Global Pulse

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  • From Arash to Epstein: Iran’s loaded billboard propaganda

    From Arash to Epstein: Iran’s loaded billboard propaganda

    In the months since the US-Israel military campaign against Iran launched in late February 2026, large, strategically placed billboards across Tehran’s busiest public corridors have flooded both traditional media and global social platforms. Constantly refreshed to align with shifting on-the-ground events, these outdoor installations are far more than urban decor: they represent a decades-long evolution of Iran’s state-led visual political communication, adapted for a modern digital age.

    Iran’s deployment of public space for ideological messaging traces back to the 1979 Islamic Revolution, and expanded dramatically during the 1980s Iran-Iraq War, when murals and billboards were used to display revolutionary iconography, war memorials, and core ideological tenets to domestic audiences. Today, that model has been reimagined for global circulation. Designed from inception to be photographed, shared, and amplified online even amid Iran’s months-long national internet blackout, these contemporary billboards serve a clear dual purpose: to shore up collective national identity and unity during a period of open conflict, and to project the Iranian state’s narrative of power and resistance directly to international audiences. To reach these global targets, many now incorporate Hebrew and English text alongside native Farsi, a deliberate break from the purely domestic focus of past messaging.

    Researchers frame these installations as a core component of Iran’s broader state-led visual communications strategy, crafted specifically for viral spread across social media. To unpack the messaging and layered symbolism behind this campaign, we analyze five of the most widely circulated examples from Tehran’s urban landscape:

    ### 1. The Epstein Missile
    One of the most viral billboards in recent months, displayed at Tehran’s Valiasr Square in March 2026, features a cluster of Iranian missiles covered in handwritten symbolic inscriptions. The most prominent message, rendered in bold red Farsi, reads “To the girls of Minab” — a reference to a strike on a Minab girls’ school in the opening days of the war that Iranian authorities confirm killed 175 students and educators, with independent assessments pointing to U.S. forces as the likely perpetrators.

    Directly beneath that inscription, an English phrase adds a second provocative layer: “Epstein Island victim girls”, referencing the private island owned by convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein where hundreds of young women were systematically sexually assaulted. A second missile bears the tribute “the girl with the pink jacket”, a reference to a young Iranian girl killed in a 2024 terrorist attack who was publicly identified by her distinctive pink jacket and heart-shaped earrings.

    This layered narrative weaves together seemingly disconnected events around a shared theme: vulnerable young women harmed by foreign violence, exploitation, and unaccountable political power. Rather than framing missiles purely as tools of destruction, the billboard reframes them as symbols of grief, remembrance, righteous revenge, and national defense. In this framing, Iran is not the aggressor in the conflict — it is a wronged power responding to injustice to protect its people.

    ### 2. “Masters of War”
    Displayed at Tehran’s Enqelab Square in October 2024, well before the full-scale war began, this high-impact billboard carried a direct multilingual warning. Above a stylized image of waves of incoming missiles lighting up the night sky over Israel (rendered to resemble a fiery meteor shower), a bold Farsi phrase reads “If you want war, we are masters of war”. Beneath it, a clear Hebrew message states “Israel must be wiped from the face of the earth”.

    By addressing Hebrew-speaking audiences directly, the billboard acts as both an explicit military warning and a deliberate show of psychological force, turning language itself into a tool of conflict. This multilingual choice signals a key shift in Iran’s urban propaganda strategy: no longer targeted solely at domestic pedestrians and commuters, the state designs these installations from the ground up for instant online circulation, knowing they will reach their intended target audiences across the border in Israel within hours of being erected.

    ### 3. Trump’s Sutured Mouth
    Targeted explicitly at Western, particularly American, audiences, this 2026 Valiasr Square billboard is a sharp, symbolic critique of U.S. policy toward Iran and the Strait of Hormuz. The core image shows U.S. President Donald Trump’s mouth, with a rendering of the Strait of Hormuz stitched (sutured) across its opening, paired with the blunt English headline “The Breaking Point”.

    The accompanying Farsi text translates to “its patience has run out”, and carries a clever literary pun: the Farsi word tang can mean both “narrowness/constraint” and refers to the “strait” (tangeh) of Hormuz, creating a double meaning that ties growing geopolitical tension over the waterway to the idea of Iran reaching an irreversible psychological and political breaking point. Beyond geopolitics, the image also satirizes Trump’s reputation for relentless public rhetoric and media attention: the sutures across his mouth symbolize the end of his unchecked influence and authority in the region, particularly when it comes to Iran and control of the Strait.

    ### 4. Arash the Archer
    Drawing on millennia of Persian cultural mythology, this July 2025 billboard at Tehran’s Vanak Square reimagines the legend of Arash the Archer for the modern conflict. In the iconic ancient tale, Arash sacrifices his own life to fire a decisive arrow during a mythic war between Iran and neighboring Turan, securing the borders of the Iranian homeland. On the billboard, Arash is depicted drawing his bow in the heat of battle, surrounded by modern Iranian missiles, framing contemporary Iranian soldiers as heirs to this legacy of sacrificial defense.

    The image also highlights the deep roots of modern Iranian political messaging in the nation’s centuries-old poetic, mythic, and heroic storytelling traditions, anchoring the current conflict in a long history of national struggle for sovereignty.

