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  • Aboard the hantavirus-hit cruise ship, some passengers fear what awaits back home

    Aboard the hantavirus-hit cruise ship, some passengers fear what awaits back home

    As the cruise ship MV Hondius, hit by an outbreak of hantavirus, steams toward the Spanish port of Tenerife in the Canary Islands, a surprising tension has emerged among its 140+ passengers and crew. For the Spanish nationals on board, anxiety stems not from the risk of contracting the virus itself, but from the hostile public reception they expect to face once they set foot on land. In exclusive phone interviews with the Associated Press on Friday, two anonymous Spanish passengers — a man and a woman — detailed the vitriol and misinformation spreading across public platforms about the ship and those aboard.

    Sensationalized mainstream coverage and inflammatory social media content, including memes calling for the vessel to be sunk, have painted passengers as dangerous viral vectors to be shunned. “You go onto social media – they want to dynamite the boat. They want to sink the boat,” the male passenger told AP. “You see what’s out there and you realize you’re heading into the eye of a hurricane,” the female passenger added. “Many people forget that in here there are more than 140 passengers. In reality, there are 140 human beings.” Both requested anonymity out of fear of further backlash once they disembark, currently scheduled as early as Sunday.

    This wave of public panic has echoes of the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic, when viral outbreaks on cruise ships sparked global alarm. But World Health Organization officials have repeatedly pushed back against misplaced comparisons, stressing that hantavirus poses minimal risk to the general public and this event is not the start of a new global pandemic. “This is very different virus. I want to be unequivocal here,” stated Maria Van Kerkhove, WHO’s head of epidemic and pandemic preparedness, on Thursday. “This is not the start of a COVID pandemic.”

    Unlike SARS-CoV-2, which spreads easily between people, hantavirus is most commonly transmitted to humans through inhalation of particles contaminated by rodent droppings. While the Andes strain detected on the MV Hondius can spread between people in extremely rare cases, the overall risk of widespread transmission remains very low. Despite these clear expert assurances, misinformation and distrust in public health guidance — a trend that took hold during the COVID pandemic — have persisted. A Spanish anti-establishment group called Iustitia Europa, which gained prominence opposing COVID-19 public health restrictions, has publicly called for the MV Hondius to be barred from entering Spanish territorial waters. “The Canary Islands cannot become Europe’s health laboratory … We demand transparency, responsibility, and protection for Spaniards to avoid repeating the mistakes of the past,” the group posted on social media platform X.

    Even some regional Spanish politicians have echoed public anxiety, taking a hard defensive stance against the ship’s arrival. Canary Islands regional president Fernando Clavijo told Spanish newspaper El País on Friday that he would not feel at ease until the ship departs Spanish waters and all passengers have reached their designated quarantine sites. Madrid regional leader Isabel Díaz Ayuso also publicly opposed the decision to transfer 12 Spanish passengers from the ship to a Madrid military hospital for quarantine, as planned by national authorities.

    “The public narrative has painted this as a boat of infected people, a boat of multimillionaires, full of rats,” the male passenger on board explained. “Society is in some way contaminated with a lot of noise and a lot of lies.” He did note that he has found some comfort in the Spanish government’s promise of official escorts upon arrival in Tenerife, where port workers held a protest this week over a lack of transparency regarding planned safety protocols. Spanish authorities have clarified that the escorts are standard protocol to maintain isolation requirements, not a measure to protect passengers from violent confrontation.

    Contrary to chaotic public portrayals of life on board, daily routines on the MV Hondius have remained calm in the days approaching port. After a team of epidemiologists boarded the ship off the coast of Cape Verde to brief passengers on the actual risks of the outbreak, most have been reassured that human-to-human transmission is extremely rare. Passengers who leave their cabins for common areas follow masking and social distancing rules, spending time reading, attending educational talks, joining early morning exercise groups on the upper decks, or birdwatching — a key activity for many travelers who had embarked on the voyage to photograph wildlife in remote Atlantic regions, not to become the center of a global public health story.

    Remarkably, despite the stigma and uncertainty they now face, both Spanish passengers say the experience would not stop them from taking another cruise in the future. “For me, personally, traveling is a means to … live out what I’m passionate about — which is observing nature and documenting nature,” the female passenger said. “Of course I would go on a cruise again.”

  • Trump claiming Iran war ‘win’ – here’s the reality

    Trump claiming Iran war ‘win’ – here’s the reality

    Two full months have passed since the outbreak of open conflict between the United States and Iran, and the core justifications Washington initially laid out for launching military operations, along with its stated minimum benchmarks for declaring victory, have collapsed into incoherence. The confusion has grown so severe that senior US officials now claim the conflict already ended in an American victory nearly a month ago, when a temporary ceasefire took effect.

