Global Pulse

标签： Asia

亚洲

  • Tropical storm hits Tokyo area, leaving thousands without power before moving west

    Tropical storm hits Tokyo area, leaving thousands without power before moving west

    Just days after Typhoon Dolphin wrought destruction across southern Japan and left a trail of fatalities and displacement across East and Southeast Asia, Tropical Storm Chan-hom made history when it came ashore in Japan’s Ibaraki Prefecture Tuesday night — the first recorded tropical cyclone to strike the region since official meteorological record-keeping began in 1951.

    After making landfall in southern Ibaraki, part of the greater Tokyo metropolitan area, the storm rapidly lost intensity as it tracked westward across the Japanese archipelago. By early Wednesday, the system was positioned near Gifu Prefecture in central Japan, continuing on a trajectory toward Wakasa Bay on the country’s north-central coast. At the time of the latest update from the Japan Meteorological Agency (JMA), Chan-hom carried sustained wind speeds of 64 kilometers per hour (40 miles per hour).

    The storm left a clear mark of disruption across central and eastern Japan. Five people across the country sustained only minor injuries: two men in the northern prefecture of Iwate and three women in the hardest-hit Ibaraki Prefecture, local prefectural officials confirmed. Falling trees were reported at multiple sites across Tokyo, including a high-profile incident in the upscale Omotesando shopping district that caused no casualties, Japan’s public broadcaster NHK reported.

    Power outages affected more than 3,000 residential properties in Ibaraki and neighboring Tochigi Prefecture as of Wednesday morning, according to TEPCO Power Grid, the region’s main electricity infrastructure operator. Approximately 60 incoming and outgoing flights at Tokyo’s major Haneda Airport were canceled Tuesday as the storm approached, while popular coastal recreation spot Oarai Beach in Ibaraki was closed to visitors for the duration of the severe weather.

    The disruption intersected with Japan’s annual bon holiday week, a traditional Buddhist period for honoring ancestral spirits that draws millions of domestic travelers across the country. By Wednesday, most transit services in Tokyo had resumed normal operations, with commercial activity returning to near-standard levels. Even so, JMA issued ongoing warnings for residents of northern and western Japan, cautioning that the remnants of Chan-hom would bring heavy downpours and thunderstorms through the end of the day.

    Chan-hom’s arrival came on the heels of Typhoon Dolphin, which triggered widespread chaos in southern Japan just days prior, halting ground transportation and forcing hundreds of residents to seek emergency shelter. After weakening from typhoon strength, the system moved west, killing 10 people in the Philippines and triggering major flooding in southern China that forced hundreds of thousands of people to evacuate their homes.

  • Hiroshi Okuda, former Toyota chief credited for leading the Japanese automaker’s global climb, dies

    Hiroshi Okuda, former Toyota chief credited for leading the Japanese automaker’s global climb, dies

    TOKYO – Toyota Motor Corporation announced Wednesday the passing of Hiroshi Okuda, the former chief executive who guided the Japanese automaker through an era of unprecedented global growth. Okuda was 93 years old, and details on the date and specific cause of his death have not been released to the public as of the announcement.

    Okuda’s 45-year tenure at Toyota spanned transformative roles, including 11 years as the company’s president and chairman from 1995 to 2006. He leaves a lasting legacy centered on two landmark contributions to the global auto industry: the development of the world’s first mass-produced gas-electric hybrid vehicle, the Prius, launched in 1997, and the aggressive, strategic expansion of Toyota’s manufacturing and sales footprint across North America and Europe.

    At the time of its launch, the Prius represented a groundbreaking leap in fuel-efficient automotive technology, emerging at a moment of already rising global gasoline prices. The model quickly became an international symbol of the auto industry’s shift toward more sustainable, green mobility, and cemented Toyota’s decades-long reputation as a leader in fuel efficiency — a standing the brand extended across its lineup, including top-selling models like the Camry.

    Born in central Japan, the same region that hosts Toyota’s global headquarters, Okuda graduated from Tokyo’s prestigious Hitotsubashi University in 1955 with a degree in business. What made his rise to the top of Toyota unusual was that he was not a member of the founding Toyoda family, a break from the traditional leadership structure that had long defined the automaker. Known for his frank speaking style and approachable sense of humor, Okuda held a black belt in judo and was ahead of his time in Japanese corporate culture when it came to advocating for leadership turnover and empowering younger executives.

    Long before the current wave of generational corporate shift, Okuda pushed for handing leadership reins to executives in their 50s rather than keeping power concentrated among leaders in their 60s, a rare priority for Japan’s traditional business sector in his era. He summarized his philosophy of adaptive change in a 2005 press conference, stating: “A company must change when things are going well. There’s no point in trying to change after things start going bad.” This commitment to organizational agility aligned perfectly with Toyota’s founding “kaizen” principle of continuous improvement, which paired with the company’s just-in-time production system that minimizes excess inventory to drive operational efficiency.

    As Toyota grew to challenge the dominance of Detroit’s “Big Three” U.S. automakers — General Motors, Ford, and Chrysler — Okuda openly warned of potential political and public backlash against the Japanese brand’s rising market share. He consistently emphasized that the auto industry was an interconnected global sector, often using the term “harmony” to frame his vision of cross-border collaboration. By the 1990s and early 2000s, Toyota and other major Japanese automakers were posting record profits while U.S. automakers struggled with deep losses, stoking “Japan-bashing” sentiments that had first emerged in the 1980s. Critics at the time also argued that a weak yen gave Japanese automakers an unfair trade advantage, as it increases the yen value of overseas earnings when converted back to the domestic currency. Okuda remained a key strategic adviser to Toyota’s board after stepping down as chairman, and was part of the organization when it added its first American board member, Jim Press, in 2007.