    ### 5. The Fishermen
    Displayed at Enghelab Square in April 2026, this billboard lays claim to Iranian dominance over the Persian Gulf and Strait of Hormuz through a culturally resonant metaphor. The core image shows a massive fishing net stretched across the Persian Gulf, with captured American aircraft, drones, and naval vessels tangled inside. The Farsi text reads “The entire Persian Gulf is our hunting ground”, a clear assertion that the entire region falls under Iranian control and constant surveillance. The accompanying note “The Strait of Hormuz remains closed” emphasizes Iran’s ability to dictate access to one of the world’s most critical energy chokepoints.

    Beyond its explicit geopolitical claim, the fishing net carries layered cultural meaning: just as traditional fishing relies on patience, resilience, careful planning, and long-term persistence rather than overwhelming brute force, the billboard frames Iran’s military strategy in the current conflict as rooted in these same deliberate, strategic qualities.

    *This analysis is by Hamideh Khaleghi Mohammadi, Lecturer in Media and Communications at the University of Sydney, and Ali Abbasi, Sessional Academic and Researcher in Media and Communications at the University of Sydney, republished with permission from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license.*

  • Humanoids dance and thread needles as Japanese robotics developers look to outdo Chinese

    Humanoids dance and thread needles as Japanese robotics developers look to outdo Chinese

    The 2024 Humanoids Summit Tokyo kicked off Thursday, bringing dozens of the world’s leading robotics developers to showcase cutting-edge humanoid technology: dexterous mechanical hands capable of threading a needle, child-sized dancing androids, and full-scale units designed to support last-mile delivery and industrial logistics. While the event featured well-established industry players from Japan and the United States, including Boston Dynamics and Toyota Motor Corp., attendees and analysts widely agreed that Chinese robotics firms have emerged as the new dominant leaders in the commercial humanoid space.

    A growing number of new Chinese entrants to the industry, such as Booster Robotics and LimX Dynamics, have built on foundational humanoid technology first developed in Japan and the U.S., refining the designs to enable affordable, scalable mass production that outcompetes existing offerings on the global market. This pattern mirrors shifts seen in other sectors that Japan once led, from consumer electronics to smartphones and electric vehicles, where Japanese initial technological advantage failed to translate into widespread commercial success. Japan led early humanoid innovation but never translated that lead into large-scale, market-ready commercial solutions, analysts note.

    Tim Hornyak, author of *Loving the Machine: The Art and Science of Japanese Robots*, who attended the summit, attributes this gap to Japan’s well-documented “Galapagos syndrome” — a trend where innovative Japanese products develop in isolation from global market demands, ultimately failing to gain traction outside domestic borders. “I really hope that Japan can come up with a Ford Model T-version of humanoid robots. But I think China has already stolen their lunch. It’s a bit too little too late,” Hornyak told reporters on site.

    One clear example of Chinese manufacturers’ accessible commercial approach is the Mini Pi Plus, a compact dancing robot from Chinese firm High Torque. While the consumer-focused bot is not yet built for heavy industrial work or household chores, its approachable design and modest price point — starting at just $5,500 — position it to capture a large slice of the emerging consumer and small-business humanoid market. Another high-profile demonstration of Chinese robotics influence in Japan comes from Tokyo-based AI and robotics firm GMO, which is developing a camera-equipped humanoid to handle cargo handling and other daily tasks at Tokyo’s Haneda Airport for Japan Airlines. The project, designed to address Japan’s worsening domestic labor shortage by building robots that can step into existing human workplaces seamlessly, relies entirely on core robotic components supplied by Unitree Robotics, a leading Chinese humanoid and quadrupedal robot developer that is also working on a dog-like quadruped “stellar explorer” designed for space exploration.

    Industry analysts note that Japan has long been an ideal incubator for robotics innovation: the country’s world-leading manufacturing precision creates a strong foundation for technical development, and Japanese society has historically held unusually positive attitudes toward robotic integration. A 2024 Pew Research Center global survey reflects this trend: while 50% of U.S. respondents report anxiety over artificial intelligence and advanced robotics, just 28% of Japanese respondents express similar concerns.

    Established Japanese robotics developers still showcased their decades of technical expertise at the summit. Honda Motor Co., which launched its trailblazing walking humanoid Asimo in 2000, displayed a new four-fingered motorized robotic hand capable of screwing and unscrewing tiny bolts and threading a needle with the same dexterity as a human hand. Keisuke Tsuta, Honda’s assistant chief engineer, downplayed concerns over competition from Chinese manufacturers, noting that Honda’s proprietary technology offers greater durability and power than many competing offerings, and Japanese manufacturers have a long track record of perfecting high-quality mass production.

    Veteran humanoid researcher Hiroshi Ishiguro, a professor at Osaka University who has worked in the field for decades and famously built a lifelike robotic clone of himself, also remained unfazed by the growing Chinese market presence. “What’s significant is that Japan has a culture that’s receptive to robotics. If we’re going to really start using robots in society, Japan is the ideal place,” Ishiguro said, emphasizing that Japanese society broadly accepts robotic integration without the prejudice seen in many other regions. During the summit, Ishiguro’s robotic clone — dressed in an identical all-black outfit to its creator — fielded an audience question about the purpose of robots, answering in a slightly monotonous but distinctly human-like tone: “I think robots will coexist with people. Robots are the mirror of human beings.” Sitting beside his identical robotic counterpart, Ishiguro joked about the attention the clone draws: “No one is interested in me. All everyone cares about is my robot. As long as people identify with what I have produced, I am a success.”