    Few examples illustrate the utter failure of Donald Trump’s catastrophic Iran war more starkly than the remarks Secretary of State Marco Rubio delivered to reporters on May 5. Rubio told press that Washington’s top remaining priority was restoring the Strait of Hormuz to its pre-war status: open to all commercial traffic, free of naval mines, and unburdened by unauthorized transit fees. This mission, he insisted, was a standalone defensive and humanitarian operation, one that would only escalate back to full war if US vessels came under direct attack. That same day, US ships were targeted. What Rubio failed to acknowledge was the glaring contradiction: the humanitarian operation he touted was only necessary because of the same war he had already declared a success.

    The day’s absurdities did not end there. Within hours of Rubio’s briefing, Trump announced he was suspending “Project Freedom” — the US Navy’s planned tanker escort mission through the strait — just one day after it launched. The president cited “great progress” toward a negotiated settlement with Iran. In a pattern that has repeated throughout the conflict, global stock markets initially rallied on the news of a potential breakthrough before retreating to previous levels as the lack of concrete progress became clear.

    While there is no question Trump is eager to put the disastrous war behind him, especially ahead of his scheduled May 14 trip to Beijing, he has vastly overstated the scale of any diplomatic breakthrough. All Iran has agreed to do is consider a 14-point framework for 30 days of negotiations aimed at reaching a durable end to hostilities — nothing more.

    A far more credible explanation for Trump’s sudden cancellation of Project Freedom is that the initiative was already clearly doomed to fail. Of the roughly 1,500 commercial vessels stranded on either side of the closed strait, most ship owners refused to risk transit even with US naval protection. Meanwhile, Iran’s retaliatory strikes on commercial shipping and missile attacks against the United Arab Emirates had already put the fragile ceasefire itself at serious risk.

    Washington faces a core bargaining obstacle: Iran has made clear that talks cannot formally begin, and the Strait of Hormuz will not reopen, unless Trump first agrees to lift the economic blockade on Iranian maritime trade. The US embargo has already inflicted severe damage on the Iranian economy, and Tehran views its removal as a logical reciprocal gesture to match any opening of the strait. Iranian leaders also recognize that the prolonged closure of the strait — one of the world’s most critical energy and trade chokepoints — is already causing lasting structural damage to the global economy, a reality that strengthens their negotiating hand dramatically.

    Even if formal negotiations get underway, the same fundamental barrier that blocked a deal before the war still stands. Trump lacks the disciplined, well-resourced institutional policy framework that Barack Obama relied on to negotiate the 2015 Iran Nuclear Deal, the agreement Trump has long sought to surpass. Obama’s landmark deal required 20 months of intensive, detailed diplomacy to finalize; Trump has neither the patience, technical policy expertise, nor established direct diplomatic channels to replicate that achievement.

    The war has also introduced new layers of uncertainty. Iran’s internal decision-making process has grown more fragmented, and hardline elites who tolerate higher levels of military and economic pressure have gained greater influence. Most importantly, Iran has now fully recognized the extraordinary leverage it holds through its ability to shut down a critical artery of the global economy.

    On the core issue of Iran’s nuclear program, any eventual agreement will likely be a messy compromise. Iran could agree to a temporary moratorium on uranium enrichment, without committing immediately to shipping its existing stockpiles of enriched uranium out of the country or diluting them — a fudge that would allow negotiations to continue. If relatively more moderate factions in Tehran gain the upper hand (a very large if), this would be a straightforward concession to make: Iran’s geographic advantages and advanced ballistic missile program already provide a credible deterrent against any future large-scale attack.

    The open question remains whether anything short of total Iranian surrender on the nuclear issue will be acceptable to Trump, and whether he is willing to push back against inevitable fierce opposition from Israel to blurring Washington’s stated red lines. If no compromise can be reached, Trump has already threatened to resume bombing campaigns at a far higher intensity than before. Yet analysts widely doubt Trump has the political appetite for a renewed escalation, and even if he does move forward, there is little reason to believe that any amount of US and Israeli bombing can force the Iranian regime into total capitulation.

    Trump’s constantly shifting war aims and frantic scramble for an exit strategy make one conclusion unavoidable: the entire US military enterprise in Iran has been a colossal strategic failure. The war will shape Trump’s political legacy, reorder the balance of power in the Middle East, and deepen the humanitarian suffering of the Iranian people — all outcomes that are the exact opposite of what Trump repeatedly promised to deliver.

