holding or exercising formal political power.

    Throughout his career, Shobeiri openly argued that excessive political entanglement by clerics erodes their religious standing and weakens public faith in Islam. In a 2017 gathering of clerics and scholars, he laid out his core philosophy clearly: “Some clerics believe that by becoming more involved in political matters, they can better preserve the standing of the clergy or the position of the mosque. We, however, believe that excessive politicisation, along with the emergence of differences of opinion – which are inevitable – can harm the standing of the clergy and the mosque and lead to a weakening of religious faith.”

    He also stressed that clerics without specialized expertise in governance should avoid overstepping into political debate. “Those who do not have expertise in this field would be better off refraining from getting too deeply involved in political matters,” he said. “If someone has expertise, there is no problem with them expressing views on broader issues. But when someone who has no expertise in political science speaks without studying the subject, it creates problems.”

    Even as he rejected direct political power, Shobeiri emphasized that religious leaders have a stake in the health of the Islamic Republic and the well-being of the Iranian people. “The Islamic Republic was established in the name of religion and is associated with religion, and preserving it is a religious duty. However, we must consider what contributes most to the survival of the government,” he noted at the same 2017 meeting. “The satisfaction of the people is, first and foremost, one of the things that can contribute to the survival of a government, and we must all work toward this.”

    Shobeiri’s reputation for scholarly rigor in Islamic fiqh (jurisprudence) and unwavering political independence drew students from across Iran’s ideological divides to his Qom lectures. In the late 1960s, Khatami, who would later lead Iran’s reformist movement, studied advanced jurisprudence under Shobeiri. The ayatollah once famously praised his young student in correspondence, writing: “Just as Christopher Columbus discovered the American continent, I too discovered Seyyed Mohammad Khatami in the seminary.” Mohammad Reza Khatami, the former president’s brother, later described the bond between the two as far more than teacher and student – it was a decades-long spiritual and personal friendship.

    According to the Qom Seminary source who spoke to Middle East Eye, two of Supreme Leader Khamenei’s sons, Mostafa and Mojtaba, also attended Shobeiri’s classes. Khamenei himself once told Shobeiri: “When my sons decided to become seminary students, I did not tell them to do so; they chose it themselves, and of course I was happy with their choice. When one of them came to Qom, I did not tell him to attend your classes; he chose your classes himself, and I was also happy with that choice.”

    Shobeiri’s influence as a cross-factional mediator took center stage during the 2009 disputed presidential election, a watershed moment that remains one of the most divisive events in modern Iranian history. After incumbent president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, backed by Khamenei, was declared the winner over reformist candidates Mir Hossein Mousavi and Mehdi Karroubi, the opposition alleged widespread vote rigging, triggering mass nationwide protests that were met with a harsh state crackdown that saw thousands of demonstrators arrested.

    As tensions boiled over, many Iranians across factions turned to Shobeiri, leveraging his longstanding personal relationship with Khamenei to push for de-escalation. A group of 70 prominent political and academic figures, including Mousavi, Karroubi and Khatami, issued an open letter to senior Shia clerics raising alarms about reports of repeated torture of detained protesters and calling on religious leaders to intervene. In response, Shobeiri gathered with two other senior dissident clerics – Grand Ayatollah Hossein-Ali Montazeri and former chief justice Ayatollah Mousavi Ardabili – to discuss the unfolding political and religious crisis.

    Years later, prominent religious researcher and dissident Mohsen Kadivar revealed that Shobeiri held private meetings with Supreme Leader Khamenei during the protests in an effort to pressure the state to reduce its use of violence against demonstrators. After the crackdown, Shobeiri repeatedly intervened to secure the release of imprisoned political activists. Kadivar confirmed that Shobeiri once reached out directly to Khamenei’s office to successfully secure the release of Ali Shakouri-Rad, a leading reformist politician close to Mousavi.

    When Khamenei ordered Mousavi and Karroubi placed under house arrest in 2011, the ayatollah made multiple personal attempts to persuade the supreme leader to reverse the decision, though these efforts ultimately failed. This was not the first time Shobeiri pushed back against state political actions: Kadivar also confirmed that Shobeiri met with Khamenei at least twice before 2009 to call for the lifting of house arrest imposed on Montazeri, one of the most prominent critics of Khamenei’s rule.

    Shobeiri’s commitment to cross-factional engagement drew public criticism from hardline conservative clerics in 2018, after photos emerged of him meeting with Khatami, former interior minister Abdollah Nouri, and a group of other leading reformist figures. Senior conservative cleric Ayatollah Mohammad Yazdi sent a sharply worded public letter to Shobeiri, urging him to uphold the dignity of his clerical position and show proper respect for the ruling Islamic system. Yazdi chastised Shobeiri for failing to respond to two previous private letters, writing that “your position and standing are grounded in respect for the Islamic system in power, the Leader, and the status of religious authority.” He demanded Shobeiri take steps to prevent similar meetings from happening in the future.

