One of the most towering and influential figures in global Ottoman historical studies, Professor Engin Deniz Akarli, breathed his last at his Istanbul residence on a Sunday, at the age of 81. Akarli’s decades-long academic career was dedicated to unpacking the understudied legal, political, and economic frameworks of the late Ottoman Empire and the broader modern Middle East, carving out new pathways of inquiry that had long been overlooked by mainstream scholarship.
His landmark 1993 work *The Long Peace: Ottoman Lebanon, 1861-1920*, published by the University of California Press, stands as a defining intervention that dismantled long-dominant Eurocentric narratives framing 19th-century state-building in the Levant as a project driven almost entirely by Western intervention. Through granular, on-the-ground research of the Mount Lebanon Mutassarifiya administrative period that followed the 1860 civil conflict, Akarli empirically demonstrated that locally led self-governance institutions, cross-confessional reconciliation efforts, and homegrown administrative structures laid the foundational groundwork for Lebanon’s later secular democratic system, progress that was actively undermined by subsequent European meddling in the region.
Born in the northwestern Turkish city of Eskisehir, Akarli completed his primary and secondary education at Eskisehir Maarif College before graduating in 1968 from the Business Administration and Economics Department of Istanbul’s historic Robert College, the predecessor institution to today’s Bogazici University. He then pursued advanced studies in the United States, earning his master’s degree at the University of Wisconsin before completing his doctorate at Princeton University.
His teaching trajectory spanned three continents and some of the world’s most prestigious higher education institutions. After finishing his PhD, he returned to Turkey to serve as one of the founding faculty members of Bogazici University’s newly established history department. The 1980 Turkish military coup forced him into temporary exile, and he spent several years teaching at Jordan’s Yarmouk University before relocating back to the U.S. in the 1990s, where he took up the post of Joukowsky Family Distinguished Professor of Modern Middle Eastern History at Brown University. Over the course of his career, he also held visiting and tenured positions at Princeton University, Washington University in St. Louis, and Harvard University. He moved back to Turkey in 2012 to join Istanbul Sehir University, where he served as the Dean of the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences until the institution was controversially closed via presidential decree in 2020. In 2014, his lifelong contributions to historical research were honored with Turkey’s Presidential Grand Prize for Culture and Arts in the field of history.
Colleagues and former students have flooded social media with heartfelt tributes celebrating not just his transformative scholarship, but his extraordinary personal character: renowned for his deep humility, endless generosity with his time and expertise, and gentle, respectful treatment of everyone around him. One former student shared a story of Akarli going out of his way to fast-track administrative paperwork that would have otherwise taken days to process, then inviting the young scholar to speak to his florist to check in on his plants, noting he nurtured his students with the same tender care he tended to his flowers. Another alumna recalled that even after taking only one introductory class with Akarli as a first-year student, he remembered her name and checked in on her well-being every time they crossed paths across her entire four-year degree. A graduate of Istanbul Sehir University also shared a beloved anecdote that Akarli always carried flower seeds in his pockets, stopping to scatter them in any bare, empty patch of ground he encountered on his daily walk to campus. A final social media post from colleague Özgür Kavak shared that Akarli spent his final night working meticulously on an academic paper until the early hours of the morning, with a note on his desk listing a long-awaited reply to a pending email as a task for the day of his passing. His funeral service will be held on November 10 at Istanbul’s Sakirin Mosque in the Uskudar district following midday prayers, after which he will be interred at the historic Karacaahmet Cemetery.
标签： Asia
亚洲
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Eminent Ottoman historian Engin Deniz Akarli dies aged 81
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Erdogan urges Trump to avoid fresh Iran strikes as Turkey pushes for deal
Top Turkish intelligence official Ibrahim Kalin revealed on Monday during a public conference in Ankara that Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan directly appealed to U.S. President Donald Trump in a weekend Saturday phone call to refrain from launching a new wave of military strikes against Iran, as a coalition of regional diplomatic actors races to de-escalate spiraling tensions across the Middle East. Kalin warned that any unprovoked U.S. offensive against Iranian territory would ignite a self-perpetuating cycle of widespread regional violence, with even a minor unplanned incident capable of dragging the entire area into a devastating new phase of conflict.
Kalin outlined a carefully structured seven-point diplomatic framework that Turkey and other unnamed regional mediators have been advancing, which he characterized as an equitable, mutually beneficial arrangement for all parties involved. The core terms of the proposed deal would see the U.S. and its partners roll back longstanding punitive sanctions on Iran and unlock Tehran’s access to billions of dollars in frozen overseas financial assets. In reciprocal commitments, Iran would formally reaffirm its pledge to never pursue or develop nuclear weapons, consent to renewed full cooperation with the International Atomic Energy Agency to launch dedicated standalone nuclear negotiations, and reopen the strategic Strait of Hormuz to unimpeded global maritime traffic. Kalin noted that the primary remaining sticking point at this stage is agreeing on the exact sequential order of reciprocal actions, with all sides haggling over which party will make the first tangible move to demonstrate good faith.
