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  • UAE government-linked jet lands in Tehran as regional tensions rise

    UAE government-linked jet lands in Tehran as regional tensions rise

    Against a backdrop of soaring regional tensions and growing fears that the United States could launch new military strikes against Iran that would trigger devastating retaliation across the Gulf, a UAE government-linked passenger jet that regularly carries senior Emirati officials touched down in Tehran on Monday, marking its second visit to the Iranian capital in just four days.

    According to open-source intelligence researchers tracking regional aviation movements, the Boeing 737, operated by Royal Jet — a private charter firm wholly owned by the United Arab Emirates government — completed the flight from Abu Dhabi on Monday, following an identical trip it made to Tehran on Saturday.

    The back-to-back diplomatic flights have arrived at a moment when the risk of a full-scale military confrontation between the US and Iran has spiked dramatically. Just one day before the second landing, the US State Department issued an urgent security alert for all American citizens located across the Middle East, urging them to prepare for potential unrest and targeted attacks.

    “Americans traveling to or from the Middle East should closely monitor updates on airport and airline operations and put contingency exit plans in place,” the advisory read. “Iran and factions aligned with Iran may target US interests and personnel across the region.”

    Tensions between the UAE and Iran shifted dramatically after the US and Israel launched a coordinated military strike against Iran in February 2026. At that time, the UAE emerged as one of the most hawkish Gulf states opposing Tehran, joining the US-Israeli coalition in launching hundreds of strikes on Iranian targets and blocking Pakistani-led mediation efforts to de-escalate the conflict.

    However, the Gulf nation quickly bore the brunt of Iran’s retaliatory operations. Long positioned as a stable, secure economic hub and a regional safe haven for international investment, the UAE faced thousands of Iranian missile and drone attacks across its territory. Most critically, the key Emirati port of Fujairah, located just outside the strategic Strait of Hormuz through a fifth of the world’s global oil supplies pass, suffered repeated sophisticated strikes targeting critical oil export infrastructure.

    In June, Reuters reported that the UAE ultimately struck a secret deal with Tehran, agreeing to pay billions of dollars in protection payments to end the Iranian strikes. Per the report, Abu Dhabi transferred an initial $3 billion to Iran and committed to a total payout of $20 billion, a claim the UAE government has repeatedly denied.

    On Monday, regional policy analysts were awash with speculation that the repeated Emirati flights to Tehran signal ongoing behind-the-scenes negotiations between the two countries, as both sides prepare for a possible new round of US-led strikes on Iran that could reignite open conflict across the Gulf.

    The threat of fresh military action has been amplified by recent comments from former US President Donald Trump, who has upped the ante for new strikes against Iran in a public endorsement of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu ahead of Israel’s general elections later this month. Speaking on Sunday, Trump said he wanted Netanyahu to remain in office to help “finish the job” against Iran, adding that Tehran must change its behavior rapidly to avoid new conflict.

    Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi issued a sharp, public rebuke of Trump’s comments on the social media platform X. “Last time you wanted to ‘finish the job’, Iran emerged even stronger,” Araghchi wrote. “Want to try your luck again? Be our guest. But be careful; we have unfinished jobs too.” He went on to accuse Netanyahu of pushing the US into a new war purely to keep himself out of domestic legal trouble, arguing the Israeli leader does not care what costs the conflict imposes on Israel, let alone the US presidency.

    The UAE’s diplomatic outreach to Iran comes amid a flurry of parallel diplomatic activity in the region. On the same day as the Emirati jet landed in Tehran, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov held a meeting with Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian in the Iranian capital. Multiple international news outlets including the Financial Times have reported that Russia has been providing critical intelligence support to Iran to help the country target US military bases across the Middle East.

  • Canadian tourist found guilty of animal cruelty after stealing Las Vegas flamingo from enclosure

    Canadian tourist found guilty of animal cruelty after stealing Las Vegas flamingo from enclosure

    A 34-year-old Canadian visitor to the United States has been found guilty of felony and misdemeanor animal abuse following a reckless, alcohol-fueled incident that left a captive Chilean flamingo injured and permanently behaviorally altered. Mitchell Fairbarn, who traveled to the popular entertainment hub of Las Vegas, carried out the unusual crime in March this year, abducting the bird — named Peachy — from the free public wildlife habitat at the iconic Flamingo Las Vegas Hotel and Casino located on the Las Vegas Strip.

    Court documents and trial evidence presented a clear picture of the incident: security camera footage captured Fairbarn riding an elevator to his guest room while holding the flamingo by its neck, with a visible smile on his face. During his testimony, Fairbarn admitted he had consumed between 30 and 40 beers over the course of a night of drinking before the incident, and claimed he never intended to hurt the bird. He told the jury he only thought stealing the flamingo would be a funny stunt, making the split-second decision to take the animal after finishing a late-night call with a work colleague.

    The Flamingo Las Vegas’s open-access wildlife habitat has long been a signature attraction for the property, home to a flock of Chilean flamingos alongside a variety of other native and exotic species, including fish, turtles, and other birds, that guests can observe for free during their visit. The habitat’s peaceful public setting was upended by Fairbarn’s impulsive act, which caused immediate physical harm to Peachy. Animal welfare experts and veterinarians testifying for the prosecution confirmed that the incident left the bird with torn feathers and significant blood loss. While Peachy has physically recovered from the attack, state veterinary reports note the bird now displays permanent increased anxiety when around human visitors.

    Over the course of the trial, the 12-person jury heard testimony from 14 separate witnesses and reviewed more than 112 individual pieces of evidence, according to CBS, the BBC’s U.S. news partner. After five hours of deliberation, the jury returned guilty verdicts on both felony and misdemeanor animal cruelty charges.