    The letter sparked immediate backlash from clerics and public figures across Iran. One senior cleric, Ayatollah Mohammad Andalib Hamadani, resigned from his position on the board of the Society of Seminary Teachers, which Yazdi chaired, in protest of the attack on Shobeiri. Kadivar, speaking out against what he called the threatening tone of Yazdi’s letter, summarized the core of Shobeiri’s independent legacy: “Mousa Shobeiri does not owe his religious authority to the political system or to Mr Khamenei, so that the Leader’s agents can threaten him. His standing and respect are the result of his scholarly precision and practical piety. Yazdi conveyed a message from the Leader: if you make a mistake and act differently from the Leader’s wishes, you will lose the respect due to your scholarship and the status of religious authority, because, from the system’s perspective, the dignity of religious authority means conformity with the wishes of the supreme leader.”

  • Watch: RAF Fairford suspects are bailed, what happens now?

    Watch: RAF Fairford suspects are bailed, what happens now?

    In a developing update to a major counter-terrorism operation targeting a suspected plot linked to Royal Air Force Fairford, five UK nationals in their 20s who reside in London have been released on bail following their arrest late last week. The group was taken into custody last week under provisions of the Explosives Act, with additional suspicion of being involved in preparations to carry out a terrorist act, sending shockwaves through national security circles and raising fresh questions about domestic extremism risks in the United Kingdom.

    RAF Fairford, a key Royal Air Force base located in Gloucestershire, England, is a strategically critical installation that regularly hosts U.S. Air Force operations and large NATO military exercises. Its high-profile status makes it a potential target for malicious actors, prompting swift action from counter-terrorism policing when intelligence flagged potential suspicious activity in the area.

    Authorities confirmed that all five suspects remain under active investigation following their release on bail, which was granted by Thames Valley Police, the lead law enforcement agency handling the case. Bail conditions include strict requirements: suspects must surrender their passports, adhere to curfews, avoid contact with co-accused individuals, and stay away from RAF installations across the country. These measures are designed to eliminate any potential risk of further criminal activity while investigators sift through digital evidence, witness statements, and intelligence gathered during searches conducted after the arrests.

    Counter-terrorism policing officials have stated that the public was not considered to be in immediate danger at any point during the investigation, but they have urged communities to remain vigilant and report any suspicious activity to authorities. The case highlights the ongoing work of UK security agencies to disrupt potential terror plots before they can cause harm, even as law enforcement navigates the legal process of building a strong prosecutorial case.

    Now that the suspects have been bailed, the investigation enters a critical evidence-gathering phase. Forensic teams are still analyzing materials seized during multiple searches of properties in London linked to the suspects, and detectives are following up on hundreds of lines of inquiry to confirm whether the alleged plot was fully planned, who else may be involved, and what the intended target was. Legal teams will review all evidence gathered to determine whether formal charges will be filed once the bail term concludes.

  • Erdogan playing East and West, winning room to maneuver

    Erdogan playing East and West, winning room to maneuver

    Just two months after hosting the NATO summit in a move designed to cement Turkey’s status as a cornerstone of transatlantic security, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has announced plans to pursue full membership in the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO), a China- and Russia-led bloc often framed as a counterweight to NATO, even dubbed by some a “rogue NATO” that challenges Western-led international order.

    This seemingly contradictory policy shift has reignited longstanding speculation: is Turkey gradually abandoning its Western alignment to pivot toward the East? But this debate rests on an outdated assumption of a rigidly divided world of competing, monolithic blocs. In reality, today’s global landscape is defined by overlapping, often conflicting international orders, each with its own institutional frameworks, norms, and claims to global authority. Far from signaling a full pivot, Turkey’s latest move is a deliberate assertion of strategic autonomy, as it navigates across these overlapping systems to advance its own interests.

    The post-Cold War vision of a single, unified global order centered on Western institutions is becoming increasingly unsustainable. NATO now coexists alongside emerging power coalitions and region- or issue-specific partnerships that do not answer to Western leadership. While these orders overlap, they are rarely fully compatible, with competing norms and political visions that open space for middle powers to engage with multiple blocs without submitting fully to any single one’s authority.

    Turkey has walked this line for decades: it has retained its deep roots in NATO (a member since 1952) and maintains extensive economic ties to the European Union, where it remains a formal candidate for membership. At the same time, it has steadily deepened diplomatic, economic, and strategic connections to Russia and China, and has been an SCO dialogue partner since 2012. It has also carved out a larger independent role for itself across the Middle East, Africa, the Caucasus, and Central Asia.

    Critics often dismiss this approach as inconsistent or opportunistically tactical, but as Spyros A. Sofos, assistant professor in global humanities at Simon Fraser University, argues in his new book *Turkey, Geopolitics, and the Age of Populist World-Making*, Turkey’s flexible diplomacy reflects a deliberate broader goal: expanding its freedom of action by preventing any single alliance from locking in its international role.

    Erdogan frames Turkey not as a peripheral state trapped between rival blocs, but as an independent regional power capable of shaping the contours of the global system itself. This approach extends his domestic populist political strategy onto the international stage. Just as he has positioned the Turkish people as a group long silenced by entrenched domestic elites, he frames Turkey as a nation denied its rightful global status by Western-dominated international hierarchies. Sofos terms this approach “populist world-making”: a framework that recasts global politics as a struggle between historical hegemons that have long controlled the international order, and states whose agency and rightful status have been systemically marginalized.

