Global Pulse

标签： Asia

亚洲

  • Philippines’ Duterte seen in person for first time at International Criminal Court

    Philippines’ Duterte seen in person for first time at International Criminal Court

    Eighteen months after his arrest at Manila’s international airport, former Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte has made his first in-person appearance before the International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague, where he has been detained since March 2025. The 81-year-old, who is facing charges of crimes against humanity stemming from his signature anti-drug campaign, arrived at the court on Wednesday dressed in a dark suit and untucked white shirt.

    Duterte, who led the Philippines from 2016 to 2022, launched a brutal nationwide war on drugs immediately after taking office, which rights groups and ICC investigators say resulted in the extrajudicial killing of tens of thousands of low-level drug suspects and small-time dealers. The court’s investigation into the killings spans more than seven years, starting in November 2011 when Duterte served as mayor of the major southern city Davao, and ending in March 2016 when Duterte withdrew the Philippines’ membership from the ICC.

    Prior to this week’s hearing, Duterte had only appeared remotely before the court and had repeatedly skipped scheduled in-person proceedings, with his legal team arguing that his declining health leaves him unfit to participate in a full trial. Wednesday’s status hearing was called specifically to address the defense’s claims that Duterte lives with severe memory impairment that prevents him from collaborating effectively with his legal team. Prosecutors have pushed back against this claim, disputing that Duterte is unfit to stand trial. The former president first disclosed his diagnosis of myasthenia gravis — an autoimmune disorder that causes nerve and muscle dysfunction — back in 2019, when he was still in office. When he was elected in 2016 at the age of 71, he was the oldest candidate ever to win the Philippine presidency.

    Duterte’s appearance at the ICC comes as his political dynasty is locked in a high-stakes power struggle that reshaped the country’s political landscape and cleared the path for his arrest. The alliance between the Duterte and Marcos political families, which delivered a landslide election victory for incumbent President Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr. in 2022, has collapsed in a very public feud between Marcos and Duterte’s daughter, Vice President Sara Duterte. That falling-out, which fractured the ruling coalition, is widely seen as having enabled the arrest of the former president in 2025.

    Sara Duterte, currently the frontrunner in polling for the 2028 presidential election (for which Marcos is constitutionally barred from seeking a second term), is also fighting for her own political future. She is currently undergoing an impeachment trial on charges that include misappropriation of public funds and making threats to assassinate President Marcos, First Lady Liza Araneta-Marcos, and House Speaker Ferdinand Martin Romualdez, Marcos’ cousin. If convicted in the impeachment proceeding, she will be permanently disqualified from holding any public office, ending her presidential bid before the 2028 campaign even begins. Duterte’s formal trial on the ICC charges is currently scheduled to begin in November.

  • Athletes can’t stretch their legs in container beds at Japan’s Asian Games, official says

    Athletes can’t stretch their legs in container beds at Japan’s Asian Games, official says

    As the 2026 Asian Games in Aichi Prefecture and Nagoya, Japan prepares for its official opening this Saturday, a heated controversy over athlete housing has dominated pre-Games discussions, with delegations from across the continent voicing sharp criticism of the makeshift wooden container accommodation built for 2,000 competitors.

    The root of the housing crisis stretches back to last-minute changes to the Games’ sporting program. Initially, organizers planned for 15,000 registered athletes and officials. But when the Olympic Council of Asia added two new sports — teqball, a hybrid of football and table tennis, and padel — in mid-August, the total number of attendees surged to more than 17,000, leaving organizers scrambling to source additional beds. With a fixed budget and limited workforce already allocated for the original headcount, Aichi Governor and organizing committee president Hideaki Omura initially stated that the region had “neither the manpower nor the budget” to accommodate the extra participants, even suggesting that unaccommodated attendees arrange their own lodging. After public pushback, organizers confirmed last month that all 17,000-plus registered participants would receive Games-approved accommodation, claiming final preparations were progressing smoothly for what they billed as “the most spectacular Asian Games held for generations.”

    Unlike traditional major multi-sport events that build a dedicated, centralized athletes’ village, Nagoya organizers opted for a distributed temporary housing model. The most controversial option is the fleet of wooden container huts, designed to be repurposed as disaster evacuation facilities after the Games. But the compact units have drawn near-universal criticism from visiting delegations.

    Jung Jae-yong, vice-president of the Korea Basketball Association, described the container accommodation as the “worst it has ever been” in an interview with AFP, highlighting a critical size flaw: “Athletes who are over two metres tall cannot even stretch their legs out on the beds. It’s unreasonable.” Jung added that dissatisfaction over the substandard housing is shared by representatives from many other participating nations, not just South Korea. A member of the South Korean basketball team amplified these complaints by posting a viral video showing a leaking pipe and completely soaked floor in his container unit, captioned simply “Please help me.”