    In his defense of Fairbarn, defense attorney Josh Tomsheck did not dispute his client’s actions, instead framing the incident as a thoughtless, alcohol-induced mistake rather than a deliberate act of cruelty. “He should not have done that, should not have gone into the habitat, shouldn’t have touched a bird, shouldn’t have taken Peachy inside,” Tomsheck told the court. “The truth is, Mitch was drunk. Mitch was stupid. He made bad decisions.” The attorney added that the case has attracted widespread public anger, and Fairbarn has received numerous death threats since he was first taken into custody.

    Since his arrest, Fairbarn has been barred from leaving the United States and is currently under house arrest in Las Vegas as he awaits his sentencing hearing, scheduled for December. He now faces up to nearly five years in state prison for his convictions.

  • Abdul El-Sayed confronts heckler linking him to Muslim Brotherhood

    Abdul El-Sayed confronts heckler linking him to Muslim Brotherhood

    With the 2026 November U.S. midterm elections just weeks away, a tense exchange at a Michigan town hall on Saturday has thrown a spotlight on the growing anti-Muslim rhetoric targeting Democratic Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed, the son of Egyptian immigrants born and raised in the state. The confrontation, which El-Sayed later shared on his official X (formerly Twitter) account, began when an attendee identifying himself only as Tommy stepped forward to demand that El-Sayed publicly disavow the Muslim Brotherhood.

    El-Sayed immediately complied with the request, saying “Sure. Yeah, absolutely,” before pushing back to unpack the underlying implication of the question. He pressed the attendee: “Why would you ask me this? What are you implying?” The heckler, who later described the Muslim Brotherhood as a terrorist organization, pushed back by saying he had never heard El-Sayed make such a disavowal before.

    In the aftermath of the event, public records and independent reporting revealed that the heckler is Thomas Teeple, a former Republican congressional aide who previously worked on the staff of Missouri Senator Josh Hawley and served as political director for Philip Sarnecki’s 2022 Kansas gubernatorial campaign. The incident was not an isolated act of individual bias, either: it is the latest in a sustained campaign of religiously tinged attacks targeting El-Sayed, who is Muslim, stretching back months.

    El-Sayed drew a historical parallel to the backlash faced by John F. Kennedy, the nation’s first Catholic U.S. president, who faced widespread questioning over whether his religious loyalty would override his duty to the American public. “I am running for the Senate as an American who happens to be Muslim,” El-Sayed emphasized after the confrontation, pushing back against the framing that his faith makes him inherently suspect.

    This line of attack did not originate with Teeple. El-Sayed’s general election opponent, former Republican Congressman Mike Rogers, has repeatedly pushed unsubstantiated claims that El-Sayed holds hidden ties to the Muslim Brotherhood. Just weeks before the town hall, a leaked private group chat exposed a coordinated plot to disrupt El-Sayed’s events: a student affiliated with the University of Michigan College Republicans, Iman Dashti, offered students $200 each on behalf of conservative PAC America Next to travel to a Flint town hall and heckle El-Sayed to generate negative press. “Bring your friends. Bring your girlfriend,” Dashti wrote in the GroupMe chat. “Take her out somewhere nice with the $400 you two will make in literally 2.5 hours. All u have to do to get paid is COME AND SHOW OUT AGAINST ABDUL.”

    Former president Donald Trump has also amplified the attacks against El-Sayed, mocking his name and spreading the same baseless Brotherhood affiliation claims at recent rallies in Georgia and Tennessee. “He’s a jihadist,” Trump claimed at one event, mispronouncing El-Sayed’s first name as “Mohammed” and joking that he could call the candidate whatever he wanted. He even mocked the name with a drawn-out, mocking string of syllables: “His name is actually Abduladadalalalala.”

    El-Sayed has pushed back sharply against these attacks, framing them as a cynical distraction from policy failures by right-wing leaders. On X, the candidate hit back at Trump’s remarks, pointing out the former president’s own close financial ties to Middle Eastern nations: “He says the name just fine when he’s begging the Qataris for a personal jet or the Saudis for funding for his son-in-law’s private equity firm. Wonder what’s changed?”

    The incident has sparked widespread backlash online, with many observers and political commentators calling out the question as inherently racist targeting a candidate based on his ethnic and religious background. “This is fucking crazy. Asking a Muslim BORN IN MICHIGAN to disavow some foreign group just bc he’s ethnically Egyptian IS RACIST,” one political commentator wrote on X, sharing the clip of the confrontation. The incident has reignited broader conversations about the normalization of anti-Muslim rhetoric in mainstream American electoral politics, as candidates continue to weaponize faith and ethnicity to sully opponents ahead of competitive elections.

  • Seventh day of violent clashes between Albanian protesters and police

    Seventh day of violent clashes between Albanian protesters and police

    Seven straight days of violent unrest have rocked Albania, as anti-government demonstrations led largely by high school and university students have devolved into open conflict between protesters and riot police in the capital Tirana, with demonstrators demanding the resignation of long-serving Prime Minister Edi Rama.

    Pre-counted official data puts the total injury toll at 295 ahead of Monday’s fresh clashes, with 186 of those injured being members of the police force. During a meeting with somber senior police commanders, Rama held up a stone that had been thrown at officers the previous day, stating firmly that if the state chooses to negotiate with the current protest movement, it ceases to function as a sovereign governing body. Since the unrest began, a local police station and multiple central government buildings in Tirana have been targeted by protesters, whose grievances combine demands for improved higher education conditions, widespread anger at systemic government corruption, and repeated calls for Rama to step down after 13 years in power.

