Global Pulse

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  • Why Indian law students don’t want top judge at their graduation ceremony

    Why Indian law students don’t want top judge at their graduation ceremony

    A simmering controversy surrounding India’s Chief Justice Surya Kant has boiled over into open protest, with students from two of the nation’s most elite legal institutions rejecting his planned appearance as convocation chief guest, following months of growing anger over his reported remarks about unemployed youth and a perceived dismissal of police brutality against student protesters.

    The current standoff traces its roots back to May, when Indian legal outlet LiveLaw published remarks attributed to Kant that labeled certain unemployed young people as “cockroaches” and “parasites” who infiltrate media, social platforms, and activist circles to attack established institutions. Though Kant later clarified the comments were taken out of context, arguing he had only targeted individuals holding fake academic degrees, the damage to his standing among India’s youth was already done. The incendiary remark directly inspired the creation of the Cockroach Janta Party (CJP), a viral satirical online movement that has grown to millions of young supporters and organized weeks of mass protests in central Delhi demanding education reform and accountability for leaked government exam papers.

    Tensions escalated dramatically on July 20, when a CJP-led parliamentary march was met with a harsh crackdown by Delhi police and paramilitary forces. Footage shared widely online showed security officials beating unarmed student protesters with batons and wooden sticks, and dispersing crowds with tear gas. In a historic first for crowd control in India’s capital, at least four protesters sustained pellet gun injuries, shocking the nation and drawing global media attention. The protests ultimately achieved a key victory when Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan resigned on July 25, as the CJP had demanded he take moral responsibility for repeated exam paper leaks. However, fallout from the crackdown continues to roil the country’s legal and political spheres.

    On July 22, a lawyer brought forward a petition requesting an urgent hearing into allegations of police excesses during the crackdown, sharing video evidence of brutality. Indian media reports claim Kant responded by saying “don’t waste our time” and rejecting the request to review the footage, stating “we don’t have time”. The comment drew immediate backlash from opposition parties, senior legal figures, and youth activists. The following day, outgoing final-year students at Hyderabad’s Nalsar University of Law, one of India’s top-ranked legal institutions, sent an official email to college administration urging them to revoke Kant’s invitation to serve as chief guest at their upcoming convocation. Traditionally, having the nation’s top jurist preside over a law school convocation is considered a high honor for aspiring lawyers, but students argued that accepting degrees from a figure dismissive of police brutality against protesters contradicts the values of justice they were taught during their studies. The demand quickly gained traction, earning support from roughly 450 of the university’s 1,400 total students, including many underclassmen.

    Kant has repeatedly pushed back against media reports, clarifying he never rejected hearing the petition and only requested it be filed through proper legal channels. The Supreme Court has since begun hearing the case, which also includes concerns that police may misuse facial recognition technology to target and harass protest participants. But student anger persisted, and the controversy expanded last week after Manan Kumar Mishra, chairman of the Bar Council of India and a sitting Member of Parliament from the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party, issued a drastic threat: he announced that no graduating Nalsar student would be permitted to enroll with the Bar Council to practice law until further notice, and demanded the university turn over a list of students leading the campaign against Kant.

    The threat triggered an immediate and widespread backlash, including an unprecedented rebuke from Chief Justice Kant himself, who stated that students hold a constitutional right to protest, and that the Bar Council had no authority to interfere in what he described as “a dialogue between law students and me”. Facing mounting pressure, Mishra backtracked within hours, announcing on social media platform X that the Bar Council would close all proceedings against the 2026 Nalsar graduating class, after concluding they had not participated in any disruptive activity. He later issued a public apology to students, writing, “If anything connected with the present controversy, any of my words, or letter, has hurt the feelings of our law students, I sincerely regret and apologise for the same.”

    Mishra’s apology failed to calm tensions, however. Over the weekend, students and alumni from a second leading Indian law school, Bengaluru’s National Law School of India University (NLSIU), released an open letter condemning Mishra’s comments, announcing they would not accept him as a convocation guest, and expressing full solidarity with Nalsar’s demand to uninvite Chief Justice Kant. They added that they also opposed Kant’s planned appearance at their own convocation for the same reasons.

    On Sunday, Kant issued a new clarification, telling The Times of India that he had never formally accepted the Nalsar convocation invitation, so “the question of me attending does not arise”. Even with this latest development, analysts widely agree the controversy is far from over. Student resentment over the chief justice’s reported comments has been building for months, and the ongoing protests at India’s most prestigious legal institutions highlight the deep divide between India’s youth and its established judicial and political leadership. The fallout from the CJP protests continues to reverberate across the country’s highest legal bodies and premier academic institutions, signaling that calls for reform and accountability from India’s younger generation are unlikely to fade.

