Global Pulse

标签： Asia

亚洲

  • Powerful 6.9-magnitude earthquake strikes off northern Japan. No tsunami warning

    Powerful 6.9-magnitude earthquake strikes off northern Japan. No tsunami warning

    A 6.9-magnitude seismic event shook the offshore area of Japan’s northern Iwate Prefecture on Thursday morning, prompting routine safety checks and emergency preparedness protocols across the country’s northeastern region, with no immediate reports of casualties or widespread destruction confirmed. The Japan Meteorological Agency (JMA) quickly issued an initial assessment, placing the quake’s depth at approximately 50 kilometers, or 31 miles, below the ocean floor. The United States Geological Survey matched JMA’s magnitude reading, aligning on the key details of the seismic activity.

    This tremor hit during the bustling morning commute, a time when millions of Japanese residents were traveling to work and school, and light shaking was even felt as far south as the capital city of Tokyo. Critically, the JMA confirmed immediately after the quake that there was no threat of a tsunami following the seismic shift.

    The epicenter sits in a seismically active zone that has seen multiple significant tremors in recent months. In December alone, a separate quake in the same broader region triggered a seven-day national advisory warning for potential large-scale seismic activity.

    Top Japanese government officials moved quickly to coordinate response efforts. Chief Cabinet Secretary Minoru Kihara, the country’s top government spokesperson, confirmed that as of initial assessments, no injuries or structural damage had been documented. Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi told reporters in Tokyo that the government’s emergency response task force had activated immediately, placing public safety as its top priority. The prime minister added that teams are actively collecting on-the-ground data and standing by to launch relief operations if any damage is reported. She also issued a public warning for residents across affected northeastern prefectures to remain alert for possible aftershocks in the coming hours and days.

    On-the-ground reports from local communities echoed the official assessment of no major harm. Tomoko Nagane, principal of a public elementary school in the Aomori Prefecture town of Hashikami, spoke to public broadcaster NHK about the experience. She said she was en route to the school when the national earthquake early alert system activated on her phone, and she felt sustained moderate lateral shaking while driving. All students who had already arrived at the campus were unhurt, she confirmed, though a number of young children cried out of fear during the tremor. School officials canceled classes for the remainder of the day, and all students were safely returned to their families by mid-morning.

    NHK correspondents reporting from two of the closest major population centers, Sendai and Morioka, told viewers they felt shaking that lasted roughly two minutes, but had not observed any visible damage to infrastructure during initial checks. Broadcast footage from the region showed commuters continuing their daily routines as normal shortly after the tremor passed.

    In line with standard safety protocols, East Japan Railway Co., which operates intercity and local rail services across the Tohoku region, temporarily halted service on several bullet train and local commuter lines to allow structural and safety inspections of tracks and infrastructure.

    One key reassurance came for facilities with major seismic risk: government spokesperson Kihara confirmed that all nuclear facilities in the affected area, including the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant – the site of the 2011 meltdown following a massive quake and tsunami – and a spent fuel reprocessing facility in Aomori Prefecture, had not recorded any abnormalities from Thursday’s tremor.

    Japan sits along the Pacific Ring of Fire, an active tectonic boundary that makes it one of the most earthquake-prone nations on Earth, with a highly developed early warning and emergency response system designed to reduce harm from regular seismic activity.

  • This woman fought for her disappeared father – now she faces life in jail

    This woman fought for her disappeared father – now she faces life in jail

    Thirty-three-year-old Mahrang Baloch, a doctor turned human rights activist and 2025 Nobel Peace Prize nominee, has been sentenced to life in prison by a Pakistani anti-terrorism court, in a ruling that has drawn global attention to the long-running crisis of enforced disappearances in Pakistan’s restive southwestern province of Balochistan.

    Mahrang’s journey into activism did not begin as a political mission, but as a deeply personal fight for justice. When she was just 16 years old in 2009, her father Abdul Ghaffar Langove, a local political activist, was allegedly taken into custody by Pakistani security forces and never seen alive again. Nearly three years later, his tortured, decomposed body was found dumped in an unmarked grave in Lasbela district. Speaking in her final interview with the BBC before her 2025 arrest, Mahrang described the devastating discovery: her father’s body was still clothed in the same tattered outfit he wore the day he was abducted, bearing clear marks of brutal abuse. The trauma of this loss would go on to shape every chapter of her adult life.

    The crisis that Mahrang dedicated her life to addressing is one of the most intractable human rights issues in South Asia. For more than two decades, thousands of ethnic Baloch people have vanished across the province, according to human rights activists and local campaigners. Many of these disappearances are alleged to be carried out by state security forces as part of a counterinsurgency strategy targeting separatist groups that have waged an armed movement for an independent Balochistan since the late 1940s. Critics say the practice is also used to suppress peaceful dissent over the region’s long-running grievances: Balochistan is Pakistan’s largest province by territory, holding vast reserves of natural gas, coal, copper, and gold, but it remains the country’s poorest and most underdeveloped region, with restricted access for outside journalists, crumbling infrastructure, and widespread shortages of basic necessities like clean water and electricity.

