标签： Asia

In a major development that has rippled through Philippine politics, President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. announced Thursday evening that a central figure at the heart of a massive corruption scandal that ignited widespread public fury across the nation has been taken into custody by authorities in the Czech Republic. Zaldy Co, the former House of Representatives member who stepped down from his legislative post in September after being linked to systemic financial irregularities in national flood control infrastructure projects, was detained in Prague after entering the Central European country without valid travel documentation, Marcos confirmed in an official statement. The president did not provide additional details surrounding the circumstances of the arrest.

Morocco hosts the largest remaining Jewish community in North Africa, numbering approximately 2,500 people. The North African kingdom has a long history of recognizing and elevating its Jewish heritage, and enshrined the country’s ‘Hebraic tributary’ in its 2011 constitution to legally protect and sustain the Jewish presence in Moroccan public life. In recent years, dozens of publicly advertised projects focused on restoring Jewish heritage sites, running interfaith tolerance workshops, and delivering cross-sector programs for rural communities of all faiths have been implemented across the country. But behind these seemingly benign cultural and historical initiatives, a coordinated, long-running political campaign led by foreign Zionist and pro-Israel organisations is working to reshape Morocco’s deeply rooted public support for Palestine, a new investigation by Middle East Eye has found.

The investigation reveals that the modern campaign follows a blueprint first laid out in the 1960s by the Jewish Agency, the operational arm of the World Zionist Organisation tasked with encouraging Jewish migration to Israel. Operation Yachin, the 1961-1964 initiative that moved roughly 90,000 Moroccan Jews — more than half of the kingdom’s entire Jewish community at the time — to Israel, included the creation of overt Zionist youth clubs designed to spread pro-Israel propaganda to young Moroccans. Today, the strategy has evolved to become far more subtle and organic, blending funding and support from Israel and the United States with partnerships with local Moroccan groups and Jewish diaspora organisations.

Yasmine, a young Moroccan anthropologist who used a pseudonym to protect her security, participated in one of these programmes several years ago before uncovering their underlying political agenda. She explained to MEE that most young participants cannot easily distinguish between Judaism as a religious identity and Zionism as a political ideology, a gap that the organisations deliberately exploit. ‘Many of these projects operate within that grey zone: they present cultural and historical content, but they also subtly introduce political narratives,’ Yasmine said. She recalled joining an interfaith dialogue programme focused on Moroccan-Jewish heritage that she believed was purely academic and cultural, only to be unexpectedly interviewed by an Israeli news channel while facilitating a workshop. Her comments were later reframed on Israeli national television to fit a pro-Zionist narrative that she never endorsed, a moment that revealed to her how easily cultural programming can be weaponized for political ends.

Compared to the overt, top-down propaganda campaigns of the Operation Yachin era, which were openly tied to state and intelligence priorities, modern initiatives have adapted to Morocco’s unwavering public support for Palestinian statehood — particularly after the 2020 Abraham Accords, the U.S.-brokered deal that normalized relations between Morocco and Israel, and the 2023-2024 Israeli military campaign in Gaza that killed more than 45,000 Palestinians. Openly pro-Israel programming now faces intense public backlash in Morocco, so organisations have shifted to discreet messaging focused on culture and history rather than explicit political advocacy, Yasmine noted.

The 2020 Abraham Accords directly accelerated the expansion of these initiatives in Morocco. One of the most high-profile groups to emerge after the accords is Sharaka, an Israeli-founded organisation that operates in Morocco and four other MENA countries, with more than 1,000 program participants and 100 staff. Sharaka frames its mission as building ‘warm peace’ and people-to-people normalization between Israel and the MENA region, and regularly runs trips for young Moroccans to visit Israel and Holocaust sites in Europe. The organisation has faced repeated criticism for refusing to address or condemn Israel’s illegal occupation of Palestinian territory. In September 2024, Youssef Elazhari, head of Sharaka’s Moroccan branch, sparked widespread controversy after claiming during a trip to Israel that the Prophet Muhammad was a Zionist.

Another major player is We Are Mena, formerly known as the 4MENA Network, which was founded by the Israeli government in 2021 and now operates in more than 15 regional countries. In 2025, the group launched a pilot programme called ‘From hate to hope’ that trains 25 Moroccan educators to teach Holocaust education to 1,500 Moroccan students, including a week-long study trip to Germany and Poland, before having participants develop curricular materials to spread the curriculum to classrooms across the Arab world. Morocco was the first country to roll out the programme, MEE understands.

