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  • US journalist pleads guilty to acting as an illegal agent for China

    US journalist pleads guilty to acting as an illegal agent for China

    In a high-profile development in the U.S. Department of Justice’s ongoing crackdown on undeclared foreign influence operations, American journalist Thomas Pauken II — who has resided in China and held positions with multiple Chinese state-run media outlets since 2010 — entered a guilty plea on Thursday to charges of acting as an undisclosed illegal agent for the Chinese government.

    Pauken, who publishes under the pen name Tom McGregor to distinguish himself from his father, a former chair of the Texas Republican Party who ran for governor in the 2000s, is scheduled for sentencing on September 1 at a federal U.S. District Court. If convicted, he faces a maximum sentence of 10 years behind bars.

    This guilty plea marks the most recent entry in a series of federal prosecutions targeting individuals accused of working on behalf of the Chinese government without meeting the legal requirement to disclose their foreign ties to U.S. authorities. Earlier this year, in May, former Arcadia, California mayor Eileen Wang reached a plea deal to admit guilt on identical charges of acting as an illegal foreign agent. Prosecutors allege Wang carried out directives from Chinese officials, including circulating pro-Beijing content to shape U.S. public opinion.

    Another high-profile case involving similar accusations involves Linda Sun, a former senior aide to multiple New York governors. Sun faces charges including failure to register as a foreign agent, conspiracy to launder money with her husband, and facilitating illegal visa fraud for Chinese nationals seeking entry to the U.S. She has pleaded not guilty to all counts. A criminal trial against her concluded in December with a mistrial after the federal jury deadlocked and could not reach a unanimous verdict.

    Court documents and the investigative affidavit outline the timeline of Pauken’s alleged activities. He was first taken into custody in February, following a trip to Washington D.C. after traveling from China. According to the affidavit, Pauken arranged a meeting with an individual who had previously pursued a position in the Trump White House. During the meeting, he provided the individual with a SIM card and offered a $10,000 payout in exchange for producing policy reports that would ultimately be delivered to Chinese President Xi Jinping.

    Investigators allege Pauken positioned himself as an intermediary between Chinese intelligence operatives and U.S.-based contacts who could supply sensitive, and potentially classified, information to Beijing. As of Thursday evening, Pauken’s legal team had not issued any public statement and did not respond to requests for comment on the guilty plea.

    Court records show Pauken’s collaboration with Chinese agents dates back to at least 2019. He worked closely with an individual he identified as “Cathy,” whom he acknowledged he believed was affiliated with China’s national security apparatus. Between 2019 and 2025, Pauken received more than $100,000 in payments for the reports he delivered to Cathy, in addition to having all of his U.S. travel expenses fully covered by his Chinese contacts. Cathy explicitly told Pauken that the reports he produced would be read directly by President Xi, the affidavit states.

    Pauken was first questioned by U.S. Customs and Border Protection agents when he reentered the United States in January 2025. During interviews with CBP and FBI investigators, Pauken admitted he planned to provide the Trump administration job applicant with a Samsung smartphone and a laptop computer. He told agents he was “80% sure” that if the contact was hired for a role in the new administration, they would pass classified U.S. government information to Beijing, according to the affidavit.

    After that January interview, federal agents allowed Pauken to proceed with his planned meeting, instructing him to continue the operation as part of the undercover investigation. The contact who met with Pauken later told investigators that while Pauken initially requested only publicly available open-source information, he regularly noted that his Chinese clients sought access to far more sensitive, classified data. The contact also confirmed they never had any intention of cooperating with Pauken’s proposal.

    A year after the first encounter, Pauken traveled back to the U.S. to reconnect with the contact, framing the outreach around a potential commercial oil and gas partnership. The pair met at a Washington D.C. restaurant on February 23, then held a second meeting two days later at a local hotel — a meeting that was closely monitored by FBI agents.

    During the second meeting, Pauken provided the contact with the pre-arranged SIM card and reiterated the $10,000 offer for weekly reports that would “influence policy and be read by Xi Jinping,” the affidavit records.

    U.S. government database checks confirm that Pauken never completed the required registration under the federal Foreign Agents Registration Act, nor did he notify the U.S. Attorney General that he was acting on behalf of the Chinese government, a legal requirement for all foreign agents operating in the U.S.

    The Department of Justice also revealed additional allegations against Pauken: he also sold custom intelligence reports to a group of Chinese individuals based in Wuhan, central China. The group sought non-public information about U.S. technology sector developments and internal Justice Department operations, and asked Pauken to recruit a U.S.-based expert to assist them in carrying out cyberespionage operations against American targets.

  • Mangrove forests are healing after decades of human destruction

    Mangrove forests are healing after decades of human destruction

    Long known as one of the planet’s most underappreciated environmental workhorses, coastal mangrove forests are now making a surprising global recovery, according to new research published by an international team of scientists. For nearly half a century, these salt-tolerant swampy trees faced rapid, widespread clearing as coastal development, industrial aquaculture, and agricultural expansion pushed human activity deeper into tropical and subtropical shorelines. But the latest study reveals a striking reversal of this decades-long trend: since 2010, global mangrove coverage has grown at a faster rate than it has declined.

    Mangroves deliver a rare stack of interconnected ecological and community benefits that few other ecosystems can match. Their dense, tangled root systems act as natural coastal barriers, dissipating wave energy from storm surges and tsunamis to shield millions of people living in low-lying coastal communities. They are also unparalleled carbon sinks, storing up to five times more carbon dioxide per hectare than most terrestrial forests, making them a critical natural tool in the fight against anthropogenic climate change. Beyond climate and protection, their root networks form thriving nurseries for hundreds of species of fish, crustaceans, and other marine life, supporting global fisheries and coastal biodiversity.

    From the 1980s through 2010, this vital ecosystem suffered devastating losses: more than 12,000 square kilometers of mangrove forest—an area roughly equal to the entire island nation of Jamaica—was cleared across Asia, Africa, and the Americas. Today, that net loss has shrunk dramatically to just 849 square kilometers total since the 1980s, a staggering reduction that points to widespread, meaningful change in how communities and governments value these forests.