  • Donor fatigue guts demining in Asia, as active conflicts draw away funding

    Donor fatigue guts demining in Asia, as active conflicts draw away funding

    Deep in the former Khmer Rouge strongholds of rural Cambodia, En Poy was tending to his family’s cattle decades ago when he stumbled on a rusted relic of 20th century warfare: a forgotten land mine. When he picked it up, the explosive detonated, robbing him of one arm and one eye. But instead of turning away from the danger that altered his life, Poy turned his trauma into purpose, joining Cambodian Self Help Demining – a local nonprofit working to clear millions of tons of unexploded ordnance left from decades of conflict that still litter the country’s countryside.

    Today, decades after Poy survived that first blast, the organization he dedicated his life to is on the brink of collapse. Foreign donors, the primary source of funding for demining work across Southeast Asia, are rapidly redirecting resources away from the region’s long-standing explosive legacy to address urgent humanitarian needs in active conflict zones including Ukraine, Gaza, Sudan, Syria and Afghanistan. Simultaneously, a global surge in defense spending driven by modern warfare has squeezed overall budgets for foreign humanitarian aid, leaving legacy demining projects starved for resources.

    The funding crisis was exacerbated by former U.S. President Donald Trump’s 2024 restructuring of the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) and a 90-day freeze on all new foreign aid disbursements, which halted all American demining support to Cambodia temporarily. While funding has since restarted, the disruption has left long-term projects uncertain.

    Poy knows the cost of this funding shift firsthand. He survived a second land mine explosion that left shrapnel embedded across his face and body, and killed three of his demining colleagues. Now, he travels across Cambodia’s high-risk regions to educate local communities on how to avoid accidental encounters with explosives, but he questions how much longer his work can continue. “If one day donors stop funding my organization, I would definitely be sad because we haven’t finished our job,” he said. “There are still a lot of landmines left over.”

    Cambodia’s ongoing crisis is far from unique. The deadly legacy of the Vietnam War spilled across Cambodia, Laos and Vietnam, leaving millions of tons of unexploded ordnance across all three nations that continues to kill and maim civilians decades after the fall of Saigon. For Cambodia, which also endured the Khmer Rouge’s four-year reign of terror that killed an estimated 1.7 million people, the problem is particularly acute: it ranks among the most heavily land-mined countries on Earth. Laos holds the grim title of the most heavily bombed country per capita in history, while Vietnam continues to grapple with the long-term toxic fallout of chemical weapons used during the war.

    Across the three nations, legacy ordnance has killed roughly 90,000 people and injured nearly twice that number since the end of all major conflicts. Explosives buried under agricultural fields, grazing pastures and developing construction zones block the development of new roads, schools and housing, trapping rural communities in cycles of poverty. Children, who often mistake rusted ordnance for scrap metal or toys, account for more than 40% of all civilian casualties from land mines globally since 1999, according to the Landmine and Cluster Munition Monitor, a nonprofit monitoring initiative.

    Demining is not a quick or simple process. Teams first conduct extensive surveys to map contaminated areas, then clear dense vegetation inch by inch before using metal detectors and specialized equipment to locate and safely destroy explosives. Progress is measured in square meters cleared per day, and work must pause entirely during heavy rain. Crucially, explosives do not become less dangerous as they age: as rust and corrosion degrade their casings, they become even more sensitive to movement and more likely to detonate accidentally.

    “These things don’t really become less dangerous with time. They become more dangerous as they deteriorate,” said Charles Ray, a Vietnam War veteran who served as the first post-war U.S. consul general in Ho Chi Minh City and later as U.S. ambassador to Cambodia. Ray noted that U.S. funding for demining has long served as a tangible gesture of reconciliation after the war. “By funding demining, the U.S. proved it cared,” he said. “We’re not just this behemoth that comes in with our military machine and breaks things, we can also help nations rebuild.”

    Data from the Landmine and Cluster Munition Monitor shows that total global funding for humanitarian demining reached $4.3 billion between 2020 and 2024. Only one-fifth of that funding came from national governments of affected countries, with the remaining 80% coming from foreign aid, led by the United States, Germany, the European Union, Norway and Switzerland.

    Maria Vardis, a senior official with the U.N. Mine Action Service, explained that new outbreaks of conflict have created unprecedented demand for demining support globally, as active combat leaves large swathes of new territory contaminated with explosives. In 2024 alone, Ukraine received one-third of all global humanitarian demining funding – more than any other country, the monitor found. Other active conflict zones including Gaza, Yemen, Syria, Sudan and Afghanistan have all seen increased funding allocations, leaving older, smaller-scale projects in Southeast Asia with steep cuts. Germany is currently considering further reductions to foreign aid to free up more budget for defense spending and military support to Ukraine.

    Complicating the issue further, new land mines are still being laid across Southeast Asia amid ongoing low-level conflicts, including the civil war in neighboring Myanmar and periodic border clashes between Cambodia and Thailand. “Funding does fluctuate year to year, but in the big picture, even in the face of cuts by many governments, the big crises continue to be funded, but smaller and older mine action projects are struggling,” Vardis said.