    For Erdogan, full SCO membership is not intended to replace Turkey’s NATO membership. Instead, it adds another diplomatic and economic arena where Turkey can pursue its interests without ceding exclusive influence to Western powers. In practice, this means Turkey engages in what can be described as “forum shopping”: it moves flexibly across institutions, coalitions, and diplomatic processes, crossing supposedly fixed bloc boundaries whenever doing so expands its influence or loosens external constraints on its policy.

    The SCO membership bid is just the latest example of this longstanding strategy. In Libya, for instance, Turkey provided military backing to the UN-recognized national government, and openly criticized France and other NATO allies for supporting opposing factions. Yet at the same time, Turkey pursued a policy of what Sofos calls “competitive coexistence” with Russia, which backed the opposing side: Turkey toned down its rhetoric and avoided direct military confrontation with Russian forces operating in the country.

    Turkish rivalry with France has also played out in the African Sahel, where Turkey expanded trade, development aid, and defense cooperation — including the sale of Turkish combat drones — by leveraging growing resentment among regional governments over France’s ongoing military presence and lingering post-colonial influence. In the Eastern Mediterranean, Turkey has aggressively challenged a French-backed cooperation agreement between Greece, Cyprus, and Israel over maritime jurisdiction and energy development, a deal Ankara views as deliberately exclusionary of Turkish interests.

    Syria offers an even clearer illustration of Turkey’s commitment to flexible forum shopping. Like other NATO members, Turkey has opposed the regime of Bashar al-Assad. Yet it has worked alongside Russia and Iran through the exclusive Astana peace process, a framework independent of the Western-led Geneva talks, to manage competing interests and de-escalate armed conflict across northern Syria. Even though the three states supported opposing factions and held conflicting core objectives, they built a parallel diplomatic forum outside Western-led structures because it served each of their individual national interests.

    Turkey’s complicated relationship with Russia follows the same playbook. Turkey publicly condemned Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, supplied lethal weapons to Kyiv’s armed forces, and enforced international agreements by closing the Turkish straits to Russian warships. Yet at the same time, Ankara refused to join Western-led sanctions on Moscow, and maintained close economic and diplomatic ties with the Kremlin. This flexible stance allowed Turkey to broker the landmark Black Sea Grain Initiative, a deal that enabled grain exports from Ukraine’s Black Sea ports and gave Ankara a high-profile diplomatic role that no rigidly aligned state could have claimed.

    The message from Ankara is unambiguous: Turkey will not automatically align with NATO on every global issue. Instead, it leverages its membership in multiple overlapping blocs to preserve its strategic autonomy and prevent any single bloc from dictating its foreign policy choices.

    That said, Turkey’s room for maneuver is not unlimited. Its economy remains heavily dependent on access to European markets and Western capital, and its core security architecture still relies on NATO collective defense commitments. Meanwhile, Russia, China, and Iran are partners in some policy arenas but direct competitors in others.

    While forum shopping expands Turkey’s strategic autonomy, it also creates persistent friction, erodes trust among alliance partners, and carries the risk of overextending Turkish influence across too many regions. Sofos emphasizes that “populist world-making” is not a rigid grand strategy to rewrite the global order, but rather a political orientation: an effort to convert diplomatic flexibility into greater global status and recognition for Turkey.

    At its core, Erdogan’s policy rejects the idea that external powers should define Turkey’s foreign policy choices. He is not seeking to exit the existing international order entirely; instead, he is pushing for a more prominent position within it, and global recognition of Turkey as a major power entitled to help shape the future of global governance.

  • Stuck between superpowers: How Australia navigates the China-US rivalry

    Stuck between superpowers: How Australia navigates the China-US rivalry

    The sharp crack of sniper fire cuts through the quiet eucalyptus canopies of outback Queensland near Townsville, a region that has not seen active conflict since World War II. Moments later, missile strikes send plumes of smoke billowing into the sky, the hum of surveillance drones rising above the treeline before being drowned out by the thrum of military helicopters passing overhead. No piece of advanced military hardware is left out of this display, and no expense has been spared. But this is no active war zone – it is one of the largest joint military exercises the Indo-Pacific has seen in recent years, a visible sign of Australia’s shifting strategic posture amid growing great power competition.

    Brigadier Ben McLennan of the Australian Army frames the training as a necessary response to an increasingly unstable global landscape. “War is no longer the distant abstract concept it once was for many Australians,” he explained, noting that even thousands of miles from active conflicts in Ukraine and the Middle East, the nation already feels their ripple effects through spiking fuel costs and soaring inflation. When pressed to name a potential adversary, McLennan remained deliberately vague, only noting that the exercise prepares Australian forces for “the worst type of war – a total war on the scale of the World Wars.”

    This large-scale drill, dubbed Exercise Southern Jackaroo, brings together thousands of troops from Australia, the United States, and Japan to deepen defensive coordination across the Indo-Pacific. The growth in participation underscores just how much Australia’s security alignment has shifted over the last decade: in 2012, just 200 U.S. Marines rotated through northern Australia for annual training. Today, that number has jumped to roughly 2,500. The expansion extends beyond troop numbers, too: key northern Australian bases, including RAAF Tindal in the Northern Territory, have undergone major upgrades to accommodate long-range U.S. B-52 bombers. The most ambitious security partnership, however, remains AUKUS – the trilateral pact between Australia, the U.K., and the U.S. that will provide Australia with nuclear-powered submarines, a landmark agreement that has sharply deepened the nation’s security ties with Washington.