    Researchers attribute this shift to multiple interconnected factors, starting with shifting public and policy attitudes spurred by high-profile climate disasters. The 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami, which killed hundreds of thousands of people across the region, was a turning point: communities observed that shorelines protected by intact mangrove forests suffered far less damage and loss of life than those where forests had been cleared. In Indonesia, one of the world’s most mangrove-dense nations, this awareness led to a sharp slowdown in clearing mangroves for commercial fish farms. A similar shift followed Cyclone Nargis in Myanmar in 2008, reinforced by a national logging ban implemented in 2016; today, mangrove coverage is growing steadily there, while it has stabilized in Indonesia after decades of decline.

    Beyond policy and awareness, researchers highlight mangroves’ extraordinary natural resilience as a key driver of recovery. Once human clearing activity stops, these forests can regenerate naturally and expand on their own far faster than many restoration projects can achieve. Improved satellite imaging technology also played a role in documenting this recovery: the study used high-resolution Landsat satellite data, which is far more sensitive to small changes in forest canopy coverage than older mapping systems, allowing scientists to detect new growth that previous global assessments missed. Independent experts note this new data marks a major advance in global mangrove monitoring.

    Even with this encouraging trend, the research warns of remaining threats and uneven progress across regions. West and Central Africa have emerged as new hotspots of mangrove destruction, with the Niger Delta standing out as a particularly hard-hit area. Oil exploration and pipeline construction have left clear, permanent cut through large swathes of the delta’s mangroves, with ongoing pollution degrading remaining stands. Additionally, some new mangrove growth has a hidden environmental cost: in regions like Brazil, increased nutrient runoff from upstream deforestation and mining has created fertile growing conditions for downstream mangroves, meaning one ecosystem’s loss is fueling another’s gain. Intense tropical cyclones also continue to cause large, sudden annual losses from Australia to the Caribbean, threatening long-term recovery in storm-prone regions.

    Despite these caveats, the study’s authors frame the overall trend as a clear win for conservation. Not only has net loss slowed to a near standstill, but existing mangrove forests are also growing healthier: the proportion of closed-canopy mangroves—the most carbon-dense and biodiverse form of the ecosystem—has increased by nearly 20% since the 1980s. Lead researcher Dr. Zhen Zhang of Tulane University emphasized that the global trajectory is clearly moving in the right direction, proving that intentional conservation policy and increased public awareness can reverse even decades of ecosystem decline.

  • Lao president visits China Academy of Space Technology

    Lao president visits China Academy of Space Technology

    For decades, China Daily Information Co (CDIC) has maintained clear intellectual property guidelines for all content hosted on its official digital platform. First established with copyright protection in 1994, the company retains full legal rights to every piece of content published on the site, covering a broad range of material from written articles and photographic work to interactive multimedia resources. Under CDIC’s intellectual property rules, no party is permitted to republish or reuse any content from the platform in any format without obtaining explicit, written advance authorization from the organization.

    Beyond its copyright policies, the website also provides practical guidance for visitors, recommending that users access the platform through browsers configured to a minimum resolution of 1024*768 for the optimal viewing experience. The site also holds the required official licensing for online multimedia publication, with a published license identifier 0108263 and official registration number 130349 on record.

    To help visitors engage more deeply with the organization, the platform lists a range of quick access links for core services and resources. These include a detailed informational page about China Daily, resources for brands and organizations interested in purchasing advertising space on the site, contact information for general inquiries, current open job vacancies for job seekers, and dedicated employment resources for expatriate workers looking for opportunities with the organization. Visitors are also invited to follow China Daily’s content across its social media channels to stay updated on the latest news and updates.

  • Tough cookies: How pop group Le Sserafim overcame internal conflict and internet trolls

    Tough cookies: How pop group Le Sserafim overcame internal conflict and internet trolls

    The pop industry is littered with the remains of iconic bands that collapsed under the weight of internal drama: British boyband Five split after backstage brawls turned physical, 90s pop collective All Saints disbanded over a petty argument about a jacket, and Britrock legends Oasis endured a 16-year split after Liam Gallagher pelted brother Noel with a piece of fruit. What is far less common is a musical act willing to openly address their rifts, work through friction, and emerge stronger on the other side. That makes the latest full-length album from global K-pop phenomenon Le Sserafim a truly remarkable outlier in modern pop.

    Nestled in the heart of the group’s new tracklist is the raw, introspective single “Need Your Company”, a track that lays bare the past interpersonal tension between Huh Yunjin, the group’s New York-born vocalist, and leader Kim Chaewon. Over a gentle, melancholy guitar riff, the pair sing lines that cut straight to complicated, messy human connection: “Is friendship all just for show? / I really wanna trust you… no matter how you hurt me.”

    In an interview from her label’s Seoul offices, Yunjin opened up about the emotional core of the track, explaining it explores the awkward, conflicting feeling of craving closeness with someone while struggling to vocalize that vulnerability. “There are times when you doubt your own emotions, like, ‘Oh, am I the only one who wants to be this intimate? Are they not committed to this relationship?’” she said.

    Chaewon, who was unable to attend the interview while recovering from a neck injury, previously framed the friction behind the song as a failure of communication rather than deep personal dislike. Speaking to Korean talk show *Lee Mu-jin Service*, she noted that all people have inherently different personalities, and the pair spent months working to adapt to those differences. For Yunjin, even opening up about pain was an act of care: “Sometimes saying, ‘you hurt me’, can sound harsh, but it can also mean I care enough about us that I want things to get better,” she wrote in the album’s liner notes. Chaewon echoed that sentiment, confirming that after their honest conversation, the pair actually grew closer – close enough, in fact, to complete a heart-stopping 233-metre tandem bungee jump off Macau Tower together. After the jump, Chaewon laughed that she spent the entire fall clinging to Yunjin.

    This willingness to confront hard feelings head-on is far from a one-off for the quintet, which also includes Japanese members Miyawaki Sakura and Nakamura Kazuha, and youngest member Hong Eunchae. Since debuting in 2022, the group has carved out a unique niche in K-pop, blending radical self-awareness with playful, unapologetic absurdity. Their name, an anagram of the phrase “I’m Fearless”, established their early brand: combative, bulletproof confidence, paired with sophisticated bass-driven dance hits like *Antifragile* and *Unforgiven* that cemented their mainstream appeal.

