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  • Trump administration sanctions all Iranian airlines in aviation crackdown

    Trump administration sanctions all Iranian airlines in aviation crackdown

    On a Tuesday announcement, the Trump administration rolled out a new round of punitive measures targeting 27 Iranian air carriers, part of a broader campaign to block the Tehran government from moving weapons, military personnel and undeclared illicit cargo, according to an official statement released by the U.S. Department of the Treasury.

    This new action forms the core of Operation Economic Outcast, an expanded sanctions initiative that Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent says is designed to cut off Iran’s access to the interconnected global economy. The United States first imposed sanctions on a major Iranian commercial airline, Mahan Air, back in 2011, marking the start of this targeted pressure campaign on Iran’s aviation sector.

    “Let this be a warning to anyone doing business with Iran’s remaining airlines, all of which we sanctioned today: You are at risk of being cut off from the global financial system,” Bessent stated during Tuesday’s press briefing. Among the newly sanctioned carriers are prominent Iranian aviation operators including Ava Airlines, Fly Persia, and Mehr Airways.

    In total, the Treasury added 36 distinct entities and individuals to its blacklist. Beyond the air carriers, the designation also covers what the department describes as covert front companies, foreign-based intermediaries, and deceptive transshipment networks that Iran leverages to acquire U.S.-manufactured aircraft and sensitive aviation technology. Notable non-Iranian entities named include the United Arab Emirates-based ECT Aviation Support LLC, its Egyptian chief executive Ibrahim Ali Mohamed Mohamed Mahran, and Turkey-based logistics firm Sky Phoenix.

    To back up the new sanctions, the Treasury’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network issued a global advisory calling on financial institutions worldwide to flag transactions linked to procurement networks that support Iran’s aviation industry. Meanwhile, the department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control moved to suspend existing authorizations that previously allowed non-U.S. airlines to operate routes or use U.S.-built aircraft that eventually enter Iranian airspace. The change is expected to complicate travel for Iranian Americans with family based in Iran and cuts off the Tehran government from collecting critical overflight fees from international carriers.

    The Treasury emphasized its broad enforcement scope: “Any person that assists Iran’s aviation sector, from the provision of general sales agent services through to support to Iran’s covert aircraft procurement schemes, will be held accountable.” All sanctioned individuals and entities will have any U.S.-based assets frozen, lose access to the U.S.-dominated global banking system, and face prohibitions on any transactions with U.S. persons and permanent residents.

    This latest round of sanctions builds on an initiative Bessent launched just one month prior, when he announced a new sweeping pressure campaign targeting Iran and its international partners, aimed at what he called the “asphyxiation of this regime” amid rising tensions over the Strait of Hormuz. Speaking to reporters in Washington, D.C., Bessent framed the pressure as a stark choice for Iranian leadership: “Iran now faces a very clear choice, with only two paths before them: complete global isolation and a subsistence economy, or a path back to normalcy with an opportunity to rejoin the global economy.”

    To date, the Trump administration has consistently tightened sanctions on Iran since its first term starting in 2017, and no concrete details have been released on how “a path to normalcy” would be structured or what concessions would be required from Tehran. Bessent made clear the goal of the new operation is to eliminate all alternatives for the Iranian regime: “We are launching Operation Economic Outcast to foreclose every other option available to the Iranian regime. America is no longer managing the Iranian threat. We are ending it.”

    Bessent added that the Treasury has taken what he calls a “zero-leakage approach” to mapping Iranian sanctions evasion networks, saying officials have mapped every node, facilitator, and network Iran has used to smuggle oil and bypass existing international restrictions. He also confirmed that President Donald Trump has already held phone calls with global heads of state, issuing specific requests for those countries to end all commercial and diplomatic interactions with the Iranian regime, though he declined to name the countries involved.

    When pressed by reporters on why the sanctions are not being enforced with immediate effect globally, Bessent pushed back on the idea of immediate universal implementation, asking: “Why would I want to blow up the global financial system?” He explained that all countries have been given a clear timeline to wind down the activities identified by U.S. officials, and added: “If they do not take action, we will do so unilaterally through Treasury authorities.”

    This report was originally prepared by independent outlet Middle East Eye, which specializes in original coverage and analysis of the Middle East, North Africa, and broader global affairs related to the region.

  • Singaporean man pleads guilty in US to massive crypto heist

    Singaporean man pleads guilty in US to massive crypto heist

    In a landmark cybercrime case that exposes the growing global threat of digital asset theft, a 22-year-old Singaporean national named Malone Lam has entered a guilty plea to a racketeering conspiracy charge in a U.S. federal court. The charge stems from Lam’s role as the ringleader of one of the largest cryptocurrency heists in recent history, which saw the group steal roughly $245 million worth of bitcoin from hundreds of victims across the globe.