    Australia’s approach stands out among other middle-sized global powers. While nations like Canada have re-evaluated their security commitments amid growing uncertainty over U.S. reliability, Canberra has doubled down on its alignment with Washington. This shift, however, is out of step with shifting public opinion among Australian voters, according to recent polling from the Lowy Institute, an independent Australian think tank. Just 31% of Australians now trust the United States to act responsibly in global affairs, and only 28% extend that trust to China – a stark gap between public sentiment and the government’s current policy trajectory.

    This divergence reflects the central paradox shaping modern Australian foreign policy: while Canberra deepens its security alliance with the U.S. to counter China’s growing military buildup and expanding regional influence in the Pacific, China remains Australia’s largest and most economically critical trading partner. The economic ties between the two nations run deep: China overtook other partners to become Australia’s top export market in the early 2010s, driven by insatiable demand for Australian commodities. The relationship reached its peak in 2015, when the two nations signed a landmark free trade agreement following a state visit by Chinese President Xi Jinping, who addressed Australia’s parliament.

    That era of relatively warm bilateral relations collapsed quickly after 2020, when Australia called for an independent international investigation into the origins of COVID-19. Beijing retaliated with steep tariffs on a range of Australian exports, and in 2021, Canberra canceled Victoria’s state-level participation in China’s Belt and Road Initiative, making Australia the first nation to walk back from the global infrastructure program. Diplomatic frictions deepened amid the detention of Australian citizens in China, including journalist Cheng Lei, who was released in 2023 after more than three years in custody.

    Relations have warmed slightly under current Prime Minister Anthony Albanese’s center-left Labor government, but frictions remain. Earlier this year, Beijing imposed a 55% tariff on Australian beef imports, despite the terms of the 2015 free trade agreement, a move framed as protection for China’s domestic agricultural sector. Even so, public attitudes toward China have softened in recent years: the 2026 Lowy Institute Poll finds that 61% of Australians now view China primarily as an economic partner rather than a security threat, an 11-point increase from 2025. For the first time, a narrow majority of 51% of respondents say that Australia’s relationship with China is more important than its relationship with the United States. Australians remain wary of Chinese investment in the nation, however, with most preferring investment from Western nations with similar regulatory frameworks and higher levels of established trust.

    Former Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, a veteran China analyst who speaks fluent Mandarin, recently warned that the global order is undergoing “radical changes” driven by China’s growing global influence at a time when the United States continues to debate its own role as a global superpower. Marina Yue Zhang, an associate professor at the University of Technology Sydney, notes that growing numbers of Australians are questioning the reliability of the U.S. as a long-term security ally, particularly amid domestic political upheaval in Washington.

    When Chinese President Xi Jinping met U.S. President Donald Trump in Beijing earlier this year, Xi referenced the “Thucydides Trap” – the theory that a rising power challenging an established hegemon will almost inevitably be drawn into conflict. For Australia, sitting directly between the two competing superpowers, this great power rivalry creates an unavoidable dilemma. Washington remains Canberra’s core security partner, even as public trust in the U.S. declines, while Beijing is the foundation of Australia’s economic prosperity. “It’s not an either-or choice for Australia – picking one side and cutting off the other would be directly against the nation’s core interests,” Zhang explained. “It’s getting harder and harder to walk this middle line, but Australia has no other choice but to maintain this delicate balancing act.”

  • Trump-Xi summit bade farewell to ‘China plus one’

    Trump-Xi summit bade farewell to ‘China plus one’

    When Chinese President Xi Jinping touched down at Joint Base Andrews for his 2026 state visit to Washington, US President Donald Trump extended a rare, high-profile welcome, greeting the Chinese leader in person against a backdrop of full state pageantry: a red carpet procession, an official cannon salute, a curated state dinner, and a ceremonial bald eagle sculpture gifted to Xi. Even before the visit began, cross-partisan critics warned that the elaborate ceremony would legitimize what Washington has long framed as a strategic rival. But behind the ceremonial fanfare, a quiet, fundamental shift was unfolding in the trajectory of the world’s most consequential bilateral relationship.

    Months earlier, at a summit in Beijing, the two leaders had already laid the conceptual groundwork for a new framework: a “constructive China-US relationship of strategic stability.” Each term in this new formula carries deliberate weight: “constructive” commits both sides to advancing shared positive priorities rather than merely managing confrontation; “strategic” anchors the relationship in long-term, leader-level statecraft rather than short-term political posturing; and “stability” sets clear guardrails to prevent uncontrolled escalation. During Xi’s Washington visit, this rhetorical framework moved from a conceptual agreement to a tangible working plan — marking a sharp break from the framing that shaped US-China relations from 2018 through the mid-2020s.

    During Trump’s first presidential term, Washington launched a full-scale trade war against Beijing, imposed sweeping tariffs on hundreds of billions of dollars in Chinese goods, and enacted strict technology sanctions on leading Chinese firms including Huawei. The White House pushed multinational corporations to adopt the “China+1” strategy, which required moving manufacturing capacity out of China to build alternative supply bases in Vietnam, India, or Mexico, and positioned full economic decoupling as the end goal.