    The housing issues were compounded by extreme weather last week, when record rainfall triggered widespread flooding across Nagoya. All athletes staying in the container huts were briefly evacuated, and water leakage was also reported in some competition venues. To help their athletes adapt to the unexpected living conditions, Indian sporting authorities even built full-size replicas of the container huts back home for training and acclimatization.

    Beyond the container units, organizers are housing an additional 4,000 to 5,000 participants on an Italian cruise ship that docked in Nagoya earlier this week, while the remaining attendees are placed in local hotels. Even with all athletes guaranteed beds, some delegations still report uneven arrangements. Philippine Olympic Committee president Abraham Tolentino confirmed to AFP that while all of the country’s competitors have secured accommodation, some team officials and coaches have been placed in separate hotels and private Airbnb rentals.

    In response to the growing wave of criticism, accommodation manager Yuta Matsuo told Reuters that local organizers are “fully aware of the dissatisfaction and concerns voiced by the athlete delegations” and are “taking concrete steps to improve the environment for the athletes.”

    While preliminary matches for basketball and football have already kicked off, the official opening ceremony of the 2026 Asian Games will take place this Saturday, with competition running through to the closing ceremony on October 4.

  • The small fee raising big questions for India’s payments revolution

    The small fee raising big questions for India’s payments revolution

    Since its 2016 launch, India’s Unified Payments Interface (UPI) has cemented its reputation as the backbone of the country’s digital economy, transforming how individuals and businesses transfer money and complete purchases. Now, a planned new fee for certain merchant transactions through the ubiquitous platform has ignited broad debate across India’s business and tech sectors, with conflicting views on whether the charge will sustain the system’s growth or undermine its widespread adoption.

    The National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI), which operates UPI, announced Tuesday that starting October 15, a 0.4% Merchant Discount Rate (MDR) will apply to eligible UPI payments over 2,000 rupees ($21) made by customers to merchants. Critically, the regulation requires merchants to absorb the full cost of the fee, and explicitly bars them from passing the expense on to consumers. A separate flat 5-rupee fee applies to specific high-value merchant transactions including rail tickets, fuel purchases, telecom bills, insurance premiums and agricultural input payments over the 2,000-rupee threshold. For all other eligible transactions over 2,000 rupees, the 0.4% fee is capped at 300 rupees per transaction, limiting costs for very large payments.

    The new structure carves out wide exemptions to limit disruption for most users. All person-to-person transfers remain free, no matter the transaction amount. All merchant payments under 2,000 rupees also stay free of charge, as do QR code-based merchant transactions in rural and semi-urban regions. According to the Indian government, roughly 96% of all person-to-merchant UPI transactions will remain entirely unaffected by the new fees, falling either below the threshold or into one of the exempt categories.

    For years after UPI’s launch, the cost of building, operating and expanding the payments infrastructure has been covered primarily by the national government, partner banks and payments service providers. Indian officials frame the new MDR as a necessary step to keep the system sustainable for the long term. In an official press release, the finance ministry clarified that the MDR is not a government-imposed tax; all revenue collected from the fee will be distributed to payments providers, including banks, to fund ongoing operations, infrastructure upgrades, cybersecurity improvements, innovation and future expansion of the UPI network. The government argues that shifting to this market-linked pricing model reduces the burden on public tax revenue that currently covers UPI subsidies, placing the cost on the large businesses that derive the most benefit from the platform.

    Despite these justifications, the policy has drawn sharp criticism from analysts and business leaders who warn it could raise operational costs for enterprises and discourage UPI adoption, particularly for larger transactions. Some social media users have pointed out that the zero-cost model has long been UPI’s biggest draw for both merchants and consumers, and introducing fees could erode its core advantage over cash and other payment methods. High-profile voices have echoed these concerns: former Indian government chief economic adviser Krishnamurthy Subramanian has questioned the existing framework’s private cost-benefit analysis, while prominent Indian entrepreneur Ashneer Grover warned in an interview with CNN-News18 that some small shopkeepers may simply refuse large UPI payments and demand cash instead, reversing years of progress toward digitalization.

    Bipin Preet Singh, CEO of leading Indian fintech firm MobiKwik, has pushed back on that criticism, supporting the fee as a necessary investment in the system’s future. “When government funds the subsidies paid for UPI, that amount comes from tax payers’ pocket. Moving to market-linked pricing mechanism removes this tax burden and directly links the cost to large businesses which benefit from UPI,” Singh explained.