    According to official documents released by the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ), the transnational criminal conspiracy operated from no later than October 2023 through at least May 2025. Lam assembled a network of co-conspirators spread across four U.S. states — California, Connecticut, New York, and Florida — as well as multiple countries outside the United States, with the group first connecting through popular online gaming platforms. Operating under multiple aliases including Anne Hathaway, $$$, and King Greavy, Lam structured the enterprise, targeted potential victims, and assigned specialized roles to each member of the ring, prosecutors confirmed.

    The criminal group used a mix of sophisticated cyber deception and physical burglary to steal digital assets, the DOJ says. Conspirators tricked victims into handing over sensitive account credentials through phishing and social engineering schemes, and in some cases carried out residential break-ins to steal private keys required to access cryptocurrency wallets. Once they gained control, the group drained the wallets and transferred the stolen bitcoin to accounts they controlled.

    Over the course of the conspiracy, Lam and his associates laundered the stolen funds and spent the proceeds on an extravagant lifestyle of luxury. Court records and evidence released by U.S. authorities show the group spent as much as $500,000 per outing on high-end nightclub trips, where they threw tens of thousands of dollars worth of Hermes Birkin handbags into crowds of partygoers. They also purchased a collection of high-performance supercars, with individual vehicle values ranging from $100,000 to $3.8 million, alongside luxury watches priced as high as $500,000, designer clothing, and long-term luxury home rentals in elite U.S. destinations including Los Angeles, the Hamptons, and Miami. The group also splurged on private jet travel and hired a dedicated team of private security to protect their operation. U.S. law enforcement has released public photos showing Lam partying with large stacks of cash at a Miami nightclub in September 2024, alongside images of the exotic car fleet purchased with stolen funds.

    Following his guilty plea entered on Tuesday, Lam now faces a maximum possible prison sentence of 20 years behind bars. U.S. District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly has not yet scheduled a formal sentencing hearing for the defendant. In a statement following the plea, U.S. Attorney Pirro emphasized that the DOJ’s commitment to combating transnational cybercrime remains unwavering. “If you build a cybercrime empire, we will find you, dismantle your operation, and hold you accountable,” Pirro said. She added that Lam “led an international network that preyed on victims through deception, invaded their privacy, and stole hundreds of millions of dollars in cryptocurrency.”

    The case marks one of the highest-profile cryptocurrency theft prosecutions in recent years, highlighting how cross-border criminal networks are increasingly targeting unregulated digital assets, and the challenges international law enforcement faces in tracking and apprehending the perpetrators of these digital crimes.

  • Records reveal Cuny investments in weapons firms supplying Israel

    Records reveal Cuny investments in weapons firms supplying Israel

    After a years-long campaign by pro-Palestinian student and faculty organizers, newly released financial records from the City University of New York (CUNY) have confirmed the public university system holds more than $715,000 in investments in major weapons manufacturers that supply military equipment and technology to the Israeli military. The disclosures, which came via a court-ordered settlement following a freedom of information lawsuit, mark a rare instance of a U.S. university publicly confirming such holdings, a detail most higher education institutions have long kept hidden from public view.

    The records, obtained by two campus advocacy groups — CUNY4Palestine and CUNY Law Students for Justice in Palestine (CUNY Law SJP) — reveal CUNY’s investment portfolio includes stakes in six major defense and military technology firms: Boeing, Lockheed Martin, Raytheon, Palantir, Elbit Systems, and General Dynamics. All six firms openly maintain active supply contracts with the Israeli army. A breakdown of 2025 holdings shows CUNY holds more than $319,000 in Boeing stock, roughly $65,300 in Lockheed Martin stock, $141,200 in Raytheon stock, and nearly $189,350 in Palantir stock — figures that activists say exceeded their initial expectations.

    Pro-Palestinian organizers have long flagged the specific role each firm plays in Israel’s military campaign in Gaza, which launched after the October 7, 2023 Hamas attacks on southern Israel. To date, the conflict has left more than 250,000 Palestinians in Gaza killed or injured and reduced much of the enclave to rubble. Activists note Boeing produces F-15 fighter jets, AH-64 Apache attack helicopters, and bunker-buster bombs that have been used in strikes across Gaza, Lebanon, and other regional conflict zones; Lockheed Martin and Raytheon manufacture the missiles and munitions deployed by Israeli ground and air forces; and Palantir provides surveillance and data management technology that the Israeli military relies on for targeting operations.