    Pakistani government officials have repeatedly denied allegations of systemic enforced disappearances. Senior leaders including Balochistan Chief Minister Sarfraz Bugti argue that many reported missing people have joined separatist insurgent groups or left the province voluntarily, framing widespread claims of disappearances as “systematic propaganda” against the state. The government says roughly 80% of the more than 2,900 reported disappearance cases since 2011 have been resolved, while activists put the total number of missing people closer to 7,000. No independent body has been able to verify either figure. The crisis escalated dramatically after 2006, when prominent Baloch leader Nawab Akbar Bugti was killed in a military operation, sparking a surge in both insurgent attacks and state crackdowns.

    For Mahrang, the personal cost of this crisis deepened in 2017, when her brother was detained by security forces for nearly three months. “I had made my mother believe that what happened to my father wouldn’t happen to my brother. But it did,” she recalled. “I was scared of looking at my phone, because it might be news of my brother’s body being found somewhere.” That experience pushed her to step into formal leadership of the movement for missing persons. As a trained medical doctor, she rose to prominence through the Baloch Yakjehti Committee (BYC), an organization that campaigns against enforced disappearances and extrajudicial killings while advocating for greater local control over Balochistan’s natural resources.

    Over the next decade, Mahrang became the most recognizable face of the Baloch missing persons movement, leading massive peaceful protests, organizing a 1,600-kilometer long march from Balochistan to the capital Islamabad in 2023, and centering the voices of generations of Baloch women who have spent decades waiting for answers about their missing fathers, husbands, brothers, and sons. Despite facing repeated death threats, travel bans, and arrests, she built an international profile: she was named to the BBC’s 100 Women list in 2024, included in TIME magazine’s TIME100 Next list of emerging global leaders, and nominated for the 2025 Nobel Peace Prize for her human rights work.

    State officials have long accused Mahrang and the BYC of amplifying separatist narratives, allegations she consistently rejected. In her final pre-arrest interview, she emphasized her campaign was rooted in a demand for basic rights: “We want the right to live on our own land without persecution. We want our resources, our rights. We want this rule of fear and violence to end.”

    Mahrang was ultimately taken into custody in March 2025 while leading a protest in Quetta over the burial of 13 unclaimed bodies, which activists believe were missing Baloch people. Authorities claimed the dead were militants killed after a train hijacking in the Bolan Pass, a claim that could not be independently verified. On Monday, the anti-terrorism court convicted Mahrang and fellow activist Sibghatullah Shah of terrorism, sedition, and murder in connection with the 2024 death of a paramilitary soldier during a protest in Gwadar. Both activists deny all charges, and their legal team says they will appeal the verdict.

    Nadia Baloch, Mahrang’s sister and a member of her legal team, told the BBC the trial was fundamentally unfair. “It was not transparent,” she said, explaining that the court replaced the family’s chosen legal team with state-appointed lawyers after the family demanded an open public trial, and denied Mahrang access to witness statements and other key evidence. “She was not given a chance to a fair trial.” Nadia added that the family remains defiant in the fight to overturn the verdict, even as she acknowledged the emotional toll of the conviction: “I don’t have the courage to see her in prison, because I feel I have failed her by not getting Mahrang justice.”

    Authorities maintain the conviction is based on criminal conduct, not political activism, and frame the case as a law enforcement matter. But Mahrang’s supporters and family view the life sentence as an attempt to silence widespread dissent in Balochistan. Before her arrest, Mahrang said she had long accepted that imprisonment was a possible outcome of her work, and she did not fear it. According to her family, she remains resolute in prison, and her message to supporters remains unchanged: the struggle for justice will continue.

  • Philippines bans Gorebox gaming app after high school shooting

    Philippines bans Gorebox gaming app after high school shooting

    A horrific mass shooting at a Philippine high school that left three students dead and 20 more wounded has triggered an immediate government response, including a temporary ban on the ultra-violent video game Gorebox linked to one of the underage suspects.

    The attack, which unfolded on Monday at San Jose National High School in Tacloban, a city in southeastern Manila still known for the devastating 2013 Super Typhoon Haiyan that killed thousands, marks a deeply unusual incident in the country: while gun-related crime occurs regularly, mass school shootings carried out by minors are extremely rare. Police have confirmed the two attackers are aged 15 and 14, with the younger suspect documented as an active player of Gorebox, a first-person shooter developed by German studio F2Games.