Kalin stressed that the window to lock in this agreement is extremely narrow: if the framework can be finalized in the coming days, the planned U.S. strikes on Iran will be averted entirely, but if negotiations stall, new U.S. military attacks could be launched within as little as 72 hours. He also publicly called on Iranian negotiators to demonstrate greater operational flexibility to break remaining deadlocks and push the diplomatic process across the finish line. Two upcoming high-profile international gatherings are positioned as critical inflection points for the talks: Erdogan is scheduled to host a gathering of regional heads of state on the margins of the COP31 climate summit in Antalya, while Qatar will host a face-to-face meeting next week between U.S. Vice President JD Vance and senior Iranian national security official Mohsen Rezaei, a sit-down Kalin framed as a high-stakes opportunity to unlock a major diplomatic breakthrough.
However, a senior Iranian source with direct knowledge of the negotiation proceedings painted a far grimmer outlook in comments to Middle East Eye, stating that Tehran sees almost no credible indication that Washington is prepared to follow through on its commitments under the seven-point deal. The source warned that Iran is bracing for an imminent new wave of U.S. military escalation, and that Tehran will deliver a forceful, targeted retaliatory strike against all U.S. military bases across the region and potentially further afield in response. The source emphasized that the Trump administration only responds to tangible, measurable costs, so Iran will make any further unprovoked attacks on Iranian territory extraordinarily costly for the U.S. government. Recent Iranian state media footage released over the weekend that appeared to hint at potential strikes on U.S. military installations located in Europe has already sparked internal debate within Turkey, a NATO member state, over how Ankara would be required to respond if such an attack triggers the alliance’s collective defense clause. The Iranian source went on to accuse European governments of actively exacerbating U.S.-Iran tensions rather than acting as neutral de-escalators, and clarified that Tehran has no intention of targeting European military bases, only U.S.-operated facilities that have been used to launch prior attacks on Iranian soil. The source added that European military capabilities do not outstrip those of the U.S., and that European NATO members have no reason to fear retaliation as long as they do not allow their territory to be used for U.S. offensive operations against Iran.
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Gaza: Five Palestinians killed as sand embankment collapses on displacement tents
A catastrophic structural failure of a large sand embankment buried temporary tents housing displaced Palestinian families in the Gaza Strip late Sunday, claiming the lives of three children and two women as extreme winter weather swept across the besieged territory. Search and rescue teams from Gaza’s Civil Defence recovered five additional survivors with moderate to severe injuries at the makeshift settlement in Deir al-Balah, with crews still sifting through muddy debris for unaccounted people as of press time.
Mahmoud Basal, official spokesperson for the Palestinian Civil Defence in Gaza, confirmed the embankment and adjacent earthen mounds gave way entirely after a powerful low-pressure system dumped torrential, unseasonable rain and gale-force winds across the enclave throughout the weekend. Local authorities publicly identified five fatalities as Mariam Nabhan and her young son Salah Nabhan, alongside Reem al-Zain, Habiba al-Zain, and Ibrahim al-Zain, all members of the same displaced family living in the camp.
The weekend’s relentless downpours inundated roughly 70,000 temporary tents spread across displacement sites across Gaza, leaving tens of thousands of already vulnerable residents completely exposed to the elements with no dry, safe shelter to retreat to. Palestinian officials and local armed groups have uniformly emphasized that the deadly incident cannot be framed as a natural disaster alone, tracing the root cause directly to Israel’s multi-year military campaign and ongoing siege of the territory.
“This is not simply the result of severe weather. It is the direct consequence of prolonged Israeli genocide, the widespread destruction of infrastructure, continued displacement, and the denial of essential humanitarian assistance and adequate shelter,” the Palestinian Ministry of Foreign Affairs stated in an official Saturday statement. The ministry noted that nearly 2 million displaced Palestinians are currently crammed into roughly 270,000 makeshift tents across Gaza, all living in what it described as “appalling humanitarian conditions.” Official assessments further show 60 to 85 percent of these tents are already tattered, structurally unsound, and completely unfit for habitation, leaving more than 400,000 people at acute risk of flooding, standing rainwater, and dangerous coastal storm surges.
The Hamas governing movement echoed these condemnations in a Sunday statement, stating Israel bears full, unmitigated responsibility for the weekend’s “disaster” by maintaining sweeping restrictions on imports of new tents, prefabricated mobile homes, and critical shelter construction materials. “The tragedy is a direct result of the criminal policies imposed by the Zionist occupation on the Gaza Strip,” the group’s statement read. “The occupation has forced more than two million Palestinians to flee their homes, confining them to less than one-third of the Gaza Strip’s territory, in overcrowded areas and shelters that lack even the most basic standards of safety and protection. This makes the recurrence of such incidents foreseeable amid the continued aggression, blockade and severe weather conditions.”