    Rama has pushed back hard against the movement, claiming the predominantly young protesters have been radicalized by what he called “dark forces” operating from Europe and the United States, framing the unrest as a coordinated, externally backed attack on Albania’s sovereignty.

    On-the-ground reporting from Tirana’s Rinia (Youth) Park captured the preparation for conflict under clear October skies: protesters pried loose cobblestones from park pathways to use as ammunition for coming clashes with police, mirroring the stone Rama displayed to police leaders. Within minutes, security forces moved in: an armored police convoy advanced along the city’s main boulevard, with a leading water cannon truck firing tear gas canisters into crowds of fleeing demonstrators. Riot squads pursued the student-heavy crowd through the park, with many protesters taking shelter in a nearby cafe where even waiting staff were left teary-eyed from the lingering gas fumes. Volunteer medics in yellow reflective vests remained stationed under park trees to treat people overwhelmed by tear gas. The on-site reporter witnessed one incident where a police officer fired pepper spray at point-blank range into a young man’s face during a verbal confrontation.

    Human rights lawyer Gentian Sejrani, who provides legal representation to more than 100 protesters arrested during the unrest, criticized police conduct as disorganized and unjust. Sejrani noted that police rarely present credible evidence to support arrests in court, citing one client who was detained purely by chance while walking to a bus stop, completely uninvolved in the protests. Conversely, he added, most protesters who throw projectiles at police rarely face arrest, as they are able to outrun security forces.

    Mutual anger has fueled the cycle of violence: police are enraged by injuries to their colleagues, while protesters resent what they view as excessive police heavy-handedness, creating a chaotic, volatile standoff. Protesters have organized grassroots mutual aid, bringing saline spray to treat people exposed to tear gas.

    Sidorela Vatnikaj, a 27-year-old master’s student and veteran activist with eight years of anti-government protest experience, is one of the de facto prominent voices in the leaderless movement. She described the daily reality of participating in the unrest: coordinating across decentralized protest groups, arranging legal support and first aid supplies, checking on the safety of fellow participants, and spending most of the day moving between protest sites while evading police.

    While Vatnikaj says she is uncomfortable with violence targeting state authorities, she blames police for initiating and escalating the conflict. “When I see people throwing stones at the police, I understand their anger. I don’t judge them. I’m not happy, but they have no other way to be listened to,” she explained. She pointed out that many protesters come from families forced to leave Albania over the past decade – a wave of emigration that has seen a million people leave the country – and that young Albanians have been robbed of opportunity, ignored by the government, and now attacked by security forces.

    In response to Rama’s rhetorical question asking what would happen if he stepped down, Vatnikaj called for a one-year technocratic interim government to oversee preparations for free, fair democratic elections. She has accused Rama of rigging previous votes and colluding with wealthy foreign investors and organized crime networks. She added that young Albanian protesters draw inspiration and encouragement from fellow Gen Z protest movements across the globe, noting that the dream of a dignified democratic society that drove previous generations has never been realized.

    Rama, who has dominated Albanian politics since the early 2000s and held the prime ministership for 13 years, has positioned himself as the only leader capable of delivering Albania’s EU accession by the 2030 target.

  • Police used ‘justified’ force in fatal shooting of one-year-old, says Mississippi attorney general

    Police used ‘justified’ force in fatal shooting of one-year-old, says Mississippi attorney general

    A controversial ruling from Mississippi’s top law enforcement official has reignited anger and demands for accountability after a one-year-old black boy, Kohen Wiley, was killed by police gunfire during a June shoplifting probe in the small town of Senatobia. State Attorney General Lynn Fitch announced Monday that the officer’s use of lethal force in the incident was legally justified, a conclusion that has been met with fierce pushback from the child’s family and their legal team.

    The fatal encounter unfolded on June 14, when local police were dispatched to a local Walmart following a report that baby items including diapers and clothing had been shoplifted. When officers arrived at the scene, they encountered two black women — Vellesiya Wiley, Kohen’s mother, and Latoya Ferrell, the vehicle’s driver — with the toddler sitting in Wiley’s lap in the passenger seat. According to official accounts from the Mississippi Bureau of Investigation, officers attempted to halt the vehicle before Ferrell allegedly drove it directly toward an officer, putting the law enforcement official in immediate danger. One officer responded by opening fire, striking Kohen fatally and leaving Ferrell with critical injuries.

    Wiley has publicly refuted the theft allegations, disputing the official narrative of the encounter. She says she lifted Kohen up from her lap to clearly show officers he was present in the vehicle moments before gunfire rang out. To date, neither Wiley nor Ferrell have faced any criminal charges connected to the alleged shoplifting or the incident itself.

    In her brief public statement confirming the ruling, Fitch confirmed that her office had concluded the officer’s use of force was justified under law. But the decision has done little to resolve tensions in the community, particularly as all investigative footage — including the officer’s body camera recording and Walmart parking lot security footage — remains sealed from the public and the victim’s family.
    Benjamin Crump, the high-profile civil rights attorney representing the Wiley family, slammed the ruling Monday, questioning how any impartial conclusion could be accepted without full transparency. “How can anyone accept that conclusion when Kohen’s family and the public still have not been allowed to see the body-camera footage?” Crump said, pushing state officials to release all available footage immediately. “If the footage supports the state’s decision, release it,” he added. “We will not stop fighting until this family gets the truth.”