    For U.S. funding in the region, the Trump administration’s policies have created long-term damage beyond immediate budget cuts, said Danae Hendrickson of Legacies of War, a U.S.-based advocacy group focused on addressing the war legacy in Southeast Asia. She noted that U.S. demining aid to the region has fluctuated wildly under Trump, setting “a really dangerous precedent for what can be done.”

    Congressional documents show U.S. funding for war legacy programs in Vietnam dropped to $56.5 million in 2024 from $197 million allocated the previous year. In July 2025, Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced $130 million in new demining assistance for Southeast Asia, but provided no detailed breakdown of allocations.

    Nguyen Khac Giang, a visiting fellow at Singapore’s ISEAS–Yusof Ishak Institute, said last year’s U.S. aid freeze halted demining projects across Vietnam and eroded decades of hard-built trust between Washington and Hanoi. “The lasting damage is to the hard-earned trust between the two former enemies,” he said. A U.S. State Department spokesperson, however, told the Associated Press that American assistance is “not charity” and that humanitarian demining will continue to align with U.S. foreign policy interests globally.

    In Cambodia, the immediate outlook is grim. Official data from the Cambodian Mine Action and Victimization Assistance Authority shows that between 1992 and 2025, demining teams have cleared roughly 1.2 million land mines and 3.2 million other pieces of unexploded ordnance across the country. Even after 30 years of work, an estimated 1,749 square kilometers (675 square miles) of contaminated land remains uncleared as of 2024, with thousands more unexploded weapons still unaccounted for.

    Bill Morse, president of the U.S.-based Landmine Relief Fund which supports Cambodian Self Help Demining, estimates millions of ordnance may still be buried across the country. Just an hour’s drive from Siem Reap’s world-famous Angkor Wat temple complex, demining teams with the organization recently inched slowly through a contaminated field, locating a Soviet-designed anti-personnel mine just meters from a major highway leading to a new Chinese-funded airport. A second team was called to a nearby cassava farm to destroy an unexploded mortar round and rocket-propelled grenade.

    Morse said the organization could be forced to cease all operations by September 2025 due to massive donor cuts. “We have simply run out of donors,” he said. “If people want to pull their money away, that’s a decision that they have to make. But when they do, people will die here.”

  • Student killed in Philippines Catholic school shooting

    Student killed in Philippines Catholic school shooting

    A devastating double fatality at a Catholic junior high school in the southern Philippines has marked the second school shooting to hit the Southeast Asian nation in just two months, leaving local communities in shock and reigniting debates over youth access to violent digital content. Local officials confirmed on Tuesday that a student attending the campus in Zamboanga City killed a fellow classmate with an illegally smuggled firearm before taking his own life. Zamboanga City Mayor Khymer Adan Olaso told local radio reporters that the teenage perpetrator managed to sneak a .45-calibre pistol into his classroom undetected. The shooter first opened fire on a seated teacher, who narrowly escaped injury when all shots missed the target. He then moved to an adjacent classroom, where he fired at and fatally wounded another student before dying by suicide, Olaso added. According to reporting from Agence France-Presse, local media have circulated purported livestream footage of the attack that appears to capture the incident from the shooter’s first-person perspective, showing the gun barrel moving down a school hallway. Local law enforcement and emergency response teams have since secured the campus, confirming that the situation is fully under control and there are no further active threats to students or staff. This latest tragedy comes exactly two months after a separate school shooting in Tacloban City, located in the Philippines’ central region, that killed three students and left 20 more injured. That attack was carried out by two teenage boys, and investigators discovered that one of the suspects had repeatedly played a violent sandbox video game called Gorebox. Following the Tacloban City incident, Philippine authorities implemented a national ban on Gorebox, and the country’s Senate launched a formal investigation into the link between violent digital media and youth violence. The Philippines is not alone in grappling with this growing crisis across Southeast Asia. Governments throughout the region have moved in recent months to draft new restrictions on minor access to social media platforms, citing a range of documented harmful effects on adolescent mental health and behavior. Earlier this August, a teenage attacker in Thailand killed eight people and himself in a school shooting, with local investigators confirming the perpetrator regularly consumed graphic violent content through social media platforms. This string of back-to-back school violence incidents has put policymakers across the region under growing pressure to enact stricter regulations on violent digital content, while communities mourn the latest lives lost to youth perpetrated gun violence.