    Outside of his work at Toyota, Okuda was one of the most respected figures in Japan’s broader business community. He served as the head of multiple influential Japanese business groups, including the Japan Business Federation (Keidanren), the Japan Automobile Manufacturers Association, the Japan Federation of Employers’ Associations, and sat on Japan’s Prime Minister’s Economic Strategy Council.

    Toyota has not released details about Okuda’s surviving family. According to the company, funeral arrangements are being handled privately by Okuda’s family, and a public memorial ceremony may be announced at a later date.

  • These seaside apartments were a ghost city – then police say scammers moved in

    These seaside apartments were a ghost city – then police say scammers moved in

    Towering over a palm-fringed artificial coastline just kilometers from Singapore’s bustling border, Malaysia’s Forest City cuts an uncanny, almost surreal figure: rows of identical, gleaming high-rise towers stretch across 14 square kilometers of reclaimed land, their empty windows catching the sun over silent, nearly deserted streets. When Chinese developer Country Garden first unveiled the $100 billion project in 2016, it was billed as a futuristic, eco-friendly dream paradise: a special financial zone designed to house 700,000 residents, complete with luxury hotels, a championship golf course, and a sprawling water park targeted at wealthy global investors. A decade on, however, less than 1% of that projected population calls the development home, turning Forest City into one of Southeast Asia’s most famous ghost towns – and, as a recent major police raid has revealed, an ideal hiding place for transnational scam syndicates.

    In mid-July, Johor state police launched coordinated raids on two suspected scam operations spread across 32 separate properties in Forest City, arresting 335 suspects and seizing assets worth approximately 1 million Malaysian ringgit ($245,000), including 313 desktop computers, 1,557 mobile phones, 17 laptops, and 10 communications modems. According to official police statements, the two hubs – one spanning 27 apartments across five floors of a residential tower, the other occupying five standalone luxury bungalows – were run by cryptocurrency-focused criminal syndicates that ran global investment fraud and romance scams targeting victims in countries around the world. Of those arrested, 309 are Chinese nationals, 19 are Indonesian, three are Malaysian, and four are from Myanmar. Johor’s police chief Ab Rahaman Arsad confirmed that authorities are working alongside Interpol to track down the criminal network’s fugitive mastermind. The BBC has reached out to both Forest City management and Johor police for additional comment, but has not received a response as of publication.

    For early investors like 56-year-old Jason Deng, who purchased five properties in Forest City after the 2016 launch, the raid only confirmed what residents have suspected for years. “In 2016, they sold this as a golden city, so beautiful and full of opportunity,” Deng explained. “I paid a huge amount of money for these units. If I’d known how it would turn out, I never would have bought so many.” What was marketed as a life-changing investment turned into a ghost town, where dust coats the countertops of empty apartments and streetlights burn for almost no one each night. But for criminal networks, this widespread vacancy is precisely the attraction.

    Security experts and local residents warn that the July raid only uncovered the tip of the iceberg, and that Forest City’s infiltration by scam groups is a clear symptom of a rapidly growing, increasingly professionalized global transnational scam industry.

    “Many of these modern organizations look more like multinational corporations than traditional street gangs or organized crime networks,” explained John Wojcik, a criminal analyst at TRM Labs, a firm that specializes in tracking crypto-facilitated financial crime. “They have dedicated recruitment teams, in-house IT departments, professional money-laundering specialists, and established, permanent infrastructure just like any legitimate business.”

    Authorities and analysts agree the Forest City operations were largely established by criminals fleeing intensified crackdowns on scam hubs in neighboring Cambodia, which for years served as the global nerve center for this multi-billion-dollar criminal trade. For years, industrial scam compounds in Cambodia have relied on trafficked forced labor, with workers held under threat of torture and abuse to carry out fraud schemes. Since late 2023, however, the Cambodian government has drastically ramped up raids on these complexes, pushing an estimated 300,000 people connected to the scam industry out of the country in just a few months. Many of these criminal operators have relocated to more permissive, under-patrolled locations across Southeast Asia – and Forest City proved to be a perfect fit.

    Unlike the notorious walled, heavily guarded scam compounds found in Cambodia’s Sihanoukville or along Myanmar’s border regions, the Forest City operations blended almost seamlessly into ordinary residential life, operating out of standard apartments and bungalows alongside unsuspecting local residents. The semi-abandoned nature of the development gave criminals the privacy they needed to operate without drawing unwanted attention.

    “It’s an open secret here that scammers are operating out of condominiums and serviced apartments across Forest City,” said Kevin, a local property sales agent and tenant who asked to remain anonymous out of fear of retaliation from criminal groups. “This is a common problem across Johor and Kuala Lumpur, but it’s especially bad here – Forest City is very special.”

    What makes Forest City unique, according to Kevin, Wojcik, and other observers, is its status as a failed mega-development turned ghost city. While official marketing materials still claim the development is home to 23,000 residents, Kevin estimates the actual population is less than 5,000. “That’s exactly why scammers chose this place,” he said. “They have total privacy here. Almost no one comes around to disturb them.”

    The collapse of Forest City’s original vision did not happen by accident. The joint venture between Country Garden, one of China’s largest property developers, and Malaysian-linked firm Danga 88 was originally designed to attract wealthy Chinese buyers seeking second homes and investment properties offshore. But a perfect storm of overlapping crises – the global Covid-19 pandemic that shut down cross-border travel, China’s deepening property market crash, and new restrictions on overseas borrowing for Chinese citizens – gutted demand for the development and ground construction almost to a halt. Today, only 15 to 20% of the original proposed project has been completed, and the vast majority of finished units remain vacant.