    In a joint statement released this week, the two advocacy groups argued CUNY’s financial ties to these firms make the university directly complicit in what they call the ongoing genocide of Palestinian people in Gaza. A CUNY faculty organizer, speaking through the groups, extended that criticism further, saying the investments also make CUNY complicit in broader imperialist violence across West Asia and the Global South, as well as in what they describe as fascist border enforcement carried out by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and U.S. Customs and Border Protection.

    The release of the records follows years of organizing and transparency demands from pro-Palestinian groups on CUNY’s campuses. CUNY was one of the first U.S. universities to join the wave of Gaza solidarity encampments that spread across higher education institutions in April 2024, starting at Columbia University, where protesters demanded administrations disclose and divest from companies supplying Israel. Though ties between U.S. academia and the defense sector have long been an open secret, most universities have refused to release detailed breakdowns of their investment holdings to the public.

    In 2024, after the escalation of conflict in Gaza, CUNY4Palestine and CUNY Law SJP filed a Freedom of Information Law (FOIL) request to force CUNY leadership to release full details of its defense industry investments. When university administrators refused to turn over the records, activists and a student plaintiff filed a lawsuit — Sarah Southey v. City University of New York — to compel disclosure. The case reached a settlement in mid-August that required CUNY to release all investment records dating back to July 2023.

    Veronica Salama, senior staff attorney at the New York Civil Liberties Union, which supported the lawsuit, noted that while the disclosure marks a win for transparency, it is unacceptable that legal action was required to get public information from a taxpayer-funded institution. “While we’re grateful that the largest, urban public university in the country will finally disclose its investment records, it is outrageous that our client had to file this lawsuit in the first place,” Salama said in a statement.

    On Wednesday afternoon, campaigners planned a press conference outside New York City Hall to lay out the full details of the disclosures to the public. Activists say the released records are only the first part of a larger body of investment data, framing the $715,000 figure as “just the tip of the iceberg.” They have vowed to continue their campaign until CUNY divests all holdings from arms firms and redirects that funding toward institutional and community programs that serve public good. “As we declared during CUNY’s Gaza Solidarity Encampment: we will not stop, we will not rest until our tax and tuition dollars are divested from death and destruction and reinvested in life-sustaining institutions and practices! We demand CUNY live up to its name as a ‘People’s University!’” the groups’ statement read.

    The disclosures are also drawing new scrutiny to CUNY leadership and the crackdown on pro-Palestinian protests on its campuses. While high-profile encampments at Ivy League institutions like Harvard and Princeton drew widespread national and international media attention, CUNY’s protest movement has received far less coverage. Organizers and analysts argue that makes the new revelations even more significant: as the nation’s largest urban public university serving a working-class, majority minority student body across New York City, CUNY’s investment decisions carry unique public weight.

    Critics are also pointing to the political ties of CUNY’s top investment leadership. William C. Thompson, who currently chairs CUNY’s board executive committee and investment subcommittee — a post he has held since 2016 — was reappointed to a six-year term in June 2023 by New York Governor Kathy Hochul, a well-known staunch supporter of Israel. CUNY has not yet responded to requests for comment from media outlets including Middle East Eye, which first reported on the disclosures.

  • Hong Kong’s first post-colonial leader dies aged 89

    Hong Kong’s first post-colonial leader dies aged 89

    Tung Chee-hwa, the trailblazing first chief executive of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region after the 1997 handover that ended over 150 years of British colonial rule, has passed away at the age of 89. According to local Hong Kong media reports, he died on Tuesday night with his family at his side.

    Born in Shanghai in 1937, Tung built a diverse life trajectory spanning global business and historic public service. After earning a bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering from the University of Liverpool in the United Kingdom, he relocated to the United States, where he spent nearly a decade working for industrial giant General Electric. He returned to Asia and settled in Hong Kong in 1969 to join his family’s prominent shipping enterprise, Orient Overseas, and assumed leadership of the conglomerate in 1979 following his father’s passing.

    Tung’s entry into formal politics came in 1992, when he was appointed to the executive council of Chris Patten, the final British governor of Hong Kong. Despite limited prior electoral political experience, Tung was widely identified as Beijing’s preferred candidate to lead the newly returned Hong Kong, a signal cemented by a high-profile 1996 handshake with then-Chinese President Jiang Zemin at a Beijing reception that was captured by global photographers. This backing came amid longstanding ties to the mainland: in the mid-1980s, Chinese state-owned banks stepped in to rescue Tung’s family shipping business during a global industry downturn, cementing his reputation as a loyal ally of Beijing.