  • Thai court acquits a progressive political leader on charges of royal defamation

    Thai court acquits a progressive political leader on charges of royal defamation

    BANGKOK – In a rare and closely watched ruling that has sent ripples through Thailand’s deeply polarized political landscape, the Bangkok Criminal Court issued an acquittal Thursday for Thanathorn Juangroongruangkit, the prominent leader of Thailand’s Progressive Movement, clearing him of both royal defamation and computer crime charges stemming from a 2021 social media broadcast.

    The charges against Thanathorn originated from comments he made during a Facebook Live stream, where he criticized the administration of then-prime minister Prayuth Chan-ocha for its mismanagement of the national COVID-19 vaccination rollout. A core point of his criticism centered on a government vaccine production contract awarded to a firm owned by King Maha Vajiralongkorn. In its official statement, the court concluded that Thanathorn’s remarks were targeted at the Prayuth government’s policy failures, and carried no malicious or defamatory intent against the Thai monarchy.

    Thanathorn has long been one of the most visible critics of Thailand’s conservative political establishment. After co-founding the progressive Future Forward Party in 2018, the movement rose rapidly to claim third place in the 2019 general election, shaking up a political order dominated by military-backed factions for nearly a decade. However, the party was dissolved by the Constitutional Court in 2020 over alleged campaign finance violations, and Thanathorn was removed from parliament that same year over a technical dispute related to media shareholding.

    The party’s successor, the Move Forward Party, won a plurality of parliamentary seats in the 2023 general election, marking a historic breakthrough for Thai progressive politics. But conservative lawmakers and establishment actors blocked the party from forming a government, and Move Forward was itself disbanded by court order in 2024 over its proposal to reform the country’s controversial lese majeste law, Article 112 of the Thai criminal code. The movement’s latest iteration, the People’s Party, emerged as the second-largest bloc in the 2026 national election and currently serves as Thailand’s main parliamentary opposition.

    Article 112, Thailand’s lese majeste statute, imposes a maximum 15-year prison sentence for anyone convicted of insulting the monarchy. Critics of the law have long argued that it is systematically weaponized to suppress political dissent, a claim backed by data from human rights advocates. Thai Lawyers for Human Rights, an independent legal advocacy organization, records that more than 290 people – the majority of them young student activists – have faced Article 112 charges since pro-democracy protests led by youth activists erupted across the country in 2020. Those 2020 demonstrations centered demands on structural political reform, including changes to the lese majeste law itself. Acquittals in royal defamation cases are extremely uncommon in Thailand, where state institutions remain overwhelmingly aligned with conservative interests that guard the monarchy’s traditional status in national politics. A conviction on the additional charge under the Computer Crime Act would have carried a maximum five-year prison sentence.

    Speaking to reporters outside the courtroom immediately after the ruling, Thanathorn expressed relief and used the moment to draw attention to the dozens of political activists still detained on lese majeste charges. “They are not criminals in a literal sense,” he said. “They are in jail because they think and they speak.” He called for the immediate recognition of basic rights for all political prisoners held across the country. The Office of the Attorney General, which brought the case against Thanathorn, confirmed in a post-ruling press statement that it is currently reviewing the decision to consider whether to file an appeal.

  • Australia launches record $1.4B lawsuit against 3M over ‘forever chemicals’ at defense bases

    Australia launches record $1.4B lawsuit against 3M over ‘forever chemicals’ at defense bases

    On Thursday, the Australian government announced a landmark legal action against U.S.-based industrial conglomerate 3M and its Australian subsidiary, seeking more than 1.4 billion U.S. dollars (equivalent to 2 billion Australian dollars) in compensation for widespread toxic “forever chemical” contamination linked to firefighting foams used across national defense sites. The compensation claim, the largest the Australian federal government has ever pursued, stems from per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, or PFAS, pollution that has affected soil and water resources at 28 defense installations across the country.

    PFAS are a class of synthetic human-made compounds that have earned the nickname “forever chemicals” due to their inability to break down naturally in the environment, leading them to accumulate in ecosystems and human bodies over decades. First widely adopted in the 1950s, PFAS became a staple ingredient in a range of household and industrial products thanks to their unique ability to resist heat, stains, grease, and water. For firefighting teams, PFAS-infused foam became a go-to solution for quickly extinguishing volatile fuel-based fires, making it a standard fixture at military bases and civilian airports globally.

    Australia filed the lawsuit at the country’s Federal Court, opening a high-stakes legal battle between the national government and one of the world’s largest manufacturing conglomerates, which has already confirmed it will vigorously contest the claim. In an official statement responding to the action, 3M pushed back against the allegations, noting that the company never manufactured PFAS on Australian soil and halted sales of the PFAS-containing products in question roughly 20 years ago. The company argues that the Australian Department of Defense continued to use the existing stockpiles of PFAS-laden firefighting foam for almost two additional decades after sales stopped, placing responsibility for the ongoing contamination on the department itself.

    The Australian government, however, accuses 3M of long withholding critical information about the severe environmental and public health risks posed by PFAS-containing foam. Attorney-General Michelle Rowland outlined that the federal government is seeking compensation to cover both past and future costs of addressing the contamination crisis, which has required extensive investigation, remediation, and public health monitoring across affected communities.

    PFAS contamination linked to defense base foam use first made national headlines in Australia in 2018, when the Department of Defense issued an official warning to residents living near Richmond Air Base, located on the outskirts of Sydney. After testing confirmed dangerous levels of PFAS in local groundwater, authorities advised nearby residents to reduce their consumption of locally caught fish and farmed eggs, sparking widespread community concern over long-term health impacts.