    That combination of modern, finished infrastructure, widespread vacancy, and a veneer of legitimate upscale development is exactly what criminal syndicates look for, Wojcik explained. “Forest City checks every box that organized crime looks for: it was marketed as a prestigious, master-planned luxury smart city that never lived up to that promise. It has modern infrastructure, hundreds of empty properties, and good international connectivity, all under the cover of legitimate economic activity that keeps criminal operations from being noticed.”

    This model mirrors Shwe Kokko, the notorious scam hub 1,800 kilometers north on Myanmar’s border with Thailand, which was also marketed as a luxury resort destination and investment hub for wealthy Chinese buyers, but has since become a global center for fraud, money laundering, and human trafficking. Even today, despite its status as a mostly empty ghost town, Forest City continues to market itself as an up-and-coming center for tech innovation, tax-free business, and property investment – a marketing narrative that scam networks have turned into a perfect Trojan horse to hide their illicit activities.

    “When syndicates embed themselves behind seemingly legitimate businesses in ordinary commercial developments, they don’t just become harder to detect and break up – they amass enormous power and influence from the massive profits they generate,” Wojcik said. That growing profit and influence has allowed the scam industry to professionalize at a rapid pace. While coercion and human trafficking still fuel much of the sector’s low-level labor, syndicates are increasingly recruiting experienced professional scammers with higher wages and better working conditions. Scam operators even post open job ads on Telegram, where experienced scammers share detailed resumes highlighting their fraud expertise to compete for open roles.

    “It’s a clear sign the industry is maturing into a fully professionalized criminal enterprise, even as coercion and exploitation remain widespread,” Wojcik noted.

    While the Forest City raid has drawn new attention to the issue, transnational scam operations have been active in Malaysia for years. Throughout 2022, Malaysian authorities carried out multiple raids on scam centers operating out of residential properties in Johor, Penang, and Kuala Lumpur, years before the global scale of the industry gained widespread international attention. Though these crackdowns have sent a clear message of zero tolerance, analysts warn that Malaysia remains a hub for influential criminal networks, and any large-scale re-emergence of the industry requires close monitoring.

    For many Forest City residents, the presence of scammers has become just another part of daily life in the semi-ghost town. “It’s been an open secret for years – the only shocking thing is that the police actually followed through on raids,” Kevin said. He is convinced dozens more scam operations remain active in the development, but says most local workers and long-term residents prefer to stay out of the issue: “It’s not my business. I just work here for a paycheck.”

    Other residents take a similar view, and some even report that Forest City is slowly beginning to grow out of its ghost town status. Phillip, a tech worker who relocated from Singapore to Forest City last year attracted by lower housing prices, said he was not surprised by the raid revelations. “Scammers could be my neighbors, they could run a syndicate down the hall – but at the end of the day, this kind of crime happens everywhere, no matter where you go,” he said. What did surprise him, he added, is that more and more people are moving to the development. “A lot of people lost a lot of money on this project, but over the last three months, I’ve seen more and more lights on in the condos at night. We went from one in 20 units occupied to maybe one in five. It’s slowly changing from a ghost town into a real place people want to live.”

  • How a 97-year-old escaped deadly Indian floods on a banana raft

    How a 97-year-old escaped deadly Indian floods on a banana raft

    Deep in the night of July 19, rushing floodwaters swallowed Charing village, a small community in India’s northeastern Assam state’s hard-hit Sivasagar district. For 40-year-old Bornali Baruah and her husband, the hours that followed would become a fight for life: their 97-year-old family member, Lokada Duarah, was nearly bedridden and unable to walk through the rising water. With no rescue craft, no emergency team on site, and neighbors all scrambling to save their own homes and families, the couple improvised. They lashed banana trunks into a rough makeshift raft, lifted Duarah onto it, and set off through the churning current, clinging to each other’s hands and propping themselves steady with wooden sticks.

    An hour of slow, treacherous travel brought the three to safety at a relief camp set up on a nearby national highway. By that time, Baruah’s childhood home had already vanished beneath the surging flood, with water eventually climbing to five feet deep inside the eight-room single-story house.

    This harrowing escape is one of hundreds that unfolded across Assam this summer, when a record-breaking flood event devastated swathes of the region. Official data puts the total death toll at 100, with 456 villages across 10 districts submerged, and more than 1.2 million people impacted across 25 Assam districts. Authorities have established 252 relief camps that currently house more than 75,000 displaced residents, with 52 additional camps activated in the earliest days of the disaster. More than 19,000 homes have been damaged or destroyed, and the floods have reached areas that have never experienced inundation in living memory — including Charing village.

    For Baruah, who has lived in Charing her entire life, with generations of her family rooted in the land, the disaster is a profound shock. “This is the first flood we have experienced in this area in our lifetime,” she explained. While the region is crisscrossed by several rivers connected to the Brahmaputra — the Jhanji 10 kilometers away, the Mitong just 5 kilometers from her property — her home has never sat close enough to a river to face flood risk, and no major inundation has hit the area since a 1950 event decades before she was born.

    The flood destroyed far more than just her family home: it wiped out the livelihood Baruah spent years building after leaving a career in journalism to pursue animal husbandry in 2016. Just three years after switching careers, she was named Assam’s “Best Livestock Farmer,” growing her operation to 300 goats, 500 ducks, 1,000 chickens and a productive fish farm. The disaster erased most of that progress: she lost the majority of her goats, 300 ducks, 300 chickens, much of her fish stock, and the machine used to process animal feed. All of the family’s furniture, personal electronics, vehicles and book collection were also ruined, and no livestock insurance exists to cover the losses. “There is no insurance system here for livestock, especially goats,” Baruah noted.