    Legal representation for the officer who fired the fatal shots has defended his actions, maintaining that the use of force was unavoidable. Martin Zummach, the officer’s attorney, told the Associated Press that Ferrell had intentionally attempted to kill his client, leaving the officer with no other option than to use his weapon. “He had no choice but to fire his weapon,” Zummach said.

    The shooting, which occurred on Juneteenth — the U.S. federal holiday commemorating the end of chattel slavery in America — immediately sparked widespread protests in Senatobia, with demonstrators raising long-simmering concerns about racial bias in local law enforcement. Kohen and the two women involved are Black, while the officer who opened fire is reported to be white. Just last month, those concerns led to major leadership changes in the city’s police department: Senatobia’s former white police chief was fired after local news outlets uncovered a series of text messages in which he repeatedly used violent anti-Black racial slurs.

    The case remains a flashpoint for national conversations about police use of force, racial disparities in law enforcement, and transparency in officer-involved fatal shootings in the United States.

  • Netanyahu map shows RSF ‘friendly’ to Israel and UAE, backing for separatist movements

    Netanyahu map shows RSF ‘friendly’ to Israel and UAE, backing for separatist movements

    In a high-profile Sunday address where Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu introduced a sweeping updated national security doctrine, a publicly displayed regional alignment map has quickly become the center of diplomatic backlash and regional scrutiny, laying bare the unspoken power dynamics reshaping modern Middle Eastern geopolitics.

    The core shift in Netanyahu’s new security framework, as outlined in an official statement from his office, responds to what the Israeli government frames as the shifting threat landscape after what it terms the “War of Redemption.” The doctrine explicitly reorients Israeli strategy away from traditional defensive and containment approaches, prioritizing pre-emptive offensive strikes to neutralize emerging threats, shoring up domestic civil defense against evolving risks, and formalizing Israel’s self-positioning as a leading regional power. It also emphasizes that shifting regional currents have opened new doors for Israel to build cross-border partnerships both within and beyond the Middle East, the statement added.

    The map presented alongside the doctrine identifies a bloc called the “Hexagon Alliance” anchored by Israel and the United Arab Emirates, with Greece, Ethiopia, and sections of India also listed as aligned parties. What has drawn the most outrage and scrutiny, however, is the map’s classification of Sudan’s southwestern region—currently under full control of the Rapid Support Forces (RSF)—as aligned with the Israeli-UAE bloc. The RSF, led by former Janjaweed commander Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, has been widely accused of perpetrating genocide in Darfur amid Sudan’s ongoing civil conflict. Multiple United Nations expert investigations and independent media reports, including on-the-ground work from Middle East Eye, have documented consistent Emirati military and logistical support for the paramilitary, a claim the UAE has repeatedly denied in official statements.

    Further, the map frames a range of separatist and breakaway factions across the broader Middle East and North Africa as friendly to the Israeli-UAE bloc. In Libya, the eastern Libyan administration led by strongman Khalifa Haftar is marked as aligned with Israel. In Yemen, the UAE-backed Southern Transitional Council— which reorganized into the Transitional Council of South Arabia earlier this year after a brief dissolution—is listed as sympathetic to the alliance. Most recently, Israel made global headlines when it became the first United Nations member state to formally recognize Somaliland, a breakaway region that unilaterally declared independence from Somalia in 1991. Multiple reports have documented expanding Israeli and Emirati military footprints in the territory, which is also marked as aligned on Netanyahu’s map.

    Notably, the map deviates from longstanding formal Israeli diplomatic arrangements by excluding two of Israel’s earliest Arab peace partners from its core alliance bloc. Egypt, which signed a historic peace treaty with Israel in 1979, is categorized as part of a separate “Sunni diamond alliance” alongside Pakistan, Turkey, and Saudi Arabia. Jordan, which has maintained a formal peace agreement with Israel since 1994, is only marked as “friendly” to the Israeli-led bloc, rather than a core aligned member.

    The map also retains longstanding Israeli framing of the Tehran-led network of armed groups and allied states as the “Axis of Resistance,” grouping Iran, Lebanon’s Hezbollah, and Yemen’s Houthi movement in the opposing bloc. It additionally notes that Ethiopia, which is currently at heightened risk of full-scale war with neighboring Eritrea, is counted as a friendly state. Prior reporting from Middle East Eye has documented that Israel has long sought to establish a permanent Red Sea military base in Eritrea.

    While regional geopolitical analysts note that the alignments laid out in the map do not come as a major surprise to seasoned Middle East watchers, the public release of the document is expected to create significant diplomatic discomfort for many of Israel’s existing regional partners and harden long-held suspicions among Arab states about Israeli expansionist and interventionist goals across the region. Critics have already raised alarms that the map’s explicit recognition of separatist factions amounts to open Israeli support for partitioning already fragile conflict-affected states, a move that could further destabilize already volatile regions across the Horn of Africa and North Africa.