The American Society of Overseas Research (ASOR), a U.S.-founded organisation that partners with the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) to run Jewish heritage programmes in Morocco, is another key entity behind the campaign. ASOR claims to be apolitical and non-religious, but an investigation of its ties reveals direct links to pro-Zionist activity and support for the Israeli army. In 2014, ASOR launched JGive, a non-profit fundraising platform that provides technological infrastructure for donations to Israeli charities. Between October 2023 and December 2024, at the height of Israel’s military campaign in Gaza, JGive distributed 548 grants totaling 29 million Israeli shekels ($8.8 million) to groups operating in Gaza, including explicit ‘vital support for soldiers on the front lines,’ according to the platform’s 2024 financial report.

Dror, an organisation founded by the Israeli government with an annual turnover of $25.8 million, is also active in Morocco. The group states its mission is to ‘educate and act to strengthen the values of Zionism, democracy and equality,’ and partners with the Israeli Ministry of Defense to provide educational, rehabilitation, and care support for Israeli soldiers.

MEE’s investigation found that nearly all of the dozen pro-Israel-linked organisations operating in Morocco — whether large foreign groups or local Jewish associations — are directly or indirectly tied to ASOR, Dror, or other entities linked to the Israeli government. These partnerships include the Mimouna Association, a well-known group that runs interfaith programming on Moroccan-Jewish heritage, organizes diaspora engagement, and runs trips to Israel and European Holocaust sites, while openly endorsing Zionism. The High Atlas Foundation, a prominent Moroccan non-profit focused on agricultural development and women’s empowerment, also receives funding from ASOR for projects preserving Jewish Moroccan heritage sites.

A source working within one of Morocco’s largest Jewish organisations told MEE that nearly all funding for these projects comes from large U.S. or Israeli-based entities, despite some groups listing Moroccan government ministries as public partners. The Moroccan government has rarely provided direct funding to these groups, the source said: ‘Even though some associations have been running for decades, they have only received funding from the government on a couple of occasions at the most.’

A consistent thread across all of these initiatives is the strategic focus on recruiting young Moroccans of all faiths, echoing the 1960s Zionist tactic of targeting youth to shape long-term public attitudes. A source within ASOR told MEE that youth engagement is ‘essential’ to ensure the long-term impact of the organisation’s projects. Yasmine noted that youth are not just a key demographic — they are also the most influential communicators in modern social media landscapes. Participants are not selected randomly: organisations intentionally target young Moroccans who already hold public influence in entrepreneurship, activism, political parties, or civil society, and who often have large social media followings. These are individuals whose existing public trust can help spread pro-normalization narratives to wider audiences.

Si Mohammed Darghali, a young Moroccan activist with more than 5,600 Facebook followers who regularly posts about his support for Sharaka and Muslim-Jewish coexistence, exemplifies this approach. After an Israeli television program praised his ‘brave efforts’ to bring Jews and Muslims together, Darghali reposted the interview alongside a message promising to continue working to promote his model of coexistence, closing the post with an emoji placing the Moroccan and Israeli flags side by side.

Yasmine explained that many young Moroccans join these programs out of genuine curiosity about Morocco’s Jewish heritage, which has increasingly been recognized as a core part of the country’s national identity. Others are drawn by tangible personal incentives: the programs offer opportunities for international travel to Europe and the United States, which is often out of reach for most Moroccans due to strict visa requirements, as well as opportunities to build professional networks and boost participants’ resumes. Recruitment is carried out openly, just like any other civil society initiative in Morocco, which makes the programs feel trustworthy and leads many young people to not question their underlying agenda, Yasmine added. Organisations also build trust by partnering with established local groups, including major Moroccan universities, which help identify and recruit interested participants and lend cultural legitimacy to the initiatives.

MEE reached out to all major organisations named in the investigation for comment, and was unable to review the full scope of activity of all Jewish-led groups operating in Morocco.

MACAO – The government of the Macao Special Administrative Region (SAR) announced Thursday that Chief Executive Sam Hou-fai will launch an official multi-stop visit to four European nations this Friday, with the aim of strengthening bilateral ties, expanding economic and cultural collaboration, and boosting Macao’s global engagement. The trip is scheduled to wrap up on April 26, and Sam will be joined by a delegation comprising senior SAR government officials and local business representatives, according to the Macao SAR Government Information Bureau.