    According to the game’s own listing on Google Play, Gorebox markets itself as a space where “creativity meets unrestrained destruction”, allowing players to “obliterate anything [they] desire” and engage in brutal combat using a wide arsenal of firearms and explosives. The International Age Rating Coalition has already assigned Gorebox an R18 rating, restricting it exclusively to adult players due to its extremely violent, explicit and unregulated content. Philippine law enforcement say the 14-year-old suspect had been sharing violent content online, and investigators believe he was “heavily influenced” by violent online materials.

    Within days of the shooting, Philippine cybersecurity authorities ordered the temporary block of Gorebox to facilitate a full investigation into any connection between the game and the attackers’ actions. “We cannot ignore possible online influences that may have contributed to this tragic incident,” the national cyber-security agency stated. Aboy Paraiso, undersecretary at the country’s Cybercrime Investigation and Coordinating Centre, explained that the temporary restriction will give authorities time to complete a thorough assessment of whether the game platform played any role in radicalizing the suspects. The BBC has reached out to F2Games for official comment on the allegations, and to date no conclusive scientific research has established a direct causal link between video game play and real-world violent behavior.

    Legal proceedings and follow-up investigations have already moved forward. As of Tuesday evening, murder charges have been formally filed against the 15-year-old suspect. Under Philippine juvenile justice rules, the 14-year-old suspect is too young to face criminal charges. Investigations into how the minors obtained their weapons have also revealed damning gaps in gun regulation: the 9mm pistol the younger suspect used belonged to his aunt, a serving policewoman who has since been suspended from duty, while the .38 caliber weapon carried by the 15-year-old was registered to his grandfather’s private security firm. A preliminary investigation into the attackers’ motives found the pair claimed they had endured prolonged bullying at the school, and all evidence collected so far indicates the attack was carefully planned. The suspects locked themselves in a school bathroom before carrying out the shooting, according to Philippine National Police spokesman Allan Rae Co.

    A close friend of the 15-year-old suspect, who spoke to the BBC on condition of anonymity, described the teen as unusually tense and unwilling to let insults from bullies go unchallenged. He often got into physical fights with peers who targeted him, and rejected advice to walk away from confrontations. The friend noted that the teen adopted military-style hairstyles and clothing, and appeared to have extensive knowledge of firearms, a likely influence from his grandfather’s work in the security industry. “I couldn’t think that someone could do such a heinous thing,” the friend told reporters.

    The shooting has already sparked urgent calls for policy reform across the Philippines. Party-list congressman Chel Diokno of the Akbayan party is pushing for harsher penalties for any individual or entity that enables minors to access illegal firearms. Philippine senators have announced they will resume a stalled investigation into the impact of violent online content on youth mental health and behavior. Senator Risa Hontiveros argued that unregulated online platforms have become “nests for brainwashing and radicalising our youth”, stressing that authorities cannot wait for another tragedy to act. Joy Belmonte, mayor of the populous Quezon City, called for a national review of school security protocols, noting that regular active shooter drills and simulations are needed to prepare students and staff for potential incidents. Education Secretary Sonny Angara echoed these concerns, saying the government does not want to see the kind of repeated copycat school shooting incidents that have become a public health crisis in the United States take root in the Philippines.

    This incident remains the deadliest school shooting involving minors in recent Philippine history, and it comes more than 15 years after the country’s worst ever mass shooting: the 2009 Maguindanao massacre, where a local mayor and his allies killed 58 people, most of them journalists covering a political dispute.

  • Palace in the Mist: The inside story of the 1908 Young Turk revolution

    Palace in the Mist: The inside story of the 1908 Young Turk revolution

    For history enthusiasts and casual readers alike, few experiences match the excitement of gaining exclusive, behind-the-scenes access to the hidden inner workings of one of humanity’s most influential imperial dynasties. That rare opportunity has arrived with the July 3 release of *Palace in the Mist*, a new work by Ayse Osmanoglu — a professional writer, and a direct member of the House of Osman, the ruling family of the Ottoman Empire.

    Osmanoglu, who currently resides in England, carries unmatched ancestral context for this project: she is a direct descendant of two Ottoman sultans, Murad V and Mehmed Resad, and her grandfather was an imperial prince forced into exile from Istanbul in 1924, when Turkish Republic founder Mustafa Kemal Ataturk formally abolished the Ottoman caliphate. This unique lineage puts her in an unparalleled position to chronicle the final, turbulent era of the Ottoman Empire.

    Set against the transformative upheaval of the 1908 Young Turk Revolution, *Palace in the Mist* tells the deeply personal story of Osmanoglu’s own ancestors within the imperial palaces of Istanbul. The work occupies a rare middle ground between narrative fiction and rigorous academic history: every central figure in the book is a real historical person, and Osmanoglu went to extraordinary lengths to ensure all portrayals adhere strictly to the historical record. While this commitment to avoiding unsubstantiated embellishment occasionally leaves supporting characters feeling less developed than they might be in a conventional novel, critics note this small trade-off is more than justified by the book’s extraordinary accuracy and authentic voice.