    UPI’s growth over the past decade has been nothing short of revolutionary, cementing its status as the world’s largest digital real-time payments system by transaction volume. NPCI data shows that in August 2025 alone, UPI processed a record 24.51 billion transactions worth a total of 29.82 trillion rupees, approximately $311 billion. It is now a universal tool in India, used by everyone from street-side vegetable vendors to large corporate enterprises, and is credited with accelerating financial inclusion across the country. As the October 15 implementation date approaches, industry observers are closely watching whether the new fee structure will alter usage patterns, especially for large-value transactions, and whether it will strike the right balance between long-term system sustainability and accessible digital payments for all.

  • All supporting acts quit Ed Sheeran tour in protest of Macklemore’s removal

    All supporting acts quit Ed Sheeran tour in protest of Macklemore’s removal

    A wave of artist withdrawals has rocked Ed Sheeran’s ongoing *Loop Tour*, after opening act Macklemore was removed from the lineup for his public pro-Palestine stance, leaving the British pop star facing widespread criticism over his neutral position on the escalating Gaza conflict.

    On Tuesday, Grammy-winning artist Finneas became the highest-profile of four supporting acts to confirm their exit from the tour, joined by Irish singer Aaron Rowe, Irish folk band Beoga, and Danish pop group Lukas Graham. All four acts issued public statements framing their departure as an act of solidarity with both Macklemore and the Palestinian people, arguing that artists must never be silenced for speaking out against human rights abuses.

    “Artists must not be silenced when they speak up for the oppressed,” Finneas wrote in a social media post confirming his exit. Aaron Rowe, who described Sheeran as a personal friend who had transformed his career, emphasized that his Irish background gave him unique perspective on systemic violence and occupation. “But as Irish people we know all too well about genocide, forced famine and violent occupation. I cannot stand by and allow billionaires to use their position of power to silence the rightful voices of those who speak up against Israeli genocide and who highlight the savage murder of children,” Rowe said.

    Beoga echoed this position in their own announcement, blaming pressure from Zionist lobbies for Macklemore’s removal from the tour. Lukas Graham frontman added that freedom of speech must extend to conversations about civilian suffering in conflict, saying, “Nobody’s bank balance should decide who gets to speak or which suffering we’re allowed to acknowledge.”

    The chain of exits traces back to a September 4 performance, when Macklemore took the stage as an opening act and delivered a two-minute speech calling for a free Palestine before performing his track *Hind’s Hall*—a song named for 5-year-old Hind Rajab, who was killed by Israeli forces in Gaza earlier this year. The speech quickly drew both widespread praise from pro-Palestine activists and fierce backlash from pro-Israel groups, including the Israeli American Council, which launched a public petition demanding Sheeran drop the rapper from the tour.

    On Monday, Macklemore released a statement explaining his ouster: after billionaire Robert Kraft organized a coalition of stadium owners to threaten to block Sheeran from accessing their venues if he kept Macklemore on the lineup, Sheeran and his management team removed the rapper from all remaining tour dates. Sheeran has pushed back against this narrative, arguing that the decision to cut Macklemore rested solely with tour promoters, not with him.

    The *Shape of You* singer has also rejected accusations that he is complicit in silencing pro-Palestine voices by refusing to take a public stance on the conflict. Sheeran says he holds personal views on what he calls a devastating ongoing conflict, but chooses not to inject political discourse into his professional tour platform. “Just because I choose not to speak publicly, it doesn’t mean I don’t have [views] and it doesn’t mean I don’t care,” he said in a statement. Still, many fans have taken to social media to criticize Sheeran’s position, pointing to past instances where the singer has used his platform to raise awareness for other political and social causes.

  • NZ apologises to children forced to live in bush for years with fugitive dad

    NZ apologises to children forced to live in bush for years with fugitive dad

    Four years after fugitive father Tom Phillips vanished into the New Zealand wilderness with his three young children, and months after he died in a fatal police confrontation, an independent public inquiry has exposed widespread failures across state agencies that left the children trapped in harmful isolation for nearly half a decade. On Wednesday, Prime Minister Christopher Luxon issued a formal public apology to the children and their mother, acknowledging repeated missed opportunities to locate the group and intervene to protect the minors.

    In December 2021, Phillips, who had a prior history of disappearing with his children, took the then 5-, 7-, and 8-year-old siblings into remote bushland. What should have triggered an urgent search never materialized immediately, the inquiry found. Authored by former High Court Justice Simon Moore, the inquiry’s report, released Tuesday, revealed that police initially declined to launch a search and rescue operation based on what it called a “misconceived view” that the children were not at risk. The report also slammed multiple agencies for repeatedly downplaying warnings raised by the children’s mother, including her concerns about Phillips’ access to firearms, dismissing her alarms as typical conflict in a messy parenting dispute.