  • Student shot a classmate to death then killed himself at school in southern Philippines, mayor says

    Student shot a classmate to death then killed himself at school in southern Philippines, mayor says

    A tragic act of school violence has shaken the southern Philippines, leaving two people dead and two others wounded after a high school student opened fire on campus Tuesday, according to official and law enforcement sources. The 17-year-old suspect, who was armed with two separate firearms, first targeted a teacher before fatally shooting a fellow student and turning the gun on himself to die by suicide, Zamboanga city Mayor Khymer Adan Olaso confirmed in an interview with local broadcaster DZBB. Early investigations suggest the attacker wore a body-worn camera in an apparent attempt to livestream the violent attack to an online audience, which unfolded on the high school grounds of Ateneo de Zamboanga University, a prominent educational institution in the city. While the suspect’s first shot was aimed at a teacher, authorities have not yet confirmed whether the educator suffered any injuries from the gunfire. Two additional bystanders were hurt in the incident, though their current conditions have not been updated as of Wednesday morning. This deadly shooting comes less than two weeks after a separate high-profile school attack in Thailand that left multiple people dead. In the wake of that October incident, in which a 14-year-old boy killed eight people including his own grandparents, six school workers and a 12-year-old elementary student in Nonthaburi province just outside Bangkok, Thai Prime Minister Anutin Charnvirakul announced immediate emergency measures to tighten gun control regulations across the Southeast Asian nation. Data on regional gun ownership shows that both the Philippines and Thailand grapple with far higher rates of civilian gun possession than most of their neighboring countries. Thailand alone has the second-highest rate of civilian gun ownership in Asia, outpaced only by Pakistan and standing far above the average for Southeast Asia. Gun control advocates have long pushed for stricter regulations in both countries, pointing to repeated outbreaks of gun violence in public spaces including schools as evidence that existing laws are insufficient to prevent mass casualty attacks. As of this report, authorities in Zamboanga city have not yet released a motive for the attack, nor have they released details on how the underage suspect obtained the two firearms used in the shooting.

  • ‘Political stunt’: Cair slams Texas governor for threatening airports that install ablution stations for Muslims

    ‘Political stunt’: Cair slams Texas governor for threatening airports that install ablution stations for Muslims

    A high-stakes clash over religious accommodation and freedom has erupted in Texas after Governor Greg Abbott’s aggressive threats of state funding cuts forced Dallas-Fort Worth (DFW) International Airport to scrap plans for a new public ablution station for Muslim travelers, drawing sharp condemnation from the nation’s largest Muslim civil rights organization.

    The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), which Abbott designated a terrorist organization last year—a label the group has legally challenged—denounced the governor’s actions as both absurd and hypocritical in a series of posts on X Monday. In the organization’s view, the manufactured controversy over the modest ritual washing facility stands as the most baffling example of a year-long pattern of anti-Muslim political posturing from Abbott.

    The canceled project was intended to add an ablution station—low faucets and seating designed to let practicing Muslims wash their feet before daily prayers—in the pre-security public area of DFW’s international terminal. This area of U.S. airports is managed by state and local authorities, while post-security passenger-only zones fall under federal oversight. Notably, an identical ablution station already exists beyond security checkpoints at the same terminal, making the new plan merely an expansion of existing access for travelers.

    Abbott, a hardline Republican, launched his attack on the project last week, issuing formal letters threatening to revoke all existing state grants and block future funding for any airport that moves forward with similar religious accommodation projects. He claimed the facility amounted to illegal religious discrimination, arguing that it singles out Muslim people for special treatment that is not offered to other faith groups. In a separate letter addressed to U.S. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy and Attorney General Todd Blanche, Abbott called on the Trump administration to launch a full review of all existing Muslim accommodations at both DFW and Houston-area airports.

    CAIR countered Abbott’s claims by highlighting what it calls the governor’s own unconstitutional religious overreach: he is currently pushing policies to force Texas K-12 public schools to require the display of the Ten Commandments in every classroom and mandate instruction of a state-aligned version of the Bible. Unlike those policies, which CAIR argues favor Christianity over other faiths, the proposed ablution station was open to all travelers regardless of religion, and fully compliant with existing laws. Similar facilities are already in operation at airports across the country, the group added.

    The organization also called out Abbott’s long-standing targeting of CAIR, reporting that the governor regularly relies on anti-Muslim think tanks to draft proposals targeting the group. Instead of expending public resources on what CAIR calls an anti-Muslim political stunt, the organization urged Abbott to address what it frames as Texas’s far more pressing unaddressed issues: unregulated data center development, persistent school gun violence, growing economic inequality, and the ongoing erosion of religious freedom for all.

    Dallas is home to one of the largest Muslim-American communities in the United States, and like most major U.S. airports, DFW already hosts interfaith quiet spaces for prayer and meditation. Even so, the announcement of the new ablution station sparked immediate outrage from right-wing media and conservative activist groups last week.

    Prominent Dallas-based imam Yasir Qadhi publicly called on Abbott to reverse his position over the weekend, arguing that Muslim travelers are not seeking special endorsement of their faith, only equal access to practice their beliefs while participating in public life—a core founding principle of the United States. “As Texans, we all benefit when our public institutions are welcoming to everyone,” Qadhi wrote in a Facebook post Saturday. “Protecting the religious liberty of one community strengthens the religious liberty of every community.”

    The controversy quickly drew national political attention: former President Donald Trump shared a news story about the project’s cancellation on his Truth Social platform Saturday, though he offered no additional commentary. Anti-Muslim commentator Laura Loomer responded to Trump’s post by urging the former president to resume the harsh anti-Muslim policies he implemented during his first term, writing that she prays daily for Trump to take aggressive action against Muslim communities.