    Osmanoglu draws on one-of-a-kind source material that no outside scholar could easily access: obscure contemporary memoirs written by people who lived through the era, plus oral histories of the imperial family passed down directly to her through generations. In the book’s opening, she explains that during her childhood, her paternal grandparents and great-aunts and uncles shared countless stories of the dynasty’s final decades, and she committed these intimate anecdotes to memory to preserve them for future readers. “They gave me a precious insight into what life was like for the people who lived in the Ottoman palaces at the turn of the 20th century,” she writes.

    To ground the narrative, Osmanoglu begins by recapping the decades of political tension that led to the revolution: In 1876, a reformist faction called the Young Ottomans launched a coup against Sultan Abdulaziz, deposing him and installing his liberal nephew Prince Murad — Osmanoglu’s direct ancestor — as the new sultan. Plagued by paranoia that others would accuse him of conspiring against Abdulaziz, Murad suffered a severe nervous breakdown, was deemed unfit to rule, and was replaced by his younger brother, who took the throne as Sultan Abdulhamid II in September 1876.

    Though Abdulhamid initially accepted a constitution and established a parliament, he soon grew authoritarian, dissolved the legislative body, arrested political dissenters, and even imprisoned members of his own family who he saw as threats. That included Murad and his son Prince Mehmed Selahaddin, who were confined to the so-called “gilded cage” of Istanbul’s Ciragan Palace for 28 years.

    *Palace in the Mist* picks up its narrative in the final years of Abdulhamid’s iron-fisted rule, with Osmanoglu reconstructing this history through vivid prose and meticulous attention to sensory detail. She paints a clear portrait of the sultan, noting his “crisp white linen shirt and navy-blue trousers” and the gold buttons of his custom jacket, and captures his growing paranoia in a small, revealing moment: “The world moves against me,” he whispers, waving a pistol through an empty room.

    Betrayal and popular revolt stand as the book’s central themes. Young Turk revolutionaries, including key protagonist Captain Hafiz Ismail Hakki, grapple with the moral weight of betraying the sitting sultan to build a democratic constitutional monarchy. Political intrigue permeates every chapter, seen in one iconic scene where masked rebels gather around a table holding “the Qu’ran and the revolver, gleaming ominously in the golden light.”

    Beyond high politics, Osmanoglu devotes significant attention to the often-overlooked private lives of women in the Ottoman imperial family, many of whom lived in forced confinement. Readers meet Princess Rukiye, Murad’s granddaughter, who secretly reads the Sherlock Holmes novels that Arthur Conan Doyle gifted to Abdulhamid, and the tragic Princess Hadice, Murad’s daughter, whose illicit romantic correspondence with a young officer named Kemaleddin Pasha leads to her public disgrace and his exile; when he finally returns to Istanbul decades later, she refuses to meet him.

    Osmanoglu also brings the opulence of late imperial palace life to life, describing glittering parties held under high ceilings where “chandeliers dripped with countless crystals.” In this rarefied, privileged world, “the scent of oud and musk clung to the tailored frock coats” of princes and politicians sipping sherbet and “cardamom-scented coffee,” all to the accompaniment of the “soft melodies of the Imperial orchestra.”

    The book’s turning point arrives in July 1908, when Young Turk forces compel Abdulhamid to reinstate the 1876 constitution and reconvene parliament. At the most critical moment, the empire’s highest religious authority, the sheikh-ul-islam, sides with the revolutionaries. When asked to issue a religious ruling declaring the insurgency illegal, he tells a stunned Abdulhamid that “the Constitution accords with Sharia… To refuse it would be to defy Divine law.” With that ruling, the sultan’s absolute power is broken, and parliament gains the authority to hold the monarchy accountable.

    The political shift frees Murad’s imprisoned family from their long confinement, but the new era of reform proves short-lived. Osmanoglu introduces readers to Ali Kemal, a liberal journalist and ancestor of former British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, who declares boldly, “They may silence a man, but never an idea. If ink is treason, let the gallows be our pressroom.”

    Many leading Young Turks, however, favored a centralized, bureaucratic state over the decentralized model reformers had initially promised. Prince Sabahaddin, the revolutionary son of Abdulhamid’s sister, argued unsuccessfully that “it is essential that the provinces be given autonomy if the Empire is to survive,” and lost the internal debate. Ultimately, the revolution is betrayed from all sides: an uprising led by disgruntled soldiers and madrasa students erupts, the Young Turk leadership consolidates power into a new authoritarian regime and crushes the rebellion, and Abdulhamid is accused of appeasing the mutineers, deposed, and exiled from Istanbul. “Allah and history will bear witness that I have served the State faithfully,” he insists before leaving. Osmanoglu’s ancestor, Mehmed Resad, is installed as the new sultan, with far more chaos and bloodshed still waiting for the empire in the years ahead.