    But their resolve was tested early on by a vicious, sustained online hate campaign that targeted every part of the group, from their live vocal performances to their physical appearance, and even their family members. A 2024 documentary laid bare the heavy toll that vitriol took on the five members, with Sakura – a seasoned industry veteran who previously performed with J-pop’s HKT48 and global project group Iz*One – breaking down in tears as she questioned why she continued to put herself through the pain of public scrutiny.

    Against all odds, Le Sserafim turned that hardship into success, growing into one of the best-selling pop acts on the planet. They have notched five Top 10 albums in the United States, and their tracks have amassed more than 33,000 appearances on Spotify’s global charts. As they have matured both as people and artists, their music has grown more adventurous and genre-bending: 2024’s *Crazy* drew inspiration from New York ballroom culture with pulsing house beats, while 2025’s *Come Over* enlisted production from beloved British dance collective Jungle. Even fellow artists have taken note: British singer-producer PinkPantheress, a self-professed fan, collaborated on a remix of *Crazy* and hailed the group’s music as “way ahead of its time”.

    The group has also paid forward the resilience they built through hardship, mentoring newer labelmates Katseye as the rookie group navigated their own run-ins with internet trolls. “Yunjin, I talk to her almost every single day,” Katseye member Sophia Laforteza said, with bandmate Lara Raj adding, “I feel like, if there is anyone that would understand us, it’s them.”

    A masterclass in handling online hate came in the form of the group’s 2025 one-off single *Spaghetti*, a deliciously sarcastic takedown of obsessive haters that asks the blunt question: If we’re really that terrible, why are you so obsessed with us? Packed with layered hooks and a showstopping guest verse from BTS’ J-Hope, the track became a massive viral hit and marked a creative turning point for the group. “We realised how positive and energetic we are, especially on tour. It turns out that having fun looks really good on us,” Yunjin explained. “That helped us narrow down what we want to do for our new music, and that’s how Spaghetti came along.”

    The track’s quirky visuals and unapologetic fun opened a new creative chapter for the group, who have long been known for their off-stage humor – from their absurd attempts to sneak out of rehearsals, to their relentless gentle teasing of youngest member Eunchae, to the time Kazuha snuck into a concert queue disguised in a full horse costume – and now they’re weaving that personality into their recorded music.

    Another album track, *Saki*, leans into this playful satire, building a raucous posse rap around a fake alter-ego that Sakura created to mock the absurd online rumors that follow the group. “It’s kind of satire,” Yunjin explained. “Everybody’s like, ‘Who the heck is Saki?’ Why is everybody so obsessed with her? Is she a nepo-baby? I heard she’s the rudest person. No, I’ve heard she stays sober and drives everyone home from parties.’” The punchline? Sakura laughs that Saki is actually an introvert who never attends parties, preferring to stay home and knit. For Sakura, hobbies like crocheting and knitting are a way to hold onto her identity outside of the group: “I’m kind of afraid to just be ‘Sakura from Le Sserafim’,” she said. “That’s why I try to take on a lot of different hobbies, because even if you’re going through hard times, when you go into the world of crochet, all those fears are brushed away.” Her knitting hobby has even spawned its own line of official merchandise, while Kazuha’s famous horse costume stunt has inspired hundreds of viral memes.

    At its core, the new album is a love letter to the solidarity that has kept the group intact through every high and low. Before writing and recording began, Yunjin – who co-wrote the majority of the album’s tracks – sat down with each bandmate to talk through their shared experiences and feelings. “She’s one of our closest friends,” Kazuha said. “We’ve been through the same things and shared a lot of different emotions. The fact that she can make that into a song for us, so we can speak through the lyrics, means a lot.” Yunjin summed up the album’s core mission: “Overall, we had the same sentiment. We wanted to talk about how this sisterhood helped us become resilient, so that we’re able to dream and to run again.”

    The album’s lead single *Celebration* brings that message of solidarity to the dancefloor, while redefining what the group’s “fearless” brand means four years into their career. “During our early days, fearless meant that we’re free of fear, and that’s why we’re strong,” Sakura explained. “In the era of ‘Fearless 2.0’, we don’t deny fear but we embrace it. We use fear as fuel to go forward.”

    Perhaps the group’s most fearless creative move yet is their latest single *Boompala*, which samples 1990s novelty hit *The Macarena* over a thumping Latin House beat. The unlikely combination shouldn’t work on paper – but it defies expectations, resulting in another viral smash. The track’s opening choreography, which shows Chaewon pausing mid-meditation to sneak in a silly dance, has exploded in popularity on TikTok, and the album has already sold more than 500,000 physical copies worldwide in its first week.

    For long-time fans who have stood by the group through every hardship, the band’s transition into a happier, more confident new era is deeply heartwarming. The group will kick off their second world tour this July, marking their first ever UK show with a stop at London’s O2 Arena on 16 October. Eunchae says the new tour will build on the raucous party atmosphere of their 2025 *EasyCrazyHot* run, packed with new ideas for staging and performance that the group brainstormed on their first world tour, which wrapped in January. “On tour, we kept thinking, ‘Maybe we can try this kind of performance or that kind of stage direction next time’. So we’ve added lots of those ideas. I think it’s going to be a visual and aural feast,” she said.

    Yunjin also teased that more new music is on the horizon before the tour wraps in December, pointing to the album’s title, which is labeled as “Part 1”. For fans who have fallen in love with the group’s raw honesty and unapologetic joy, that can only be good news. Tickets for Le Sserafim’s O2 Arena show are on sale now.

  • ‘Acts of revenge’: Israel arrests Palestinian women footballers and students

    ‘Acts of revenge’: Israel arrests Palestinian women footballers and students

    Before the first light of day filtered across the occupied West Bank, the sharp, sudden sound of pounding echoed through the entrance of Ahmed Safi’s apartment building in the town of Birzeit, north of Ramallah. When the 48-year-old Palestinian father jolted awake, he watched as Israeli soldiers streamed through the halls of his building, and assumed the incursion targeted another resident. He could never have guessed the operation would end with his own 20-year-old daughter, Sama – a psychology undergraduate at Birzeit University – in handcuffs.

    “We were stunned, completely shocked,” Safi told reporters from Middle East Eye in an interview. “We never had any indication this raid was meant for her.”

    Family accounts confirm soldiers entered the residential compound shortly after 2 a.m. on Tuesday, shouting orders in Hebrew as they cleared each floor and made their way to the Safi family’s unit. They demanded identification from Ahmed, his wife, and Sama, before presenting the 20-year-old with a sealed arrest warrant. When the family pressed for details on the allegations against her, commanding officers only offered that they would “learn the reason in court.”