    When the handover was finalized in July 1997, Tung officially took office, succeeding Patten to become the first leader of Hong Kong under Chinese sovereignty. His tenure was immediately tested by cascading crises that shaped his administration. Just months after taking office, the 1997 Asian Financial Crisis sent Hong Kong’s property market into a steep nosedive, straining household finances and public confidence. His administration later faced two major public health emergencies: a multi-year bird flu outbreak between 1997 and 2002, followed by the 2003 SARS epidemic that killed hundreds in the city and brought daily life to a standstill.

    The most significant political challenge of Tung’s tenure came in July 2003, during his second term, when an estimated half a million Hong Kong residents marched in mass protests against a proposed local national security law that opponents warned would erode civil liberties and the city’s promised high degree of autonomy. In response to widespread public outcry, Tung’s administration shelved the draft legislation. The unrest, combined with other pressures, contributed to Tung’s early departure from office in March 2005. While Tung cited declining personal health as the reason for his resignation, many outside observers have long speculated that he was pressured to step down by Beijing authorities. A national security law for Hong Kong was ultimately imposed directly by Beijing in 2020; the measure has been defended by Chinese and Hong Kong authorities as critical to upholding national security and social stability, but decried by critics as a move that has dismantled Hong Kong’s civil freedoms and created a pervasive climate of political fear.

    After leaving office, Tung remained out of the public eye for most of his later years. His last confirmed public appearance was in July 2021, at an event marking the 100th founding anniversary of the Chinese Communist Party. Just months after that event, Tung underwent heart surgery, according to local reporting.

    In an official statement following his death, Tung’s office remembered him as a leader deeply devoted to the country and its people. “His noble character and integrity will live on forever in our hearts,” the statement read. He is survived by his wife and three children.

  • ‘Emotional rollercoaster’ – Lindsay Clancy jurors speak out on what led to mistrial

    ‘Emotional rollercoaster’ – Lindsay Clancy jurors speak out on what led to mistrial

    In the wake of a high-profile mistrial that left the Lindsay Clancy case hanging in legal limbo, three members of the 12-person jury have stepped forward to share unprecedented details of the tense, emotionally fraught deliberations that ended with no verdict. The three women, one of whom served as the jury’s foreperson, opened up about their experience in an exclusive interview with NBC, speaking publicly for the first time since Judge William Sullivan formally declared a mistrial late last week.

    Clancy, a Massachusetts woman charged with the murder of her three young children, has never denied taking their lives in the basement of the family home. Her defense team has centered its entire case on the argument that she was suffering from severe, untreated postpartum psychosis at the time of the killings, and thus lacked the criminal responsibility to be found guilty. Prosecutors, by contrast, have pushed the narrative that the killings were a premeditated, calculated act, calling more than a dozen expert witnesses including multiple medical professionals to bolster their claim. After nearly 40 hours of deliberations spread across seven days, marked by repeated notifications to the court that the jury was deadlocked, Sullivan officially called a mistrial.

    The three female jurors confirmed what court observers had speculated: the panel was just one vote away from a unanimous verdict of not guilty by reason of insanity. The foreperson, a retired fifth-grade grade teacher who acts as the official representative for the jury in U.S. judicial proceedings, described the days of deliberation as an unrelenting emotional roller coaster that left many jurors in tears. “We had lots of crying, lots of tears, and then hugging each other to get through it,” she shared. “I was so sad we couldn’t reach a verdict for Lindsay. It was absolutely heartbreaking. It’s just awful that it ended this way.”

    She detailed a moment of false hope that quickly turned to disappointment: the lone male holdout had already admitted he held reasonable doubt about Clancy’s criminal responsibility, a standard that under Massachusetts law requires a not guilty verdict. As the foreperson began filling out the official verdict forms, excited that the process was wrapping up, the holdout reversed course. He told the panel he still would not vote to acquit on the grounds of insanity, despite acknowledging he could not find beyond a reasonable doubt that Clancy was criminally culpable. The holdout has not come forward publicly to respond to the jurors’ claims.

    The second juror, an employee at a government defense contractor, explained that the holdout’s objection centered on questions about the medication Clancy was taking at the time of the killings. Even after the panel, which included multiple practicing nurses, walked through the clear toxicology reports that confirmed the exact dosage of Clancy’s medication, the juror refused to accept the evidence, she said. The third juror, a chef at a local senior center, added that she found the prosecution’s approach unnecessarily harsh, noting that prosecutors never called a single witness to testify that Clancy had been an abusive or unfit mother before the killings.

    As the foreperson clarified, the jury never debated whether Clancy had caused the deaths of her children, as she had already admitted that fact. Their task, under Massachusetts law, was only to determine whether she understood right from wrong at the time of the act — a standard for criminal responsibility that puts the burden of proof on the prosecution, not the defendant, to prove beyond reasonable doubt that she was criminally culpable. The three jurors all said they found the prosecution’s argument unconvincing, saying all available evidence pointed to Clancy having snapped from her postpartum psychosis, unable to understand her actions.