    The conflict has also shattered confidence among Washington’s regional allies in the US government’s ability to provide security and predictability. It has alienated long-standing traditional US partners, who have been blamed and punished for failing to resolve a crisis they did not create and could not fix. The combined US and Israeli military campaign has further entrenched hardline rule in Iran, made future negotiation far more difficult, and completely sidelined moderate political voices within the country.

    If negotiations do ultimately succeed, the limited gains that Trump and his advisors have touted — the destruction of portions of Iran’s military industry and naval fleet — are technically real. But the damage to military industrial capacity will likely only be temporary, and the degradation of Iran’s navy has done nothing to meaningfully restore freedom of navigation through the strait.

    The only bright spot in this saga is that Trump’s brief experiment with unilateral military adventurism — an aberration even within his own inconsistent political trajectory — appears to be coming to an end. This analysis is by Christian Emery, Associate Professor of International Politics at UCL, republished with permission from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license.

  • Sydney’s worst suburbs for hiding fuel prices named and shamed

    Sydney’s worst suburbs for hiding fuel prices named and shamed

    A sweeping compliance inspection of Sydney service stations conducted by New South Wales Fair Trading has laid bare a stark geographic divide in fuel pricing rule adherence, with regulators issuing hundreds of fines to non-compliant operators and pushing for stiffer legal penalties to protect motorists.

    The recent audit, which targeted sites across the Sydney metropolitan area, resulted in more than 245 financial penalties being handed out to petrol station operators found violating pricing transparency rules. Approximately 80% of these penalties stemmed from mismatches between the fuel prices listed on the state government’s FuelCheck platform and the actual charges applied at the pump, a deceptive practice that leaves consumers misled when they plan their fuel purchases.

    The inspection results revealed sharp disparities across different regions of Sydney. In Sydney’s north western suburb of West Ryde, one in three service stations failed to meet compliance standards. In the 2142 postcode zone, which covers the western Sydney communities of Granville, Rosehill, Camellia, Clyde and Holroyd, two out of 12 inspected stations were sanctioned for rule breaches. By contrast, every single one of the 35 service stations surveyed in south western Sydney’s Liverpool, Chipping Norton, Prestons and Mount Pritchard areas passed inspection with full compliance. Neighbouring western Sydney suburbs including Greystanes, Girraween, Pendle Hill and Wentworthville also recorded perfect compliance records across all their petrol outlets.

    The FuelCheck scheme, the state’s official fuel pricing monitoring program, requires all service stations to update and lock in real-time fuel prices to the platform, allowing motorists to compare costs across retailers before they travel to fill up. Consumers are also actively encouraged to report any discrepancies they notice between the advertised price and the price charged at the bowser.

    NSW Fair Trading Commissioner Natasha Mann explained that inspectors have ramped up targeted checks across the entire state to root out non-compliance. “Our inspectors have been working around the clock and in every corner of the state checking compliance in petrol stations to ensure motorists are getting the right price at the pump,” Mann said. “This compliance work helps ensure fuel retailers are doing the right thing and that consumers can rely on accurate pricing information before they get to a petrol station.”

    To strengthen regulators’ ability to penalize repeat and serious offenders, the NSW state government has introduced new legislation to state parliament that will codify the FuelCheck price reporting requirement into law. Under the proposed new rules, deliberate failure to update and report accurate prices to FuelCheck will become a formal criminal offense, with maximum penalties reaching AU$110,000 for serious breaches – a significant increase from current penalty levels.

    Better Regulation and Fair Trading Minister Anoulack Chanthivong echoed the government’s call for active consumer participation in policing fuel pricing, urging motorists to remain vigilant and report any suspected mismatches directly to the FuelCheck program for follow-up by inspectors.

  • Head of Jewish National Fund UK loses council seat in UK local elections

    Head of Jewish National Fund UK loses council seat in UK local elections

    Against the backdrop of a historic performance by right-wing Reform UK in the 2025 UK local elections, one of the party’s high-profile controversial candidates has fallen short of re-election, drawing new attention to the hardline pro-Israel stances running through the party’s ranks.

    Alan Mendoza, who had served as a Conservative Party councillor in Westminster before defecting to Reform UK in 2024, was unseated in Thursday’s vote for the Abbey Road ward. A top global affairs adviser to Reform UK, Mendoza also holds two prominent and divisive roles outside of electoral politics: executive director of the conservative Henry Jackson Society think tank, and president of the United Kingdom branch of the Jewish National Fund (JNF UK).