    Before moving Sama out of the apartment, soldiers ransacked her personal study and bedroom, seizing her mobile phone, laptop, and multiple personal items. Among the possessions taken were framed photographs of her cousin, Ayser Safi, who was killed by Israeli forces in a separate 2024 incursion. Sama was then led down the stairs of the building, handcuffed behind her back, blindfolded, and loaded into an unmarked Israeli military vehicle.

    For the Safi family, the shock of the arrest is compounded by urgent fears over Sama’s chronic medical condition: she lives with Familial Mediterranean Fever (FMF), an inherited autoimmune inflammatory disorder that requires daily, consistent medication to prevent life-threatening complications. Ahmed Safi said he repeatedly attempted to explain his daughter’s health needs to the raiding party, but soldiers refused to let him gather her medication or discuss her condition before taking her into custody.

    “Without her daily drugs, she suffers crippling high fevers, intense body pain, and other disabling symptoms,” Safi explained. “This disease triggers spontaneous autoimmune attacks. If she goes without her medication, it can cause permanent liver and kidney damage. We are extremely worried for her right now.”

    As of this week, Sama is being held at the Al-Maskubiya interrogation facility in Jerusalem, with her first scheduled court appearance set for next Tuesday. No formal charges against her have been released to the public.

    Sama is not alone in this latest wave of detentions: she is one of five Palestinian women taken into Israeli custody in a series of overnight raids this week, three of whom are current Birzeit University students, with one a recent graduate of the institution. Among the detainees are two active players on the Palestinian women’s national football team: 20-year-old Natalie Abu Diya and 20-year-old Rand Halawani. The other two detainees are third-year public administration student Julan Abu Awad and recent graduate Laila Nael Khalil.

    Natalie Abu Diya, a second-year media studies student at Birzeit, was taken from her on-campus student housing during what witnesses described as a violent overnight incursion. Her father, Samer Abu Diya, told Middle East Eye that Natalie had represented Palestine in international youth competition as a member of the national under-18 women’s football squad. The family was on a phone call with Natalie until roughly 10:30 p.m. the night of her arrest, when she told them she had 13 class assignments to finish and planned to stay up late to complete the work. By 3:30 a.m., her roommates contacted the family to say Israeli soldiers had broken into her room and taken her into custody.

    Natalie was later transferred to Israel’s Ofer Prison, where she has already met with her legal representation. The family says they still have no information about what charges, if any, will be brought against her.

    “Natalie is my youngest daughter. She is independent, determined, and exceptionally bright,” Samer Abu Diya said. “I do not doubt her ability to withstand this ordeal, but I am deeply heartbroken by the injustice that is being done to her.”

    The second national team player, Rand Halawani, was arrested after Israeli authorities summoned her for questioning in Jerusalem. A military court has extended her detention through Friday, and no further details on charges have been released.

    The Palestinian Football Association (PFA) issued a scathing condemnation of the detentions, calling the arrests “unjust” and part of a broader pattern of systematic targeting that has gone unchecked for years.

    “Their arrest is not an isolated incident; it is part of a well-documented pattern of systematic targeting of Palestinian athletes, which continues without any form of accountability,” the PFA statement read. “The PFA calls on FIFA, our continental confederations, and the entire global sporting community to move beyond empty statements and take concrete disciplinary action within the framework of international football to address these ongoing violations. The targeting of Palestinian athletes must end. The impunity must end. The double standards must end.”

    Julan Abu Awad, the third Birzeit student detained, was arrested during a pre-dawn raid on her family’s home in the West Bank. Her sister, Jenin Abu Awad, said the entire family was left stunned by the incursion.

    “We tried to ask why they were taking her, but they just told us we would find out in court, and that she would be detained for a long time,” Jenin told Middle East Eye. “They tore her room apart, searched every inch of it, and turned everything upside down.”

    The raid that led to Julan’s arrest came just one week after Israeli forces first raided the family home, interrogating all members, seizing personal items including a bottle of perfume and a pack of cigarettes, but leaving without making any arrests. Julan is currently being held at the Al-Maskubiya interrogation center, and like Sama Safi, she has a pre-existing chronic medical condition that requires regular medication: she experiences severe recurring migraines that can leave her incapacitated for days.

    “When she has a migraine, she vomits repeatedly, cannot stand any light, and needs complete silence. She needs strong painkillers and a sedative injection to get through an attack,” Jenin explained. “We are very worried about her health right now.”

    These five detentions are part of a much broader, ongoing pattern of daily incursion and arrest across the occupied West Bank. Palestinian prisoner rights organizations estimate that roughly 9,000 Palestinians are currently held in Israeli prisons, with nearly half of that population detained without formal charges or trial.

    Abdullah Zaghari, head of the Palestinian Prisoners’ Club, a prominent advocacy group, said in an interview that Israeli forces have seen a sharp uptick in the detention of Palestinian girls and women in recent months, with a particular focus on university students and former political prisoners. Most of these arrests are carried out under the broad allegation of “incitement,” often tied to nothing more than social media posts expressing opposition to the Israeli occupation or solidarity with other Palestinian communities.

    Zaghari warned that detained Palestinian women face severe risks inside Israeli prisons, including documented abuse, systemic medical negligence, and prolonged solitary confinement. “The number of arrests of male and female university students has skyrocketed under this pretext, which has no basis in international law whatsoever,” Zaghari said. “These arrests are part of ongoing acts of revenge against the Palestinian people by the occupation.”

    Data from the Palestinian Prisoners’ Club shows that the total number of Palestinian women held in Israeli facilities has risen to 89 as of this week. That population includes three minor girls, three pregnant women, and two women living with cancer. Most are held in Israel’s Damon Prison, while dozens more are still being held in temporary interrogation and detention facilities. At least 19 of the 89 detained women are held under administrative detention, a policy that allows Israeli authorities to imprison individuals without charge or trial, with detention terms renewable indefinitely.

  • Lebanon-Israel ceasefire plans in doubt following Hezbollah’s rejection

    Lebanon-Israel ceasefire plans in doubt following Hezbollah’s rejection

    After four rounds of US-mediated direct negotiations between Israeli and Lebanese delegations in Washington, a US-backed draft plan for a ceasefire between the two nations has emerged, but its path to implementation remains deeply uncertain, with multiple Lebanese stakeholders warning critical pieces are still missing and key regional players stand opposed.