    In response to this pressure over nearly a decade, Beijing systematically diversified its trade partnerships across Southeast Asia, Latin America, and Africa. Data from the McKinsey Global Institute’s 2026 report on global trade flows shows that bilateral US-China trade dropped by roughly 30% in 2025 alone. But over the same period, China built out a comprehensive, strategically vital end-to-end supply chain, spanning from raw basic materials to cutting-edge advanced manufacturing equipment. Today, China is the only economy in the world that covers every single one of the 41 industrial categories and 666 sub-categories defined by United Nations industrial classification. It supplies advanced machinery, critical components, and core materials to manufacturing facilities across the globe, leading McKinsey to label China the “factory to the world’s factories” — a shift also documented by *The Wall Street Journal*.

    Far from displacing China from global supply chains, the “China+1” strategy ultimately pushed China to move up the global value ladder. The alternative production hubs that Washington encouraged — India, Vietnam, and Mexico — have largely ended up functioning as final assembly points for Chinese components and intermediate goods. Today, the once-ubiquitous term “China+1” has all but disappeared from mainstream discourse in Washington. No senior administration official or leading American business executive uses the phrase anymore; Washington has effectively abandoned the policy framing.

    This shift could not be more clearly illustrated than by the guest list at the Trump-Xi state dinner. Seated alongside the two heads of state at the head table were the chief executives of America’s largest technology firms: Apple’s Tim Cook, Nvidia’s Jensen Huang, AMD’s Lisa Su, and Tesla’s Elon Musk. All four leaders have openly acknowledged that China is irreplaceable to their businesses, both as the world’s largest consumer market for their products and as a core base of their global supply chains.
    According to Apple’s vice president for Asia procurement and operations, the company’s first foldable smartphone, the iPhone Duo, was entirely developed, trial-produced, and assembled in China — not in India or Vietnam, as many had predicted would happen under decoupling pressure. Tesla, which once announced plans to phase out Chinese suppliers for vehicles built in its US factories, is now actively sourcing multiple components from Chinese suppliers for its Optimus humanoid robot, and has already finalized orders. For months, Jensen Huang has publicly argued that US chip export controls on China are backfiring and eroding American semiconductor competitiveness, while Lisa Su has reaffirmed AMD’s commitment to deepening its market and operational engagement in China.

    The logic that guides large American tech firms also holds for smaller businesses. Last week, California-based battery startup EnerVenue announced it had launched full mass production at its new facility in Changzhou, China, after scrapping plans to build a $264 million factory in Kentucky. The company’s chief executive cited China’s unmatched skilled workforce and integrated supply chain ecosystem, echoing the “factory of factories” framing used by independent analysts. Chinese business outlets have also documented dozens of cases where American manufacturers that shifted orders to India or Southeast Asia to avoid US tariffs encountered widespread quality control issues and delivery delays, ultimately moving production back to their original Chinese suppliers.

    During the formal toasts at the state dinner, both leaders grounded the new bilateral direction in shared history, with a particular focus on expanding people-to-people and business-to-business ties. Trump highlighted the long-standing foundation of commercial exchange and mutual respect between the two nations, emphasizing the enduring people-to-people connections that outlast political shifts. Xi recalled the early trade ties that formed shortly after American independence, the Hump Airlift operation that supported the Allied war effort against Japan during World War II, and the iconic Ping-Pong Diplomacy that paved the way for bilateral normalization decades ago. He also highlighted a small, symbolic people-to-people story: Ronald Sakolsky, an American teacher who donated $5,000 to support a Chinese woman’s desert reforestation project 20 years earlier, who had recently returned to see the full forest that his donation helped grow.

    The most strategically significant remark of the visit came when Xi framed China’s pursuit of national rejuvenation and Trump’s “Make America Great Again” domestic agenda as initiatives that “can surely be mutually reinforcing.” This framing directly challenges the dominant narrative in Washington that the US-China relationship is doomed to the Thucydides Trap — the theory that a rising power and an established incumbent power will inevitably clash in war. Xi rejected this zero-sum premise, offering an alternative vision: two great powers pursuing national renewal do not have to collide, and can instead cooperate under a new framework for major power coexistence.

    This shift in direction does not mean that long-standing rivalry and competition between the two powers have disappeared, or will fade in the near future. Just two months before the visit, in July 2026, the US Federal Communications Commission added foreign-made humanoid and industrial robots to its list of restricted covered technologies, a move that Beijing formally condemned. Existing US chip export controls on China remain fully in place, and official trade data shows that China’s exports of rare earth magnets to the US fell 21% in August 2026 to 512 tons, on track to hit their lowest annual level since 2021. Key flashpoints including the Taiwan issue, Iran’s nuclear program, and global artificial intelligence safety regulation will continue to test the new “constructive relationship of strategic stability” framework. Even so, both leaders have explicitly committed to upholding the guardrails that this new model provides.

    Where the first Trump administration launched decoupling and the “China+1” strategy, the second Trump administration now recognizes China as an equal negotiating partner, a critical supplier that the US economy cannot easily replace, and the other half of the only G2 that shapes global outcomes.