    JNF UK, a registered British charity that qualifies for tax relief on all public donations, has long faced international criticism for its actions that facilitate the displacement of Palestinian communities and support for Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank—settlements widely recognized as illegal under binding international law. Internal organizational accounts reviewed by independent outlets show that between 2015 and 2018, JNF UK transferred more than £1 million ($1.36 million) to Hashomer Hachadash (HH), a Zionist militia active in the occupied Palestinian territories. Leading Israeli newspaper Haaretz has reclassified HH as Israel’s largest militia, marking its rapid growth from a small fringe right-wing group to a major armed actor in the region. JNF UK’s honorary patron is Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who is currently wanted by the International Criminal Court on charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity.

    Mendoza’s defeat comes as Reform UK has secured unprecedented gains in this cycle of local elections. As of Friday afternoon, the party had already won control of more than 440 council seats across the country, with vote counts still ongoing in many areas. The gains have come at the cost of the centrist Labour Party, which has lost hundreds of incumbent seats and held just over 260 newly won seats at the time of reporting.

    Mendoza is far from the only Reform UK candidate to have pushed extreme anti-Palestinian rhetoric this election cycle. According to recent reporting from Byline Times, another Reform candidate, evangelical pastor John Quintanilla, made incendiary remarks in a November 2025 sermon, claiming that the very concept of “the land of Palestine” is a fabricated media lie invented by former Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat, whom he incorrectly labeled an Egyptian. Quintanilla also went on to make broad anti-Islam claims, asserting that every region conquered by Islamic forces throughout history has only been left with poverty, conflict, and social darkness. Multiple other Reform UK lawmakers and candidates have publicly declared unqualified support for Israel’s actions in the Middle East amid rising international scrutiny.

  • War in the Middle East: latest developments

    War in the Middle East: latest developments

    On a day marked by rapidly shifting geopolitical friction across the Middle East, multiple interconnected developments unfolded Friday, amplifying concerns over regional stability and global energy security.

    The most direct military action came from U.S. forces, which confirmed they had disabled two Iran-flagged cargo tankers that attempted to breach an American blockade of Iranian ports, a restriction that has been in place since mid-April. According to a statement posted on social platform X by U.S. Central Command, a Navy F/A-18 Super Hornet struck the vessels with precision munitions targeted at their smokestacks, successfully stopping the non-compliant ships from reaching Iranian territorial waters. This incident brings the total number of vessels forcibly halted by U.S. forces for alleged blockade violations to four.

    In a diplomatic push following the strike, U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio called on European NATO allies to take on a larger share of responsibility for securing the Strait of Hormuz, a critical global chokepoint through which roughly 20% of the world’s oil supplies pass. Speaking after a meeting with Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, Rubio argued that Iranian efforts to assert unilateral control over the international waterway are unacceptable to the global community. He also raised questions about alliance commitments, noting that a core purpose of NATO’s U.S. force deployments in Europe has long been the ability to project power to regional contingencies, and that failure to address current threats requires a re-examination of this arrangement.

    Iran, for its part, has framed its influence over the strait as a major strategic advantage. Mohammad Mokhber, an adviser to Iran’s supreme leader, described control of the Strait of Hormuz as an opportunity as valuable as an atomic bomb, emphasizing that holding sway over a chokepoint that can directly move the global economy represents an unmatched strategic lever for the country.

    Diplomatic efforts to de-escalate tensions are already underway, with Qatar’s prime minister traveling to Washington Friday for talks with U.S. Vice President JD Vance. A source familiar with the closed-door meeting, speaking on condition of anonymity, confirmed that the discussions would center on U.S.-Qatar bilateral relations, the unfolding standoff over Iran, global liquefied natural gas (LNG) market stability, and broader regional security. Qatar has served as a key neutral intermediary between the U.S. and Iran in past diplomatic engagements.

    Alongside the standoff over Hormuz, cross-border violence between Israel and Lebanese militant group Hezbollah continued to flare, despite recent truce efforts. Hezbollah announced Friday that it had launched a missile attack on an Israeli military base located south of Nahariya in northern Israel, saying the strike was carried out in retaliation for recent Israeli attacks on southern Lebanon and the southern suburbs of Beirut. Shortly after the Hezbollah announcement, Lebanon’s civil defence rescue organization confirmed one of its members had been killed in an Israeli airstrike on southern Lebanon, near the village of El Qlaile where video footage shows thick smoke rising from the impact site.

    In another setback for U.S. regional military operations, two anonymous Saudi sources told Agence France-Presse that Riyadh has prohibited the U.S. from using Saudi airspace and military bases for operations aimed at reopening the Strait of Hormuz. The sources clarified, however, that U.S. access to Saudi infrastructure and airspace remains intact for all other military and security purposes.