    CAIR closed its Monday statement by reiterating that the ablution station was a small, legal accessibility measure that aligns with long-standing norms of public accommodation for people of all faiths, and called on Texas leaders to prioritize inclusive policy over divisive political gain.

  • UAE issues rare denial of ‘imperial ambitions’ in Africa

    UAE issues rare denial of ‘imperial ambitions’ in Africa

    A public dispute has erupted between the United Arab Emirates and the Financial Times over a series of investigative reports detailing the Gulf nation’s expanding military and economic influence across the African continent, with Abu Dhabi pushing back hard against accusations of pursuing expansionist, imperial-style goals in the region.

    In an uncommon published rebuttal carried by the FT on Monday, Afra al-Hameli, the UAE’s director of strategic communications, said the country was disappointed by the newspaper’s framing of its growing footprint on the continent as evidence of “imperial ambition”. Hameli argued that characterizing negotiated partnerships between the UAE and fully sovereign African governments as a sign of expansionist overreach was deeply patronizing. She added that the narrative relied on outdated, harmful stereotypes that incorrectly paint African nations as passive targets of foreign manipulation, unable to independently set and pursue national priorities that serve their own people.

    The UAE’s response comes after the FT ran two high-profile investigative reports that built on and corroborated prior reporting from Middle East Eye on Abu Dhabi’s expanding activities across Africa. The first article, published earlier this month, mapped the UAE’s sprawling web of interests spanning ports, logistics, agriculture, mining, finance, and security operations across dozens of African countries.

    A subsequent follow-up investigation uncovered new details: a UAE-based security firm with close ties to the Abu Dhabi government recruited and deployed Colombian mercenaries to fight alongside Sudan’s Rapid Support Forces in Sudan’s ongoing brutal civil conflict. Multiple independent bodies, including United Nations experts and the United States government, have formally accused the RSF of committing genocide amid the war that broke out in 2023. While the UAE has repeatedly denied any backing for the paramilitary group, a growing body of open evidence from UN investigators, human rights organizations, and regional reporting confirms substantial Emirati support for the RSF. Previous investigations have also documented consistent arms transfers to the RSF facilitated by smuggling networks operating out of Libya, Chad, and the breakaway Somali region of Somaliland.

    The FT’s August 4 investigation opened with a shocking revelation: in the opening days of Sudan’s war, RSF fighters stole 1.5 tonnes of gold bullion valued at approximately $100 million from Sudan’s state-owned Khartoum Gold Refinery. According to the report, the UAE provided military and civilian cargo aircraft to transport the stolen gold out of Sudan, with the shipment transiting through Chad and South Sudan before reaching its final destination. The investigation also mapped out a network of Emirati-built airstrips, naval outposts, and other military facilities across the region that play a key role in deploying mercenaries and facilitating the illicit gold trade out of Sudan. It corroborated prior evidence from UN experts, flight tracking analysts, and human rights groups documenting arms trafficking networks that have sustained the RSF’s campaign throughout the war.

    On the economic and commercial front, the UAE has rapidly expanded its presence across Africa through major state-backed entities including DP World and Abu Dhabi Ports, securing major long-term concessions for port infrastructure and logistics networks across the continent. DP World currently operates or is developing ports, inland cargo terminals, and special economic free zones in 13 African countries, with distribution networks reaching into more than 25 African states. Emirati firms have also committed billions of dollars in investment to extractive industries across the continent: copper mining in Zambia, gold mining in the Democratic Republic of Congo, Ethiopia and Mali, iron ore development in Mauritania, and tin extraction in eastern DRC. The FT concluded that the UAE has emerged as the most consequential foreign power to reshape the African continent’s economic and political landscape over the past decade.

    Cameron Hudson, a former U.S. intelligence official and leading Africa analyst, pushed back against the UAE’s rebuttal, arguing that it contained a fundamental logical flaw. Writing on the social platform X, Hudson noted that two competing claims can be simultaneously true: “UAE can make mutually beneficial, strategic economic investments AND harbor imperial ambitions that leverage those investments for political and strategic gain. In fact, they are both true.”

  • Trump’s slight of South Korea in favor of the North raises broader US security concerns

    Trump’s slight of South Korea in favor of the North raises broader US security concerns

    In a move that has sent shockwaves through Washington and diplomatic circles across the Indo-Pacific, U.S. President Donald Trump has ordered a reduction in the scope of the annual Ulchi Freedom Shield joint military exercises with South Korea, a longstanding core security cooperation initiative designed to deter North Korean aggression. The decision, announced days before the 11-day drills were set to kick off as scheduled Monday, has not only strained ties with a key regional ally but also opened up a new debate about the future of American security commitments across Asia and beyond.