Data from the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs confirms that since the start of Israel’s military campaign in October 2023, Israeli forces have destroyed or inflicted severe damage on at least 92 percent of all residential structures across the Gaza Strip. Over the first nearly two years of the offensive, Israeli forces deployed more than 200,000 tonnes of explosives, with a total destructive energy equivalent to roughly 13 Hiroshima-level nuclear weapons. Nearly the entire 2.2 million person population of Gaza has been internally displaced, many forced to flee their homes multiple times, with 1.7 million people still residing in makeshift, unregulated camps.
A US-brokered ceasefire deal signed in October 2025 was originally designed to end the bombardment of Gaza and fully lift all restrictions on humanitarian aid access to the enclave. However, Israeli forces have continued to conduct near-daily aerial strikes and deliberate home demolitions across Gaza in violation of the agreement. The Palestinian Health Ministry reports Israeli forces have killed nearly 1,600 Palestinians since the ceasefire went into effect, bringing the total cumulative death toll of the offensive launched in October 2023 to no less than 74,600 people. Israeli authorities have also maintained stringent, arbitrary restrictions on the entry of almost all essential goods into Gaza, including staple food supplies, life-saving medical supplies, and shelter construction materials required to reinforce or replace failing tents for displaced populations. -
China’s a green-tech superpower, but not yet a green civilization
As global delegates gather at the UN Antalya Climate Conference (November 9–20), China stands as an unrivaled global superpower in clean technology, manufacturing the vast majority of the world’s solar panels, energy storage batteries, and electric vehicles, while its domestic carbon emissions have halted their decades-long upward trajectory. Few national delegations carry as much negotiating weight at this critical global climate forum. Yet a stark, nuanced gap separates Beijing’s ambitious public green rhetoric, its rapidly expanding real-world clean energy deployment, and the relatively cautious, incremental targets laid out in its official 15th Five-Year Plan. This dynamic reveals a complex blend of national industrial strategy, traditional cultural philosophy, and pragmatic climate action that defines China’s role in the global energy transition today.
On September 29, Vice Premier Ding Xuexiang told an international advisory council in Beijing that China would pursue bolder low-carbon objectives under the 15th Five-Year Plan, a document formally adopted in March that ultimately set far more restrained binding targets than the public rhetoric suggested. This gap between official messaging and formal policy is not a new quirk: the concept of “ecological civilization,” or *shengtai wenming*, was integrated into the Communist Party’s official “five-in-one” national development framework alongside economic, political, cultural, and social priorities as early as 2012, and was enshrined in the Chinese national constitution in 2018. Under President Xi Jinping, the framework has become a core governing doctrine, popularized by the widely circulated slogan: “clear waters and green mountains are mountains of gold and silver.” Rooted in the ancient Chinese philosophical tradition of *tian ren he yi* — the belief that heaven, earth, and humanity exist as an interconnected, harmonious whole — the policy framework is enforced through top-down state governance, where local officials’ performance evaluations are now heavily weighted toward environmental outcomes. The results are visible in major cities: Beijing’s air quality, for example, is drastically cleaner than it was a decade ago. At the same time, grassroots civic climate action remains tightly constrained: in 2019, teenage Guilin climate activist Ou Hongyi staged a lone Greta Thunberg-inspired climate strike, only to be detained by police and pressured to end her advocacy, illustrating that independent civil society pressure for faster decarbonization has limited space to operate.
China’s long-standing public climate pledges are well documented: it has committed to peak national carbon emissions before 2030 and reach full national carbon neutrality by 2060. In September 2025, Xi Jinping unveiled an additional new 2035 target at the United Nations, which promises to cut net greenhouse gas emissions 7–10% below the 2030 peak, ensure non-fossil fuels make up over 30% of total national energy consumption, and expand combined wind and solar generating capacity to six times its 2020 level. Independent analysts widely characterized this 2035 pledge as deliberately cautious, a pattern that is reinforced by the formal 15th Five-Year Plan targets. The plan sets a binding 17% reduction in carbon intensity (emissions per unit of GDP) for the 2026–2030 period, a figure lower than the 18% carbon intensity target set in the preceding 14th Five-Year Plan. Official Chinese government data notes that the country narrowly missed that 18% prior target, achieving a 17.7% reduction after a quiet revision to the official carbon intensity calculation methodology, while independent third-party estimates put the actual reduction at closer to 12%. The 15th Five-Year Plan further targets non-fossil fuels to supply 25% of total national energy by 2030, and for coal consumption to peak by the end of the decade — but notably, it sets no hard absolute cap on total coal use, no mandated timeline for coal consumption to decline after the 2030 peak, and no binding absolute cap on overall national emissions, retaining official language calling for the “clean and efficient use of coal.”