    The escalating tensions have already rippled into global economic policy, with the European Union announcing new rules Friday to protect airline passengers amid spiking fuel costs driven by Middle East supply fears. The EU made clear that airlines will no longer be allowed to add retroactive fuel surcharges to tickets that have already been purchased by customers. Separately, the EU Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) updated its rules to approve widespread use of Jet A, a U.S.-produced aviation fuel that was previously only permitted in Europe for return flights originating in the United States, a move designed to expand available fuel supplies amid potential shortages.

    Closing out the day’s developments, the United Arab Emirates confirmed that a recent Iranian attack using drones and missiles against the country left three people with moderate injuries, marking the latest direct escalation between Iran and Gulf Arab states.

  • Hondurasgate: Leaked recordings allege US-Israeli destabilisation plot in Latin America

    Hondurasgate: Leaked recordings allege US-Israeli destabilisation plot in Latin America

    A cache of leaked confidential recordings published by independent investigative outlet Hondurasgate and Spanish news platform Canal Red has pulled back the curtain on coordinated American and Israeli lobbying efforts to advance geopolitical and economic interests in Honduras, while laying the groundwork to undermine progressive administrations across Latin America.

    The multi-part inquiry, carried out by a team of anonymous Honduran investigative journalists, centers on 37 authenticated voice messages collected from the encrypted messaging platforms WhatsApp, Signal, and Telegram. Hondurasgate confirms the recordings underwent independent forensic analysis to verify their authenticity before being released to the public.

    Among the most explosive allegations in the leak is the claim that Israeli lobbying played a decisive role in securing then-US President Donald Trump’s 2025 December pardon for former Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernandez. Hernandez, who was convicted by a US federal court on large-scale drug trafficking charges and sentenced to 45 years in federal prison, was released from custody following the controversial pardon.

    Beyond the pardon, the leaked conversations expose pre-planned coordinated disinformation campaigns designed to target the sitting left-leaning governments of Mexico and Colombia. The recordings also detail the full scope of the foreign-backed political scheme to reshape Honduras’s leadership landscape:

    Shortly after Hernandez’s pardon, Trump publicly endorsed then-Honduran presidential candidate Nasry Asfura, who was locked in a tight race against centrist contender Salvador Nasralla. Trump issued an explicit threat during the campaign, warning that the US would cut all economic aid to Honduras if Asfura failed to win the election. Voice messages from Asfura, captured after private closed-door meetings at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida, outline the core policy priorities the US and Israeli backers pushed for: opening a new permanent US military base on Honduran territory, expanding large privatized “economic development” zones across the country, and creating favorable regulatory conditions for major American artificial intelligence firms to invest and operate.

    According to the investigation’s findings, Asfura’s presidency was never intended to be the end goal of the plot. Instead, insiders framed his election as a temporary transitional step that would clear the way for a politically rehabilitated Juan Orlando Hernandez to return to the Honduran presidency in the next national election cycle, with full backing from Washington and Jerusalem.

    In a January 20 voice note included in the leak, Hernandez explicitly stated that “the prime minister of Israel is going to support us” in the plan, adding that “they [Israelis] had everything to do with my departure and negotiation” — a clear reference to the behind-the-scenes work that secured his US pardon. In a separate March 14 recording, Hernandez confirmed that the financial lobbying effort for his pardon was funded by “a group of rabbis and from people who supported Israel.”

    The leaked conversations also reveal internal power struggles within the planned coalition: Hernandez sent instructions to the president of Honduras’s National Congress, Tomas Zambrano, detailing how to undermine Asfura’s authority from within with covert financial and political support from Israeli partners. “I sent you the people of Israel, they sent you money. I’m the one doing the lobbying,” Hernandez told Zambrano in the message.

    The investigation also uncovered plans for a coordinated cross-regional disinformation operation. Hernandez and Asfura discussed launching a state-funded “digital journalism unit,” with additional financial backing from Javier Milei, the US-aligned right-wing president of Argentina. The explicit goal of this unit is to produce and spread negative media content targeting the administrations of Mexico and Colombia. Milei, who has significantly deepened Argentina’s diplomatic and economic ties to Israel with US backing, has already drawn international attention for his plan to relocate Argentina’s Israeli embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, a move aligned with US and Israeli foreign policy priorities in the Middle East.

    Tensions between the Trump administration and Colombian President Gustavo Petro, a left-leaning leader who has been openly critical of US policy in the Middle East, escalated sharply in September 2025. The US government announced it would revoke Petro’s entry visa shortly after he spoke at a pro-Palestine demonstration in New York City, where he urged US service members “not to point their guns at people” and “disobey the orders of Trump.”

    This reporting was originally made available by Middle East Eye, a media outlet dedicated to independent, in-depth coverage of the Middle East, North Africa, and global affairs connected to the region.