    Trump justified the pullback by pointing to two specific factors: South Korea’s refusal to back the U.S. in potential military conflict against Iran, and his claimed positive personal rapport with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, who has long opposed the joint exercises. The approach underscores the transactional, personality-driven foreign policy that has defined Trump’s presidency, where personal relationships often take priority over longstanding alliance frameworks.

    The move has drawn fierce condemnation from foreign policy experts across both Republican and Democratic administrations, who warn it carries far-reaching negative consequences for U.S. regional interests. Dan Fried, a former assistant secretary of state for European affairs under George W. Bush and currently a fellow at the Atlantic Council, argued the decision serves no identifiable American strategic goal. “On all levels it makes no sense,” Fried said. “It undermines the South Koreans, undermines the Japanese, frightens the Taiwanese, unnerves NATO and emboldens the Chinese, not to mention the North Koreans.”

    Danny Russel, who served as assistant secretary of state for East Asia and the Pacific during the Obama administration and now works as a scholar at the Asia Society Policy Institute in New York, called the choice to align with North Korea’s demands one of the most damaging possible moves for U.S. interests. “It is tragically upside-down. Trump is punishing an ally while encouraging an adversary,” Russel explained. “He is protecting Kim Jong Un’s sensitive feelings from an unfriendly signal at the expense of U.S.-South Korean security.”

    Details of which components of the exercise will be cut remain undisclosed, but the announcement has already left South Korean leadership and security analysts confused. For decades, South Korea has counted on the U.S. security alliance as its primary bulwark against North Korea’s advancing nuclear and ballistic missile program, making national security cooperation a non-negotiable priority for Seoul. The decision also drew immediate pushback from leading congressional Democrats, with House Foreign Affairs Committee top member Rep. Greg Meeks of New York saying, “Treating one of America’s closest allies like an adversary weakens our alliances and benefits China and North Korea.”

    Trump doubled down on his decision the following Monday, taking to social media to post a photo of Kim Jong Un with the playful caption: “HEY DONALD … WE COOL, RIGHT?”

    Retired U.S. Ambassador Robert Wood, who has served across multiple Republican and Democratic administrations, emphasized that the regular joint drills are a critical deterrent against North Korea, which has refused to engage in nuclear denuclearization talks and has ramped up weapons testing in recent months. Beyond deterrence, Wood warned the cutback could push Seoul toward pursuing an independent nuclear capability: “We also don’t want South Korea to draw the conclusion that a nuclear weapons capability is the only guarantee it has to ensure its security.”

    That concern is echoed by Matthew Kroenig, a former defense and intelligence official who now works at the Atlantic Council. Kroenig noted that public opinion polling in South Korea already shows growing support for the country developing its own nuclear arsenal. For decades, the U.S. has worked to reassure South Korea that it is fully protected under the American nuclear umbrella, and scaling back the exercises “potentially undermines that message,” Kroenig said.

    Notably, Trump’s reversal of course on the drills comes even after South Korea’s new President Lee Jae Myung made extensive efforts to court the American leader to advance bilateral trade and defense priorities. During a 2024 Oval Office meeting, Lee openly flattered Trump, echoing the U.S. president’s claim that Kim Jong Un would not have pursued nuclear expansion if Trump had won a second term in 2020, and even floated the possibility of a future Trump Tower development in North Korea. The shift also came just hours after Trump appeared to express sympathy for Lee’s ousted predecessor Yoon Suk Yeol, who was removed from office after imposing martial law in December 2024.

    Charles Kupchan, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations who previously served on the National Security Council under Bill Clinton and Barack Obama, said the decision is likely to prompt long-time U.S. allies to begin planning for a future without consistent American security backing. “They are hoping that the American umbrella is there for the future, but they have to at least contemplate the idea that Uncle Sam won’t be there for them,” Kupchan explained.

    Kupchan acknowledged that Trump is not wrong to push allies like South Korea and European NATO members to take on greater responsibility for their own defense spending, but argued the president’s erratic, confrontational approach erodes the core solidarity that underpins the post-WWII alliance system “because he ends up insulting allies.”

    Fried echoed that critique, noting that Trump has already successfully pressured NATO members and Asian allies to increase their defense budgets, yet appears unwilling to accept that win. “NATO is building up, South Korea is building up, Japan is building up. Trump has a problem with taking the win,” Fried said. “It’s like he wants to burn it all down.”

    John Herbst, a former U.S. ambassador to Ukraine under George W. Bush and another Atlantic Council fellow, said the decision highlights the deep inconsistency of the Trump administration’s foreign policy messaging. Still, he noted that the U.S. has not yet moved to fully dismantle the alliance framework that has served American interests since World War II. “If these things grow in frequency and in importance, obviously we will be in the process of taking apart the alliance system, which has served us so well since the end of World War II,” Herbst said. “But despite some statements which seem to head in that direction, we have not headed there in a consistent, strong way.”