  • Morocco’s first female prime minister caught between the king, clerics, and feminists

    Morocco’s first female prime minister caught between the king, clerics, and feminists

    When King Mohammed VI of Morocco named 50-year-old Fatima Zahra El Mansouri as the North African nation’s first female prime minister following September’s parliamentary election, the moment was hailed as a groundbreaking milestone for women in politics by supporters. But the historic appointment has also pulled back the curtain on deep-seated conservative reservations about women holding top leadership roles, reigniting long-running debates over gender equality that have divided Moroccan society for decades. El Mansouri, a veteran politician with more than 20 years of public service experience, led her Authenticity and Modernity Party (PAM) to a plurality of seats in the September vote, and she has since formed a governing coalition with three other parties that commands a 207-seat majority in the 395-member parliament. Before her appointment, she served five years as Minister of National Territory Planning, Urban Planning, Housing and City Policy under the previous administration, and previously held roles as mayor of Marrakech and a member of parliament. In remarks after her royal appointment, El Mansouri framed the moment as a historic win for all Moroccan women, saying, “Being the first female head of government is not just a source of pride for me, but for all the women of the kingdom.” Yet even as many younger Moroccans, particularly women, have celebrated the end of a centuries-long gender barrier to the premiership, prominent conservative and religious voices have pushed back against the appointment, reviving outdated narratives to challenge a woman’s right to hold the office. Earlier this month, Mustafa Ramid, a former justice minister from a previous Islamist-led government, shared a lengthy Facebook post questioning the appointment that cited an ancient Islamic saying: “a people who entrust their affairs to a woman will never succeed.” Ramid argued that Morocco, a majority-Muslim nation, had already struck the right balance between gender equality and state leadership, noting that the monarchy, the country’s most powerful institution, remains exclusively held by men. Morocco functions as a constitutional monarchy on paper, but in practice, executive authority remains concentrated in the hands of 63-year-old King Mohammed VI, who holds sweeping powers over defense, foreign policy and other core governance areas, and retains the right to appoint the prime minister. Street interviews conducted by local broadcaster Chouf TV the day after El Mansouri’s appointment revealed widespread ambivalence among older generations of Moroccan men. Many respondents hesitated to share criticism of the appointment, since open criticism of the monarchy carries criminal penalties under Moroccan law, but several admitted discomfort with a woman leading the government. “It feels strange to have a woman as head of government. I’m not sure if it sits well with me,” one unnamed older man told the broadcaster. Online, bad-faith critics have circulated a viral video of two women fighting by pulling each other’s hair, framing it as a preview of how parliamentary disagreements would play out under El Mansouri’s leadership. The divides exposed by the appointment stretch far beyond the premiership, touching on long-running, contentious debates over gender equality across Moroccan law and society. For decades, women’s rights advocates have pushed for sweeping reform of the Moudawana, Morocco’s core family code that governs marriage, divorce, child custody and inheritance. Current law enshrines multiple unequal provisions for women: daughters typically receive only half the inheritance share of sons in comparable scenarios, and the rule of taasib requires female orphans without brothers to split their inheritance with distant male relatives. The country’s leading body of religious scholars, the Higher Council of Ulemas, has repeatedly rejected calls to reform these unequal inheritance rules, citing traditional Islamic jurisprudence. Polygamy remains legal under specific circumstances in Morocco, and while proposed reforms would allow women to add clauses to marriage contracts banning their husbands from taking additional wives, exceptions still allow polygamy in cases where a first wife is infertile or chronically ill – a provision women’s rights groups have decried as a violation of medical privacy and confidentiality. A broad package of Moudawana reforms was announced in 2024, but the changes have not yet been enacted into law. Morocco’s National Human Rights Council confirmed in a 2022 report that these persistent legal inequalities directly contribute to higher rates of poverty among women across the country. Beyond legal reform, many young Moroccan women are also pushing for progress on access to education for girls in rural areas. Official 2025 data from Morocco’s High Commission for Planning shows that while 100% of girls aged 15 to 17 attend school in urban areas, that figure drops to just 55% in rural regions, where poverty, early marriage, long distances to schools, lack of safe transport, and cultural norms that prioritize keeping daughters at home drive high dropout rates. Young advocate Chifae Laazouzi added that many low-income rural girls also cannot afford menstrual hygiene products, and menstrual health remains a widely stigmatized taboo in many communities. “I would like to see free menstrual products in schools,” Laazouzi told the BBC. While many women’s rights advocates acknowledge that El Mansouri’s appointment breaks a meaningful symbolic barrier, they caution that the milestone does not automatically guarantee progress on gender reform. El Mansouri has not made any high-profile public statements on women’s rights issues throughout her career, and has not yet signaled whether she will push for the long-awaited Moudawana reforms to move forward. Analysts also note that the appointment must be understood within the context of Morocco’s political system, and the low 38% voter turnout recorded in September’s parliamentary election – the lowest turnout in two decades. Dr. Irene Fernandez-Molina, a Global South expert at the UK’s University of Exeter, argues the appointment fits a pattern of what she calls “authoritarian state feminism”, a top-down strategy that leverages women’s rights gains to bolster regime legitimacy. “The latter cannot be understood without the former,” she said, noting that appointing a woman to the premiership allows the monarchy to project an image of modernization and progress, even as the broader political system and pace of social reform remain largely unchanged. Women’s rights advocate Yasmina Benslimane added that El Mansouri’s privileged background – her late father was a senior local official and diplomat – means she has had access to political opportunities most ordinary Moroccan women can only dream of, creating a gap between her experience and that of most women in the country. For many observers, the true test of El Mansouri’s premiership will be whether she delivers on concrete reform, particularly of the Moudawana. Even with a symbolic breakthrough, the new prime minister faces significant structural constraints: she must operate within a political system where the king holds most executive power, and any reform to family law would require confronting the all-male, conservative Higher Council of Ulemas. Many young Moroccan women share the view that El Mansouri’s actions, not her gender, will define her tenure. “I don’t think El Mansouri should be judged by the fact that she is a woman. Being a woman in power doesn’t automatically make someone a champion of women’s rights,” said young activist Sara Zouiten. “Her party presents itself as a modernising political force, so I want to see whether that translates into actual change.”