    The two days of talks concluded with a preliminary declaration that lays out a framework for a ceasefire and the establishment of pilot security zones in southern Lebanon. Under the proposed arrangement, the Lebanese Armed Forces would take sole control of these designated areas, barring all non-state armed groups from operating within their borders. The pilot zones are framed as an initial testing ground for a wider security arrangement that could be expanded across the region if successful.

    However, a senior Lebanese official close to President Joseph Aoun told Middle East Eye that the draft proposal lacks any clear, binding implementation mechanism, and its entire fate now rests on whether Hezbollah, the powerful non-state armed group that holds significant sway in southern Lebanon, will give its approval. What is more, the official confirmed that neither Hezbollah nor Nabih Berri – Lebanon’s long-serving Parliament Speaker, a key Hezbollah ally and established intermediary between the group and Washington – were privy to the full details of negotiations as they progressed. Once the draft text was finalized, President Aoun circulated it to both Hezbollah and Berri to gather feedback before communicating Lebanon’s final position to US negotiators.

    The senior official described the closed-door negotiations as grueling, noting that the Lebanese delegation threatened to walk out and suspend talks after Israeli negotiators pushed back against demands for a full, immediate ceasefire. It was this deadlock that led US mediators to put forward the pilot zone concept as a compromise middle ground to break the impasse.

    Another sticking point emerged during the talks when the US delegation insisted on including language condemning what it called “Iran’s attacks on countries in the region”. Lebanese negotiators viewed the repeated push for this language as a deliberate attempt to decouple the Israel-Lebanon peace track from ongoing US-Iran negotiations. Iran has listed a full end to Israeli strikes on Lebanon as a core condition for its own ceasefire talks with Washington, and just days prior, Tehran suspended negotiations in response to Israeli threats to bomb central Beirut.

    The situation on the ground in southern Lebanon has continued to deteriorate despite a nominal ceasefire declared on 17 April. Since that truce took effect, Israel has steadily expanded its military presence across the region, through territorial occupation, repeated air strikes, and mandatory evacuation orders for local residents. Roughly one-fifth of Lebanon’s total territory is now under direct or indirect Israeli control, a footprint that extends far beyond the initial buffer zone Israel declared when the truce was announced. Notably, the new US-backed proposal makes no mention of requiring an Israeli troop withdrawal or ending ongoing Israeli military operations in southern Lebanon, and Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz confirmed Thursday that Israeli forces would “for the time being, continue its fire and operations on the ground”. Katz added that Israel would keep working to dismantle Hezbollah’s infrastructure in the region and retained US-backed “freedom of action” to strike targets in Beirut in response to any attacks on Israeli territory.

    Hezbollah officials say they were not surprised by the outcome of the Washington talks. A source familiar with the group’s position told Middle East Eye that Hezbollah opposed direct negotiations between the Lebanese state and Israel from the start, predicting it would produce a framework that ran counter to the group’s core interests. “From the first statement issued after the first joint meeting that initiated the direct negotiations path, we knew this is where the Lebanese state intended to go,” the source said. “That is why we were against this track from the start.”

    Hezbollah secretary-general Naim Qassem has since formally rejected the outcome of the talks, calling direct negotiations with Israel “shameful” for Lebanon and dismissing any attempts to tie a ceasefire and Israeli withdrawal to the group’s disarmament. Qassem stressed that any credible ceasefire must cover all of southern Lebanon, where Israel has seized a self-declared security zone, and argued that Israeli security in northern towns would never be achieved as long as Lebanese villages remain under attack, unsafe, and destroyed. “Towns in northern Israel would not be secure as long as our villages are unsafe, bombed, destroyed, and our people are being killed,” Qassem said. For Hezbollah, any discussion of the group’s weapons must only take place after a full stop to all Israeli attacks across Lebanon and a complete withdrawal of Israeli troops from all occupied Lebanese territory – a position that directly clashes with the US framework, which centers on restricting Hezbollah’s military presence and activity south of the Litani River as a core condition for the ceasefire.

    Criticism of the proposal has also come from other Lebanese officials not affiliated with Hezbollah. One senior Lebanese official not involved in the negotiations described the proposal’s wording as deeply ambiguous, saying it remains unclear whether the ceasefire and security arrangements would take effect simultaneously or sequentially. The official also called out a section of the draft that endorses US Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s claim that Hezbollah is “an enemy of Lebanon” in addition to being an enemy of Israel and the United States, calling the paragraph embarrassing for Lebanon even if it only reflects a US position.

    The dispute highlights the narrow, high-stakes path facing the Lebanese government. The presidency has framed the proposal as a last chance to secure a broad ceasefire, but Hezbollah views it as an attempt to achieve through diplomacy what Israel failed to win through military force. It also exposes a core contradiction at the heart of the US-led process: Washington is pushing for a formal state-to-state agreement between Lebanon and Israel, but the most powerful military actor on the Lebanese side – Hezbollah – has been excluded from the negotiations entirely.

    Israeli and Lebanese delegations are scheduled to reconvene later this month for further talks on political and security arrangements. Even so, Lebanese officials openly acknowledge that without Hezbollah’s backing, the proposal is at risk of remaining nothing more than a non-binding diplomatic framework with no viable path to implementation.

  • Ollie Robinson’s dream England comeback: 3 wickets in a maiden first over at Lord’s

    Ollie Robinson’s dream England comeback: 3 wickets in a maiden first over at Lord’s

    Twelve months ago, around the 2023 Christmas holiday, fast bowler Ollie Robinson had convinced himself his days representing England in international test cricket were over. While his national teammates were down in Australia battling for the Ashes, Robinson was on the outside, looking in, his name absent from England’s squad entirely.

    What followed was a chain of events that would set the stage for one of the most dramatic test cricket comebacks in recent memory. After England finished the Ashes with a demoralizing 4-1 series defeat, the team’s management set out to reset their core squad ahead of the 2024 home season. Head coach Brendon McCullum reached out to Robinson with a game-changing message at the opening of the domestic campaign: the talented but polarizing paceman would get a second chance to earn his place back in the national side.