    Kupchan agreed, noting that while Trump’s rhetoric has sounded like a break from longstanding commitments, “the reality is that, at least as of today, Trump has left intact America’s forward bases and its core alliance relationships.”

    It remains unclear whether the scaling back of exercises will mark a permanent shift in U.S. policy toward South Korea and the region, or merely a fleeting, impulsive social media-driven announcement. “He’s an unpredictable president,” Kroenig said. “If we move on and the exercises go as planned and we never hear anything about this again, I wouldn’t be surprised.”

    This report included contributions from Associated Press journalists Collin Binkley, Jesse Bedayn, Lisa Mascaro, Seung Min Kim based in Washington and Farnoush Amiri based in New York.

  • Former Israeli soldier held captive in Gaza asks Ben Gvir to let him execute Palestinian prisoners

    Former Israeli soldier held captive in Gaza asks Ben Gvir to let him execute Palestinian prisoners

    A shocking exchange between a former Israeli soldier held captive in Gaza and far-right Israeli National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir has drawn renewed international scrutiny over the far-right official’s extreme anti-Palestinian policies, coming amid ongoing deadly violations of a fragile 2025 ceasefire in Gaza.

    The conversation unfolded in the debut episode of former captive Rom Braslavski’s new podcast titled *October 8*, which was first reported by Israeli media outlets over the weekend. Braslavski, who was released from Gaza captivity in October 2025, shared a brutal personal request for Ben Gvir during the discussion: that the minister, whose portfolio includes oversight of the Israeli Prison Service, grant him permission to carry out the execution of Palestinian prisoners held in Israeli detention facilities.

    “I have a personal request,” Braslavski told Ben Gvir. “Let me be the one who hangs them. I don’t want a rope — with my own hands I will execute every terrorist in the State of Israel.” Ben Gvir responded immediately with enthusiastic support, saying he would “try and turn the world upside down” to fulfill the request. The far-right minister added that watching released captives execute Palestinian detainees is “one of my dreams,” and described Braslavski as “the right person in the right place […] to hang and execute them one by one.” He added bluntly that Palestinian prisoners “don’t deserve to live.”

    This inflammatory exchange comes as Ben Gvir has spent months advancing a sweeping agenda to escalate abuse against Palestinian detainees held in Israeli custody. Inmates have repeatedly reported widespread torture and sexual assault under the harsh policies Ben Gvir has imposed. Just this month, an Israeli court blocked one of the minister’s more extreme proposals: introducing crocodiles into moats surrounding detention facilities holding Palestinian prisoners. In May, the Israeli Knesset approved a bill sponsored by Ben Gvir’s far-right Otzma Yehudit party that establishes public trials and allows the death penalty for Palestinian detainees accused of involvement in the October 7, 2023 attacks that killed 1,200 people and took 251 captives, including Braslavski.

    Braslavski was working as a security guard at the Nova music festival in southern Israel while on leave from the Israeli military when the 2023 attack took place. As of June 2026, rights groups estimate more than 9,000 Palestinians are held in Israeli detention facilities, with at least 104 Palestinian inmates dying in custody since the October 2023 attacks. During the podcast interview, Ben Gvir openly acknowledged that Palestinian detainees are enduring harsh conditions — and expressed satisfaction with their suffering. “They are suffering, it’s hard for them, it’s bad for them, and I’m glad it’s bad for them,” he said.

    The conversation soon shifted to the situation in Gaza, where Ben Gvir called for a dramatic escalation of Israeli military attacks, saying the country should kill dozens of Palestinian civilians and fighters every night before ultimately permanently expelling the entire Palestinian population from the enclave. “I think we should carry out targeted assassinations in Gaza, taking down 30 to 40 every night,” Ben Gvir said, clarifying that the targets would “not just those who pose an immediate threat.” He added dehumanizing language: “There are people there who are not worthy of life. They shouldn’t live. They’re not even people.”

    Ben Gvir also publicly split with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu over pressure from the United States to limit Israeli attacks in the devastated Gaza Strip, saying he firmly rejects any limits on military operations. He doubled down on his long-standing calls for ethnic cleansing of Gaza, reiterating that the entire enclave should be annexed by Israel and cleared of Palestinians to make way for Israeli settlements. “I see all of Gaza as ours,” he said, adding he wants to see “settlements not just in Gush Katif but throughout Gaza.” He further called for encouraging mass emigration of Palestinians from occupied territories, clarifying that for “terrorists, no emigration, nothing, just to kill them one by one.”

    The inflammatory comments have reignited debate over Ben Gvir’s outsized influence within Netanyahu’s far-right governing coalition. Once a fringe political figure, Ben Gvir has risen to become one of the most powerful voices in Israeli politics in recent years, with his extremist views gaining growing traction among Israeli Jewish citizens. A recent poll from Israeli think tank the Jewish People Policy Institute found that 22 percent of Israeli Jewish citizens support expelling Palestinians from the occupied West Bank, while 38 percent support full annexation of the territory. Most respondents also echoed Ben Gvir’s skepticism over implementing U.S. President Donald Trump’s 15-point Gaza plan.