    Deliberations grew so contentious that arguments and shouting could be heard through the jury room walls, the jurors confirmed. At one point, the panel notified the court that the holdout was refusing to follow the judge’s instructions on the legal standard of reasonable doubt, leading Clancy’s defense team to request that the juror be removed from the case. That request was immediately denied by the judge, and the stalemate continued until a mistrial was declared.

    All jury members have remained anonymous per court order, which banned any photography or filming of the panel during the trial to protect their privacy. Under U.S. law, however, jurors are free to speak publicly about their deliberations once a case concludes, a common practice in high-profile cases like this one. The BBC, which had a reporter in the courthouse throughout the trial, has confirmed that the three women who spoke to NBC were indeed seated on the Clancy jury.

    The mistrial has left Clancy’s future and the trajectory of the case completely uncertain. Prosecutors are currently weighing whether to empanel a new jury and hold a second trial. Clancy’s lead defense attorney, Kevin Reddington, has already stated he hopes to negotiate a plea agreement with prosecutors to avoid a second proceeding. The three jurors who spoke to NBC echoed that hope, saying they oppose a new trial — and if one is ultimately held, all three plan to attend in open court to show their support for Clancy.

  • Watch: Archeologists discover ancient tomb in Peru

    Watch: Archeologists discover ancient tomb in Peru

    A remarkable archaeological breakthrough has been announced in Peru, where research teams have unearthed a nearly undisturbed ancient burial site linked to the pre-Incan Chimu civilization, one of the most influential pre-Columbian cultures to emerge along South America’s Pacific coast. The discovery, which was captured on video for documentation and public sharing, offers an unprecedented window into the funerary traditions, social structures, and cultural practices of a society that dominated much of northern Peru for centuries before the rise of the Inca Empire. Unlike many ancient tombs in the region, which have been targeted by looters or damaged by centuries of natural erosion, this site was found in an exceptional state of preservation. Archaeologists note that the intact condition of the burial chamber means that artifacts, human remains, and contextual materials that reveal critical details about Chimu life are still in their original positions. This preservation avoids the common problem of looting that has destroyed countless archaeological sites across Peru, allowing researchers to conduct a full, systematic excavation that is expected to yield new insights into Chimu political organization, religious beliefs, and daily life. Initial assessments suggest the tomb may belong to a high-ranking member of Chimu society, given the care taken in its construction and sealing. The excavation team has already begun careful documentation of the site, with plans to remove artifacts and remains for further laboratory analysis in the coming months before putting key findings on public display to expand public understanding of Peru’s rich pre-Columbian heritage. The Chimu civilization, centered on its capital city of Chan Chan near modern-day Trujillo, flourished from around 900 CE until the Inca conquest in the 15th century, and this new find is already being hailed as one of the most significant Chimu archaeological discoveries of the past decade.

  • Nepal’s flood disaster and the impact of climate change loom large in the icy shadow of Mont Blanc

    Nepal’s flood disaster and the impact of climate change loom large in the icy shadow of Mont Blanc

    For hundreds of years, the mountain communities straddling the French-Italian border at the foot of Western Europe’s tallest peak have lived in the shadow of Mont Blanc — the “White Mountain” — whose seemingly permanent snowfields and glaciers defined both its name and its iconic landscape. Today, that centuries-old landscape is unraveling at a pace that has alarmed scientists, local leaders and long-time residents alike, as accelerating climate warming drives catastrophic change across the Alpine range.

    Europe’s sweltering record-breaking heat waves this summer pushed temperatures to unprecedented highs at high altitude, thawing permafrost that has acted as natural cement holding the Alps’ rocky slopes together for millennia. As cold, centuries-old terrain warmed and softened, unstable cliffs fractured, sending massive cascades of rock tumbling down from the heights. Even one of the most notoriously hazardous gullies regularly traversed by climbers aiming for Mont Blanc’s 4,805-meter summit became temporarily impassable, its routes rendered too dangerous to attempt.

    “We weep for our mountain, the way it’s changing. It hits us in the gut,” said Stéphane Bozon, deputy mayor of Chamonix-Mont-Blanc, the French alpine town that sits at the mountain’s base. Since mid-July, Bozon explained, the frequency of rockfalls has climbed steadily. Glacial retreat, rapid snowmelt, widening crevasses and sudden rock collapses have closed off multiple once-accessible areas, making travel across many high-altitude routes far more dangerous than just a generation ago.