Despite these cautious formal targets, China’s real-world physical energy economy is decarbonizing far faster than the policy paperwork suggests. Data from Lauri Myllyvirta at the Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air (CREA) shows that by the end of 2025, China’s carbon emissions had stayed flat or declined for 21 consecutive months, with solar power output surging 43% over that year. Combined generation from wind, solar, and nuclear power covered 100% of all new growth in national electricity demand. This emissions plateau held through most of 2026, though with narrow volatility: emissions rose 2% in the first quarter of the year before falling 1% in the second, leaving them only marginally higher for the full first half, and still well below the emissions peak recorded in March 2024. The second-quarter emissions drop came entirely from reduced oil consumption, driven by soaring electric vehicle adoption cutting transport fuel demand, rather than reduced coal use: coal consumption in the power sector actually rose, with China adding 30 gigawatts of new coal-fired power capacity in the first half of 2026, the highest half-year total since 2016, while 290 gigawatts of additional coal power capacity remained under construction at the end of 2025.
The apparent disconnect between modest formal targets and explosive clean energy deployment makes full sense when China’s clean energy buildout is framed not just as climate policy, but as a core national industrial and energy security strategy. The framework traces back to 2003, when former President Hu Jintao first outlined what became known as China’s “Malacca dilemma”: more than 80% of China’s imported oil passes through the narrow Strait of Malacca, a chokepoint that the U.S. Navy could theoretically block during a geopolitical crisis. Every solar panel manufactured, every electric vehicle sold, reduces the country’s exposure to this critical import vulnerability. That theoretical risk became a tangible reality in 2026, when war-related shipping disruptions in the Strait of Hormuz — the transit route for one fifth of global oil and gas supplies — hit import-dependent Asian economies the hardest. China, with domestic oil consumption already falling rapidly due to widespread EV adoption, proved far more insulated from the price shocks than neighboring nations. Across Southeast Asia, national governments and households alike turned to low-cost Chinese solar panels and electric vehicles to cut their own exposure to imported fuel price volatility, turning China’s clean tech exports into a widespread tool for global energy independence.
This dynamic also underpins China’s growing global industrial dominance in the clean energy sector. The country controls more than 80% of global manufacturing capacity at every single stage of the solar panel supply chain. In 2024, China installed more new wind and solar capacity than every other country on Earth combined, and it is currently constructing roughly half of all new nuclear reactors under development worldwide. Chinese clean energy firms are now opening new EV and battery manufacturing facilities across Brazil, Thailand, Hungary, and Morocco. Domestic industrial overcapacity in the clean tech sector, paired with rising new tariff barriers for Chinese goods in the U.S. and EU, has pushed Chinese manufacturers to expand their reach rapidly across the Global South. The same supply chain dominance that makes China an indispensable player in the global energy transition is also a core geopolitical lever, visible in ongoing high-stakes rare earth trade negotiations between Beijing and Washington. The global climate benefits of this export boom are substantial: a CREA analysis published by Carbon Brief on October 29 estimates that China’s 2026 clean tech exports will avoid roughly 450 million tonnes of annual CO₂ emissions once all deployed, an amount roughly equal to Brazil’s total annual fossil fuel emissions. If current trends hold through the end of 2026, the full lifetime emissions savings from this year’s export cohort could reach 8.4 billion tonnes of CO₂, with roughly three quarters of those savings accruing in the Global South, where affordable Chinese clean technology is rapidly displacing planned new fossil fuel infrastructure.
This reality creates a central tension at the heart of China’s green transition: the massive global climate gains from China’s clean tech exports do not eliminate the very real climate risks posed by ongoing new coal plant construction at home, but the domestic coal investments also should not overshadow the outsized positive contribution of China’s clean tech to the global energy transition. The core unresolved question is whether China can redirect the same industrial momentum it uses to supply the world with clean technology to fully eliminate its own domestic fossil fuel dependence.
Observers continue to debate whether the official “ecological civilization” framework represents a transformative new post-growth worldview, or simply a pragmatic national industrial strategy wrapped in traditional philosophical rhetoric. The evidence points to an uneasy, constantly evolving mix of both. China has demonstrated more clearly than any other large economy that rapid economic growth and simultaneous decarbonization can proceed in tandem. But it has also shown that when economic growth and climate action come into direct conflict, growth and national security priorities consistently take precedence: new coal plants continue to be approved, and formal emissions targets are intentionally set at modest levels that are easy to overperform. Beijing frames this deliberate under-promising as prudent, with many independent analysts agreeing that China has a long track record of setting low targets and exceeding them. But targets designed to be easily beaten provide little long-term clarity for private investors, provincial governments, or even coal plant developers, indicating only the minimum performance floor rather than a clear national decarbonization trajectory.