    Robinson’s fall from the England setup just a year prior had not been for a lack of on-field performance. Across 20 test matches, he had already notched an impressive 76 wickets for his country. Instead, he was dropped in early 2024 over concerns about poor fitness standards and questions over his commitment to team-first values. Determined to prove his critics wrong, Robinson embraced a new leadership opportunity this year, taking over as captain of his county side Sussex. The role sparked a noticeable shift in his mindset and work ethic: through the ongoing County Championship, he has already claimed 18 wickets, putting in consistent match-winning performances that made him impossible for national selectors to ignore. When key pace options Jofra Archer and Brydon Carse were ruled out of England’s first home test against New Zealand, opening at Lord’s this Thursday, the spot opened back up for Robinson — and with it, a mountain of pressure to perform.

    What happened next exceeded even the most optimistic expectations for Robinson’s return. Tasked with delivering the new ball for England, after the hosts had been bowled out for a underwhelming first innings total of just 140, Robinson delivered the most historic opening over of his career. He removed New Zealand’s star opener Devon Conway with his third delivery, followed by captain Kane Williamson with his fifth ball, and rising star Rachin Ravindra with his sixth. The three-wicket maiden over sent the packed Lord’s crowd into a frenzy, with supporters chanting Robinson’s name before he had even finished his first six deliveries of the match.

    Speaking to reporters after the incredible over, Robinson admitted the pre-comeback nerves had left him almost unable to perform. “The first over I couldn’t feel my legs, I was so nervous,” he told the BBC. “To get the first wicket, the emotion coming was incredible.” Speaking to Sky Sports, he added: “It was so loud. I was in a bit of a daze and just trying to focus. The crowd were amazing, it’s one of the loudest I’ve heard them here.”

    Robinson was open about the full shift in attitude that allowed him to earn his way back to the national side. “I was in a place where I never thought I’d play for England again,” he said. “To get the text from Baz (McCullum) shifted my mindset. To get back in the team, I knew the date of the first day of the test and there was a lot of work. I’ve tried my best to get back in the condition for today. I know there’s a lot of hard work ahead.”

    By the close of play on day one, Robinson’s incredible form had only continued. He finished the day with unbeatable figures of 4 wickets for just 10 runs across six overs, three of which were maidens. New Zealand’s batting line-up was left reeling at 61 for 6, putting England firmly in control of the match at the end of the opening day.

    Robinson’s stellar performance overshadowed another landmark comeback on the day. New Zealand pace bowler Kyle Jamieson, who was also making his return to test cricket after a career-threatening back injury, picked up an impressive five-wicket haul for 62 runs — his first five-wicket test haul in five years — and was on track to be the day’s standout player before Robinson’s historic opening over. Jamieson’s return came after three stress fractures in three seasons forced him into a year-long rehabilitation process, mirroring Robinson’s own journey back from the sidelines.

    Giving credit to the opposing side after day one, Robinson noted: “They bowled so well, we knew we had to follow suit. Both teams hit the stumps a lot so credit to both teams. We’ve still got a job to do and mop them up in the morning.”

  • Israel’s military creep killing Gaza peace plan

    Israel’s military creep killing Gaza peace plan

    In recent weeks, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has directed the Israel Defense Forces to expand its territorial control in Gaza to 70% of the enclave, marking an 11% increase from the roughly 60% the military already holds. This new expansion aligns with an updated map distributed to Gaza-based aid agencies in late March, which draws a new “orange line” marking Israel’s newly claimed restricted military zone. This boundary extends 11% beyond the “yellow line” demarcation agreed upon during the October 2024 ceasefire deal with Hamas.

    Compounding this territorial shift, Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant has publicly reaffirmed the Israeli government’s plan to relocate large numbers of Palestinian residents out of Gaza “when conditions are appropriate and the process is carried out appropriately.” These unfolding moves come amid heightened domestic political upheaval in Israel: the country’s parliament, the Knesset, voted to dissolve itself on May 20, clearing the path for a snap national election to be held as early as this September.

    Experts and international observers have already flagged that Israel’s expanding push directly contradicts the 20-point Gaza peace plan brokered by the U.S.-led Board of Peace. That framework explicitly calls for a phased withdrawal of Israeli military forces from the enclave and includes explicit language guaranteeing that “No one will be forced to leave Gaza, and those who wish to leave will be free to do so and free to return. We will encourage people to stay and offer them the opportunity to build a better Gaza.” Even U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio acknowledged this mismatch during a recent congressional hearing, confirming that the peace plan “doesn’t call for” expanded Israeli military control over Gaza.

    As Israel expands its hold, the 2.1 million Palestinian residents of Gaza are increasingly squeezed into a shrinking, war-ravaged, overcrowded strip of coastal land, with little meaningful intervention from the global community to halt the territorial shift. To understand the gravity of these actions, it is necessary to examine them through the lens of established international law, which places clear limits on military occupation of foreign territory. While international law permits temporary occupation to achieve legitimate wartime objectives, two core rules are non-negotiable.

    First, an occupying force cannot assert a permanent legal claim to the territory it seizes. Article 2(4) of the United Nations Charter explicitly outlaws territorial conquest as an instrument of war, a principle the global community enforced firmly in response to Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, where breaches were widely recognized as the crime of aggression. The International Court of Justice (ICJ) reaffirmed this principle in its 2024 advisory opinion on Israeli actions in occupied Palestinian territories, making clear that Israel cannot claim sovereignty over any part of Gaza.

    Second, all occupying powers are bound by international humanitarian and human rights law, which requires them to protect the welfare of the civilian population under their control and preserve the existing demographic composition of the occupied territory. This means forced displacement of the local population and transfer of the occupying power’s own civilian settlers into the territory are strictly prohibited. These obligations have applied to Israel since it seized Gaza from Egypt during the 1967 Six-Day War, launching a decades-long occupation that continued in a legal sense even after Israel withdrew its ground troops and dismantled settlements in 2005.

    Despite these clear legal standards, enforcing compliance with Israel’s international obligations has proven slow, fragmented, and largely ineffective to date. After the ICJ’s 2024 ruling ordered a full Israeli withdrawal from all occupied Palestinian territories on the grounds that Israel’s presence violates the core principles of Palestinian self-determination and the ban on territorial conquest, the UN General Assembly endorsed the ruling and set a September 14, 2025 deadline for completion of the withdrawal. Israel simply ignored the deadline. Enforcement of ICJ rulings falls exclusively to the UN Security Council, where the U.S.’s permanent veto power has blocked any meaningful action to compel compliance.