    Temperature data from France’s national weather service Meteo France underscores the scale of the warming. On Aiguille du Midi, a 3,842-meter peak in the Mont Blanc massif, the average July temperature has jumped from 1.6°C (33.8°F) in 1994 to 3.3°C (37.4°F) this year — the warmest July ever recorded at the site. “The mountain really dried out, with temperatures unlike any I had ever experienced,” Bozon added.

    The crisis unfolding on Mont Blanc mirrors a growing global pattern of climate-fueled glacial and mountain disasters, highlighted by the devastating August floods that killed dozens of people across Nepal and southern Tibet. That catastrophe was triggered when a combination of glacial ice and bedrock collapsed, sending a surge of debris and water roaring through Himalayan river valleys. Most scientists agree that rising temperatures driven by the burning of fossil fuels created the unstable conditions that led to the disaster, and as global average temperatures continue to climb, the likelihood of similar events will only increase.

    Across the Alps, glaciers long celebrated for their icy grandeur are now viewed with growing apprehension, as shrinking ice and thawing terrain erode their stability. For Bozon, who oversees public safety for Chamonix, the urgent priority is preparing for worst-case scenarios, in which large chunks of glacial ice or unstable mountain rock could break away and crash into populated lowland areas. “We have to move quite quickly because this summer has shaken us and year after year we’re being shaken by the glaciers’ retreat,” he said.

    On the Italian side of the border, researchers are documenting similarly dramatic damage from this year’s record heat. Since 1991, Alpine glaciers in Italy’s Lombardy region have lost more than 40% of their total surface area, according to the region’s official glacier monitoring service. Vanda Bonardo, head of the Italian branch of the International Commission for the Protection of the Alps, noted that once-reliable high-altitude snowfall has increasingly been replaced by rain, further eroding terrain stability. “So we’ve also seen the effects on the stability of the terrain,” she added.

    Ludovic Ravanel, a climate researcher at Savoie Mont Blanc University who specializes in how rising temperatures impact mountain ice, snow and permafrost, explained that permafrost’s role in holding steep rock faces together cannot be overstated. This year’s repeated back-to-back heat waves pushed that ancient ice to a breaking point. “That doesn’t mean that all the rock faces will collapse in the coming years or decades but quite a number of them are on the verge of becoming unstable and remain stable today only because of the presence of that ice. As the ice changes, we have seen a huge, huge number of rock falls and rock collapses this year,” he said.

    Ravanel defines a major collapse as a rock fall involving more than 100 cubic meters of rock — enough to fill a large standard shipping container. He projects that the total number of major collapses across the Mont Blanc massif this year will likely reach roughly 400, a figure that is 10 times higher than the average recorded two decades ago. The last time the region came close to this level of activity was 2022, which was already labeled a “catastrophic year” with nearly 300 major collapses. “This has really been one of the defining features of the summer of 2024,” he said.

    For mountain guides who have built their lives around leading climbs on Mont Blanc, the rapid shift has been both professionally challenging and deeply disheartening. Stuart MacDonald, a Chamonix-based guide, says he is stunned by how quickly and extensively the massif’s hanging glaciers have retreated in just the last decade. When he leads groups up the slopes, he often points out visible markers of the melt: “where the glacier was last year and this is where it was 10 years ago. And that usually has quite an effect.”

    This summer, elevated melt and constant rockfall risk made MacDonald’s job “pretty challenging,” and he was forced to cancel a planned summit ascent just last week. “You hear it before you see it and then you’ll turn round and you’ll just see an enormous cascade of rocks coming down a slope and it can be quite terrifying,” he said. “What’s most scary is that sometimes these rocks are falling on routes that we used to be climbing at this time of year. It can be depressing sometimes when you look at something that you maybe climbed in July or August in the past and you see that it’s absolutely impossible to do it now.”

  • Watch: Downed trees and flooding as Hurricane Lowell batters western Hawaii

    Watch: Downed trees and flooding as Hurricane Lowell batters western Hawaii

    Over the course of Monday and Tuesday, powerful Hurricane Lowell made its damaging approach to western Hawaii, leaving a trail of disrupted infrastructure and environmental chaos in its wake. The powerful storm system unleashed two full days of severe weather across multiple parts of the Hawaiian island, combining destructive, high-velocity winds with torrential downpours that overwhelmed local drainage systems.

    Emergency management officials have issued repeated urgent warnings in the wake of the storm’s impact, highlighting two major ongoing risks that continue to threaten local communities. First, persistent saturated ground has raised the acute possibility of sudden flash flooding across low-lying and river-adjacent areas, where rising water can quickly cut off access and destroy property. Second, the heavy rainfall has loosened soil on hillsides and steep terrain, triggering widespread fears of dangerous mudslides that can swallow roads and damage residential areas.