    Assistant Defense Minister Peter Khalil shared that the federal government has already spent roughly 920 million U.S. dollars (1.3 billion Australian dollars) on efforts to manage and mitigate the environmental damage caused by the PFAS contamination. To date, remediation teams have removed more than 200,000 metric tons of contaminated soil from affected defense bases and treated more than 13 billion liters of PFAS-tainted water. Khalil emphasized the government’s commitment to holding powerful entities accountable when Australian communities face harm from corporate activity, saying “We are prepared to take on powerful corporations when Australians and Australian communities have been impacted.”

  • Hacking claims, mismatched answer-sheets: Controversies rock school exam in India

    Hacking claims, mismatched answer-sheets: Controversies rock school exam in India

    For millions of young people across India, national secondary school leaving exams are far more than a simple academic milestone: they act as the critical gateway to competitive university admissions, future career trajectories and long-term socioeconomic mobility. This year, that high-stakes process has been thrown into chaos by a growing scandal over the newly implemented digital evaluation system for the Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) Class 12 exams, which serve approximately 2 million test-takers annually. The controversy erupted after one student’s viral social media complaint about a mismatch between his original physical physics answer sheet and the digital version uploaded for grading, triggering a flood of similar allegations from students across the country.

    The system at the center of the dispute, called On-Screen Marking (OSM), was launched by CBSE with the stated goal of reducing human error in manual grading, cutting down on examiner workload, and boosting both transparency and efficiency in the grading process. Under the OSM framework, teachers score physical answer sheets that have been scanned and uploaded to a cloud-based portal, after which a proprietary software automatically calculates the final total marks for each exam. But instead of solving longstanding problems with inconsistent manual grading, students say the new system has introduced a host of new, potentially devastating issues that have tanked their final scores.

    Common complaints from test-takers range from blurry, low-resolution scanned copies of answer sheets that made handwritten responses unreadable to entire missing pages of responses, incorrect cross-subject marking, and widespread mismatches between the original physical answer sheets and the digital copies uploaded for grading. The case that sparked national attention involved 12th grade student Vedant Srivastava, who alleged that his physics answer sheet was entirely swapped for another student’s work after he requested a re-evaluation. Srivastava posted on social media that the scanned copy provided by CBSE featured different handwriting and answers to questions he had never attempted, writing, “I studied for an entire year. I sacrificed sleep, peace of mind, outings, everything for these exams. And now I don’t even know whether my actual physics paper was checked. Do students really deserve this?”

    Srivastava’s post quickly went viral, drawing hundreds of thousands of interactions and prompting thousands of other students to share their own stories of grading errors and answer sheet mismatches. Several days later, CBSE confirmed it had sent Srivastava the “correct copy” of his answer sheet, but provided no explanation for the initial mismatch. Screenshots released by Srivastava after the correction showed handwritten red ink markings on the sheet, which contrasted with the green digital check marks used in the official OSM process, raising further questions about irregularities in the system.

    In response to the growing outcry, CBSE has stated that it remains committed to upholding a “fair and transparent evaluation process” and that all legitimate concerns related to scanned answer books and grading errors will be reviewed by independent subject experts through the board’s official re-evaluation mechanism. As of this week, more than 400,000 students have applied to access scanned copies of their answer sheets, while roughly 1.1 million have requested physical copies for verification. Some students have also reported technical glitches when trying to submit re-evaluation requests, prompting federal Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan to deploy a team of technical experts from India’s top engineering institutes to support CBSE in resolving technical issues and ensuring a smooth re-evaluation process.

    The CBSE controversy has gained even more national traction because it follows closely on the heels of a major scandal surrounding another high-stakes Indian entrance exam: the National Eligibility Entrance Test (Undergraduate), or NEET-UG, the mandatory entrance test for medical school programs across the country. Allegations of a widespread question paper leak in May led to the full cancellation of the exam for 2.28 million test-takers, a disruption that has been linked to multiple reported student suicides.

    Opposition Congress leader Rahul Gandhi has seized on the twin controversies to criticize the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and Prime Minister Narendra Modi, accusing the government of neglecting India’s youth and calling for the resignation of the federal education minister. Gandhi has claimed the national examination system is rigged, forcing students to turn to social media to seek redress for systemic failures. The education minister has not yet responded to Gandhi’s allegations.

    Compounding concerns about the OSM system are recent security allegations from an ethical hacker who claims he found and exploited critical vulnerabilities in CBSE’s exam grading portal earlier this year. Nisarga Adhikary told the BBC he was able to crack the portal’s master password in February, gaining full access to student answer sheets, personal student records, and examiner accounts. “With that kind of access, one can tamper with the answer-sheets, change marks or even access peoples’ phone numbers and bank details,” Adhikary said. He added that he reported six to seven separate security flaws to India’s Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT-IN), the federal agency responsible for handling cybersecurity incidents, via a series of emails, copies of which have been seen by the BBC.

    CBSE has denied Adhikary’s allegations, stating that no security breaches have been detected on the portal used for official live grading work. The board claimed the URL Adhikary flagged as vulnerable was only a test portal that held no actual student evaluation data, marks, or personal information. Adhikary has pushed back on this claim, saying he was able to view real scanned answer sheets and verify a working examiner’s personal details after accessing the portal. “If this was a test portal, why was this information uploaded on it?” he asked. The BBC has sent formal queries to both CBSE and CERT-IN, and responses are still pending.