    Over the 44 months the group remained missing, inquiry investigators uncovered a string of unaddressed sightings that could have led to an earlier rescue. Contrary to initial assumptions that Phillips had cut himself and the children off from all outside contact, the inquiry found he made multiple trips into populated areas to resupply. In February 2022, he visited his mother without the children, who gave him NZ$1,000 in cash and emergency food supplies. Two years later, in August 2023, Phillips spent a full day shopping in Waikato region businesses, spending almost NZ$6,000 on a wide range of goods including groceries, children’s clothes, fishing equipment, gardening supplies, knives and lighters. He passed through the community unnoticed by authorities the entire time.

    The standoff ended on September 7, 2025, when police located Phillips in the small North Island town of Piopio, and he died during a subsequent shootout. The three children were taken into state protective custody, where they remain today. After the confrontation, police released photos of one of the squalid, overgrown campsites where the family had hidden, showing a stockpile of firearms, ammunition, and discarded beer cans scattered in the dense bush.

    The inquiry concluded that all involved agencies – including New Zealand Police, national child welfare service Oranga Tamariki, the New Zealand Defence Force, and the Ministry of Education – failed to coordinate effectively and share critical information that could have speeded up the rescue. Investigators confirmed that agencies consistently “underplayed, minimised or overlooked” the severe harm caused by the children’s prolonged isolation, a finding that has sparked widespread public outrage across New Zealand over the systemic failures.

    Alongside Luxon’s apology, top government and law enforcement leaders have publicly accepted the inquiry’s findings and taken responsibility for the missed chances. Social Development Minister Louise Upton directly addressed the children in a statement Tuesday, saying “this report has found that our agencies did not take all practical steps to protect you. For that we are deeply sorry.” She added that the children had been forced to endure four years in squalid conditions that robbed them of a “happy and healthy childhood.”

    Deputy Police Commissioner Jill Rogers acknowledged the force’s mistakes in an interview with 1News’ *Breakfast*, saying “Did it take too long? Did we miss opportunities? Yes, we did. You can’t unsee the images of where those children were living in those campsites… It’s heart-breaking.” While she noted that the investigators assigned to the case had worked tirelessly on the case, Rogers admitted that the force needed to implement sweeping improvements to prevent similar failures in the future, while pointing out that the core mission of recovering the children alive had ultimately been completed.

  • US prepares $2.8bn weapons sale, funded by taxpayers, to Israel: Report

    US prepares $2.8bn weapons sale, funded by taxpayers, to Israel: Report

    A new, highly contentious $2.8 billion arms deal prepared by the Trump administration would send tens of thousands of powerful 2,000-pound bombs to Israel, with U.S. taxpayers on the hook for the full cost, The Washington Post has reported, citing an anonymous senior U.S. official familiar with the military planning. If finalized, the transfer would mark the largest single shipment of this destructive munition from the United States to Israel in modern history.

    Details of the package outline that it includes 40,000 general-purpose 2,000-pound bombs — specifically the MK-84 and BLU-117 variants — alongside an additional 20,000 I-2000 Penetrator warheads. Classified as one of the most devastating conventional armaments in Western military stockpiles, the MK-84 is engineered to penetrate thick concrete and reinforced metal, create massive impact craters, and spray lethal shrapnel across hundreds of meters from its detonation site. This wide destructive radius puts civilian populations at extreme risk when deployed in populated areas.

    The proposed sale has already been shared informally with key congressional committees, creating a awkward political bind for Democratic lawmakers. Tensions between the U.S. Democratic caucus and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu have reached a fever pitch in recent months, as growing frustration over Israel’s military campaign in Gaza has strained the long-standing U.S.-Israel bilateral relationship.

    When pressed by reporters about widespread concerns over the humanitarian risks posed by the transfer, a senior Trump administration official declined to comment on the pending deal, noting only that all international arms sales follow standard procedural protocols. The Israeli Embassy in Washington also did not respond to repeated requests for comment from The Washington Post.

    Criticism of the proposed transfer spread rapidly across social media, with high-profile journalists and political commentators quickly condemning the deal. Former Fox News host Tucker Carlson used his platform on X to argue that the sale is unprecedented and unjustified. “There is no precedent for what the Trump administration is doing. Nor is there any justification,” Carlson wrote. He added that Israel is not fighting a large-scale conventional war that requires such heavy armaments: it is engaged in limited skirmishes with guerrilla forces in Lebanon and a brutal offensive against the largely unarmed civilian population of Gaza, neither of which necessitates the deployment of 2,000-pound bombs.