    Critically, the work is widely praised as beautifully written and carefully constructed, moving seamlessly between high-stakes imperial politics and intimate family drama to create an extraordinary literary achievement. Osmanoglu has delivered a truly insider account of the dynasty’s final years, and the work is considered essential reading for anyone with an interest in Ottoman history. *Palace in the Mist: The Ottoman Dynasty Chronicles* by Ayse Osmanoglu is available in both paperback and hardcover editions starting July 3.

  • Israeli officials discuss renewed push to expel Palestinians from Gaza

    Israeli officials discuss renewed push to expel Palestinians from Gaza

    On Tuesday, senior Israeli national security officials convened an urgently called meeting to revisit a long-stalled, highly controversial plan to push Palestinians to leave the Gaza Strip, Israel’s leading daily newspaper Haaretz has confirmed. The gathering, organized by Shmuel Ben Ezra, head of Israel’s National Security Council, brought together top representatives from the Israel Defense Forces, the Shin Bet internal security agency, and the Mossad external intelligence service, with discussions centered on advancing what officials frame as “encouraging voluntary emigration” of Gaza’s civilian population.

    Multiple participants told Haaretz that the urgency of the meeting took many defense officials by surprise, as the idea of displacing Palestinians from Gaza has been floated dozens of times in Israeli political circles for years without ever moving forward due to insurmountable international and practical barriers. Most notably, Mossad officials confirmed during the discussions that the agency has not identified a single sovereign nation willing to accept large numbers of displaced Palestinian refugees from Gaza. One senior anonymous official stressed that there has been no shift in the global stance that would make this plan feasible, noting that any large-scale population transfer would require unprecedented, complex coordination across the international community that currently has no support.

    The renewed push for the plan has sparked speculation among Israeli security circles. One unnamed security source told Haaretz that it cannot be ruled out that the reactivation of discussions is part of a potential political “compensation” package that former U.S. President Donald Trump offered to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in the wake of a U.S.-Iran agreement. Regardless of the political motivation, a senior member of the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defence Committee bluntly told the outlet that the entire proposal lacks any political or international legitimacy or feasibility, due to unified opposition from Arab states and the overwhelming majority of the global community.

    Calls for the forced or incentivized expulsion of Palestinians from Gaza have grown louder in mainstream Israeli political discourse since the October 7, 2023, Hamas attack. Top members of Netanyahu’s ruling coalition, including the prime minister himself, and cabinet ministers Israel Katz, Bezalel Smotrich and Itamar Ben Gvir, have all publicly endorsed the idea, with rhetoric echoing through the ruling Likud party. Most recently, in 2025, Katz established a dedicated government directorate within his ministry to manage what it calls the “voluntary emigration” of Gaza residents, and just last month Katz publicly reaffirmed his stance that the expulsion of Gaza’s Palestinian population will take place “at the appropriate time.”

    Public opinion polling conducted last year by the Jewish People Policy Institute found that more than 70 percent of Likud voters support the policy of expelling Palestinians from their historical homeland. Support for population transfer extends beyond Gaza to the occupied West Bank, according to comments this week from senior Likud lawmaker and Knesset Deputy Speaker Nissim Vaturi.

    Vaturi made his extreme views explicit during an interview with Israeli Channel 14 News on Tuesday, stating that Jewish citizens of Israel will never achieve peace “until we expel all the Arabs from this area” of the West Bank, which Israel refers to by the biblical names Judea and Samaria. “There should not be any Arabs there at all,” Vaturi said, adding that expanding illegal Jewish settlements in the occupied territory is the only path to what he calls peace in the Land of Israel.

    In the same interview, Vaturi doubled down on his call for mass displacement, saying: “It is now necessary to discuss where Arabs should be removed and where Jews should be settled. That’s what needs to be done to strengthen Israel. There is no other way; they all need to be expelled from here.” This is far from the first time Vaturi has publicly endorsed the expulsion of Palestinians. Back in November 2025, he stated that ultranationalist rabbi Meir Kahane, who famously called for the mass expulsion of Palestinians from Israel, was correct in his ideology. In the immediate aftermath of the October 7 attack, Vaturi also made incendiary comments calling for the Israeli military to “separate the children and women and kill the adults in Gaza” and publicly called to “burn Gaza” to the ground. Political analysts have noted that Vaturi’s open endorsement of population transfer, a policy widely classified as ethnic cleansing under international law, demonstrates how extreme ultranationalist views that were once on the fringe of Israeli politics have become fully mainstream within the ruling Likud party, indistinguishable from the ideology of far-right factions like Otzma Yehudit.