    The overlapping scandals have put increased pressure on Indian education officials to address systemic flaws in the country’s high-stakes examination system, with parents and education experts questioning whether teachers received sufficient training and whether the digital evaluation infrastructure was adequately tested before being rolled out to millions of test-takers.

  • In a tourist-friendly move, China’s Tencent to allow PayPal payments through its WeChat networks

    In a tourist-friendly move, China’s Tencent to allow PayPal payments through its WeChat networks

    In a strategic move designed to boost inbound tourism and deepen cross-border digital payment integration, Chinese tech giant Tencent has announced a new partnership that will allow PayPal users to complete cashless QR code transactions across WeChat Pay’s vast domestic merchant network in mainland China.

    Beyond its global dominance in social media and instant messaging, Tencent’s WeChat ecosystem operates one of China’s two leading mobile payment platforms, WeChat Pay (officially branded Weixin Pay for mainland users). The new payment functionality will roll out first to PayPal account holders based in the United States, with planned expansion to additional international markets in coming phases, the company confirmed in an official statement.

    China’s consumer economy has shifted overwhelmingly to cashless transactions over the past decade, with mobile payments accepted at nearly all retail, dining, transportation and hospitality venues across the country. This new integration is expected to eliminate a major pain point for international visitors, who have long faced barriers to accessing China’s dominant domestic payment systems.

    WeChat Pay and Alipay, the rival platform owned by e-commerce conglomerate Alibaba’s Ant Group, together control more than 90% of China’s mobile payment market, with universal acceptance at everything from street food stalls to high-end department stores and public transit.

    Gary Ng, senior Asia Pacific economist at French financial institution Natixis, noted that the PayPal-WeChat integration directly complements Beijing’s ongoing policy push to revive international tourism after the COVID-19 pandemic. Official 2024 economic data shows tourism contributes more than 4% of China’s total gross domestic product, making the sector a key target for post-pandemic recovery.

    In recent months, China has expanded visa-free entry policies to travelers from more than a dozen countries, including the United Kingdom, Spain and Australia. Notably, this policy exemption has not yet been extended to U.S. passport holders, who still require a valid visa to enter mainland China outside of short third-country transit stops.

    Inbound international travel (excluding arrivals from Hong Kong, Macau and Taiwan) collapsed to near-zero during the pandemic, when China implemented strict border closures and mandatory quarantine rules for most foreign visitors. After border reopening, however, the sector has rebounded sharply: annual international arrivals exceeded 35 million in 2024, surpassing the pre-pandemic 2019 total of nearly 32 million.

    Ng added that the new partnership also reflects a broader global shift toward interoperable cross-border digital payment systems, where leading regional and global platforms recognize one another’s QR code infrastructure to eliminate transaction friction for international travelers.

    Not all analysts expect large immediate impacts for Tencent, however. Ivan Su, senior equity analyst at investment research firm Morningstar, pointed out that the initial scale of benefits for Tencent will likely be modest, given the still relatively low volume of U.S. travelers visiting China in the post-pandemic period.

    Tencent has already taken steps to accommodate foreign users in recent years: WeChat Pay has allowed account holders to link foreign-issued bank cards since 2019. To encourage adoption of that existing feature, the company will also waive transaction fees for first-time users who connect an international bank card to their WeChat Pay account.

    Early data already shows strong growth in foreign visitor transactions: Tencent reported that mobile payments by international travelers on its platform jumped nearly 80% year-over-year in the first four months of 2024, signaling accelerating demand for convenient cross-border payment options as inbound tourism continues to recover.

  • Australian police charge Melbourne woman accused of traveling to Syria to join Islamic State group

    Australian police charge Melbourne woman accused of traveling to Syria to join Islamic State group

    MELBOURNE, Australia – Australian federal law enforcement officials have announced terrorism-related charges against a 34-year-old Melbourne woman, accusing her of traveling to Syria more than a decade ago to join the Islamic State (IS) extremist group, marking the latest development in a string of prosecutions linked to repatriated Australian citizens linked to the militant organization.

    Deputy Commissioner Hilda Sirec of the Australian Federal Police (AFP) confirmed that officers took the woman into custody at her suburban Melbourne residence this week, eight months after she reentered Australian territory via Lebanon alongside a second woman who remains under active investigation. Sirec emphasized in a press briefing that the passage of time without formal charges does not signal the end of counter-terrorism probes, underscoring the agency’s long-term commitment to holding alleged extremists accountable.

    This arrest comes just 48 hours after a group of 19 Australians – seven women and 12 children – with ties to IS arrived back in Australia from a Syrian displacement camp, a repatriation that directly contradicted the position of the Australian federal government, which has long opposed the return of citizens who joined IS. Three weeks prior, another group of 13 people – four women and nine children – were repatriated from the Roj displacement camp, located in northeast Syria near the tri-border junction of Syria, Turkey, and Iraq. Three of those four women were immediately taken into custody on charges including slavery and terrorism offenses and remain behind bars as their cases proceed. All seven women who arrived in the most recent repatriation are currently the subject of ongoing police investigations.

    Court documents outline that the woman arrested this week is scheduled to make her first appearance at the Melbourne Magistrates’ Court on Thursday, facing two separate serious charges: entering and staying in a declared conflict zone without authorization, and becoming a member of the proscribed terrorist organization Islamic State. Each charge carries a statutory maximum penalty of 10 years’ imprisonment if she is convicted.