    Investigative journalist Glenn Greenwald went further, framing the deal as a continuation of former President Trump’s political obligations to Miriam Adelson, an Israeli-born American billionaire and one of the most prominent pro-Israel donors in U.S. politics. “In case you’re wondering when Trump’s debt to Miriam Adelson and her Israeli cabal will finally be paid off, the answer is: never. The debt is eternal and limitless,” Greenwald posted on X. He added that political obligations are just one factor behind Trump’s unwavering alignment with Israeli policy, separate from the former president’s own personal and political motivations for his staunch support.

    The $2.8 billion package outpaces all previous U.S. arms sales to Israel in recent years, including a $2.04 billion sale approved in 2025 that skipped the standard congressional review process. Data compiled from open-source reporting confirms that Israeli forces have already deployed 2,000-pound bombs hundreds of times during their ongoing military campaign in the besieged Gaza Strip and cross-border strikes in Lebanon, resulting in catastrophic civilian casualties.

    Multiple United Nations bodies, including the UN Commission of Inquiry, alongside leading international and Israeli human rights organizations, have officially concluded that Israeli authorities have committed acts of genocide in the Gaza Strip. Since the launch of Israel’s military offensive on the enclave in October 2023, more than 73,000 people have been killed in Gaza, the vast majority of them women and children, according to Gaza’s Ministry of Health.

  • Badar Khan Suri blasts ‘shallow’ Trump administration at immigration hearing

    Badar Khan Suri blasts ‘shallow’ Trump administration at immigration hearing

    On a Tuesday hearing in a Virginia immigration court, Georgetown University scholar Badar Khan Suri delivered a sharp rebuke of the Trump administration’s legal arguments to justify his deportation, calling the government’s claims baseless, shallow, and rooted in political opportunism rather than factual evidence.

    Suri, a legal permanent U.S. resident and Indian citizen married to a U.S.-born woman from Gaza, first became a high-profile target of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) 18 months ago, shortly after he publicly expressed support for Palestinian rights. What began as a routine immigration matter has since erupted into a global flashpoint over the weaponization of U.S. deportation policy to silence dissenting political speech.

    Speaking to reporters outside the Annandale courthouse following Tuesday’s proceedings, Suri pushed back against the administration’s unsubstantiated claims labeling him antisemitic. ‘The government’s argument is very specious. It’s very shallow. They want to talk about something, but it has no roots,’ he said. ‘They are saying that I’m antisemite, I’m anti this or that, but they’re just saying it for the sake of some political agenda.’ Suri also highlighted that dozens of his Jewish supporters attended the hearing to stand with him, noting they reject the government’s effort to weaponize their religious identity for political gain.

    Nader Hashemi, director of Georgetown’s Alwaleed Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding where Suri conducts post-doctoral research, framed the case as a clear example of the Trump White House’s deeply entrenched anti-Palestinian policy orientation. Hashemi, who was present in the courtroom for Tuesday’s arguments, told Middle East Eye that Suri would never have been targeted for deportation without pressure from extreme right-wing backers of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. He added that Suri himself is not the ultimate target of the administration’s action: because Suri’s wife, a Gaza native, is a U.S. citizen and cannot be legally targeted for political retaliation, officials have opted to harass her by going after her husband instead.

    Records of the case lay out how outside pro-Israel groups laid the groundwork for Suri’s arrest. In late February 2025, the conservative pro-Israel organization Middle East Forum (MEF) announced it had uncovered that Suri’s wife, Saleh, is the daughter of Ahmed Yousef, a former senior political advisor to the late former Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh – who has publicly criticized Hamas’s October 7, 2023 attack on southern Israel. Saleh was later added to the pro-Israel blacklist site Canary Mission, which cited her past work for Al Jazeera and Gaza City birthplace as evidence of purported Hamas ties. Just hours after news of Suri’s pending detention broke, MEF publicly took credit for pushing for his arrest.

    On March 17, 2025, masked federal agents took Suri into custody outside his Washington, D.C. suburban home. U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio personally ordered the revocation of Suri’s visa, officially citing claims that the scholar had ‘spread Hamas propaganda and promoted antisemitism on social media.’ For two months following his arrest, Suri was held in an overcrowded, unsanitary ICE detention facility in Alvaredo, Texas, before a federal judge ordered his release on May 14, 2025, allowing him to return to his family in Virginia while his legal challenge proceeded.