The first stop on Sam’s itinerary is Lisbon, Portugal’s capital. During his stay in Lisbon, the chief executive is set to hold meetings with top leaders from Portugal’s executive, legislative, and judicial branches to exchange views on bilateral cooperation and shared interests. Beyond official diplomatic engagements, a planned gathering between Sam and Macao students pursuing their studies in Portugal will also be held, highlighting the SAR government’s attention to Macao students studying overseas.

Next, the delegation will travel to Madrid, Spain. In addition to holding talks with senior Spanish government officials, the Macao SAR government will organize two key public activities during this leg: a regional tourism promotion event and an economic cooperation forum. These initiatives are designed to expand the pool of international tourist source markets for Macao’s tourism sector, and create targeted opportunities for cross-border business matching between Macao, Chinese mainland and European enterprises.

On April 23, the delegation will arrive in Geneva, Switzerland, where the core goal of the leg is to reinforce Macao’s connections with major global multilateral institutions based in the city, including the World Trade Organization. The trip will then move to Brussels, Belgium, on April 24, where Sam and the delegation will meet with senior Belgian federal officials and high-ranking representatives of the European Union to discuss areas of common interest and potential future collaboration. This four-nation European visit marks a key diplomatic and economic outreach effort for the Macao SAR in 2026, aimed at leveraging Macao’s unique position as a bridge between China and the world to open up new space for high-quality development of the region.

A months-long standoff over one of the world’s most critical energy chokepoints has shifted dramatically, with Tehran emerging as the clear long-term power holder in the Strait of Hormuz despite an ongoing U.S. blockade effort. The Trump administration has claimed early progress for its blockade, reporting that nine vessels, including the Chinese-owned tanker Rich Starry which reversed course in the Gulf of Oman Wednesday, have complied with its turn-around orders. But Iranian officials have pushed back forcefully, reiterating that Tehran retains full authority over the strait and reserves the right to approve all transiting vessels. In a stark warning, Iran added that if its own ports come under threat, every port across the Persian Gulf and Sea of Oman will lose security protections.

For decades, Iran has brandished the Strait of Hormuz as a potential bargaining chip against its adversaries, but it never moved to formalize control over the waterway until the current existential conflict with the U.S. and Israel. In an ironic turn, the joint U.S.-Israeli campaign to cripple Iran’s nuclear and missile programs has instead handed Tehran a transformative new strategic asset: unchallenged de facto control over the strait, through which 20% of global oil consumption passes daily. Tehran has already embedded this new control into its long-term strategic planning, going so far as to add formal recognition of Iranian sovereignty over the strait to its negotiating demands during recent indirect peace talks with Washington.

This new leverage delivers three key strategic and economic benefits for Iran. First, it opens a substantial new stream of revenue from transit tolls already imposed on vessels passing through the waterway. With tolls set at roughly $1 per barrel of oil and up to $2 million per fully loaded tanker, independent estimates project Iran could collect up to $600 million monthly from oil shipments and an additional $800 million from natural gas transits. Economists note that roughly 80% of these costs will ultimately be borne by Gulf Arab states, adding up to as much as $14 billion annually from oil tolls alone.

Second, control of the strait acts as a powerful asymmetric deterrent. By proving its ability to disrupt the world’s most vital energy artery, Iran has dramatically raised the economic cost of any future large-scale military action against it, creating deterrence through global economic risk rather than relying solely on its own military capabilities.

Third, the strait delivers major geopolitical clout, particularly for Iran’s outreach to Global South nations. Control over energy flows through the waterway allows Tehran to negotiate with energy-dependent states, offering reliable transit access in exchange for cooperation that circumvents U.S. sanctions and deepens bilateral economic ties.

The U.S. has moved to counter Iran’s new leverage with its own blockade, but this reciprocal campaign faces deep structural limitations that undermine long-term success. Unlike Iran, which can enforce its rules from its own adjacent coastline, the U.S. must maintain a blockade in open international waters, a logistically and financially draining operation that requires widespread allied support which has yet to materialize. Even with backing, sustaining a long-term blockade would impose massive costs on the U.S. military and trigger cascading disruptions to the global economy, making the status quo unsustainable for Washington. Many analysts now warn the strait could become “America’s Suez moment” — a strategic turning point that exposes the limits of U.S. power projection in the Middle East, rather than demonstrating its dominance.