  • Tunisia coach Hervé Renard open to staying on with national team after a chaotic World Cup stint

    Tunisia coach Hervé Renard open to staying on with national team after a chaotic World Cup stint

    KANSAS CITY, Mo. — Just weeks before Tunisia’s 2022 FIFA World Cup campaign kicked off, the North African side found itself in sudden turmoil. A lopsided 5-1 pre-tournament defeat to Sweden prompted the Tunisian Football Federation to dismiss head coach Sabri Lamouchi abruptly, leaving the team without a leader at the worst possible moment. That is when 57-year-old French manager Hervé Renard stepped in, a veteran with deep experience coaching across African and Middle Eastern national programs, who was already in the region scouting matches in Senegal when the call came. Now, as his short-term interim contract nears its end following the team’s final group stage match against the Netherlands, Renard says he is willing to consider extending his tenure with the “Eagles of Carthage” for the long haul.

  • Andy Burnham chooses Labour Friends of Israel ex-chair as chief of staff, report says

    Andy Burnham chooses Labour Friends of Israel ex-chair as chief of staff, report says

    As Andy Burnham prepares to take office as Britain’s next prime minister – a transition widely expected to be complete by July 17 – the Labour Party front-runner has made a high-profile key appointment, reportedly offering the critical role of chief of staff to former Blair and Brown-era minister James Purnell. Multiple sources confirm Purnell has signaled he will accept the position, which would place him as Burnham’s closest senior advisor in Downing Street.

    The selection of Purnell, a veteran Labour figure with cross-sector experience spanning government, public broadcasting and corporate lobbying, underscores Burnham’s broader strategy of assembling a unifying administration that draws talent from across the ideological divides of the UK Labour Party. Purnell, long identified as a figure on the centre-right of Labour, has a long personal history with Burnham: the pair shared a parliamentary office when both served as junior ministers during Tony Blair’s premiership in the 2000s.

    Most recently, Purnell held the position of chief executive at Flint Global, a major London-based lobbying firm. He stepped down from his director role at the firm earlier this week to clear the way for the Downing Street appointment. Purnell’s career path also includes a four-year stint as director of strategy at the BBC starting in 2013, and senior cabinet roles in previous Labour governments, including Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport and senior positions at the Department for Work and Pensions.

    A point of particular note in Purnell’s political background is his longstanding connection to Middle East policy: he served two years as chair of Labour Friends of Israel (LFI), a pro-Israel parliamentary lobbying group, and voted in favor of the 2003 US-led invasion of Iraq. During his 2002 chairmanship of LFI, Purnell undertook an official visit to Israel, where he documented on-the-ground observations that included both moments of cross-community cooperation between Israeli kibbutz members and nearby Arab villagers, and the violence that had already become an endemic part of the conflict. He met with then-Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak during the trip, and wrote at the time that while peace would require mutual goodwill, progress depended entirely on the Palestinian Authority cracking down on militant activity – while also acknowledging the deep economic deprivation faced by Palestinians in Jerusalem, where he noted average annual incomes fell below $1,000 and rising malnutrition had become a crisis.

    Burnham’s own approach to Middle East policy adds layers of context to Purnell’s appointment. Like many current Labour MPs, Burnham has been a member of LFI, but he also holds longstanding ties to the Council for Arab-British Understanding (Caabu), a group that advocates for Palestinian rights, and undertook a fact-finding visit to the occupied West Bank with the organization in 2012. Burnham broke publicly with Keir Starmer’s Labour leadership in October 2023, when as Mayor of Greater Manchester he joined London Mayor Sadiq Khan and Scottish Labour Leader Anas Sarwar to call for an immediate ceasefire in the Gaza war, taking a far more critical stance on Israel than the party’s frontbench at the time.

    In recent weeks, Burnham has largely avoided public comment on foreign policy, a strategic choice aligned with his campaign for a parliamentary seat in Makerfield, a majority working-class constituency where local political observers say the party views foreign policy discussion as unhelpful to securing a by-election win. But as Burnham accelerates preparations for his premiership following Starmer’s expected departure, foreign policy is set to return to the forefront of his agenda.

    Political commentators have noted that Burnham may look to adopt a firmer, more critical policy toward Israel to distinguish his premiership from Starmer’s tenure, and to win back left-leaning Labour voters who have shifted their support to the Green Party or independent candidates in recent years. As of yet, Burnham has not confirmed his pick for foreign secretary, and further senior appointments are expected to be announced in the coming days as the transition of power continues to unfold. Burnham’s emerging team already reflects a balance of competing factions within Labour: it includes Josh Simons, former director of the centrist think tank Labour Together widely credited with delivering Starmer’s Labour leadership win, as well as MP Louise Haigh, who has been publicly identified as a target of internal factional opposition from Labour Together.