    The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), which is representing Suri in his legal fight, has previously outlined that the administration’s legal argument relies on a rarely invoked provision of the U.S. Immigration and Nationality Act. The provision allows deportation when the government claims an individual’s presence ‘compromises a compelling foreign policy interest’ – a standard that legal advocates say is being abused to target political dissent. In July, the U.S. Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals rejected the Trump administration’s bid to re-detain Suri, upholding the lower court’s ruling that granted him bail while his case moves forward.

    Today, Suri is pursuing two parallel legal battles: a federal habeas corpus case defending his due process rights, and a separate immigration hearing overseen by an immigration court under the Department of Justice, which answers directly to the U.S. Attorney General. Habeas corpus, a legal principle dating back to 13th-century England, was created to prevent arbitrary detention by state authorities and today applies to all people on U.S. territory, regardless of citizenship status.

    Suri, who has spent 20 years working to advance Middle East peace initiatives, says he remains prepared for the fight ahead and confident that justice will ultimately win out. ‘I know this is a tough thing. So I am ready for these challenges, and I am very hopeful that justice will prevail,’ he said.

    Hashemi also expressed cautious optimism following Tuesday’s hearing, pointing to widespread public outrage over the Trump administration’s abuse of executive power in the case. ‘I’m feeling confident that there’s a lot of public outrage over the abuse of power that the Trump administration has engaged in, and this has drawn the ire of a lot of concerned American citizens,’ he said. ‘It’s not just about the rights of one post-doctoral fellow in Georgetown. His case now is about the future of democracy in the United States.’

    As of Tuesday, the presiding immigration judge was expected to issue a ruling in the case as early as Tuesday evening local time.

  • Japan to charge rescue fee on Mount Fuji during off season

    Japan to charge rescue fee on Mount Fuji during off season

    Japan’s iconic Mount Fuji has long drawn thousands of hiking enthusiasts from across the globe each year, but a growing trend of dangerous off-season ascents is pushing local authorities to roll out strict new regulations to protect unprepared climbers and cut down on risky rescue operations.

    Starting next year, officials managing the northern flank of Mount Fuji have announced that any climber attempting an off-season ascent who requires emergency helicopter rescue will be forced to pay full cost for the service. This new charge is one of several policy changes Yamanashi Prefecture is implementing to deter ill-prepared and reckless hikers from putting themselves and rescue teams in danger.

    Regional officials are using an existing rescue fee model from nearby Saitama Prefecture as a reference for their new pricing structure. Saitama already charges 8,000 Japanese yen, equal to roughly $51 or £38, for every five minutes of helicopter rescue service in the prefecture’s mountainous regions. Yamanashi has not yet released its final exact fee schedule, but confirmed the structure will align closely with Saitama’s established framework.

    Beyond the new rescue fee, Yamanashi is also adding a mandatory requirement for all off-season climbers: anyone hoping to scale Mount Fuji between early September and July of the following year, the recognized off-peak window, must submit a detailed, step-by-step climbing plan for approval before setting out. The prefecture’s governor, Kotaro Nagasaki, framed the new rules as a urgent public safety measure in comments made Monday.

    “We ask the general public to refrain from climbing during the off-season,” Nagasaki said. “We hope that these measures will cause people to rethink what climbing Mount Fuji during the winter is like.”

    The push for tighter regulation comes as both Yamanashi and neighboring Shizuoka Prefecture, which manages the southern portion of the mountain, have recorded a steady increase in unplanned and off-season climbs in recent years. A growing number of these ascents have ended in emergency situations, with climbers becoming stranded in harsh conditions requiring large-scale rescue responses.

    Shizuoka has also announced its own set of stricter rules to address the trend: the prefecture will impose formal penalties on off-season climbers who fail to register their planned ascent, and will increase patrols and enforcement to keep hikers out of off-limits areas that pose extreme safety risks. Unlike Yamanashi, however, Shizuoka has not yet announced plans to introduce a fee for helicopter rescues.

    Mount Fuji’s official climbing season runs only from July to early September, a window when weather conditions are most stable and visitor infrastructure is fully operational. Roughly 200,000 hikers attempt to reach the summit during this official window each year. Climbing outside the official season is strongly discouraged by authorities, though it remains legally permitted up to the fifth of the mountain’s ten ascending stations.

    Despite the legal allowance, off-season climbing carries significant avoidable risks. Most mountain huts and public toilet facilities along climbing routes are closed during the off-peak months, leaving no place for climbers to rest, refuel, or access basic amenities. Weather conditions on the mountain also turn far more severe outside the official season, with sudden blizzards, high winds, and icy trail conditions that create major hazards even for experienced mountaineers.