    The first warning signs emerged on July 17, when the Jhanji River began to swell rapidly. Two days later, heavy rainfall pushed the Brahmaputra and its tributaries past their banks, with the Dikhow and Mitong rivers overflowing and breaching embankments. By the time Baruah and her family evacuated their home nearly a day after water levels started rising, four feet of water already filled the property. They spent 10 days in the relief camp, where five days brought no electricity or mobile connectivity, leaving Baruah unable to even charge her phone. While the government provided basic relief kits with rice, lentils and cooking oil, the most meaningful support came from strangers in the camp: one young woman helped care for the 60 goats that survived the flood, while another tended to sick animals, bringing food and medical care.

    Climate and river experts explain that this unprecedented flood event is part of a shifting pattern for the Brahmaputra Valley. Dhrubajyoti Sahariah, a geography professor and director of the Centre for Brahmaputra Studies at Gauhati University, notes that while flooding has always been a natural annual occurrence in the low-lying Brahmaputra Valley, today’s floods differ drastically from historical norms. “What has changed is the frequency, intensity and severity of floods well beyond historical norms,” he said.

    The Brahmaputra is one of the world’s largest river systems, ranking among the top five globally for both water discharge and sediment load, with most sediment carried from its origin in Tibet. As the river enters Assam’s vast, populous floodplains hemmed in by surrounding hills, it slows down, deposits sediment, and naturally drives erosion and seasonal flooding. Severe flood events are not new: the 2004 Assam floods killed 251 people and displaced 12 million. But recent years have brought far more extreme events that reach once-unaffected areas.

    Sahariah attributes this shift to a combination of human activity and extreme rainfall. The recent 2025 floods were triggered by days of continuous heavy downpour across Upper Assam and neighboring Nagaland’s Mon district, which caused widespread flooding and silt deposition across Sivasagar, Charaideo and Jorhat districts. Today, floods are reaching once-spared areas due to increased settlement on active floodplains, widespread deforestation, mining and hill-cutting that add excess sediment to river systems, and infrastructure development that does not account for the region’s unique hydrology.

    Addressing the growing flood risk will require coordinated action that extends beyond Assam’s borders, Sahariah argues: many of the Brahmaputra’s tributaries originate in neighboring hill states, but current flood control planning is done only at the state level within Assam. “What is needed is basin-scale planning,” he said, calling for cross-state coordination and improved understanding of the river system’s changing geography to build more effective long-term flood management.

    For Baruah, the disaster is a deeply personal upheaval that has forced her to adapt to a new reality. After the floodwaters receded, she and her family returned to the area, staying temporarily with a nearby neighbor while they plan to repair their damaged home and move back within a week. She has no plans to leave Charing: the economic and social resources required to relocate are simply out of reach for her family. Instead, she is learning to live with the new flood risk that has entered her life.

    Baruah is already planning future adaptations: if heavy rain returns, she will need to raise her home’s foundation to keep water out, though she is still uncertain how to fund or execute the work. She also plans to build a raised emergency platform for her family to retreat to during floods, and stockpile emergency food and drinking water ahead of monsoon season. When asked if she considers herself a climate refugee, she rejects the label.

    “No. If we regain our economic and mental strength, life will return to the way it was before,” she said. “We will have to learn to coexist with the floods.”

  • Exclusive: ICC issued two secret arrest warrants for Taliban members for gender persecution

    Exclusive: ICC issued two secret arrest warrants for Taliban members for gender persecution

    In an exclusive revelation by Middle East Eye (MEE), the International Criminal Court (ICC) approved two confidential arrest warrants last September 2025 for senior Taliban figures, charging them with crimes against humanity through gender and political persecution. This historic development comes two months after the same three-judge panel publicly issued identical charges against Taliban supreme leader Hibatullah Akhundzada and Afghanistan’s de facto chief justice Abdul Hakim Haqqani.

    Unlike the two public warrants, the sealed documents cover newly uncovered evidence and identify additional alleged victims that were not included in the initial public filings. All four Taliban leaders are facing accusations related to crimes the group is alleged to have committed while acting as Afghanistan’s de facto governing authority between August 15, 2021, and at least January 20, 2025. MEE has chosen not to disclose the names of the two individuals named in the secret warrants to preserve the confidentiality of ongoing court proceedings.

    This set of Taliban-related charges marks an unprecedented milestone in international law: it is the first time any international tribunal, including the ICC, has formally recognized LGBTQ+ individuals as victims of systematic persecution. The charge of gender-based persecution itself remains extremely rare in international legal practice, with no prior convictions ever secured. The ICC has only previously brought this charge once in the Al Hassan case, which never resulted in a conviction.

    Court and prosecution insiders familiar with the proceedings told MEE that ICC leadership made the deliberate choice to keep the two additional warrants sealed out of explicit concern over anticipated pushback from the United States, which has a long history of opposing ICC investigations that target actors Washington considers strategically important. That concern proved well-founded: just one month after the public warrants for Akhundzada and Haqqani were released, the U.S. imposed targeted sanctions on then-ICC chief prosecutor Karim Khan, the lead official behind the investigation.

    Multiple court staff members also reported widespread internal anxiety over potential personal sanctions, particularly for employees with family ties to the U.S., who feared penalties would block them from visiting loved ones. Some team members even declined to have their names associated with the warrant applications. Since April 2025, ICC judges have formally ordered the prosecutor’s office to keep all future arrest warrant requests confidential, a restriction that remains in place today. When reached for comment by MEE on multiple occasions, the ICC prosecutor’s office declined to provide any statement, referencing amended court rules that mandate secrecy for new court filings.