    Local footage captured in the aftermath of the storm’s peak shows large trees uprooted by strong winds, blocking major thoroughfares and crushing small outbuildings in residential neighborhoods. Drainage systems have been overwhelmed in many coastal and low-lying communities, leaving streets submerged under several feet of muddy flood water. As of the latest update, emergency response teams are working around the clock to clear blocked routes, evacuate at-risk residents, and assess the full scope of damage caused by the storm.

  • US slaps import ban on Canadian alcohol and other goods

    US slaps import ban on Canadian alcohol and other goods

    The long-simmering trade dispute between the United States and Canada has entered a dangerous new phase, with Washington moving to implement a full ban on a range of key Canadian imports after Ottawa’s retaliatory tariffs on American goods officially came into force.

    In a set of executive orders signed Tuesday, former US President Donald Trump claimed that Canada has de facto discriminated against American commercial activity, and formalized the import ban set to launch on September 29. The restricted products cover a wide swath of Canadian trade, including alcohol, dairy products and passenger and commercial motor vehicles.

    Just hours before Trump’s announcement, Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney delivered a televised video address acknowledging the harsh reality of his country’s strategic shift to reduce economic dependence on its largest trading partner. “This pivot will come at a cost,” Carney told the Canadian public, as the country prepared to roll out its retaliatory measures.

    The latest escalation follows the collapse of trade negotiations between the two neighbors in late August. While officials from both sides have repeatedly stated that they remain open to reaching a new negotiated agreement, no new diplomatic talks have been scheduled to de-escalate the crisis.

    The conflict first intensified last month, when the White House imposed a steep 50% tariff on roughly $20 billion worth of Canadian exports after multiple rounds of talks failed to bridge core differences. In a tit-for-tat response, Canada announced matching dollar-for-dollar retaliatory tariffs on iconic American exports including steel, apparel and furniture, which officially went into effect just after midnight on Tuesday.

    What makes this bilateral clash even more unusual is that tensions have spilled far beyond the realm of trade policy. In August, Trump drew widespread international backlash when he issued an order to rename Lake Ontario, one of the five Great Lakes shared between the US and Canada, to “Lake America” — a decision that sparked public uproar among both Canadian citizens and many American commentators.

    This is an ongoing developing breaking news story, with additional details expected to be released in the coming hours and days. Readers can access real-time updates via the BBC News mobile application, or follow BBC Breaking News’ official account on X for instant alerts on new developments.

  • ‘We share the goal of stability’: Rubio remarks restrained as western allies sanction Israel

    ‘We share the goal of stability’: Rubio remarks restrained as western allies sanction Israel

    On Tuesday, in a striking break from long-standing Western alignment on Israeli-Palestinian policy, the United Kingdom, France, and Canada announced a coordinated package of unprecedented punitive measures targeting Israel, drawing an immediate split with the United States over how to address escalating tensions in the occupied Palestinian territories.

    During a press briefing while traveling in Colombia, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio struck a restrained tone, confirming that Washington would not align with the new actions taken by its allies. “We were made aware that they were going to make this decision,” Rubio told reporters. “We heard their argument as to why, but look, we share the goal of stability. We don’t want to see some uptick in violence or an uptick in conflict or tensions in the West Bank at a very tenuous time. In the region, there’s always tenuous times.”

    A Bloomberg report published Tuesday cited unnamed UK diplomatic sources who privately told their US counterparts ahead of the announcement that the new sanctions are largely symbolic and unlikely to deliver tangible economic or political impact on Israel. As part of the coordinated declaration, the three Western nations formally recognized claims of ethnic cleansing being carried out against Palestinians in the occupied West Bank, but notably excluded Gaza from this designation. As of this reporting, Gaza has seen more than 73,000 Palestinian fatalities since the October 7, 2023 Hamas attacks on southern Israel, and the besieged enclave is widely described as a decimated wasteland, with Israeli air strikes continuing despite a nearly year-old ceasefire agreement.

    Building on a 2024 advisory opinion from the International Court of Justice, the UK, France, and Canada also formally declared Israel’s long-standing occupation of Palestinian territory illegal, but again, the joint statement did not address Israel’s 19-year blockade of the Gaza Strip. The concrete measures announced include comprehensive economic sanctions on Israeli settlements in the West Bank and an immediate ban on new arms licenses that would support the Israeli occupation. Independent critics have already noted that these restrictions are easily circumvented through supply chain rerouting and product relabeling, echoing the earlier private assessment from UK diplomats.