    The ceremonial events at Joint Base Andrews and the White House East Room will soon fade from front-page headlines. But the enduring takeaway from Xi’s 2026 state visit is clear: Washington has abandoned its public rhetoric of withdrawing from China, and corporate America never truly left in the first place.

    This analysis is by Xin Wang, Professor of Chinese Studies and Director of Asian Studies at Baylor University.

  • What a US diesel export ban could mean for you

    What a US diesel export ban could mean for you

    With just weeks to go before critical US midterm elections, surging diesel prices that have squeezed American drivers and pushed broader inflation higher have emerged as a flashpoint in policy debate, after former President Donald Trump announced he would back a full ban on American diesel exports to cool domestic costs.

    Average US diesel prices currently hover near a historic high of $6.45 per gallon, according to data from the American Automobile Association (AAA), with some regions topping $6.50 per gallon — a nearly 70% jump year-over-year. Industry analysts trace the price spike to two overlapping pressures: tight global diesel supplies and market disruptions tied to the ongoing US-Iran conflict, which has disrupted shipping through the Strait of Hormuz, the strategic waterway that carries roughly one-fifth of the world’s total oil and gas supplies.

    As one of the world’s top energy producers, the United States churns out roughly 4 to 5 million barrels of diesel daily from domestic refineries, per data from the US Energy Information Administration (EIA). Domestic US consumers consume about 3.6 million barrels of that output each day, leaving between 1.2 and 1.5 million barrels for export. This makes the US a critical, reliable supplier for global markets, with 60% to 70% of American diesel exports heading to Latin American nations including Mexico, Brazil, Chile and Ecuador, which depend on US shipments to power their transportation, agricultural and manufacturing sectors. Additional significant volumes are exported to European countries including France, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom, where buyers have turned to non-Middle Eastern energy supplies in recent years amid regional instability.

    For the US economy, the impact of elevated diesel prices extends far beyond individual drivers: diesel powers most commercial transport and heavy equipment in the country, from freight trucks and cargo trains to farm machinery and construction vehicles. That means higher fuel costs flow directly into higher prices for groceries, construction projects and nearly all consumer goods, worsening the country’s ongoing inflation crisis. The pain is mirrored globally: the UK has already hit all-time record diesel prices at the pump, prompting urgent warnings about strained logistics costs and stretched household budgets. UK Chancellor John Healey confirmed to BBC News that the British government is in active talks with US officials about the potential export ban and has already begun contingency planning for supply disruptions. Across continental Europe, including France, governments are grappling with similar cost-of-living crises driven in part by spiking fuel prices.

    Trump first signaled his support for the ban on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly, where he stated he had called for halting diesel shipments overseas. He doubled down on the proposal over the weekend, arguing that restricting exports would keep excess fuel within the US, drive down domestic prices and deliver immediate relief to voters ahead of the midterms. The president noted Sunday that his administration is “thinking about it very seriously.” The proposal has earned backing from key Republican lawmakers, including Congresswoman Ashley Hinson and Senator Dan Sullivan, who frame it as a common-sense measure to insulate the US economy from foreign market shocks, arguing that American energy should prioritize American workers and households first.

    While economists acknowledge that an export ban could deliver short-term relief for US consumers by flooding the domestic market with extra supply, many warn the policy could backfire dramatically, with severe consequences for both the US and global economies. David Fyfe, chief economist at energy industry intelligence firm Argus Media, explained that cutting off more than a million barrels of daily US supply from global markets would send international diesel prices soaring. This would push up global freight, food and industrial costs, ultimately “feeding inflation back into the global economy” and erasing any short-term domestic gains.

    Beyond immediate economic impacts, Fyfe warned that a ban would permanently damage the United States’ reputation as a reliable global energy supplier. Sarah Raffoul, analytics manager at Argus Media, added that the sudden loss of US supply would trigger an intense bidding war between dependent importing nations in Latin America and Europe. While higher global prices would eventually cool demand, the immediate supply gap would severely strain US trade relationships and accelerate already soaring global inflation, experts say.

  • Stand-up comic set for release after being convicted of insulting Erdoğan

    Stand-up comic set for release after being convicted of insulting Erdoğan

    On Monday, supporters of Turkish comedian Deniz Göktaş assembled outside an Istanbul courthouse holding placards declaring “Deniz Göktaş not alone,” as a local court issued a highly anticipated verdict in a case that has drawn international attention to shrinking free speech protections in Turkey.

    The court found Göktaş, one of Turkey’s most popular stand-up performers, guilty of insulting President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, sentencing him to nearly 19 months in prison. However, the court ordered his immediate release from custody, accounting for the 88 days he has already spent behind bars. The ruling also imposed a permanent travel ban that bars Göktaş from leaving Turkey, and the case will now move to an appeals court for a final judicial decision.

    Göktaş has consistently denied the charges against him. The case stems from a viral stand-up routine posted to YouTube that has racked up more than 15 million views. Prosecutors took issue with a single line from the set where Göktaş described Erdoğan as “a shy dictator.” During the proceedings, the comedian pushed back against the characterization of his comment as an insult, arguing that “dictator is not an insult, it is a political characterisation” and that there was “no criminal element” to his remarks.