    The warrants were first submitted to the court in January 2025, just weeks after Donald Trump’s second inauguration as U.S. president. The four applications were developed under the leadership of former prosecutor Karim Khan and deputy prosecutor Nazhat Shameem Khan, who oversees the ICC’s Afghanistan investigation, with strategic guidance from special adviser Lisa Davis, the author of the court’s official policy on gender-based crimes. While it remains unconfirmed whether the two secret warrants were submitted on the same day as the public filings, Khan publicly noted during the January 23 announcement of the public warrants that additional applications would be coming “soon.” Insiders confirmed to MEE that the two confidential requests were already “almost ready” for submission on that date.

    Since February 2025, the U.S. has levied retaliatory financial and visa sanctions against multiple ICC officials connected to both the Afghanistan and Palestine investigations, justifying the measures on the grounds that the court targets U.S. nationals and U.S. allies. Karim Khan became the first sanctioned official, and was controversially removed from office by ICC member states last month following an 18-month misconduct investigation. Eight additional ICC judges have also been sanctioned, including three members of the 2020 Appeals Chamber that originally authorized the full Afghanistan investigation: Kimberly Prost, Solomy Bossa, and Luz Ibanez.

    Notably, the sanctions were imposed despite a 2021 decision by Khan to deprioritize the portion of the Afghanistan investigation focused on U.S. military and CIA personnel, as well as forces of the former Afghan government, to reallocate resources to investigating crimes by the Taliban and the Islamic State Khorasan Province (IS-K). Even with this shift, successive U.S. administrations—including that of Joe Biden—have opposed the ICC’s prosecution of Taliban leaders for pragmatic geopolitical reasons. The primary factor is that the Taliban remains Afghanistan’s de facto ruling authority, requiring ongoing diplomatic engagement with its senior members. Washington also fears that increased pressure on the Taliban could lead to the collapse of its government, creating a power vacuum that would be filled by more extremist groups such as IS-K.

    The ICC’s Afghanistan investigation has a long, complicated history stretching back to 2017, when then-prosecutor Fatou Bensouda first requested judicial authorization to open an investigation into alleged crimes committed in Afghanistan since 2003, spanning actions by Taliban, IS-K, Afghan government, and U.S. forces. The request was initially rejected by a pre-trial chamber in 2019, but the Appeals Chamber overturned that ruling in March 2020 and cleared the investigation to move forward. Bensouda was sanctioned by the U.S. government just months later for her efforts to bring U.S. nationals under the court’s jurisdiction.

    The investigation was suspended later in 2020 following a request for deferral from the then-Afghan government, and did not resume work until late 2022, with that decision upheld on appeal in April 2023. In November 2024, six countries—Chile, Costa Rica, Spain, France, Luxembourg, and Mexico—jointly submitted a referral to the ICC, adding new allegations of systematic crimes against women and girls committed after the Taliban returned to power in August 2021, and asking that these claims be integrated into the existing Afghanistan investigation. Just weeks later, in January 2025, Khan submitted the arrest warrant applications, arguing that the gender persecution allegations already fell within the scope of the 2020 investigation authorization.

    Last week, MEE revealed that ICC judges have formally asked the prosecutor’s office to open a standalone investigation into Taliban gender persecution, separating this probe from the original Afghanistan war crimes investigation that originally included claims against U.S. nationals. If the prosecutor’s office moves forward with this separation, it is widely expected to spark questions over whether the court is seeking to de-escalate tensions with Washington by explicitly signaling it will no longer pursue allegations against U.S. forces and their Afghan allies. Karim Khan’s two deputies, both of whom are currently under U.S. sanctions, will lead the office until a new permanent prosecutor is selected.

  • Palestinian medics in Israel face incitement over unproven patient abuse claims

    Palestinian medics in Israel face incitement over unproven patient abuse claims

    A furore has erupted in Israel after unsubstantiated allegations of mistreatment of a wounded Israeli soldier by Arab medical staff were amplified by two senior Israeli government ministers, drawing sharp condemnation from the leading representative body for Palestinian citizens of Israel, which has decried the remarks as a racist, coordinated campaign of incitement.

    The controversy traces back to claims made by relatives of an Israel Defense Forces (IDF) soldier who was treated at Haifa’s Rambam Health Care Campus after sustaining injuries in Lebanon. Yehoshua Shani, who chairs a hardline forum that opposes a ceasefire in Gaza and advocates for continuing the Israeli military campaign in the enclave, alleged in an X post Sunday that his nephew was abused by Arab hospital employees. Shani claimed on-duty nurses, all of whom he described as “Arabic speakers”, ignored the wounded soldier’s requests for water and roughly repositioned him in bed “like a sardine”, slamming his head against the frame.

    The soldier’s brother, David Chesterman, echoed these unproven claims on Instagram. Chesterman claimed he broke down the door to his brother’s intensive care unit room after the family was denied access — a standard protocol for ICU wards globally. He alleged the soldier begged for water with no staff nearby, and that his brother described being brutally repositioned, with his head slammed into the bed by staff who did not care about his condition.

    Far-right Israeli cabinet members Israel Katz, the country’s defense minister, and Itamar Ben Gvir, national security minister, seized on the claims to call for a full investigation into the alleged misconduct, amplifying the unvetted allegations across public platforms. Katz stated that he viewed the testimonies about the treatment of wounded IDF soldiers with “great seriousness”, and confirmed he had instructed the IDF to launch an immediate, comprehensive probe into the claims alongside hospital leadership and relevant authorities. Ben Gvir added that if the claims proved true, they would amount to a “grave scandal” that should concern all Israeli citizens, and called for an uncompromised investigation that would examine whether the alleged incident constituted nationalist harassment.