  • Missing hiker killed in possible bear attack in Montana

    Missing hiker killed in possible bear attack in Montana

    A deadly bear attack has claimed the life of a 33-year-old hiker in Glacier National Park, Montana, marking the first fatal bear-caused human death in the region in nearly three decades, park officials have confirmed.

    Anthony Pollio, a visitor from Fort Lauderdale, Florida, was reported missing after starting a hike in the park on Sunday. Multiple search and rescue teams launched an extensive search operation across the rugged backcountry, and on Wednesday, crews located Pollio’s remains in a remote, heavily forested section of the park. Park investigators confirmed that the injuries found on the remains match patterns consistent with a fatal bear encounter.

    In response to the incident, the National Park Service has immediately closed the section of trail where the body was discovered to reduce the risk of further bear-human conflicts, while wildlife specialists work to locate and assess the animal involved in the attack.

    Glacier National Park has long been labeled “bear country”—it hosts a large, robust population of grizzly (brown) bears, alongside a widespread population of black bears that roam the park’s 1 million-plus acres of wilderness. Before this incident, the last bear-caused injury in the park dated back to August 2025, and the previous fatal bear attack occurred all the way back in 1998 in the park’s Two Medicine Valley.

    While fatal bear attacks remain extremely rare across the United States, wildlife experts warn that shifting human activity is increasing risk in popular outdoor recreation areas. As residential development and expanded campgrounds encroach on bear habitats, easy access to human food sources has led more bears to lose their innate fear of humans, growing bolder in interactions that can turn deadly.

    Data from the Journal of Wildlife Management underscores the rarity of these events: between 1900 and 2009, only 63 fatal black bear attacks were recorded across all of North America. This incident comes just days after a separate bear attack at nearby Yellowstone National Park—spanning Wyoming, Montana, and Idaho—left two other hikers injured on Monday, drawing renewed attention to bear safety protocols for backcountry users across the Northern Rockies.

  • Return of IS-linked families sparks debate in terror-traumatised Australia

    Return of IS-linked families sparks debate in terror-traumatised Australia

    After years of indefinite detention in overcrowded, conflict-ridden camps in northeastern Syria, four Australian women and nine children with ties to the Islamic State (IS) touched down on Australian soil on Thursday, marking the latest flashpoint in a years-long national debate over citizenship, security and legal responsibility. Three of the four women were taken into custody on terrorism-related charges within hours of landing, while the fourth was left to navigate a crush of aggressive media outside the airport, her small children beside her, facing the constant threat of imminent arrest.

    This repatriation comes after half a decade of Australian government resistance to bringing home more than 30 of its citizens trapped in former IS detention camps. When the US-led coalition and local allies defeated IS’s self-declared “caliphate” in 2019, thousands of foreign citizens—including family members of IS fighters—were confined to heavily guarded camps, where they have since endured chronic humanitarian shortages, systemic violence and widespread radicalization risks. Australia is far from unique in its reluctance to repatriate these groups: the United Kingdom and dozens of other nations have similarly refused to take back their citizens, leaving roughly 2,000 people from dozens of countries stranded in the only remaining camp, Al-Roj, including British citizen Shamima Begum, who was stripped of her citizenship after traveling to Syria to marry an IS fighter at 15. Al-Hol, the larger of the two original camps, was closed by Syrian government forces in February, increasing pressure on nations to resolve the fates of remaining detainees.

    Public sentiment in Australia has hardened dramatically against repatriation in the wake of the country’s deadliest terrorist attack in recent history: a December mass shooting at a Bondi Beach Jewish community event that killed 15 people, which authorities say was inspired by IS ideology. Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has repeatedly stated his open contempt for the detained IS-linked families, repeating his well-known mantra: “If you make your bed, you have to lie in it.” Despite this official stance, human rights advocates and community leaders warn that deteriorating security in Al-Roj has made the predicament of the 21 remaining Australian citizens—seven women and 14 children, many of whom were born or raised entirely in the camps—growing more urgent by the day, describing the facility as a “ticking time bomb” for extremism and humanitarian disaster.

    Among those who returned Thursday was 32-year-old Janai Safar, a former nursing student who arrived in Sydney with her 9-year-old son. In 2019, Safar told local media she did not regret traveling to join IS, though she maintains she never participated in training or violence. She now faces formal terrorism charges. Also returning were 33-year-old Zahra Ahmed, her 31-year-old sister Zeinab, and 54-year-old mother Kawsar Abbas, who landed in Melbourne. The three have long claimed they traveled to Syria solely for a family wedding and were trapped after discovering the groom had sworn allegiance to IS, though authorities suspect the family’s patriarch funneled financial support to the group. Zeinab and Kawsar have been charged with crimes against humanity linked to slavery, while Zahra remains under active investigation. This group’s journey to Australia was not straightforward: an initial attempt at repatriation in February was halted within hours over what officials described as “technical issues,” with camp sources indicating Syrian authorities backed out after learning Australia would not welcome the detainees.