    Göktaş was first arrested in July at Istanbul airport as he returned from an overseas vacation, and he has been held in solitary confinement for nearly three months. Prosecutors had initially sought a sentence of up to 12 years in prison, making the Monday verdict a milder outcome than many observers expected. Remarkably, Göktaş retained his signature wit even after months in solitary. When addressing the court, he joked, “Three months have been taken away from my life. But I quit smoking, so I’ll add another three months to my life.” The quip drew laughter and loud applause from supporters packed inside the courtroom.

    Outside the courthouse, Göktaş’s supporters expressed cautious relief at the outcome. Firat Aksal, a fellow comedian and friend of Göktaş, shared that the community had gone into the trial with little expectation of a fair ruling. “We hardly know what to do with our happiness,” Aksal said. “We are thrilled. To be honest we weren’t hopeful of getting a fair trial.” According to Aksal, Göktaş plans to take a short break to reunite with his family before returning to the stage, with his release expected within hours of the ruling.

    Despite this partial win for Göktaş and his supporters, the broader crackdown on dissent in Turkey continues unabated. Human rights organizations have documented a sweeping wave of arrests targeting critics of the Erdoğan administration, and thousands of detainees remain behind bars. Those still in custody include dozens of journalists, human rights campaigners, student protesters, LGBTQ activists, and even Ekrem İmamoğlu, the popular elected mayor of Istanbul. Prisons across Turkey are currently operating over capacity as the government continues its campaign to suppress opposition voices.

  • US prosecutors reopen case of alleged gang rape at Cornell University

    US prosecutors reopen case of alleged gang rape at Cornell University

    A high-profile sexual assault case tied to an Ivy League fraternity has surged back into the national spotlight, after New York state prosecutors announced they will reopen a dormant criminal investigation into the alleged 2024 gang rape of a female Cornell University student. The case first became public in mid-September, when the accuser—identified in court records only as Jane Doe to protect her privacy—filed a civil lawsuit outlining disturbing claims against seven members of Cornell’s Chi Phi fraternity chapter.

    According to Jane Doe’s allegations, the assault unfolded on the night of October 19, 2024, at the fraternity’s on-campus house. She claims the men plied her with alcohol and ketamine, leaving her so severely intoxicated that she was incapable of giving informed consent to any sexual activity. The civil suit also includes a screenshot pulled from a private Snapchat group chat for fraternity members, where one participant used vulgar language to alert other members that a sexual encounter with Jane Doe was imminent.

    When Jane Doe first reported the incident to Cornell University Police nearly three weeks later, on November 8, 2024, prosecutors from the Tompkins County District Attorney’s office reviewed the evidence and decided the case did not meet the legal threshold required to file criminal charges. That decision is now being reversed. In a public statement issued Monday, current District Attorney Matthew Van Houten confirmed his office would move forward with the case by presenting evidence to a grand jury, a standard procedural step in the U.S. legal system that allows independent jurors to weigh evidence and vote on whether criminal charges are warranted.

    “Once we determine the appropriate charges, the case will be prosecuted in the most objective and impartial means possible” through the grand jury process, Van Houten said. He also acknowledged a key, widely recognized reality for sexual assault survivors: that the trauma of an attack can leave victims unable to fully process or articulate what happened to them for months or even years after the incident.

    Still, Van Houten highlighted a critical discrepancy between Jane Doe’s original 2024 statement to police and the claims laid out in her recent civil suit. “Jane Doe’s sworn statement in November of 2024 did not allege that she was drugged against her will or gang raped,” he said. “On the contrary, Jane Doe’s statement described her participation in drug use and sexual conduct as voluntary, conscious, and consensual.” He also added that prior to the filing of the civil suit, Jane Doe’s legal team had never reached out to his office to advise that her original statement was inaccurate, or to request that the initial declination to charge be reconsidered.

    Jane Doe’s legal team has pushed back hard against that narrative, and criticized prosecutors for their initial handling of the case. Thomas Giuffra, Jane Doe’s attorney, said in a statement obtained by CBS that in the immediate aftermath of the assault, his client was so deeply traumatized that she was in survival mode, unable to process or accept the full scope of the violence she experienced. Giuffra argued that basic investigative protocol was never followed: “I would have expected at the very least that she would have been interviewed several times and evidence collected by law enforcement and a case developed. This is the normal sequence for serious crime investigations.” He also suggested that Van Houten’s defensive framing of the initial decision indicates prosecutors are trying to cover up past investigative failures.

    Alongside the criminal allegations against the fraternity members, Jane Doe’s civil suit also accuses Cornell University of failing to protect her and of handing down overly lenient punishments to the accused, claiming the men were allowed to reduce their penalties simply by submitting written essays. The lawsuit states that Jane Doe has endured severe long-term emotional, psychological and physical harm as a result of both the assault and the university’s inadequate response, with news of the incident spreading rapidly across the campus community.

    Cornell has forcefully denied these claims, even as it expressed support for moving forward with the grand jury process. “Any suggestion that the university did not impose consequential punishments for those involved is false,” the university said in its own public statement Monday. Back in November 2024, shortly after the initial report, Cornell suspended the Chi Phi local chapter and multiple individual students tied to the incident, launched an internal campus investigation, and opened a formal civil rights inquiry under Title IX, the federal law that prohibits gender-based discrimination in educational institutions that receive public funding.