    In an initial statement following the emergence of the claims, Rambam Health Care Campus said it had conducted an internal review of the incident and “rejects the claims that the patient was treated inappropriately”. But reporting from Israeli newspaper Haaretz found that many Palestinian medical professionals at the facility criticized the initial response, arguing it failed to directly push back against allegations that specifically targeted Arab staff members. One anonymous medical professional stated that the entire episode amounted to a broad attack on all Arab medical workers across Israel.

    Days later, Rambam director Dr Michal Makel sent an internal memo offering support to the hospital’s workforce. Makel wrote that any attempt to draw divisions between staff members based on their language, cultural background, or ethnic identity is unacceptable, and does not align with the institutional values of Rambam. Even this step failed to satisfy some Arab medical staff, however, with one professional telling Haaretz that clear, unwavering, and public backing from the hospital administration was required, and that the vague internal support was insulting and disappointing.

    The High Follow-Up Committee for Arab Citizens of Israel, the primary umbrella organization representing Palestinian citizens of Israel who hold Israeli citizenship, issued a blistering condemnation of the two ministers, accusing them of weaponizing baseless claims to incite public hatred against Arab medical workers. “Fascists launch campaigns spreading lies and baseless accusations for no reason other than that those targeted are Arabs,” the committee said in a statement. It added that despite the wave of allegations, no credible evidence has been presented to prove that any Arab medical professional has discriminated against patients based on identity.

    The committee also noted that this type of racist incitement against Arab workers in the Israeli health sector is not a new development, and has been ongoing for years. It argued that the campaign stems from resentment among far-right political actors over the large share of Arab citizens employed across all tiers of Israel’s health system, including doctors, nurses, pharmacists and other frontline and administrative staff.

  • North Korea launches another missile toward sea ahead of US-South Korean military drills

    North Korea launches another missile toward sea ahead of US-South Korean military drills

    Tensions have spiked on the Korean Peninsula after North Korea carried out its second ballistic missile launch in less than a week, in a move widely interpreted as a direct protest against the upcoming joint military exercises between South Korea and the United States. Pyongyang has long framed such drills as a preparation for an invasion of its territory.

    According to South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff, the missile was launched from the eastern coastal city of Wonsan at approximately 6 a.m. local time on Wednesday, and traveled more than 700 kilometers (435 miles) before impacting. Japan’s Defense Ministry also confirmed the detection of the launch, noting that the weapon landed in waters outside Japan’s exclusive economic zone, in the sea between the Korean Peninsula and the Japanese archipelago.

    This string of rapid-fire tests aligns with a years-long pattern of North Korean weapons development, a campaign that has continued Pyongyang’s refusal to re-enter denuclearization talks with Washington and Seoul. Regional security analysts have long observed that North Korea consistently leverages joint military exercises conducted by its rivals as a justification to advance its own weapons testing program.

    The latest launch comes just two days after Seoul and Washington formally announced that their annual large-scale military drills, dubbed Ulchi Freedom Shield, would begin on August 17. The exercises are designed to strengthen allied readiness to counter North Korean aggression, a mission that both South Korea and the U.S. stress is purely defensive in nature. This has not softened Pyongyang’s opposition, however: North Korean leader Kim Jong Un labeled 2023’s Ulchi Freedom Shield exercises clear evidence of an intention to “ignite a war” against his country, promising that North Korea would respond with “proactive and overwhelming” countermeasures to any perceived provocation. This year’s tests mark a continuation of that long-standing retaliatory pattern.

    This latest test follows an initial short-range ballistic missile launch detected by South Korea, the U.S. and Japan on August 6, which was the first North Korean ballistic missile test activity since late June. North Korea has not yet issued an official confirmation of either launch, a common practice where the regime typically confirms weapons tests the following day.

    In response to the launch, South Korea’s military has announced it maintains full readiness to repel any further provocation from Pyongyang, in close coordination with the United States. South Korea’s National Security Council formally labeled the launches “acts of provocation” and called for an immediate halt to Pyongyang’s test activities. In Japan, Defense Minister Shinjiro Koizumi told reporters that Tokyo delivered a formal strong protest to North Korea via its diplomatic mission in Beijing, emphasizing that “It’s a serious problem that affects the safety of the Japanese people.”

    North Korea’s weapons tests are explicitly banned under multiple United Nations Security Council resolutions, but Pyongyang has dramatically expanded its testing of ballistic and other advanced weapons since high-stakes denuclearization diplomacy between Kim Jong Un and former U.S. President Donald Trump collapsed in 2019. Regional experts widely assess that Kim is pursuing the expansion of his nuclear and missile arsenals to gain greater leverage to force the U.S. to concede to demands such as the lifting of harsh international economic sanctions that have crippled North Korea’s economy.

    In recent years, Kim has also significantly expanded North Korea’s diplomatic and military alignment with Moscow, with open reporting indicating Pyongyang has supplied troops and ammunition to support Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. He has also moved to strengthen long-standing ties with China, North Korea’s primary economic partner and traditional diplomatic ally, a shift that culminated in Chinese President Xi Jinping’s June visit to Pyongyang, the first such visit by a Chinese head of state in seven years.