This pragmatic prioritization of national economic interests is not unique to China, as every nation in the global competitive state system places its domestic economic performance first. What makes China distinct is that its core long-term economic interests are now deeply tied to the success of the global clean technology sector. The country’s ancient cultural traditions offer philosophical frameworks that could push its green transition far beyond the boundaries of any five-year industrial plan: Confucian thought emphasizes moderation and frugality, while Daoist principles of *wu wei* (avoiding forced disruption of the natural world) and *zhi zu* (knowing when one has enough) offer a radical alternative to the global endless growth model. The core traditional *tian ren he yi* concept of humanity and nature as an interconnected living relationship is fundamentally different from framing decarbonization as a series of production and emissions targets. This creates the sharpest tension in China’s current green model: a civilization philosophy centered on knowing “enough” sits in inherent conflict with an industrial export model built on generating massive overcapacity to sell surplus clean tech to global markets.
As delegates gather in Antalya, with the United States remaining outside the Paris Agreement framework, China has positioned itself as the leading champion of the Global South in global climate negotiations. Beijing has framed new Western tariffs on clean technology products as the biggest new obstacle to global climate progress, and has vowed to push for their elimination at COP31, alongside its long-standing demand that wealthy developed nations fulfill their unmet commitments to provide trillions in annual climate finance to developing countries. China has already shown the entire world how to build a low-cost, mass-scaled green economy. But it has not yet demonstrated that it can set hard, binding absolute limits on its own fossil fuel use. The introduction of a formal absolute national emissions cap, and a clear, public date for the phase-out of coal, would be the first concrete policy signal that the traditional principle of “knowing enough” has moved from official rhetoric to binding national policy. That step would mark the moment China evolves from a global clean tech superpower to the first real-world ecological civilization it has long promised.
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Jensen Huang: Why a personal scandal for the face of the AI boom has provoked a national security scare
Jensen Huang, the iconic 63-year-old co-founder and CEO of AI chip titan Nvidia, has long occupied the upper echelons of global tech stardom. Lauded by industry insiders as a visionary on par with Apple’s Steve Jobs, he earned playful monikers ranging from the \”Taylor Swift of tech\” to \”Daddy Huang\” in his native Taiwan, and has steered Nvidia to a $4.5 trillion valuation, briefly claiming the title of the world’s most valuable publicly traded company. A key ally to U.S. President Donald Trump, Huang stood shoulder to shoulder with Elon Musk at a recent White House AI summit, as the administration framed global AI dominance as a zero-sum game between the U.S. and China, with Trump repeatedly asserting that \”whoever wins AI wins\” the 21st century.
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After knife-edge vote, New Zealand parties put off coalitions talks
New Zealand’s Saturday general election has left the country in unprecedented political limbo, with no definitive ruling coalition confirmed weeks ahead of the final official vote tally due on 27 November. The contest marks the tightest national electoral race the Pacific nation has witnessed in decades, with the incumbent centre-right National Party and centre-left opposition Labour Party running nearly neck-and-neck in raw party vote share. Initial preliminary vote tallies indicate a National-led conservative bloc, comprising the libertarian Act Party and populist NZ First, is on track to secure a combined 67 parliamentary seats, granting them a razor-thin one-seat majority — a fragile margin that could easily shift as remaining ballots are processed.
All major party leaders have opted to suspend formal coalition negotiations until the full official results are released, refusing to comment publicly on potential partnership arrangements amid swirling speculation over alternative governing blocs. Max Rashbrooke, an adjunct senior research fellow at Victoria University of Wellington, told the BBC that both of the two traditional major parties appear to have underperformed with campaigns that failed to galvanize broad public support. He noted that Labour leader Chris Hipkins’ bid to unseat the incumbents failed to resonate with most voters, even as sitting Prime Minister Christopher Luxon carries historically low public approval ratings. Rashbrooke added that National, which stood as the clear favourite ahead of polling day, also failed to spark meaningful voter enthusiasm, a surprising misstep given that New Zealand has not ousted a sitting government after a single term in more than 50 years.
The election delivered a devastating blow to Luxon’s National caucus, with multiple high-profile senior cabinet ministers at risk of losing their seats, including Finance Minister Nicola Willis, Justice Minister Paul Goldsmith, Transport Minister Chris Bishop, and House Speaker Gerry Brownlee. Act Party leader David Seymour has already publicly staked a claim to the finance minister portfolio, telling local outlet Stuff that National must acknowledge the clear voter mandate for greater minor party representation in the next government. “This administration only barely scraped through, and every step moving forward must prioritize delivering on public expectations,” Seymour stated.