    Australian federal authorities confirmed the nine returning children will be placed into community integration and countering violent extremism de-radicalization programs, noting many have never experienced life outside of detention camps. Among the 21 Australians who remain stranded in Al-Roj is 14-year-old Kirsty Rosse-Emile, who was groomed by an older extremist and married him before leaving Australia as a teenager.

    This week’s repatriation is not the first time IS-linked Australians have returned home: the government facilitated the repatriation of a group of orphans in 2019 and 17 additional women and children in 2022, but amid widespread public backlash, officials formally announced they would end all future repatriation efforts, despite two additional women quietly returning in September. Thursday’s arrivals have reignited fierce public division across the country. Many ordinary Australians, including survivors of IS atrocities who fled to Australia for safety, have expressed deep anger over the decision to allow the group to return. “Imagine a Yazidi survivor encountering ISIS brides here,” Sami, a refugee who escaped IS atrocities, told public broadcaster SBS. Speaking to the BBC at Melbourne Airport, local resident Peter Cockburn summed up the views of many opponents: “They made their choice to go over there and be with their terrorist husbands, so let them stay there. It’s a disgrace that both governments, state and federal, are letting them come back.”

    But advocates and interfaith leaders argue Australia has a legal and moral obligation to repatriate its citizens, particularly children who bear no responsibility for the actions of their family members. Jamal Rifi, a prominent Sydney doctor who became a public hero for his interfaith work and public health advocacy, has spent years supporting the detained families, providing remote health care and helping the group secure emergency travel documents to return home. Rifi argues that repatriation and prosecution within Australia’s legal system makes the country safer than leaving detainees to radicalize in Syrian camps. “If those women have done anything wrong by our legal system… if the prime minister wants to ‘throw the book’ at them, let him throw the book. We’re not going to stop him. But while they are staying in Syria, he can’t throw anything at them, except words. We believe those children should not continue to pay the heavy price for the sins of their fathers and mothers… It’s not what we understand of Australian values,” Rifi told the BBC in February. For his work, Rifi has gone from celebrated public figure to a target of political backlash, with the federal opposition even proposing legislation that would criminalize his support for the families.

    Other legal and community leaders echo Rifi’s argument, noting that all Australian citizens hold a legal right to return to their home country, and that bowing to public pressure to restrict that right sets a dangerous precedent. “Once politicians start… deciding how citizens should be treated, what right citizens should have, that is a dangerous and slippery slope,” said Jana Fevaro, who works with the Asylum Seeker Resource Centre. Aftab Malik, Australia’s special envoy to combat Islamophobia, acknowledged that public fear and anger is “entirely understandable” and that the repatriation has placed the Australian Muslim community in a uniquely difficult position, but added that the rule of law must take precedence over public anger, calling for cooler heads in the national debate.

    Though the ruling Labor government faces intense criticism from opposition parties who have demanded officials block all future arrivals at any cost, Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke noted that the government has little legal power to stop citizens from returning. Burke confirmed that the government did not assist this group in returning and will not assist future repatriations, but added that there are “very serious limits” on what can be done to block Australian citizens from entering the country. The legal threshold to bar a citizen from entry on national security grounds is extremely high, and only one unnamed woman from the larger group of remaining detainees has met that standard, Burke explained.

    Rodger Shanahan, a Middle East expert at the Lowy Institute, noted that the issue has become far more politically volatile in the wake of the December Bondi Beach attack, arguing that if the government had resolved the repatriation issue years earlier, public backlash would have long faded. For advocates who have spent years fighting to bring all Australian detainees home, Thursday’s arrivals brought only temporary relief. 21 citizens remain trapped in Al-Roj, with conditions growing so desperate that some mothers have offered to send their children home alone—an outcome Rifi calls unthinkable. Rifi says his current priority is correcting widespread misinformation about the detained group to win over public opinion, noting that leaving detainees in the camps for another decade will only worsen risks of radicalization and mental health harm. “If you bring them right now, it’s easier to rehabilitate. It is easier to educate. And if there is any danger of radicalisation, it’s easier to de-radicalise,” he said.