    In their joint statement, the three nations framed the actions as a necessary step to preserve the internationally backed two-state solution, a framework that has been increasingly sidelined in recent years. “One year ago, we recognised the State of Palestine. The time has come to take further action to uphold our commitment to protect the two-state solution, our interests and to stand up for our values, before it is too late,” the statement read. This move comes despite a complete lack of public support for a two-state solution within Israeli political circles, extending even to the main opposition bloc that is widely expected to oust Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in upcoming October national elections. The US has also effectively abandoned its decades-long official support for a two-state solution under current President Donald Trump.

    The joint statement reaffirmed that the three allies remain firmly committed to Israel’s security. “In taking this coordinated action, we reiterate our desire for a close and productive partnership with Israel, our enduring support for the Israeli people and our unwavering commitment to Israel’s security,” they added. Even so, the announcement drew fierce condemnation from pro-Israel American politicians even before it was made public. Earlier this week, as rumors of the impending declaration began to circulate, US Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee wrote on the social platform X that the British government had “lost it” and was driven by “Jew hate”. Florida Republican Congressman Randy Fine, a well-known anti-Muslim voice in Congress, similarly warned on X that Florida is one of the UK’s largest trading partners, and that what he called the allies’ “vanity project in support of Muslim terror could cost them billions of dollars” in bilateral trade.

    Reactions to the sanctions have been deeply divided among advocacy groups and policy analysts. Omar Barghouti, co-founder of the global Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) movement advocating for Palestinian rights, described the new measures as “largely performative and ineffective”. He added that the UK’s focus on allowing humanitarian aid into Gaza does not end its complicity in the ongoing conflict, noting that Israel has fully integrated the occupied territories’ economy into its own, making any differentiation between Israeli and settlement goods functionally impossible for enforcing import bans.

    In Washington DC, J Street, a pro-Israel advocacy group that has long supported a two-state solution, praised UK Foreign Secretary Ed Miliband’s public video announcement of the new measures. “Note to American leaders and those seeking future roles: this is what leadership on this issue looks like today,” J Street CEO Jeremy Ben-Ami wrote in response. However, Robert Satloff, head of the staunchly pro-Israel Washington Institute for Near East Policy, called the announcement a “sad day” on X, and slammed Miliband for simultaneously denouncing antisemitism while advancing what he called “anti-Israel policies”. Satloff argued that singling Israel out for this type of targeted treatment inherently aligns with the antisemitism that Miliband publicly condemned. This matches a long-standing pattern from the Israeli government, which routinely labels any criticism of its policies as antisemitism, regardless of whether the criticism stems from United Nations resolutions, foreign government policy, or even cultural expression.

    In Canada, the advocacy group Canadians for Justice and Peace in the Middle East welcomed Ottawa’s participation in the sanctions, calling it a “victory for the Palestine solidarity movement and everyone who wants Canadian trade policy to uphold human rights and international law”. Yara Shoufani, the organization’s president, noted that for years Canada has enabled illegal trade with Israeli settlement businesses, even extending economic benefits through the Canada-Israel Free Trade Agreement. “This announcement marks the first time that Israel will face material, economic consequences for its blatant violations of international law,” Shoufani said. Conversely, Noah Shack, CEO of the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs in Canada, strongly condemned the Canadian government’s decision, arguing that Ottawa abandoned an independent foreign policy aligned with its own strategic interests to follow the UK’s lead, a move he claimed was driven by domestic political calculations to appease extreme elements of Canadian society. Shack added that the sanctions would do nothing to advance political reform or demilitarization in Palestinian territories.

    In response to the allied announcement, the Israeli government has already launched retaliatory diplomatic measures: it has announced the closure of the British consulate in Jerusalem, imposed a travel ban on a dozen sitting British lawmakers, and expelled the British Support Team that trains security forces for the Palestinian Authority (PA). A progressive US think tank, A New Policy, founded by two former Biden administration officials who resigned in protest over Washington’s unconditional support for Israel, noted that this Israeli retaliation will ultimately harm US security objectives in the region, since the British Support Team operated under the umbrella of the US Security Coordinator (USSC) mission. That mission works closely with the Israeli military to maintain the level of stability that Israel demands in the occupied West Bank, and the British team provided critical on-the-ground intelligence for the USSC.

    To offset any potential backlash for targeting Israel, the UK government also included a package of expanded sanctions on Iran as part of Tuesday’s announcement, adding new trade restrictions on Iranian shipping and aviation. This move aligned with simultaneous action from the US Treasury Department, which announced sanctions on 36 individuals and entities accused of supporting Iran’s aviation sector through covert front companies, foreign intermediaries, and deceptive shipping routes that Iran uses to obtain US-origin aircraft and sensitive technology.