Rashbrooke pointed out that the election’s biggest winners are the fast-rising smaller political parties on both ends of the ideological spectrum. The left-leaning Green Party and Seymour’s Act Party both hit historic high vote shares this cycle, while the centrist Opportunity Party pulled off a stunning breakthrough after three consecutive failed attempts to enter parliament, now projected to claim seven seats. The party’s newly elected cohort of MPs, led by founder Qiulae Wong, arrived at New Zealand’s parliament on Monday to begin a week of formal onboarding and orientation sessions. Rejecting traditional left-right political divides, Wong confirmed her party is open to forming a governing coalition with either of the two major parties, though she emphasized that any partnership would require full alignment on the core policy direction of the next administration. Wong noted that she has received congratulatory calls from Labour’s Chris Hipkins and Green co-leader Chlöe Swarbrick, but no formal coalition discussions have taken place to date. Luxon, who previously publicly ruled out working with the Opportunity Party, told national broadcaster RNZ on Monday that he intends to schedule talks with Wong in the very near future.
Nearly 400,000 outstanding special votes, representing 14% of the total electorate, remain to be counted, including ballots cast by overseas New Zealand residents and voters who cast their ballots outside of their registered home electorate. Senior politics lecturer Claire Timperley warned the BBC that these outstanding ballots are statistically likely to lean progressive, as special voters are disproportionately younger, renters, and individuals who are temporarily residing outside their home districts. She added that the overseas vote share may skew even more heavily against the incumbent National bloc this cycle, driven by a record exodus of New Zealand residents fleeing prolonged cost-of-living pressures, stagnant wage growth, and a tight domestic job market. Official migration data shows more than 114,000 people left the country for better career opportunities in the 12 months leading up to August, a trend that has left large swathes of the domestic electorate, particularly young voters, cynical and disillusioned with mainstream political offerings. Rashbrooke noted that the 2024 election reflects a broader global trend of political fragmentation, with traditional two-party dominance eroding rapidly across New Zealand’s electoral landscape. The final list of confirmed members of parliament is scheduled to be formally declared on 3 December.
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One killed in Indonesia helicopter crash during firefighting operation
A contracted firefighting Super Puma H-225 helicopter operating in Indonesia’s South Kalimantan province crashed into a local river during active wildfire suppression operations, resulting in the death of an Indonesian crew member, according to official statements from Indonesia’s National Disaster Mitigation Agency (BNPB) released on Sunday. Two surviving passengers, an Australian and a New Zealand national, were pulled from the partially submerged wreckage by emergency response teams and transported to a nearby medical facility for urgent evaluation and treatment. Circulating footage shared by BNPB and verified on public social media platforms captures the aircraft hovering low over the water while carrying a collapsible fire suppression water bucket, before suddenly nosediving into the river. Subsequent clips show rescue teams navigating to the half-sunken craft via small watercraft to extract the occupants. The ill-fated helicopter was owned by a private third-party firm contracted by national disaster authorities to support ongoing wildfire mitigation work. This deadly incident marks the second crash involving a firefighting aircraft in Kalimantan in less than a week: just days prior, another helicopter deployed for similar operations crashed in Central Kalimantan, killing all three crew members on board. Military officials confirmed on Saturday that recovery teams had successfully retrieved the flight data black box from that earlier wreckage, which will be used to support formal investigations into the root cause of the accident. BNPB confirmed that while full investigations into the South Kalimantan crash are still underway, the agency will not pause its broader wildfire suppression campaigns across affected regions. For multiple consecutive months, large swathes of Indonesia, particularly across the islands of Kalimantan and Sumatra, have grappled with severe, fast-spreading blazes tearing through dry forest and carbon-rich peatland areas. This year’s fire season has been drastically amplified by a powerful El Niño weather pattern that has extended and intensified the regional dry season, making containment efforts far more challenging for local and international teams. The widespread fires have released thick, toxic haze that has blanketed cities across Indonesia, tinting the air a murky amber and driving a sharp spike in reported respiratory illness cases among local communities. The hazardous smog has also drifted across national borders to neighboring Malaysia and Singapore, sparking widespread public health alerts and prompting calls for coordinated cross-border mitigation. Multiple foreign governments have stepped forward to provide support for Indonesia’s fire response, including Australia, which has deployed dedicated water-bombing aircraft and a 20-person team of specialist personnel ranging from veteran pilots to emergency paramedics to assist on the ground.
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‘Iron Gate plan is merely wordplay’: Iran mocks US military initiative to disrupt supply routes
Tensions between the United States and Iran have escalated sharply in recent days, following the U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) announcement of a new interagency military initiative dubbed Task Force Iron Gate, a move Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) officials have immediately derided as meaningless posturing that will never achieve Washington’s stated goal of triggering Iranian economic collapse.