  • India mends ties with Turkey after year of tension over Pakistan

    India mends ties with Turkey after year of tension over Pakistan

    One year ago, a landmark bilateral conference hosted by an Ankara-based Turkish think tank brought Indian and Turkish experts and officials together for the first time, opening with a wave of cautious optimism. Attendees on both sides leaned into shared historical bonds, recalling India’s early support for Turkey’s War of Independence, and even celebrated linguistic commonalities between the two nations, including overlapping terms like *hava* (meaning air) and *kısmet* (meaning fate). The gathering was explicitly designed to reignite closer cooperation between the two major emerging economies, which had managed to grow bilateral trade for years despite long-standing political friction rooted in conflicting geopolitical alliances. The core tension stemmed from Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s close partnership with Pakistan and the broader Muslim world, which clashed with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s deepening strategic alignment with Israel. By all accounts, the conference was a striking success – but that success stoked immediate regional friction: multiple sources confirm Pakistani officials expressed frustration at being sidelined and not consulted ahead of the event.

  • Trump says Russia and Ukraine have agreed to his request for a 3-day ceasefire and a prisoner swap

    Trump says Russia and Ukraine have agreed to his request for a 3-day ceasefire and a prisoner swap

    In a surprise diplomatic announcement from Washington D.C. on Friday, former and current U.S. President Donald Trump said he had secured a tentative agreement from both the Russian and Ukrainian leadership for a 72-hour ceasefire and a large-scale prisoner of war exchange, framing the temporary halt to hostilities as a potential turning point in the three-year conflict between the two nations.

    Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy quickly confirmed the deal in his own public statement, though as of Friday evening, no official confirmation or comment had been issued by Russian President Vladimir Putin or the Kremlin. Per Trump’s social media announcement, the ceasefire will run from Saturday through Monday, aligning with Russia’s annual Victory Day holiday marking the Soviet Union’s defeat of Nazi Germany in World War II.

    “I am pleased to announce that there will be a THREE DAY CEASEFIRE (May 9th, 10th, and 11th) in the War between Russia and Ukraine,” Trump wrote on his social platform. “The Celebration in Russia is for Victory Day but, likewise, in Ukraine, because they were also a big part and factor of World War II.”

    The Republican president outlined that the ceasefire terms call for a full suspension of all offensive kinetic military operations across the front lines, paired with a reciprocal exchange of 1,000 prisoners of war from each side. The announcement comes on the heels of two earlier, short-lived unilateral ceasefire attempts — one from Russia earlier last week, and one from Ukraine — both of which collapsed within hours, with each side blaming the other for continued combat operations.

    Trump told reporters that he personally delivered the ceasefire request directly to both heads of state, adding, “Hopefully, it is the beginning of the end of a very long, deadly, and hard fought War.” The president also noted that broader negotiations to end the full conflict, which first erupted in February 2022, remain ongoing, saying, “we are getting closer and closer every day.” This marks a shift from Trump’s earlier inconsistent framing of the war: he has alternated between optimistic promises of a quick end to fighting and public statements suggesting Russia and Ukraine should be left to fight until one side achieves total victory.

    For Zelenskyy, the primary draw of the agreement is the chance to repatriate hundreds of Ukrainian prisoners of war, a core policy priority for the Kyiv government throughout the entire conflict. In a post on his official Telegram channel, Zelenskyy emphasized that freeing captured Ukrainian personnel outweighs any strategic concerns about Russia’s holiday celebrations. “Red Square matters less to us than the lives of Ukrainian prisoners of war who can be brought home,” he wrote.

    Shortly after his initial confirmation, Zelenskyy issued a formal presidential decree authorizing Russia to hold its traditional Victory Day military parade on Moscow’s Red Square, declaring the site a no-strike zone for Ukrainian forces for the duration of the event. Analysts view the decree’s framing as a deliberate choice to highlight Kyiv’s proven ability to strike targets deep within Russian territory, including the capital, while tying Ukraine’s military restraint directly to the new ceasefire agreement.

    Zelenskyy confirmed the deal was negotiated through U.S.-mediated diplomatic channels, publicly thanking Trump and the American negotiation team for what he called effective diplomatic engagement. He added that Kyiv is relying on Washington to enforce Russian compliance with the agreed terms. “We are counting on the United States to ensure that Russia fulfills its commitments,” Zelenskyy said, noting he had already instructed his national security team to complete all necessary preparations for the prisoner exchange without delay.

    Trump’s optimistic announcement comes just hours after U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio offered a far more pessimistic assessment of ongoing peace talks during a press availability at the end of an official visit to Rome and the Vatican. Rubio told reporters that U.S. mediation efforts to end the four-year war had not yet yielded a productive breakthrough. “While we’re prepared to play whatever role we can to bring it to a peaceful diplomatic resolution, unfortunately right now, those efforts have stagnated,” Rubio said. “But we always stand ready if those circumstances change.”

    This report included contributions from Associated Press correspondents Hanna Arhirova in Kyiv and Giada Zampano in Rome.