  • Former EU vice president Borrell accuses body of abandoning Kaja Kallas over Israel spat

    Former EU vice president Borrell accuses body of abandoning Kaja Kallas over Israel spat

    A sharp new rift has opened within European Union diplomatic circles after former European Union Vice President Josep Borrell publicly accused the bloc of abandoning its current High Representative for Foreign Affairs Kaja Kallas to curry favor with Israel. The controversy ignited last week when leaked details of a confidential May meeting between Kallas and Mexican officials emerged, revealing the EU’s top diplomat had drawn a parallel between Israel’s governance of Palestinians in Gaza and the occupied West Bank and the apartheid regime that ruled South Africa between 1948 and the early 1990s.

    According to multiple sources including Euractiv, which first broke details of the closed-door talks held during Kallas’ May 20–22 trip to Mexico City as part of a senior EU delegation, Kallas referenced her 2023 visit to Johannesburg’s apartheid museum to frame the comparison. The revelation immediately sparked fierce backlash from Israeli officials, with Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar announcing he would suspend all diplomatic contact with Kallas over the remarks.

    Just days after Israel’s punitive move, the EU confirmed it would send Dubravka Suica, the bloc’s Commissioner for Mediterranean and Demographic Affairs, on a scheduled visit to Tel Aviv. It is this decision that drew Borrell’s scathing rebuke in a post to the social platform X on Wednesday. In his critique, Borrell pointed out that after Israel declared Kallas persona non grata over claims of antisemitic sentiment, a fellow EU official traveled to Tel Aviv just one day later, exchanged cordial pleasantries with Saar, and failed to issue any public rebuke of Israel’s actions against Kallas. “What a fine display of ‘solidarity and coordination’ in the EU,” Borrell wrote, his words laced with biting irony.

    The leak of Kallas’ private comments has also laid bare a stark contradiction in her public approach to international affairs: while Kallas’ private remarks aligned her with critics who label Israel’s treatment of Palestinians as apartheid, she has repeatedly and publicly backed Israel’s claim to “self-defense” amid the ongoing military campaign that has left Gaza under deadly bombardment, crippling siege, and mass displacement. This duality has drawn accusations of selective application of international law from critics, who note Kallas has taken an uncompromisingly hard line on Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, pushing for sweeping, harsh sanctions against Moscow.

    The controversy also amplifies long-simmering discontent among progressive factions in the European Parliament, who have already attacked the EU’s response to the Gaza crisis as weak and hypocritical when compared to the bloc’s swift, forceful reaction to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. These progressive lawmakers have ramped up calls for sweeping action from Brussels, including the imposition of tougher sanctions on Israeli officials, the formal suspension of the EU-Israel Association Agreement, and an end to the bloc’s longstanding political protection of Israel on the international stage.

  • Israeli police detain Palestinian community leader over 2022 speech

    Israeli police detain Palestinian community leader over 2022 speech

    On Tuesday, Israeli police detained and interrogated a long-serving prominent Palestinian community leader, a move that has drawn widespread condemnation as the latest escalation in a sweeping crackdown on political organizing among Palestinian citizens of Israel.

    Mohammad Barakeh, who previously led the High Follow-Up Committee for Arab Citizens of Israel — the leading umbrella group representing Palestinian citizens of Israel operating outside of formal parliamentary structures — was taken into custody from his residential home in the northern Israeli town of Shefa-Amr, the committee confirmed. Despite Barakeh’s formal objections, Israeli authorities forced him to attend the interrogation at a police station located in Ariel, an Israeli settlement built on illegally occupied land in the West Bank. The committee has labeled the choice of this interrogation location as a deliberate and calculated provocation.

    Barakeh, who represented Palestinian interests as a member of the Israeli Knesset from 1999 to 2015, spent roughly four hours in questioning over a public speech he delivered in Ramallah, the administrative capital of the Palestinian territories, in 2022. As of Tuesday, Israeli authorities had not publicly specified what portion or claim of the speech they are investigating. During processing, Barakeh was fingerprinted and photographed before being released by a court, which attached a series of restrictive bail conditions to his release.

    In an official statement following the detention, the High Follow-Up Committee framed the action as an attempt to intimidate the entire Palestinian community within Israel. The organization called the case “another dangerous episode in a series of political persecutions aimed at intimidating our Arab community and deterring it from its political activity and legitimate struggle against occupation, racism and political repression.”

    After the interrogation concluded, Barakeh appeared before the Petah Tikva Magistrates’ Court, which issued a set of binding restrictions: a ban on all domestic and international travel through the end of October, an order to surrender his passport, and a 30-day ban on any entry to the occupied West Bank. Israeli law enforcement also seized two of Barakeh’s personal mobile phones, with investigators claiming the devices are required for ongoing case work.

    Barakeh’s legal counsel, Khaled Zabarqa, confirmed that his client rejects the legitimacy of the majority of the court-imposed restrictions. Adalah, the leading Israeli rights organization focused on protecting minority rights for Palestinian citizens of Israel, is currently preparing a legal appeal to challenge both the bail conditions and the unlawful seizure of Barakeh’s personal devices. Adalah representatives also noted that Barakeh previously declined to attend interrogation at the Ariel location, and police have yet to provide a clear legal justification for holding the questioning inside the occupied West Bank settlement.