  • ‘Consequences of raising my voice’: Leqaa Kordia suffers fifth seizure since ICE detention

    ‘Consequences of raising my voice’: Leqaa Kordia suffers fifth seizure since ICE detention

    Six months after securing her release from 12 months of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention, 33-year-old Palestinian activist Leqaa Kordia is confronting a debilitating new health condition that never existed before her incarceration: repeated, unrelenting seizures. Her most recent episode, the fifth since her March 2026 release, struck Sunday shortly after she returned home from speaking at a panel hosted by New York City’s Riverside Church. Kordia, who was in prayer and still dressed in her prayer garments when the seizure hit, described the harrowing experience in an Instagram statement shared Monday.

    “I was scared, exhausted, dizzy, and confused,” Kordia wrote. “I had never had a seizure before ICE jailed me for exercising my freedom of speech and my right to protest.”

    Kordia first entered the United States in 2016 from the Israeli-occupied West Bank on a Palestinian Authority passport, initially as a visitor before transitioning to student status to study English. Her detention saga began in March 2025, when she voluntarily attended a scheduled meeting with immigration agents after learning authorities had questioned her acquaintances and visited her home to inquire about her. During that March 13 meeting in Newark, New Jersey, Kordia was served a notice to appear for immigration court and was immediately transferred overnight to a detention facility in Texas.

    She spent 368 days in ICE custody before an immigration judge ordered her release on March 13, 2026. Her first seizure, which was documented publicly, occurred one month earlier in February while she was still detained at the Prairieland Detention Center in Alvarado, Texas, and required emergency hospitalization. Recounting the incident to Middle East Eye in April, Kordia said she had developed a high fever the night before the seizure, and fellow detained women begged guards to provide her with basic over-the-counter pain relievers like Ibuprofen or Tylenol. Their pleas were ignored, Kordia said, and the seizure followed shortly after. “I swear, that night I thought I was going to die,” she told MEE at the time. Supporters had repeatedly raised alarms about the lack of medical access for Kordia during her detention, and she was only hospitalized days after the fever had already spiked.

    Kordia’s ongoing health struggle is far from an isolated incident. It has drawn renewed attention to longstanding, widespread allegations of systemic medical neglect across ICE detention facilities, a crisis that advocacy and medical rights groups have warned about for years. Middle East Eye has previously documented multiple other cases of inadequate medical care for detainees held by ICE.

    One such case involves 65-year-old Syrian detainee Iemad Saifo, who was taken into ICE custody in Mount Laurel, New Jersey, in July 2025. Saifo’s family told MEE in August that facility staff failed to properly log his regular prescription medications when he was admitted. Over his two-week detention, Saifo’s health deteriorated drastically because he could not access his required treatment, a common outcome that disrupts routine, life-sustaining care for detainees entering the system. Kordia herself recounted a similar experience from inside the facility: a woman detained in the same housing unit as her had brought her own medication with her when she was taken into custody, but officers never cataloged the drugs and kept them locked in the woman’s seized purse, despite repeated urgent requests to release the medication.

    Inadequate medical access is not the only pervasive complaint about conditions in ICE detention. Earlier this year, detainees at Delaney Hall, a privately run ICE facility in Newark, launched a hunger strike to protest abysmal living conditions that included insufficient food and substandard medical care. During a May visit to the facility, members of Congress documented these claims, with Representative Jerry Nadler telling reporters that some detainees reported meals containing maggots. The U.S. Department of Homeland Security has repeatedly denied all allegations of poor conditions in its detention facilities.

    A March 2026 report from the Florence Project, an Arizona-based nonprofit providing legal services to immigrants, further corroborates claims of widespread medical neglect. The organization documented a sharp, alarming rise in the number of its clients facing severe, chronic health conditions that have been exacerbated by life-threatening denial of care in ICE custody. Case studies included in the report mirror Kordia’s experience: a woman who developed recurring seizure-like convulsions only after entering detention, multiple pregnant women denied appropriate prenatal care, and a woman who was scheduled for surgery to repair a broken ankle just before her detention, who remains in severe chronic pain with an unhealed broken bone months later.

    For Kordia, the crisis is deeply personal. “I can’t take back the 368 days that were stolen from me,” she wrote in her Instagram post. “I can’t fully live a normal existence. I don’t know whether I will ever heal from this trauma and sickness.”

    Sally Pillay, executive director of the Mami Chelo Foundation, told MEE that Kordia’s account is deeply troubling and aligns with what the organization hears consistently from people held in ICE detention: requests for medical care are routinely delayed or ignored until a condition becomes a life-threatening emergency.