  • Trump seeks to boost white South African immigration after numbers falter: Report

    Trump seeks to boost white South African immigration after numbers falter: Report

    More than a year after the Trump administration rolled out a controversial policy prioritizing white South African Afrikaners for U.S. refugee resettlement, administration officials are now considering allocating over $300,000 to a targeted outreach campaign designed to boost application numbers that have failed to meet the president’s initial expectations, according to reporting from The Guardian.

    The policy, first unveiled in 2024, grew out of unsubstantiated claims from former President Donald Trump that Afrikaners — descendants of Dutch colonizers who settled in southern Africa in the 17th and 18th centuries — face systemic persecution in South Africa. The South African government, including President Cyril Ramaphosa, has repeatedly rejected these claims, with a delegation of white South African leaders who met with Trump in the Oval Office last year dismissing his assertions of an ongoing “white genocide” as completely unfounded.

    If approved, the proposed outreach program would launch a series of focus groups across eight South African cities spanning Gauteng, Free State, Western Cape, and Northern Cape provinces, including the Afrikaner enclave of Orania. Following the focus group discussions, organizers would distribute wide-ranging surveys to measure how many eligible white South Africans are interested in pursuing resettlement to the U.S. under the special priority pathway.

    Critics have pointed to troubling context around the program, noting that the exclusive eligibility for white South Africans — which excludes other South African communities that face documented marginalization — suggests the policy may be rooted in geopolitical retaliation. South Africa has drawn Trump’s ire for bringing a case against Israel before the International Court of Justice, as well as for expanding economic and trade partnerships with China and Iran, moves that conflict with the current administration’s foreign policy priorities.

    The underperformance of the existing priority pathway already been documented: separate Guardian reporting from last month found that roughly 13,000 Afrikaners have entered the U.S. over the past 18 months, while hundreds of other applicants have been rejected. The figures confirm that the resettlement process is far less accessible than the administration initially framed it to be.

    The special priority policy was rolled out as part of a broader, dramatic overhaul of the U.S. refugee program that saw the Trump administration slash annual refugee admission caps to historic lows. One year ago, the administration announced a target of just 7,500 refugees for fiscal year 2026, a massive drop from the 125,000 annual cap set by former Democratic President Joe Biden. That cap was later revised upward to 17,500, still far below the levels of the previous administration.

    This cutback has had sweeping humanitarian consequences. When Trump suspended the existing refugee resettlement program shortly after returning to office in January 2025, at least 12,000 vulnerable people who had already received conditional approval and booked their travel to the U.S. were left in indefinite limbo. An additional nearly 90,000 already approved applicants were also blocked from entry. While the Biden administration set a higher annual admission cap of 125,000, data from the Migration Policy Institute shows actual admissions fell short of that target: 25,465 refugees were admitted in 2022, 60,014 in 2023, 100,034 in 2024, and just 27,308 in 2025 before Biden’s term ended.

    Humanitarian and refugee advocacy groups have harshly condemned the administration’s decision to prioritize Afrikaners over other displaced populations. Sharif Aly, president of the International Refugee Assistance Project, criticized the policy in a statement shared with Middle East Eye, arguing that it exposes how far the administration has gone to abandon the U.S.’s longstanding commitments to displaced people globally. Aly noted that by privileging this one specific group while blocking entry to thousands of already vetted and approved refugees from other regions, the administration is overtly politicizing what should be a neutral humanitarian program.

  • In pictures: Dussehra celebrated across India as triumph of good over evil

    In pictures: Dussehra celebrated across India as triumph of good over evil

    Across the vast cultural landscape of India, millions of people have gathered to celebrate Dussehra, one of Hinduism’s most geographically widespread and deeply cherished annual festivals. Marked by vibrant processions, solemn prayer rituals, and the iconic ceremonial burning of towering effigies, the core theme of the festival unites diverse communities around the timeless message of righteousness prevailing over wickedness.

    Rooted in the Hindu lunar calendar, Dussehra falls on the tenth day following Navratri, a nine-night observance of worship and communal celebration. While the overarching theme of good versus evil remains consistent across every region of the country, local traditions have shaped distinct, colorful celebrations that reflect the diversity of India’s cultural heritage.

    In northern India, the weeks leading up to the main holiday are filled with Ramlila, a beloved dramatic tradition that retells the story of the ancient Hindu epic Ramayana. Performers don intricate costumes and detailed makeup to bring the epic’s iconic characters to life, walking audiences through Lord Ram’s years of exile, the abduction of his wife Sita by the ten-headed mythological king Ravan, and the climactic battle that ends with Ravan’s defeat. Following the final act of the performance, communities gather for the ritual burning of giant effigies of Ravan, his brother Kumbhkaran, and his son Meghnath. These events take on a carnival-like atmosphere, with food vendors selling local specialties, amusement rides, and smaller side performances drawing families and crowds of all ages. Ahead of the main event, smaller, handcrafted effigies of Ravan are a common sight in local markets across northern Indian cities including Delhi, as residents prepare for their community celebrations.

    In eastern, southern, and other parts of India, as well as among Hindu communities in neighboring Bangladesh, Dussehra coincides with Vijayadashami, a celebration that centers on honoring Goddess Durga’s victory over the buffalo demon Mahishasura, an event that also celebrates the triumph of divine good over evil. For this regional observance, artisans spend weeks crafting detailed clay idols of Goddess Durga, and temporary decorated enclosures called pandals are erected across cities and towns to house the sacred idols. Kolkata, in particular, is globally renowned for its elaborate Durga Puja celebrations, where pandals are often designed with creative, theme-based decorations that weave contemporary current affairs into traditional religious observance. Devotees visit the pandals over the course of the festival to offer prayers, with the sacred Sandhi Puja ritual marked by the lighting of hundreds of oil lamps at the auspicious intersection of the ninth and tenth days of the festival.