Speaking to Iran’s semi-official Fars News Agency on Sunday, IRGC spokesperson Hossein Mohebbi framed the newly unveiled task force as nothing more than hollow wordplay, pointing to decades of failed U.S. predictions that Iran’s economy would crumble under external pressure. “U.S. officials previously claimed Iran would face total economic collapse within two weeks, and that timeline came and went with no such outcome,” Mohebbi noted, emphasizing that Tehran has spent years building contingency plans to withstand targeted economic pressure, while maintaining robust, long-standing trade and diplomatic ties with all of its seven neighboring states, as well as key partners that have access via the Caspian Sea.
The newly established Task Force Iron Gate, headquartered in Florida, is formally tasked with coordinating across U.S. federal agencies to monitor and restrict cross-border movement of advanced weapons, dual-use civilian-military technology, sanctioned materials, and what Washington labels as illicit Iranian revenue streams across Iran’s sprawling land borders with Iraq, Turkey, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Pakistan, Afghanistan and Turkmenistan, plus the Caspian Sea trade corridor that links Iran directly to Russia and other Central Asian economies. The initiative, ordered by CENTCOM commander Admiral Brad Cooper, is framed as an extension of the existing U.S. naval blockade of Iranian maritime ports, which CENTCOM claims has already blocked more than $25 billion worth of Iranian crude oil exports in recent months. Cooper stated publicly that the expanded interagency coordination would further curtail Iran’s ability to fund designated terrorist groups, rebuild damaged weapons manufacturing facilities, and restock its military hardware stockpiles.
The announcement of the new task force has drawn sharp criticism from a prominent former U.S. national security official, who resigned previously over the planned U.S.-Israeli military posture toward Iran. Joe Kent, ex-director of the U.S. National Counterterrorism Center, blasted the initiative on social media platform X as a reckless, unprovoked provocation that actively undermines ongoing diplomatic outreach led by U.S. Vice President JD Vance, who is currently engaged in negotiation efforts with Tehran. Kent argued the new policy falls under what CENTCOM insiders call “policy by CONOP” – a deliberate tactic where military commanders take escalatory operational actions to subvert White House diplomatic priorities, without openly defying presidential authority, in order to lock in prolonged conflict or trigger full-scale war. He warned that enforcing the expanded land and Caspian Sea restrictions would put U.S. service members at direct risk of attack, and could easily spark an unintended shootout that drags the U.S. back into open kinetic warfare in the Middle East, going so far as to call on former President Donald Trump to assemble an entirely new national security team focused on de-escalation rather than prolonging regional hostilities.
The public row over the new U.S. task force has unfolded against a backdrop of rapidly rising maritime security incidents across key regional shipping lanes. The IRGC Navy released a statement late Saturday claiming two separate oil tankers caught fire after striking naval mines in and near the strategic Strait of Hormuz, alleging both vessels had disabled their satellite navigation and positioning systems to take unauthorised, unmonitored shipping routes. One of the reported incidents was said to have occurred east of the strait, with the second taking place directly within the narrow chokepoint, though independent verification of the ships’ identities, the cause of the fires, and the exact circumstances of the incidents has not been possible to date.
Earlier the same day, CENTCOM confirmed that a U.S. military aircraft had disabled a St. Kitts-flagged cargo vessel named *Huda* in the Gulf of Oman, after the ship repeatedly attempted to breach the existing U.S. naval blockade and was confirmed to have previously docked at an Iranian port. Separately, the UAE National Guard announced on Sunday that its coast guard units had rescued all 22 Arab national crew members from a separate cargo vessel that suffered a major fire in the Sea of Oman, with all rescued personnel reported in stable condition after receiving on-site first aid before being transferred to relevant Emirati civilian authorities. -
‘Spiritual darkness’: US ambassador to Israel says critics of Iran war are blinded by Satan
Washington’s top diplomatic envoy to Israel, former Arkansas governor and long-time evangelical Christian figure Mike Huckabee, has ignited a firestorm of cross-ideological criticism following a series of incendiary public remarks framing global and domestic opponents of a US military campaign against Iran as trapped in spiritual darkness and deliberately blinded by Satan. The controversial statements were delivered during an October 23 live interview with prominent Israeli commentator Amir Tsarfati for The Anchor Podcast, produced by the Behold Israel media outlet. During the discussion, Tsarfati posed a question about widespread European government skepticism toward US plans for military action against Tehran, asking whether the resistance stemmed from a logical mental disconnect or a deeper spiritual root. Huckabee did not hesitate to endorse the latter framing, noting that he recognized his unorthodox framing might sound unusual for a sitting US ambassador before elaborating that he viewed all pushback against intervention as a product of supernatural manipulation rather than legitimate geopolitical, diplomatic or humanitarian concerns. The remarks immediately spread across social media platforms over the weekend, drawing unusually sharp pushback even from conservative circles that traditionally align with Huckabee’s pro-Israel and Republican ideological