    “No one should leave civil immigration detention with their health permanently damaged because they could not access timely, adequate medical care,” Pillay said.

    Six months after her release, Kordia says the seizures that started only after her detention continue to upend her life. “Now I carry the pain of my people and my family in my chest, and the consequences of raising my voice live in my brain and body,” she wrote. “I will pay the price of speaking up for the rest of my life.”

  • US acknowledges munition ‘shortfalls’ due to war on Iran

    US acknowledges munition ‘shortfalls’ due to war on Iran

    A newly released public report from the U.S. Department of Defense’s inspector general has laid bare deep vulnerabilities in America’s military stockpiles and infrastructure, confirming that months of combat operations against Iran have created critical ammunition shortfalls, exposed production bottlenecks in the U.S. defense industrial base, and caused tens of billions of dollars in damage and losses – directly contradicting public assurances from former President Donald Trump and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth that the conflict had not strained U.S. military capabilities.

    In the report submitted to Congress on Monday, the watchdog noted that the heavy rate of munitions consumption during Operation Enduring Freedom against Iran has led to strategic gaps in national military stockpiles, while also highlighting longstanding constraints in the domestic defense industry that slow emergency resupply of key weapons. “The munitions expenditure on OEF has resulted in strategic inventory shortfalls and revealed industrial base bottlenecks for munitions resupply,” the report reads.

    To address the growing gaps and production delays, the Pentagon has implemented a series of adjustment measures, including streamlining military procurement procedures, cutting production lead times for critical weapons, and building up stockpiles of key raw materials, components, and high-priority munitions, the report adds. Even so, the watchdog cautions that expanding domestic production capacity for advanced munitions requires years of lead time and substantial upfront investment, meaning shortfalls are likely to persist for the foreseeable future.

    The inspector general’s findings line up with multiple independent reports from major news outlets that emerged in the early months of the conflict. Middle East Eye first reported at the conflict’s onset that the U.S. faced immediate shortages of missile interceptors, leaving allied Gulf states waiting for scheduled weapons deliveries. In August, The Associated Press reported that the drawdown of U.S. stockpiles for the Iran war had severely undermined America’s ability to support Ukraine’s defense against Russian invasion, leaving a “beyond critical” shortage of advanced Patriot missile interceptors, the primary system used to shoot down Russian ballistic missiles targeting Ukrainian cities.

    Reuters further confirmed the scope of the stockpile depletion, reporting that the U.S. has nearly exhausted its reserves of sophisticated long-range standoff strike missiles. Citing two anonymous defense sources, the outlet reported that the Pentagon has used “virtually all” of its available surface-to-surface precision weapons, including ATACMS tactical ballistic missiles and the newer Precision Strike Missiles.

    Beyond ammunition shortages, the inspector general’s report also documents extensive material losses across U.S. military assets in the Middle East. The tally includes four F-15 fighter jets destroyed in Iranian strikes, one F-35 stealth fighter damaged, seven KC-135 aerial refueling tankers damaged, and as many as 30 MQ-9 Reaper surveillance and strike drones destroyed. The report also confirms that the U.S. Navy’s primary regional logistics hub in Bahrain was repeatedly targeted by Iranian drone and ballistic missile attacks.

    Across U.S. military bases spread across eight Middle Eastern nations – Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Oman, and Jordan – the report counts hundreds of buildings and structures that have been damaged or destroyed by Iranian strikes. The watchdog notes it remains unclear whether all damaged bases will be rebuilt, and equally unclear which government will cover the costs of reconstruction. As of the report’s publication, the cumulative estimated cost of the Iran conflict stands at roughly $33.4 billion, a figure that does not include additional infrastructure repair costs. Of that total, $3.7 billion is attributed to lost and destroyed equipment, while $22.3 billion covers the cost of munitions expended during combat operations.

    This assessment aligns with previous reporting from Middle East Eye, which quoted current and former U.S. officials arguing that traditional forward-deployed base infrastructure in the Middle East is no longer a viable strategic posture, given Iran’s proven ability to strike fixed positions with large volleys of drones and ballistic missiles.

    The report also outlines the human cost of the conflict: more than 50,000 U.S. personnel have been deployed across the U.S. Central Command area of responsibility to support operations against Iran, with more than 1,500 air combat missions conducted as of the end of June. According to the watchdog’s casualty tally, seven U.S. service members have been killed in combat operations, and another seven have died in non-hostile incidents connected to the deployment. An additional 417 service members have been wounded in action, the report confirms.