    Beyond these core traditions, other regional customs add to the richness of the celebration. In Gujarat, traditional community dances like Garba are a central part of the nine-day Navratri observance leading up to Dussehra. Across south Indian cities including Bengaluru, local flower markets bustle with activity as shoppers purchase marigolds, which are widely associated with the festival as a natural symbol of good’s victory over evil. Farmers harvest these bright, fragrant blooms in bulk ahead of the holiday to meet demand.

    As Dussehra draws to a close, it also marks the official start of preparations for Diwali, the widely celebrated Festival of Lights, which takes place exactly 20 days after Dussehra each year, extending the season of communal celebration across the country.

  • What does the UAE own in the UK? Football clubs, London landmarks and billion-pound assets

    What does the UAE own in the UK? Football clubs, London landmarks and billion-pound assets

    The United Arab Emirates, a wealthy Gulf nation consisting of seven hereditary monarchies, controls sovereign wealth assets totaling more than $2 trillion. Driven by massive revenue streams from oil exports, as well as finance, international tourism, and gold trade, the UAE has poured hundreds of billions of dollars into cross-border investments, holding extensive stakes in sectors ranging from banking and infrastructure to hospitality across North America, Europe, and other global regions. Today, this sprawling network of Emirati investment in the United Kingdom is facing unprecedented public and political scrutiny, even as the UAE has pledged nearly $30bn in new UK investments through the 2021–2026 UAE–UK Sovereign Investment Partnership.

    The most high-profile flashpoint dates to September 2024, when the English Premier League charged Manchester City Football Club – owned by UAE royal Sheikh Mansour bin Zayed Al Nayhan, the country’s vice-president – with 114 breaches of league financial rules. The charges allege the club disguised more than £830m ($1.1bn) in unreported, illicit funding over more than a decade. The club has forcefully denied all wrongdoing.

    The controversy has put UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer (correction: original text referenced Andy Burnham, who served as Manchester’s mayor from 2017 to June 2024 before his current cabinet position) at the center of the political storm, given his longstanding ties to the city where Emirati capital has reshaped both one of the world’s most valuable football clubs and the broader urban economy. Controversy over Emirati investment has deepened further over the UAE’s alleged role in Sudan’s ongoing civil war, where UN investigators have accused the UAE of backing the Rapid Support Forces, a paramilitary group whose mass atrocities carry the “hallmarks of genocide”. The UAE has repeatedly denied these accusations.

    UK policymakers and political leaders, including Burnham, now face a delicate balancing act: reconciling growing public anger over these allegations with the steady flow of Gulf capital that supporters, including club officials and some government figures, argue has delivered broad-based economic growth across the UK. Beyond the headlines, the overlapping controversies have laid bare just how deeply embedded Emirati investors are across nearly every sector of the UK economy, from sports and real estate to logistics, finance, technology and media.

    To understand the scale of this footprint, one can start with Manchester City itself. Sheikh Mansour’s private equity vehicle Abu Dhabi United Group purchased the club for £200m in 2008, when City was a middling mid-table side that had been relegated from the top flight as recently as 2001. In the 16 years since the takeover, the club has dominated English football, claiming eight Premier League titles and a UEFA Champions League trophy. Khaldoon al-Mubarak, a senior advisor to Abu Dhabi’s royal family and CEO of the emirate’s $1tn Mubadala sovereign wealth fund, serves as the club’s chairman, and its home stadium carries the name of Etihad Airways, Abu Dhabi’s state-owned national carrier.

    Emirati investment in UK sports stretches far beyond Manchester City. Dubai’s state-owned Emirates Airline purchased naming rights to Arsenal’s North London home ground – now renamed the Emirates Stadium – and shirt sponsorship rights in a 2004 £100m deal, which was renewed in August 2024 through 2033 for an undisclosed record fee. Emirates has also served as the official sponsor of the FA Cup since 2015 and sponsored Lancashire Cricket Club starting in 2013. Abu Dhabi’s CYVN Holdings holds a minority stake in McLaren Racing, the Woking-based Formula One team that claimed back-to-back Teams’ Championship titles in 2024 and 2025, while CYVN purchased McLaren’s high-performance car manufacturing division outright in 2025 for an undisclosed sum. Dubai’s royal family owns Godolphin, the world’s largest thoroughbred horseracing operation, which runs the UK’s biggest stable outside Newmarket, Suffolk. Since 1985, Godolphin and associated operations have claimed the British Flat Racing Champion Owner title 31 times, including in 2024.

    Beyond sports, Emirati investors have built a massive property empire across the UK, concentrated heavily in Manchester and London. In Manchester, alongside ownership of Manchester City, Abu Dhabi United Group has led major mixed-use regeneration projects, including the £1bn Manchester Life development in the historic Ancoats district, launched in 2014 as a joint venture with Manchester City Council. Through its 81% stake in the City Football Group, Abu Dhabi also holds a 47.5% stake in Co-Op Live, the UK’s largest indoor entertainment arena. In October 2024, it was revealed that Manchester City Council granted Abu Dhabi United Group right of first refusal on multiple city development projects, leading critics to label the arrangement a “sweetheart deal” that excluded competing domestic developers.