    Worse still, the clear legal prohibitions on conquest, forced displacement, and settlements are being intentionally muddied by the Trump administration-brokered 20-point peace plan and the Board of Peace overseeing its implementation. In November 2025, the UN Security Council endorsed the plan, which aimed to end the conflict, disarm Hamas, and establish a transitional Palestinian government overseen by the Board of Peace and a multinational International Stabilisation Force. But from its inception, the ceasefire deal was riddled with critical gaps: it included no binding provisions defining the scope of Israel’s military presence in Gaza, no mechanism for holding actors accountable for alleged war crimes, and no clear roadmap for demilitarization.

    Unsurprisingly, the entire peace process has ground to a standstill since the ceasefire took effect. Israeli airstrikes and ground operations have continued, killing more than 900 Palestinians, aid deliveries remain drastically insufficient to meet the desperate needs of the civilian population, and Hamas has refused to disarm without concrete, binding guarantees for full Palestinian self-determination in the future.

    This stalemate works entirely in Israel’s strategic interests. Under the original ceasefire map, Israel was allowed to maintain military control of all territory behind the “yellow line”, which already gave it control of just over half the enclave, squeezing the majority of Gaza’s population into a small coastal pocket. Within the territory it already controlled, Israel has already undertaken two key projects that reveal its long-term political goals.

    First, the military has completely flattened entire residential neighborhoods and hundreds of civilian structures, turning large swathes of northern and eastern Gaza into uninhabited wasteland cleared of all civilian infrastructure and residents. On this cleared land, Israel has since built an extensive network of permanent military infrastructure, including new access roads, fortified outposts, barriers, and tall earthen berms. This creates a de facto permanent Israeli-controlled zone emptied of its Palestinian population, a status quo that amounts to unlawful forced displacement and territorial conquest under international law.

    Day by day, the area available to Palestinian residents of Gaza shrinks, as Israel reshapes the territory’s borders through bulldozers and permanent fortifications. Netanyahu has already indicated that Israel has no intention of stopping at 70% control and depopulation. The Israeli government may seek to establish a large permanent buffer zone across much of Gaza, mirroring similar permanent Israeli military presences it has built in southern Lebanon and occupied Syrian territory, or it could even revive plans to establish new Israeli settlements in the strip – a project already being aggressively expanded across the occupied West Bank.

    All of these unfolding moves violate clear international law and the text of the very “peace plan” that was supposed to resolve the conflict, while offering no viable long-term path to justice or self-determination for the Palestinian people. This analysis is by Michelle Burgis-Kasthala, Professor of International Law at La Trobe University, republished with permission under Creative Commons license.

  • Watch: Guide stranded on Everest for six days rescued

    Watch: Guide stranded on Everest for six days rescued

    A high-stakes mountain rescue operation on the world’s highest peak has concluded successfully, after a professional mountain guide spent six grueling days stranded in the deadly altitude of Mount Everest. The dramatic sequence of events that led to the guide’s entrapment and eventual safe extraction has been reconstructed through on-the-ground reporting by the BBC’s South Asia correspondent Rajini Vaidyanathan.

    Everest’s notoriously unpredictable weather and unforgiving terrain have long turned climbing expeditions into life-or-death tests, and this incident is no exception. Details of exactly what left the guide cut off from other climbers and descending teams have emerged gradually, with harsh wind chills, low visibility and sudden ice movement reported to have blocked his planned route off the mountain early last week. Left without a clear path to descend and unable to call for immediate help due to communication disruptions at extreme altitude, the guide was forced to hunker down in a exposed high-elevation campsite, surviving on limited emergency rations as rescue teams coordinated their response from base camp.

    Mountain rescue operations on Everest are among the most challenging in the world, requiring careful coordination between local Sherpa teams, expedition organizers, and air support units that can only operate in narrow windows of clear weather. Multiple days of poor visibility pushed the rescue effort back, extending the guide’s stranding to six full days, raising serious concerns among rescuers and expedition officials that he would not survive the exposure to sub-zero temperatures and oxygen deprivation at more than 8,000 meters above sea level.

    In the end, a break in the weather allowed a specialized rescue team to reach the stranded guide, pull him to safety and transport him to lower elevation for medical evaluation. As of the latest update, the guide is reported to be in stable condition, receiving care for mild frostbite and altitude sickness.

    The incident has once again drawn attention to the persistent risks mountaineers and professional guides face every climbing season on Everest, even as safety technologies and expedition protocols continue to improve. Climbing officials have noted that the successful rescue stands as a testament to the skill and courage of the Nepalese rescue teams that operate in some of the harshest conditions on Earth.

  • How Syria’s captagon trade shifted to Sweida after Assad’s fall

    How Syria’s captagon trade shifted to Sweida after Assad’s fall

    Eighteen months after the collapse of Bashar al-Assad’s regime in Syria, a new chapter of the global captagon trade is unfolding in the country’s southern border province of Sweida, where dismantled drug networks have reconstituted themselves amid fragmented governance and rising regional tensions. Once a key transit corridor for Assad’s multi-billion dollar narcotics empire, the strategically located province has rapidly evolved into one of Syria’s most active captagon production and smuggling hubs, presenting a major test for Damascus’s new transitional government and neighboring security forces alike.

    Under Assad’s decades-long rule, captagon – an inexpensive, highly addictive amphetamine – functioned as a de facto source of state revenue. Western and regional security officials repeatedly documented that the regime’s elite Fourth Armoured Division, commanded by Assad’s brother Maher, and the Military Intelligence Directorate ran an extensive industrial network of captagon factories. At the trade’s peak, the UK government confirmed in 2023 that this network produced roughly 80% of the world’s entire captagon supply. When the new transitional government led by President Ahmad al-Sharaa took power in December 2024, it launched an aggressive nationwide crackdown on this legacy infrastructure, with official data from the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) showing that by November 2025, authorities had shuttered 15 large-scale production labs, 13 smaller storage facilities, and seized more than 500 million tablets across Syria.