  • Ma’a Nonu thrills Kings Park with a solo haka for the Sharks against the All Blacks

    Ma’a Nonu thrills Kings Park with a solo haka for the Sharks against the All Blacks

    DURBAN, South Africa – For decades, South African rugby sides have relished the intensity of facing New Zealand’s iconic pre-match haka challenge, but none had ever responded with a haka of their own – until Tuesday. That historic moment came courtesy of 44-year-old former All Black center Ma’a Nonu, who delivered a memorable solo haka ahead of a tour match between his new side the Sharks and his old national team, a contest New Zealand ultimately won by a commanding 54-0 score on a rain-soaked pitch at Durban’s Kings Park.

    Nonu, who earned 104 caps for New Zealand between 2003 and 2015, has continued his professional playing career across global club competitions well into his mid-40s. Just one week before the high-profile clash, the Sharks announced the signing of Nonu on a role focused on mentoring and developing the franchise’s young emerging talent. However, a growing injury crisis among the Sharks’ matchday squad left the side short of replacements, prompting management to ask the veteran to step onto the bench for the historic fixture – the Sharks’ first match against the All Blacks in 30 years.

    Initially, Nonu was hesitant to accept the call-up. He worried that inserting himself into the matchday squad would overshadow the occasion for the rest of his Sharks teammates, who were preparing to make their own history against the world-famous side. But he ultimately relented to help the franchise fill out their matchday numbers, explaining to South African broadcaster SuperSport: “I thought it would be rude to say no. I thought I would put the boots on and try to help the team really.”

    In the lead-up to the match, Nonu consulted with two former All Black teammates now serving on New Zealand’s coaching staff, Tana Umaga and Tamati Ellison, about his plan to respond to the All Blacks’ haka with one of his own. He framed the decision as an act of respect for both his current side and his roots, saying: “Out of respect for our team and on behalf of myself and my family, I thought it was the right thing to do, to answer the boys and the All Blacks.”

    After the national anthems concluded and the All Blacks finished their traditional haka performance, Nonu stepped forward alone, with the rest of the Sharks squad lined up behind him, and the All Blacks positioned across the halfway line. He performed Kapa o Pango – the haka most commonly used by the All Blacks in modern matches – drawing initial silence from the damp crowd that quickly swelled into loud, warm cheers. When he finished, he nodded respectfully toward the All Blacks side, where most players nodded back in acknowledgment. Only two current All Blacks squad members, Codie Taylor and Beauden Barrett, were part of New Zealand’s national side when Nonu last played for the team.

    Reflecting on the moment after the match, Nonu called the experience a profound honor. “It was such a privilege and an honor, and to do the haka, showing my respect on behalf of my family to the team I love,” he said.

    Nonu got his minutes on the pitch in the final quarter of the one-sided contest, marking his first ever appearance against his former national team. His first touch of the ball came in a hard collision with All Blacks flyhalf Ruben Love – who was not yet born when Nonu made his debut for New Zealand in 2003. “I got 20 minutes. I tried my best. It was great to see the (New Zealand) boys,” he said.

    The All Blacks pulled away to secure a lopsided victory after scoring a string of tries in the final 30 minutes, leaving Nonu playing catch-up for much of his time on the pitch. He was quick to praise his former side, adding: “The All Blacks opened up in the last 30 minutes and I was chasing my tail. Credit to them, they’re improving, and all the best to the brothers for the next game.”

  • Saudi defence pact with Turkey and Pakistan sparks UAE backlash

    Saudi defence pact with Turkey and Pakistan sparks UAE backlash

    A landmark collective defense agreement signed by Saudi Arabia, Turkey, and Pakistan has triggered an unprecedented public dispute between Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, exposing long-simmering divisions over regional security strategy within the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC).

    Dated August 7, 2026, the accord — officially named the Mecca Joint Defence Agreement — enshrines a core mutual defense principle: any armed aggression against one of the three signatory states will be considered an attack on all three. While the pact was framed by Riyadh as a step to broaden regional deterrence capabilities, it has drawn sharp pushback from prominent Emirati public figures, who challenge Saudi Arabia’s choice to build a new security architecture outside the GCC framework.

    The GCC, founded in 1981, is a 6-nation regional bloc consisting of Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates, all energy-rich Gulf monarchies that have long coordinated on political, economic, and security matters. Leading the Emirati criticism is Abdulkhaleq Abdulla, a respected political analyst and former senior advisor to UAE President Mohammed bin Zayed. In a series of public posts on X, Abdulla questioned the strategic rationale behind the trilateral pact, arguing that prioritizing a broader regional partnership over deepening intra-GCC cooperation was a misstep.

    “Congratulations on the establishment of this alliance, but strengthening Gulf military and political cooperation and unifying the Gulf house is far more important than investing in regional military and political cooperation that includes countries whose credibility and ability to confront the Iranian-Israeli threat are not taken seriously,” Abdulla wrote. He also pressed the three signatories on a core question of alliance-building, asking, “One of the conditions for the success of any alliance is identifying the common enemy. So who is the enemy for the countries of this alliance?”

    Abdulla’s public critique drew an immediate and firm rebuttal from Saudi officials and commentators. Saudi Prince Abdulrahman bin Musaid pushed back directly against Abdulla’s claims, framing the new agreement as an exercise of Saudi Arabia’s inherent national sovereignty. “What is the problem, Doctor, if it is an alliance, a treaty, an agreement, or under any title?” the prince wrote on X. “How can this conflict with unifying the Gulf house? Is it not the right of any state to make agreements with any state or states according to what it sees as achieving its interests?”

    Fahad al-Arabi al-Harthi, chairman of the Saudi-based Asbar Centre for Studies and Research, further clarified Riyadh’s position, rejecting the characterization of the Mecca agreement as a bloc targeted at any specific nation or regional actor. He emphasized that the pact was not structured around a shared enemy, but rather focused on building collective defensive and deterrent capacity to safeguard regional security and stability against any potential threat from any origin.