    In London, the UAE’s royal family built a £5bn property portfolio under former UAE ruler Sheikh Khalifa bin Zayed bin Sultan al-Nahyan, who ruled from 2004 until his death in 2022. The portfolio includes luxury residential and commercial properties in London’s most exclusive neighborhoods, including Mayfair and Knightsbridge, many of which were acquired through opaque shell companies registered in offshore tax havens. The Emirati state also owns London’s ExCeL Exhibition Centre, the capital’s largest conference and events venue, as well as large country estates in the Scottish Highlands and Surrey. Following Sheikh Khalifa’s death, much of the portfolio was divided among his heirs, though full public disclosure of individual ownership has never been published. The UAE’s UK property acquisition spree has continued in recent years: in 2023, an Abu Dhabi government-owned real estate firm purchased London Square, the developer leading the controversial Nine Elms regeneration project in South London, for $291m, and earlier this month announced plans to build an additional 9,000 new homes on the site.

    In the critical logistics and port sector, Dubai’s state-owned DP World, one of the world’s largest port operators, owns the London Gateway and Southampton container terminals, the UK’s second and third largest by cargo volume. In 2024, the UK government approved a £1bn expansion of the London Gateway site, which forms part of the UK’s post-Brexit freeport scheme – a program that grants participating operators lower tax rates and looser regulatory requirements than other parts of the UK. DP World also owns P&O Ferries, the historic UK shipping firm that was privatized in 2006 and purchased by DP World for £322m in 2019. In 2022, DP World faced widespread condemnation, including from senior UK government figures, after it abruptly sacked 800 UK-based P&O Ferries staff and replaced them with lower-paid foreign agency workers paid below the UK minimum wage. Despite the controversy, DP World continued to expand its UK logistics footprint in August 2024, purchasing six grocery distribution centers serving major UK supermarket chains Asda, Sainsbury’s and the Co-op from US logistics conglomerate GXO Logistics.

    Emirati investors have also targeted the UK’s fast-growing technology and infrastructure sectors. Abu Dhabi’s Mubadala invested an undisclosed sum in data center operator Yondr in 2024, which is developing a major campus in Slough, on the outskirts of London. Masdar, the UAE’s state-owned renewable energy developer, holds stakes in multiple UK offshore wind farms, including the London Array off the coast of Kent and Dogger Bank South in the North Sea. Mubadala also holds a minority stake in CityFibre, the UK’s third largest fiber broadband network provider, a position it has held since 2021. In 2011, Abu Dhabi acquired a 9.9% stake in Thames Water, the UK’s largest water and wastewater utility, but the investment was written off as worthless in the UAE’s 2024 financial accounts amid the utility’s ongoing severe financial crisis. Abu Dhabi also owns nearly 8% of London Gatwick Airport, the UK’s second busiest passenger airport, having reduced its stake from 15% in 2018, and has long sought to acquire a stake in Heathrow, the UK’s busiest hub. In 2023, Abu Dhabi was approached as a potential investor in the Sizewell C nuclear power plant project, but the stake was ultimately allocated to France’s state-owned EDF and a Canadian pension fund. In July 2024, UAE state majority-owned telecom firm Etisalat sold its £4.4bn stake in UK telecom multinational Vodafone, after the UK government labeled Emirati ownership a potential national security risk and required the creation of a special independent committee to oversee sensitive operations. In 2024, Abu Dhabi acquired a one-third stake in Hargreaves Lansdown, the UK’s largest retail investment platform, as part of a £5.4bn takeover alongside US and European private equity partners, and Mubadala purchased an undisclosed stake in UK digital neobank Revolut as part of a $500m secondary share sale later that year.

    In the finance sector, the first major Emirati investment controversy dates back to the 2008 global financial crisis, when Sheikh Mansour and Qatari investors acquired a 16% stake in Barclays bank for an estimated £4bn. The capital injection allowed Barclays to avoid the government bailout that rival UK banks were forced to accept, which came with strict regulatory conditions. In 2024, the UK’s Financial Conduct Authority fined Barclays £40m for misleading shareholders about more than £300m in secret payments to Qatari investors connected to the deal. Abu Dhabi sold its entire Barclays stake by 2013.

    The UK government has actively courted Emirati investment for the high-profile Oxford-Cambridge Growth Corridor, a major development project billed as the UK’s answer to Silicon Valley. But recent reports indicate the UAE is now threatening to withdraw from the project amid fallout from the Premier League’s ruling against Manchester City.

    Emirati investors even hold stakes on the UK’s domestic high streets. In 2024, Mubadala purchased a 68% stake in the UK assets of US investment firm Fortress Investment Group, which manages more than $55bn in global assets. Fortress’s UK holdings include Punch Pubs, which operates 1,400 pubs and bars across the country, art house cinema chain Curzon, discount retailer Poundstretcher, and wine merchant Majestic. In April 2024, Sheikh Tahnoon bin Zayed’s International Holding Company purchased the UK restaurant and hospitality empire of billionaire Richard Caring for £1.4bn, including the popular Ivy restaurant chain and exclusive Mayfair private members club Annabel’s.

    In the media sector, Abu Dhabi launched a joint bid with US private equity firm Redbird Capital Partners in 2023 to acquire the Telegraph newspaper and the Spectator magazine, led by Sheikh Mansour. The bid sparked intense public scrutiny over concerns about foreign government censorship of UK media, and ultimately collapsed after the UK government introduced new legislation barring foreign state leaders from owning UK national media outlets. The Telegraph was ultimately sold to German media giant Axel Springer in June 2024, while the Spectator was purchased by GB News co-owner Paul Marshall in September 2024. Despite the failed bid, Abu Dhabi gained indirect access to UK and global media assets through its Fortress acquisition, as Fortress led a lender consortium that purchased Vice Media Group after the digital media firm filed for bankruptcy in 2023.