    Investigators allege the woman traveled to Syria between 2013 and 2014 specifically to join IS. After the territorial defeat of IS’s self-declared caliphate in 2019, she was captured by Kurdish-led forces in March of that year and detained in the al-Hol displacement camp for people linked to IS, before being repatriated to Australia on September 26 last year.

    This case is the latest in a series of similar prosecutions in Australia, following high-profile charges brought against other repatriated citizens. In May, 32-year-old Janai Safar of Sydney was charged with identical terrorism offenses when she returned to Australia with her 9-year-old son. A magistrate denied Safar’s bail application, ordering her to remain in custody for at least two months as her case moves forward. Prosecutors allege Safar traveled to Syria in 2015 to join her partner, an IS fighter who died in 2017, and gave birth to their child while living in IS-held territory.

    Separately, two Melbourne women – 59-year-old Kawsar Ahmed (also known as Kawsar Abbas) and her 31-year-old daughter Zeinab Ahmed – were charged in early May over allegations that their family purchased a female Yazidi slave for $10,000 while living in IS-controlled Syria. Zeinab Ahmed is scheduled to submit a bail application next week, while her mother’s bail hearing is set for June 16.

    Australian federal law has criminalized travel to the former IS stronghold of Raqqa, Syria without a compelling legitimate reason since 2014, a regulation that remained in place through 2017 and forms the legal basis for many of the current charges against repatriated citizens.

  • Iran war has complicated plans for an international force in Gaza that has yet to materialize

    Iran war has complicated plans for an international force in Gaza that has yet to materialize

    Three months after the International Stabilization Force for Gaza was launched with grand promises of bringing lasting peace and long-term prosperity to the war-ravaged Palestinian enclave, the ambitious U.S.-backed initiative has ground to a near-standstill, with no meaningful troops deployed and ceasefire efforts deadlocked between Israeli and Hamas forces. The 20,000-strong stabilization force was first unveiled in February at the inaugural gathering of U.S. President Donald Trump’s newly created Board of Peace, with U.S. Major General Jasper Jeffers tapped to lead the mission. Today, Jeffers commands no deployed forces, as none of the five nations that publicly pledged troop contributions have followed through on their commitments.

    The single largest blow to the plan came just over a week after the U.S. and Israel launched a joint military strike against Iran in late February, when Indonesia — which had promised the largest contingent of 8,000 troops — put its entire commitment on indefinite hold. Under the original schedule, 1,000 Indonesian personnel were set to deploy in April, with the remaining 7,000 arriving the following June. The other four contributing nations — Morocco, Kazakhstan, Kosovo, and Albania — have also failed to deploy any significant on-the-ground forces three months on.

    Indonesia’s defense minister Sjafrie Sjamsoeddin explained the suspension to parliament last week, citing a lack of clear implementation guidance from a Washington administration distracted by escalating tensions with Tehran. “New dynamics have emerged,” Sjamsoeddin told lawmakers. “Because the intensity of the conflict between U.S. and Iranian forces remains very high, the Board of Peace has tended to be left behind. Since the Board of Peace has been left behind, the International Stabilization Force has also been left behind.”

    Regional analysts note that domestic political and economic pressures also heavily influenced Indonesia’s decision. As the world’s most populous Muslim-majority nation, public opposition to the U.S.-Iran war runs extremely deep in the country. The conflict has already sent global energy prices soaring, pushing Indonesia’s already fragile economy into further strain, and public skepticism of the Trump administration’s Board of Peace initiative is widespread.

    “If you talk to the people on the street, I don’t think they believe that the Board of Peace will actually help the people of Gaza,” explained Muhammad Zulfikar Rakhmat, director of the Indonesia-Middle East/North Africa desk at Jakarta’s Center for Economic and Law Studies. Rakhmat added that there is broad public unease about deploying troops to the volatile Middle East while Indonesia’s domestic economy falters. Past experiences have also soured public opinion: four Indonesian peacekeepers serving with the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon were killed during fighting between Israeli forces and Iran-backed Hezbollah, further eroding support for new international military commitments in the region.

    Still, Rakhmat argues that a complete Indonesian withdrawal from the initiative is not yet a foregone conclusion. Indonesian President Prabowo Subianto, a former army general, has made expanding Indonesia’s global diplomatic and security profile a core priority, and is reluctant to jeopardize key economic ties with the United States. “Prabowo wants to strengthen ties to Washington and sign different agreements with the U.S., so to completely withdraw and completely cancel the plan, I don’t think it’s on the table,” Rakhmat said.

    Efforts to shore up the already fragile Gaza ceasefire have stalled completely amid competing blame from both sides. Hamas has refused to disarm, a core requirement of the Trump administration’s 20-point ceasefire plan, while Israel has continued seizing additional territory in Gaza and carrying out repeated strikes on targets it labels militant positions — strikes that local health officials confirm have killed more than 880 Palestinians since the ceasefire was first agreed. Israeli troops currently control approximately 60% of Gaza’s total territory.

    The ongoing conflict with Iran has compounded these challenges, making it politically risky for Arab and Muslim leaders to openly cooperate with the U.S. and Israel, which are widely viewed as aggressors across much of the region. The resulting global energy crisis has also drained government resources that could have been used to support the stabilization mission.