    Multiple Palestinian political parties inside Israel have issued formal condemnations of the detention. Hadash, a long-standing Palestinian-led political party, called the interrogation a deliberate “political and security interrogation” that forms part of a broader coordinated campaign targeting Palestinian citizens of Israel and their elected political leadership. The party warned of “a fascist push to tighten the grip on the Arab public in the country and on its representative institutions, foremost among them the High Follow-Up Committee, to silence the national democratic voice opposing occupation, settlement expansion and racism.”

    Balad, another prominent Palestinian-led political party in Israel, also joined in condemnation, noting that the detention reflects sustained and ongoing efforts to suppress all forms of legitimate Palestinian political activity within Israel’s borders. In a statement, the party said: “The targeting of Muhammad Barakeh is a targeting of the Arab public and its right to organise, engage in political activity and pursue democratic struggle. These policies will not succeed in silencing our people or deterring them from continuing to defend their national and civil rights in the face of occupation policies, racism, and the escalating incitement from the mouthpieces of the fascist right in Israel.”

  • Hong Kong police arrest booksellers on suspicion of selling seditious publications

    Hong Kong police arrest booksellers on suspicion of selling seditious publications

    HONG KONG – Less than one week ahead of the 29th anniversary of Hong Kong’s handover from British to Chinese rule, local authorities have arrested two people on charges tied to the city’s national security legislation, with a well-known pro-democracy activist and independent bookstore owner linked to the detention. The operation marks the latest enforcement action targeting dissident voices in the Asian global financial center, escalating long-running international scrutiny of Beijing’s commitments to civil liberties in the semi-autonomous region.

    Hong Kong police launched the operation Wednesday, with the city’s government releasing an official statement early Thursday confirming the arrests but withholding the identities of the two detainees. Multiple local media outlets, including prominent Chinese-language newspaper Ming Pao, have cited unnamed police and government sources identifying one of the arrested as Leticia Wong, owner of Hunter Bookstore and a former pro-democracy district councilor. The Associated Press has not been able to independently confirm this identification, and police have not responded to requests for comment; attempts to reach Wong directly by phone have also been unsuccessful.

    The government statement confirms the detained pair operate a retail outlet in Sham Shui Po, the same district where Wong’s Hunter Bookstore is located. They face two core allegations: engaging in seditious activity under the 2024 Hong Kong National Security Law, and handling assets linked to the proceeds of indictable offenses under separate local legislation. Per official investigative findings released by the government, the pair are accused of displaying and selling publications with seditious content that incites public hatred toward the Hong Kong government, the city’s judiciary, and local law enforcement agencies. They also stand accused of accepting financial remittances from foreign political organizations, though authorities have not publicly named the specific publications or external groups involved in the case.

    Wong has long been a high-profile dissident voice in Hong Kong, remaining publicly active even after dozens of leading pro-democracy activists were imprisoned in a widespread crackdown that followed the large-scale 2019 anti-government protests. Her bookstore has been a focal point of official scrutiny for more than two years. In 2024, a pro-Beijing Hong Kong newspaper accused the independent book fair hosted at Hunter Bookstore of promoting so-called “soft resistance” against authorities, specifically calling out the store’s plan to sell a biography of Jimmy Lai, the jailed founder of the pro-democracy outlet Apple Daily.

    In a 2024 interview with the Associated Press, Wong detailed the sustained pressure her business has faced from government authorities. She told AP that between July 2022 and June 2024, Hong Kong officials took more than 90 separate enforcement actions against her store, ranging from routine in-person inspections and high-visibility external patrols to formal warning letters citing potential regulatory violations. She also added that an anonymous threatening letter sent to a group that planned to host an event at her bookstore ultimately forced the organization to cancel its booking.

    This latest arrest is not the first targeting independent booksellers in Hong Kong in 2025. Just three months ago, Hong Kong police detained the owner and multiple staff members of another independent bookstore on nearly identical allegations of selling seditious publications, including the same biography of Jimmy Lai. All of those detained were subsequently released on bail following their arrest.

    Critics of the national security enforcement argue that these repeated arrests of dissident figures and independent booksellers represent the erosion of the civil liberties and autonomy Beijing promised to preserve in Hong Kong for 50 years following the 1997 handover. They call Wednesday’s arrests the latest step in a systematic campaign to suppress all remaining dissent in the city. Hong Kong government officials, however, maintain that the existing national security laws are an essential pillar of the city’s social and political stability, and have repeatedly emphasized that all legally protected rights, including freedom of speech, remain firmly guaranteed under the city’s current legal framework.