stances. Andrew Day, senior editor of the leading conservative publication *The American Conservative*, took to social media platform X to lambast the comments as fundamentally inappropriate for a senior US diplomatic representative, quoting Huckabee’s own line about his unorthodox tone before dryly affirming that his framing was indeed deeply out of step with standard diplomatic norms. Hundreds of other social media users joined the chorus of criticism, explicitly calling for Huckabee to be formally removed from his ambassadorial post for violating the expected standards of secular, evidence-based public representation. The controversy unfolds against a roiling domestic political backdrop in the US, where fierce debate over the ongoing Iran war and its electoral fallout has dominated national discourse. Following a historic midterm election upset that saw the Democratic Party secure full control of both the US House of Representatives and the Senate, even sitting President Donald Trump has publicly acknowledged that the controversial decision to greenlight military action against Iran contributed directly to the Republican Party’s sweeping electoral losses, even as he continues to defend the intervention as a necessary national security measure. In response to the latest string of US political setbacks, Iranian Armed Forces spokesperson Abolfazl Shekarchi issued a formal statement carried by official Iranian state media, framing the Republican midterm defeat not as a routine shift in US domestic political tides, but as tangible proof of Washington’s broader strategic failure to subdue Iranian sovereignty. Shekarchi argued that the US is now trapped in a cycle of crippling strategic attrition, compounded by cascading domestic crises and repeated battlefield setbacks that are steadily eroding the long-held foundations of American global hegemony, adding that the outcome confirms the global balance of power will never permanently favor unilaterally aggressive hegemonic states.
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Saudi Aramco tower damaged after Houthi missile attacks on Riyadh
On Sunday, shrapnel from intercepted Houthi projectiles struck an administrative office tower belonging to Saudi Arabia’s state-owned energy behemoth Aramco in Riyadh, marking the latest flashpoint in a sharp resurgence of armed conflict between the Iran-aligned Yemeni movement and the Saudi-led military coalition that has waged operations in Yemen for nearly a decade. A senior official from the Saudi Energy Ministry confirmed that the Aramco facility sustained only superficial damage, with no recorded casualties or fatalities from the impact. Local regulatory and security teams were immediately deployed to the site to conduct safety assessments and implement all required remedial protocols to secure the premises. A Reuters correspondent on the ground in Riyadh’s King Abdullah Financial District, the capital’s premier commercial hub, observed that multiple floors of the high-rise Aramco Tower had their windows shattered by flying debris. The incident unfolded shortly after residents across the city reported hearing loud, concussive blasts, prompting Saudi Civil Defence to issue a widespread public early-warning advisory, before authorities later announced that all active threats had been neutralized. The Saudi-led coalition’s official statement detailed that its advanced air defense systems had successfully tracked and destroyed two ballistic missiles inbound for Riyadh on Sunday, followed by the interception of two additional cruise missiles targeting both the capital and the kingdom’s southern border regions. Coalition spokesperson Major-General Turki al-Maliki later added that a third ballistic missile aimed at Saudi Arabia’s energy-rich Eastern Province had also been shot down before reaching its intended target. This surge in cross-border attacks comes on the heels of the total breakdown of a 2022 ceasefire between the two warring parties, which has paved the way for a dramatic uptick in military operations across Yemeni territory. Just one day prior to the Riyadh missile incident, the Houthi-controlled Health Ministry released a statement alleging that Saudi-led coalition airstrikes on the village of al-Shariyah, located on the outskirts of the Yemeni capital Sanaa, had killed 33 civilians, among them eight women and 13 children, while leaving 39 more people injured. Ministry spokesperson Anees al-Asbahi claimed the Saturday strikes deliberately targeted residential homes, public roads, emergency paramedic teams, and local Civil Defence crews operating in the Bani Hushaish district east of Sanaa. As of press time, the Saudi-led coalition has not issued any formal response to these casualty allegations, and independent news outlets including Al Jazeera have stated they are unable to independently corroborate the reported death toll. Houthi military spokesperson Yahya Saree further asserted that the Saudi coalition had carried out 105 separate airstrike and missile operations over a 24-hour window, hitting Sanaa and seven additional Yemeni governorates. He calculated that the total number of coalition attacks since the current round of escalation began has reached 4,369. Saree also confirmed that Houthi forces had executed six targeted operations in response, striking Aramco infrastructure, Riyadh’s international airport, and Saudi military outposts positioned on both sides of the shared Yemeni-Saudi border. The current wave of intensified hostilities was triggered last month, when Yemen’s internationally recognized government launched a large-scale military campaign to reclaim territories long held by the Houthis, who have maintained control of Sanaa since seizing the capital in 2014. The developments have raised widespread international alarm over the risk of further regional destabilization and threats to critical energy infrastructure in the Gulf.