A key question hanging over the standoff is how China, which purchases more than 80% of Iran’s crude oil exports and sees 40% of its total oil imports pass through the strait, will respond. So far, Beijing has shown no willingness to pressure Iran to roll back its new control regime, instead placing full blame on the U.S. for the crisis and rejecting the blockade as illegitimate. This week, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Guo Jiakun called the U.S. operation “dangerous and irresponsible” in blunt remarks. While one Chinese-owned tanker complied with U.S. orders to turn around, multiple other Chinese-flagged and Chinese-owned vessels have already completed transits through Iran’s new toll system, signaling Beijing’s willingness to abide by Tehran’s rules for the time being.

Although China is heavily dependent on Hormuz transit for its energy supplies, it has spent years preparing for this exact scenario. Beijing has systematically diversified its oil import sources to reduce overreliance on any single supplier, and is estimated to hold enough strategic petroleum reserves to replace Hormuz shipments for up to seven months. Even so, it remains unclear whether Beijing will support Iran’s permanent toll system long-term; while it has not publicly opposed the measure to date, many experts note China has repeatedly called for a return to unrestricted, normal passage through the strait as soon as possible.

Beyond the immediate standoff, the crisis is accelerating long-term geopolitical shifts in the Middle East that play to China’s expanding influence in the region. The ongoing conflict has convinced many Gulf Arab states that longstanding security alignment with the U.S. and normalization with Israel do not guarantee their national security, pushing regional leaders to diversify their diplomatic and economic partnerships. This trend was highlighted by this week’s visit of the Abu Dhabi Crown Prince to Beijing, a trip that underscores growing Gulf interest in deeper ties with China.

Bilateral trade between Gulf Cooperation Council states and China already hit roughly $257 billion in 2024, a total that narrowly outpaced the Gulf’s combined trade with major Western economies. Beijing has also steadily expanded its diplomatic footprint in the region, mediating the 2023 normalization agreement between longtime rivals Saudi Arabia and Iran, and playing an indirect facilitating role in recent indirect U.S.-Iran peace talks held in Pakistan to end the current conflict. Looking ahead, experts project Iran could push for a new region-led security framework with Gulf Arab states, with China stepping in as a neutral guarantor or facilitator — a shift that would end decades of U.S. dominance as the primary security provider in the Persian Gulf.

Amid rapidly escalating bilateral friction between Beijing and Tokyo, the Chinese Embassy in Tokyo issued a formal statement Thursday accusing Japanese law enforcement authorities of failing to take adequate, effective action to counter a string of violent threats targeting Chinese diplomatic facilities and Chinese nationals based in Japan.

Shi Yong, China’s acting ambassador to Japan, detailed the sequence of alarming incidents in his remarks. The first major threat arrived on March 5, in the form of a letter sent to the embassy from an anonymous group claiming to consist of former Japanese police and military personnel. The message contained overtly hostile threats: the group pledged to carry out violent attacks against Chinese diplomatic missions across Japan and threatened to “wipe out all Chinese” residing in the country.

Immediately after receiving the threatening correspondence, embassy officials filed a formal report with Japanese police, according to an official post the mission made on the social media platform X. The embassy criticized Japanese law enforcement for failing to treat the threat seriously, declining to implement tangible protective measures, and falling short of launching a full, thorough investigation to clarify the facts of the case.

The string of threats continued after a high-profile trespassing incident in late March, when an officer from the Japan Ground Self-Defense Force was arrested for illegally entering the Chinese Embassy compound in Tokyo while armed with a knife. Following a formal diplomatic protest from Beijing over the incursion, Japanese police increased visible security deployments around the embassy’s premises.

Just one week after the trespassing incident, the embassy received a separate bomb threat via social media. This threat was issued by another individual claiming to be a member of the Japan Self-Defense Force reserve, prompting local authorities to launch a two-hour bomb sweep across the embassy compound. Shi did not confirm whether any explosive devices were located during the search.

While the acting ambassador acknowledged that Japanese police have boosted external security around the diplomatic mission, he emphasized that the embassy and its personnel remain in an unsafe position, still “exposed to threats” that have not been fully resolved.

Tensions between China and Japan have steepened since November last year, when Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi made controversial remarks stating that any Chinese military operation targeting the self-governed island of Taiwan could qualify as a national security emergency justifying a Japanese military response. In response to the comments, China implemented a series of diplomatic and economic countermeasures against Japan.

As of Thursday, Japan’s Foreign Ministry has not issued any response to the Chinese Embassy’s new accusations, and declined to comment on the record when approached for statement.