    Other Saudi social media users took a more confrontational tone, pointing to the UAE’s own independent foreign policy moves that bypassed GCC coordination, most notably the 2020 Abraham Accords that normalized the UAE’s diplomatic relations with Israel. “I wonder, did the UAE inform and notify the Gulf states before its alliance with the Zionist entity?” one Saudi commenter asked.

    As the public debate escalated, Abdulla doubled down on his position, sharing a post widely interpreted as a rejection of broader pan-Arab or pan-Islamic alliances in favor of a strict, homeland-first approach to national interest. “He whose sect is more important than his homeland, there is no safety for him… He whose nation, Arab or Islamic, is more important than his homeland, there is no safety for him,” Abdulla wrote. “Belonging, loyalty, and sincerity are for the homeland alone, with no partner.”

    That post drew a sharp response from Abdulaziz al-Tuwaijri, former head of the Islamic World Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (Isesco), who alluded directly to the UAE’s diplomatic ties with Israel in his reply: “Anyone who betrays and collaborates with the Zionists will never find security.”

    In a follow-up tweet, al-Tuwaijri also called out the inconsistency of the UAE’s criticism, pointing to the UAE’s own bilateral defense agreement with India and its extensive security cooperation with Israel — partnerships the UAE has pursued independently without similar scrutiny from within the GCC. He closed his post with a pointed Arabic proverb, “those who have shame are dead,” a rebuke implying that critics of the Saudi-led pact lack the moral standing to question Riyadh’s strategic choices.

    The public clash marks a rare breakdown in the usually discrete diplomatic culture of Gulf monarchies, where internal disagreements are rarely aired publicly. The dispute highlights growing rifts over how Gulf states should navigate shifting regional power dynamics, with differing visions on whether security cooperation should remain centered within the GCC or expand to extra-regional and non-GCC actors.

  • Israeli settler who took part in brutal assault on Palestinians released from house arrest

    Israeli settler who took part in brutal assault on Palestinians released from house arrest

    A Israeli settler implicated in a brutal pre-dawn assault on a Palestinian village in the occupied West Bank that left multiple residents injured and humiliated has been released from house arrest, the Israeli military confirmed in a public statement issued Monday.

    Tal Yinon Dardik, who is alleged to have participated in the March 13 attack on the small Palestinian community of Khirbet Humsa, will no longer be confined to his place of residence, but is required to check in at a local police station twice a day under the terms of the court ruling that cleared his release.

    The decision to end Dardik’s house arrest followed a ruling by the Jerusalem District Court that the original terms of his detention were unworkable. Dardik had been held under house arrest at his mother-in-law’s home in Adei Ad, a Israeli settlement located in the central West Bank, but the court found the arrangement unsustainable after Dardik’s mother-in-law refused to continue hosting him.

    Dardik has become a cause célèbre for Israeli settler activist groups and right-wing political figures, who mounted a sustained public campaign to push for his release. He has repeatedly denied any involvement in the attack, which unfolded when dozens of masked settlers stormed Khirbet Humsa before sunrise, targeting multiple Palestinian residents including women, children and elderly people in a coordinated assault that left dozens traumatized.

    One of the most severe assaults targeted 29-year-old Qusai Abu al-Kebash, who has told reporters that settlers stripped him naked, bound his arms and legs, fastened a plastic zip-tie around his genitals, and paraded him through the village in front of his family and neighbors. An American peace activist who was staying in the village at the time of the attack gave a firsthand account of the violence to Israeli newspaper Haaretz earlier this year, describing being attacked as she slept in a tent.

    “Six masked Israeli settlers armed with heavy wooden sticks swarmed me while I was asleep,” the activist recalled. “They immediately beat the three of us to the ground, smashing our faces with their fists and clubs. They zip-tied our hands and feet, and were yelling things like, ‘We are going to kill you!’” During the attack, she said, settlers pulled down Abu al-Kebash’s pants, poured cold water over him, and beat him repeatedly into the dirt. “All he could do was curl into a fetal position and scream when they beat him with their clubs,” she added.

    Multiple village residents confirmed the assault lasted roughly an hour, and estimated that as many as dozens of masked settlers took part in the incursion. A Palestinian woman who was in the village during the attack said she was beaten, dragged out of her home, had her head covering torn off and portions of her clothing ripped. “They pulled the girls out and beat them, even the little ones. They mocked us and celebrated our humiliation,” she told Haaretz. A 74-year-old resident added that three attackers beat him repeatedly on his head, hands and stomach, while another destroyed the village’s security cameras, internet router and outdoor lighting.

    The release of Dardik comes after months of political pressure from senior Israeli figures, including Defense Minister Israel Katz, who has openly criticized the original restrictions placed on Dardik and ordered government and military officials not to renew his detention. Katz visited Dardik in prison last month while Dardik was conducting a hunger strike to protest his detention. He also previously threatened to fire Major General Avi Bluth, head of the Israeli military’s Central Command, after Bluth appealed a court ruling that would have allowed Dardik to move his house arrest to a location of his choosing. Katz ultimately backed down from the threat after widespread public outcry.

    The attack is one of a sharp rising tide of settler violence targeting Palestinian communities in the occupied West Bank in recent years. The International Court of Justice has repeatedly ruled that all Israeli settlements built in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem violate international law, yet more than 700,000 Israeli citizens currently reside in these illegal settlements. United Nations data shows that attacks on Palestinian herding communities like Khirbet Humsa have spiked dramatically in recent years, with at least 5,910 Palestinians internally displaced by settler violence between January 2023 and April 2024.