    Board of Peace officials have placed the entirety of the blame for the deadlock on Hamas. Nickolay Mladenov, a former Bulgarian defense minister appointed by Trump to lead the Board of Peace, told the United Nations in May that the international force cannot begin operations until a second ceasefire phase — requiring Hamas to disarm and Israel to begin a troop withdrawal — is agreed and implemented. “You cannot build a future with armed groups running the streets, hiding in tunnels and stockpiling weapons,” Mladenov said during remarks in Jerusalem this month. “You cannot deliver reconstruction with militias on every corner.” Hamas’ disarmament, he added, remains “non-negotiable.”

    Hamas in turn blames Israel for the delay, accusing the Israeli government of repeatedly violating the ceasefire and Mladenov of openly siding with Tel Aviv. The group is demanding that Israel withdraw from all territory it has seized since the ceasefire went into effect, an Egyptian official with knowledge of closed-door mediation talks confirmed on condition of anonymity. The official added that most pledged troop-contributing nations have refused to deploy forces until a formal agreement on Hamas disarmament is reached.

    To date, only token, non-combat contributions have been confirmed, and no deployed troops are known to be on the ground in Gaza. Kazakhstan has limited its commitment to humanitarian support, including a planned field hospital and medical unit, but has not provided any update on deployment timelines. Albania’s defense ministry has described its contribution as a “dynamic and ongoing process,” with military chief Lieutenant General Arben Kingji confirming earlier this month that only a small contingent of personnel for the force’s headquarters will be sent, with no troops deployed to date even after preliminary reconnaissance work. Kosovo, which has pledged 20 troops, confirmed in April it was in the “final phase of preparations” but has not released an update since. Morocco has only committed to deploying high-ranking military officers to the force’s joint command, and has not shared further details. All four nations declined to respond to requests for comment on their current commitments.

    U.S. Central Command declined to comment on the status of the force or make General Jeffers available for interview, referring all inquiries to the Board of Peace. Board of Peace spokesman Brad Klapper also declined to comment on Indonesia’s suspension or the future of the mission, directing reporters to Mladenov’s May remarks to the United Nations.

  • Japan woos visiting Philippine leader during state visit with arms sales and China in mind

    Japan woos visiting Philippine leader during state visit with arms sales and China in mind

    During a high-stakes four-day state visit to Tokyo that wraps up this week, Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. has been greeted with extraordinary diplomatic hospitality, underscoring Japan’s urgent push to deepen strategic and defense cooperation with the Southeast Asian nation at a moment of growing concern over Chinese military activity across the Indo-Pacific.

    The visit, which will conclude with Marcos’s departure on Friday, has already included a formal audience with Japanese Emperor Naruhito, who conferred the Grand Cordon of the Supreme Order of the Chrysanthemum — one of Japan’s most prestigious national honors — on the Philippine leader. A state banquet hosted at the imperial palace capped off the first three days of engagements, ahead of key formal talks Thursday between Marcos and Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi.

    Analysts and government officials frame the warm welcome as a clear signal that Japan views the Philippines as a critical defense partner and a landmark client for its emerging defense export industry, following Tokyo’s historic break from decades of postwar pacifist policy earlier this year. In April, Takaichi’s administration lifted a long-standing ban on lethal weapons exports, opening the door for Japanese defense manufacturers to sell military hardware to international buyers for the first time, and Marcos is positioned to be the first head of state of a major prospective client nation to visit since the policy shift.

    Already, the two countries have launched negotiations for the sale of multiple retired Abukuma-class destroyers and TC-90 training aircraft from the Japanese Maritime Self-Defense Force. Philippine Defense Secretary Gilberto Teodoro Jr. has also publicly confirmed Manila’s interest in acquiring Japanese Type-88 surface-to-ship missiles, after he joined his Japanese counterpart to observe joint bilateral live-fire exercises earlier this month.

    On the diplomatic agenda for Thursday’s bilateral summit, the two leaders are set to finalize frameworks that will further deepen defense and weapons industrial cooperation, alongside progress on a formal military intelligence-sharing agreement. Japanese government sources note that the intelligence pact will streamline secure communication between the two defense forces and strengthen trilateral security coordination with the United States, a mutual ally of both nations. This cooperation builds on existing security assistance: Japan has already donated five coastal surveillance radars to the Philippines to boost maritime monitoring capabilities, a capability that would be further enhanced by formal intelligence sharing.

    The deepening security alignment between Tokyo and Manila comes with a shared focus on countering growing Chinese assertiveness in the East and South China Seas, as well as stability around Taiwan — the self-governing island that Beijing claims as its sovereign territory. The United States has repeatedly welcomed closer bilateral defense ties between Japan and the Philippines, framing the partnership as a key bulwark to defend regional rules-based order against Chinese expansion.

    Marcos echoed the warm tone of the visit during an address to Japanese lawmakers Wednesday, noting that the push to elevate bilateral relations to a new strategic level reflects an “exceptional level of trust” between the two countries. Since taking office, Marcos has taken a firm public stance against Chinese territorial claims in disputed areas of the South China Sea, a sharp shift from the more conciliatory policy pursued by his predecessor Rodrigo Duterte. Japan’s leadership is eager to lock in long-term strategic cooperation with Manila that outlasts Marcos’s presidency, which ends in 2028, to avoid the policy flip-flops on China that have marked past Philippine administrations.

    The past year has already seen rapid progress in bilateral defense cooperation: in 2024, the two sides signed a visiting forces agreement that allows military personnel from each nation to easily enter the other to conduct joint training exercises, clearing the way for Japan to deploy 1,400 troops to regular joint drills in the region. A second supplemental defense pact signed this year streamlines logistics support for joint training, allowing for tax-free transfers of ammunition, fuel, food and other essential supplies for participating forces.