    Cornell officials clarified that the case was reviewed by a specialized panel of trained faculty and staff, which issued a range of serious penalties including expulsions and long-term suspensions for involved students. “None of the individuals charged were offered the opportunity to write essays as a sole consequence of their involvement,” the university’s statement read.

    Attorneys for the accused men have also rejected Jane Doe’s claims outright. Jeremy Saland, legal counsel for one of the men named in the suit, acknowledged his client made an immature comment in the Snapchat group chat, but insisted he “did nothing else.” Saland denied his client engaged in any sexual activity, touched the accuser, or consumed ketamine the night of the incident.

    Since the filing of the civil suit and the announcement that the criminal inquiry will be reopened, the case has garnered nationwide media attention, with high-profile public figures including actress Florence Pugh speaking out about the allegations. For people experiencing trauma or distress related to sexual violence, support resources are available globally through Befrienders Worldwide, with additional targeted services listed for UK residents on the organization’s website.

  • ‘We hear you, you were right’: Ed Miliband addresses critics of Labour policy on Palestine

    ‘We hear you, you were right’: Ed Miliband addresses critics of Labour policy on Palestine

    Delivering his first keynote address as UK Foreign Secretary at the Labour Party conference in Liverpool, Ed Miliband offered a direct response to millions of people across the UK and the globe who have been deeply moved and angered by the ongoing crisis facing the Palestinian people, telling them: “We hear you, you were right.”

    Miliband used his debut speech in the senior diplomatic role to lay out a new direction for British foreign policy under the new Labour government led by Prime Minister Andy Burnham, who recently replaced Keir Starmer in Downing Street. The new administration has formally reset the UK’s approach to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, breaking sharply from the prior government’s stance.

    In his address, Miliband made clear the new government’s unambiguous commitments: it explicitly calls out ethnic cleansing carried out by settler terrorists in the occupied West Bank, confirms the documented evidence of war crimes in Gaza, and officially labels Israel’s decades-long illegal occupation of Palestinian territory. Crucially, Miliband emphasized that the new approach pairs public condemnation with concrete policy action.

    These pledges build on announcements Miliband made earlier this month, when he first formally designated Israel’s occupation of Palestinian lands as illegal, unveiled sweeping sanctions targeting Israeli settlements, and enacted a full ban on all arms licenses and exports that could materially contribute to sustaining the occupation. In a significant diplomatic win for the Burnham government, France and Canada have since followed Britain’s lead in banning goods produced in illegal Israeli settlements.

    Miliband framed the UK’s new policy as a catalyst for broader global action, noting that Britain’s decision to move first has mobilized the international community, with more nations joining the effort in sequence. “This is how to make change happen in today’s world,” he said. “Doing what is right and galvanising others to act too.” He added that Britain’s national interests are advanced when it upholds its core values on the global stage, and that building effective multilateral coalitions on pressing global issues depends on the country’s ability to bring other nations along.

    The new foreign policy framework echoes what has become known as the Carney Doctrine, a concept outlined by Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney last year that calls for a formal alliance of mid-sized powers. While unstated explicitly, the alliance is designed to act as a balanced counterweight to the influence of global superpowers, most notably the United States. Miliband also drew loud cheers from Labour Party delegates when he confirmed that the UK’s foreign policy future centers on building a stronger, deeper partnership with the European Union.

    Outlining further concrete steps, Miliband reaffirmed that the government will prohibit all imports of goods originating from illegal Israeli settlements, disrupt supply chains linked to British finance, construction, and corporate services that support illegal settlement activity, and will block any efforts to eliminate the two-state solution as a path to peace. “When it comes to the attempt to destroy the two-state solution, this party, this movement, this government, says ‘we will not let you succeed’,” he said.

    While Miliband acknowledged the grassroots pressure that pushed the government to adopt a new stance on Palestine, the new administration continues to face criticism for maintaining a controversial policy implemented under Starmer’s tenure: the proscription of the direct action group Palestine Action. On Sunday and overnight ahead of the conference, roughly 150 people were arrested outside the conference venue for holding signs reading “I oppose genocide. I support Palestine Action.”

    Lindsey Graham, convenor of the Stop the War Coalition – which has organized nationwide mass protests against what the group calls Israel’s genocide in Gaza – responded to Miliband’s speech with pointed criticism. “For nearly three years our pro-Palestine movement has brought hundreds of thousands of people on to the streets of this country, demanding the British government ends its complicity in the Gaza genocide and stops arming Israel,” Graham said. He argued that Miliband’s silence on the status of Palestine Action and the government’s crackdown on the right to protest risks coming across as blatant hypocrisy. “If he truly believes in his responsibility to leave the world a better place then he would join us in demanding Burnham and the home secretary de-proscribe Palestine Action, reverse the legislation that now criminalises large amounts of previously lawful protest and drop the charges!” Graham added.

    Beyond the Middle East, Miliband used his speech to reiterate the UK’s unwavering support for Ukraine in the face of Russia’s full-scale invasion. He declared that Britain will stand with the Ukrainian people until they achieve victory, drawing a parallel to World War Two when Britain acted as a beacon of light as fascism spread across Europe. Miliband argued that today, just as in 1945, the current generation and the new Labour government have a duty to play their part in upholding global values of democracy and the rule of law.