    But while the national crackdown has succeeded in disrupting networks in most regions, Sweida has emerged as a stark exception. Local investigations reveal that as production hubs were dismantled elsewhere, trafficking factions in Sweida retained local control and reorganized their operations, turning the province into a strategic reserve for captagon raw materials and stockpiles left over from the Assad era. For decades under the former regime, Sweida’s position along the Jordanian border made it the primary transit route for narcotics heading to Jordan and consumer markets across the Gulf, with the Assad government relying on alliances with local Bedouin and Druze communities to facilitate cross-border smuggling. That structure has not only survived the regime’s collapse but grown more powerful following sweeping political changes in the province.

    In July 2025, sectarian violence erupted in Sweida that left an estimated 1,700 people dead and triggered the withdrawal of Damascus government forces from most of the province. More than 40 local Druze factions merged into the Druze-led National Guard, which now holds de facto control over Sweida, with explicit political and military backing from Israel. Israel has long positioned itself as a protector of Syria’s Druze minority, and views an autonomous, fragmented southern Syria as a critical strategic buffer against a unified central government in Damascus.

    Security data collated by Syria Weekly confirms that cross-border smuggling from Sweida into Jordan has surged by more than 325% since the National Guard seized control of the province. Between January and July 2025, Jordanian border forces intercepted just 21 trafficking attempts originating in Sweida; over the subsequent nine months, that number skyrocketed to 128 interceptions. Local reporting from Sweida-based outlet Suwayda 24 estimates that 12 to 15 captagon production facilities are now operating across the province, ranging from permanent industrial factories to mobile pill presses hidden inside civilian vehicles. One newly built facility was documented operating in a dense residential neighborhood in the center of Sweida city, directly overseen by National Guard forces, who use local civilian residents as human shields to deter potential airstrikes. The report adds that the operation relies on local technicians who received advanced training from Hezbollah experts prior to Assad’s fall – a continuation of the longstanding alliance between the Iranian-backed Lebanese group and the ousted Syrian regime. Hezbollah has repeatedly denied any involvement in the captagon trade.

    Jordanian intelligence assessments have concluded that Sheikh Hikmat al-Hajari, the Druze religious leader who heads the National Guard, has intentionally built a permissive operating environment for traffickers in exchange for significant revenue, replicating the corrupt financial model that propped up Assad’s rule for decades. For Jordan, the expansion of captagon production on its northern border represents one of the most pressing national security threats, prompting Amman to launch direct military action inside Syrian territory. In early May 2026, the Royal Jordanian Air Force launched F-16 airstrikes targeting at least six suspected captagon facilities across Sweida, an operation officially named “Operation Jordanian Deterrence” that targeted factories, storage warehouses, and smuggling staging hubs. This strike marked the fifth cross-border attack Jordan has carried out since Assad’s fall, and the third since the National Guard took control of Sweida.

    Retired Jordanian Major-General Mamoun Abu Nowar framed the strike as a clear strategic message in comments to Al Jazeera, stating: “This is a warning to groups inside Sweida cooperating with Israel, and to Israel itself: do not advance destabilizing projects along our border. Jordan will not hesitate to strike these smuggling nests.” Retired Air Force Colonel Abdullah al-Sarhan added that the strikes were a pre-emptive measure, noting that traffickers have rapidly adopted increasingly sophisticated smuggling technologies to evade detection, from small quadcopter drones to large GPS-guided helium balloons fitted with timed remote release mechanisms that can carry far larger loads across the border at a fraction of the cost.

    A Jordanian government official confirmed that Amman will not tolerate active drug production hubs operating along its shared border, stressing that the May 2026 strikes were coordinated with Damascus’s transitional government, consistent with a January 2025 bilateral agreement to establish a joint security committee to combat cross-border smuggling of narcotics and weapons. As part of this growing cooperation, Jordan recently hosted a 300-strong cohort of Syrian Internal Security Forces officers at the Jordanian International Police Training Centre for advanced training in modern counter-narcotics tactics, physical fitness, self-defense, and weapons handling. Trained officers are set to deploy soon to rural areas of Sweida still under central government control to bolster border security.

    Data from independent analysts shows the scale of the smuggling challenge: Charles Lister, Senior Fellow and Syria Director at the Middle East Institute, reports that Jordanian forces have intercepted at least 46 million captagon pills from Sweida since July 2025, most of which were being smuggled via GPS-guided helium balloons. In mid-May 2026, Syrian authorities announced they had foiled a plot to smuggle 142,000 pills into Jordan using the same balloon technology, underscoring how rapidly trafficking networks are refining their tactics to evade enforcement.

    Today, the majority of captagon flowing through Sweida originates in Lebanon, where remnants of Assad’s regime have taken refuge alongside Hezbollah, which maintained a close alliance with the ousted president for decades. Syria’s transitional government has cracked down heavily on Hezbollah-linked trafficking operations across the country, and official data from Syria Weekly shows that in the past six months alone, Syrian authorities have seized nearly 33 million captagon pills entering from Lebanon – accounting for 77% of all captagon seized by the government nationwide. In one major operation in January 2026, Syrian counter-narcotics forces in Yabroud, just 20 to 25 kilometers east of the Lebanon border, seized 226 smuggling balloons, 106 kilograms of hashish, 650,000 captagon pills, 238 grams of crystal meth, and $30,000 in counterfeit currency, all originating from Lebanon and bound for Jordan and the Gulf.

    In response to the shared threat, security cooperation between Damascus and Lebanon’s new government has expanded dramatically in recent months. In April 2026, coordinated operations between anti-narcotics agencies from Syria, Lebanon, and Kuwait dismantled an international trafficking ring plotting to smuggle 85 kilograms of narcotics to Kuwait. The same month, Syrian authorities arrested one of Lebanon’s most wanted captagon traffickers after he crossed into Syrian territory, and later transferred him back to Lebanese judicial authorities through the Masnaa border crossing in a demonstration of growing cross-border judicial cooperation. Beyond Jordan and Lebanon, Syria’s transitional government has also launched joint counter-narcotics operations with Iraq and Turkey over the past six months.

    Despite these coordinated efforts, regional security analysts warn that trafficking networks have proven remarkably adaptable to post-Assad political shifts, exploiting gaps in central government authority to re-establish their operations in weakly governed areas like Sweida. The combination of fragmented local control, foreign patronage, and persistent demand across the Middle East has ensured that what was once Assad’s state-run captagon empire survives in new form, threatening regional security years after the former regime’s collapse.