    Beyond defense cooperation, the summit will also address pressing regional energy security challenges. The two leaders are set to discuss details of a Japanese-led multinational infrastructure funding framework launched in April, which is designed to help Southeast Asian nations including the Philippines build out strategic oil reserve infrastructure. The initiative comes in response to ongoing market and supply disruptions caused by the Iran war, which has severely disrupted oil shipments through the Strait of Hormuz, a critical global chokepoint for energy trade.

    Japanese officials also note that the state visit coincides with two key diplomatic milestones: 2024 marks the 70th anniversary of formal diplomatic relations between Japan and the Philippines, and the Philippines currently holds the rotating annual presidency of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), positioning Tokyo to deepen its engagement with the broader regional bloc through its relationship with Manila.

  • Trump threatens to ‘blow up’ Oman despite centuries of US ties

    Trump threatens to ‘blow up’ Oman despite centuries of US ties

    On Wednesday, US President Donald Trump issued an extraordinary public threat to militarily destroy Oman if the sultanate chooses to cooperate with Iran on a ship transit fee scheme for the Strait of Hormuz, a proposal Iran is pushing as part of any potential negotiated settlement to end the ongoing US-Israeli war against the Islamic Republic.

    In his remarks, Trump asserted unchallenged open access to the strategic waterway, declaring, “The strait is going to be open to everybody. Nobody is going to control it…it’s international waters.” He doubled down on his aggression, adding, “Oman will behave just like everybody else, or we’ll have to blow them up.”

    The geographic and legal position of Oman makes its cooperation a critical component of any Iranian plan to implement a transit fee. Alongside Iran, Oman is the only country that holds territorial waters spanning the narrow strait, a critical chokepoint for global oil and maritime trade. At its narrowest point, the Strait of Hormuz measures just 21 nautical miles across, and under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), coastal nations are permitted to claim territorial rights up to 12 nautical miles from their coasts. While UNCLOS explicitly bars nations bordering international straits from restricting transit or charging general tolls, legal experts interviewed by Middle East Eye note that Iran could structure charges as service or piloting fees – a workaround that would require Oman’s cooperation to move forward.

    Earlier this month, Iranian ambassador to France Mohammad Amin-Nejad told Bloomberg that Tehran and Muscat were already developing a framework to advance such a plan as part of talks to end the war. Notably, the US is not a signatory to UNCLOS, despite frequently referencing international law of the sea norms to advance its own regional interests.

    Oman has a long-standing reputation as one of the Persian Gulf region’s most reliable neutral mediators, a role that has put it directly at odds with the Trump administration’s war agenda. Before the June 2025 joint US-Israeli attack on Iran, Oman served as the primary backchannel interlocutor between Washington and Tehran, with negotiations scheduled to take place in Muscat that were ultimately overtaken by the offensive. Muscat also made a last-ditch mediation effort ahead of the February 28 US-Israeli strike that launched the full-scale war.

    Unlike more vocal Gulf powers including Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates, Oman has long favored quiet diplomacy – but its leadership has broken with that tradition to openly criticize the conflict. On the eve of the initial attack, Omani Foreign Minister Sayyid Badr bin Hamad Albusaidi made an urgent public appeal on CBS News for additional time for diplomatic talks to proceed. In March, Albusaidi penned a high-profile op-ed in *The Economist* warning that the US was putting its long-term regional standing at grave risk by continuing the war alongside Israel, writing bluntly that “America has lost control of its own foreign policy.” He later took to social media to refute the Trump administration’s core justification for the war, which frames Iran as an imminent threat to US and allied interests. “Whatever your view of Iran, this war is not of their making,” Albusaidi wrote.

    Multiple current and former US officials have confirmed to Middle East Eye that the Trump administration has grown increasingly frustrated with Oman’s public anti-war messaging for months. This friction comes amid a shift in alignment among other Gulf powers: Middle East Eye was the first outlet to reveal that Saudi Arabia granted the US expanded military access, basing rights, and overflight permissions at the height of the conflict, a move later confirmed by Reuters and other outlets that also reported Saudi and UAE participation in US strikes against Iran.

    While the US does not maintain permanent military bases in Oman as it does in Qatar, Bahrain, the UAE, and Saudi Arabia, the US Navy holds a long-standing agreement for regular access to Omani infrastructure, specifically the strategic Port of Duqm on Oman’s southern coast. In recent weeks, Oman has stepped back from its mediation efforts, ceding public roles to Qatar, which leverages significant financial resources, and Pakistan, which brings regional military influence to the negotiating table.

    The current tension between Washington and Muscat cuts against centuries of shared history and diplomatic ties. Oman has maintained balanced, open relations with both the US and Iran for decades, a unique regional position rooted in its long history as an independent maritime power. Unlike neighboring Gulf states such as the UAE and Qatar, which only gained independence in 1971, the Sultanate of Oman is a centuries-old state that once controlled a vast maritime empire stretching across the Indian Ocean to the east coast of Africa. Oman also shares the oldest continuous diplomatic and trade relationship with the US of any Gulf state, with formal ties dating back to 1790.

    Like many other Gulf nations, Oman has also cultivated economic ties to the Trump family: the Trump Organization, led by the president’s adult children, holds a franchise agreement for a luxury hotel and golf course currently under development in the sultanate.