    Ben Gvir has long faced international consequences for his anti-Palestinian policies: earlier this year, Middle East Eye reported that the International Criminal Court is moving forward with an investigation into Ben Gvir’s alleged crimes against the Palestinian people, and is considering issuing an arrest warrant. He and fellow far-right cabinet member Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich have already been targeted by an international sanctions campaign over their public calls for the extermination and ethnic cleansing of Palestinians.

    The comments come amid ongoing violence in Gaza, just months after a fragile ceasefire between Israel and Hamas took effect in October 2025. Gaza’s Ministry of Health reported last week that 1,258 Palestinians have been killed in Israeli attacks since the ceasefire was signed, with another 4,295 wounded, hundreds of them women and children. Palestinian officials in Gaza have documented thousands of Israeli violations of the ceasefire agreement since it went into effect.

  • Israel formally allows Jewish prayer at Al-Aqsa Mosque in violation of status quo

    Israel formally allows Jewish prayer at Al-Aqsa Mosque in violation of status quo

    In a groundbreaking and deeply controversial shift that upends a long-standing global consensus on one of the Middle East’s most sensitive holy sites, Israeli authorities have for the first time formally permitted Jewish prayer inside the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound in occupied East Jerusalem. This step marks the most significant breach yet of the decades-old internationally recognized status quo that has governed access to and administration of the site for generations.

    According to an anonymous Palestinian source familiar with site management from the Jerusalem Islamic Waqf — the religious endowment that oversees the mosque under the status quo agreement — Israeli police allowed Israeli settlers entering the compound on Sunday to bring Jewish prayer books (known as siddurim) and conduct organized group prayer. While unapproved individual Jewish prayer has been quietly tolerated during regular settler incursions in recent years, this marks the first time the practice has received explicit official backing.

    The decades-old status quo framework, which has been accepted by the international community for decades, designates the entire 14.4-hectare Al-Aqsa compound as an exclusively Islamic holy site, with full authority for access, worship arrangements, maintenance and archaeological work falling exclusively to the Jerusalem Islamic Waqf. Since Israel occupied East Jerusalem in 1967, however, the agreement has faced incremental erosion, and the formal permission for Jewish prayer represents the most consequential breaking of that arrangement to date.

    Explaining the gravity of the shift, the anonymous Palestinian source emphasized a critical line between visiting the site as a guest under existing rules and imposing new, unapproved practices. “There is an important distinction between coming to visit the site and coming to pray there,” the source said. “When I come to your place as a visitor, you impose your rules on me. But today, they come with their own rules. When the police officially allow that, it means, in one way or another, that you are allowing them to establish their own rules in the space. This is an official breach of the status quo.”

    The source added that the decision has transformed what were once isolated, quiet individual acts of Jewish prayer into an organized, institutionalized group practice. “Jewish prayer at Al-Aqsa Mosque is becoming an organised practice, rather than merely an isolated individual act,” they said. The development is part of a rapidly accelerating campaign of restrictions on Palestinian access to the compound and the Waqf’s administrative control that has picked up dramatic pace since October 2023, the source added. “The pace of developments at Al-Aqsa Mosque since 7 October is staggering. Things are changing at an incredible speed, almost daily. We have essentially lost control.”

    Israeli newspaper Haaretz has confirmed that the push to allow Jewish worshippers to bring prayer materials into Al-Aqsa launched in early 2024, and Israeli police have already permitted prayer, singing and dancing in the mosque’s open courtyard. The paper added that Israeli police confirm their enforcement policies at the site are set “in accordance with directives from the political leadership.”

    Just last month, a mass incursion of ultranationalist Israelis led by far-right Israeli cabinet ministers and lawmakers saw more than 3,500 settlers enter the compound. Leading the raid was Itamar Ben Gvir, Israel’s far-right National Security Minister — who has direct oversight over Israeli police, and is a prominent settler who has long demanded the imposition of full “Israeli sovereignty” over the Al-Aqsa compound. During the July raid, Ben Gvir publicly declared: “Look at what is happening here – Jews praying, feeling like they are the owners here.”

    Mustafa Abu Sway, a senior member of the Jerusalem Islamic Waqf Council, told Middle East Eye that the repeated violations are not isolated incidents, but a deliberate government strategy backed by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. “This desecration, including the introduction of prayer books inside the mosque, forms part of the systematic dismantling of what remains of the historic status quo at the blessed Al-Aqsa Mosque, with Itamar Ben Gvir determining what happens on the ground, with the approval of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu,” Abu Sway said.

    Abu Sway added that alongside the expansion of organized Jewish access and worship at the site, the Israeli government continues to enforce harsh, arbitrary restrictions on Muslim worshippers seeking to enter the compound and limit the Waqf’s ability to carry out its administrative duties. “Muslim worshippers are prevented from entering in a manner that appears arbitrary on the surface but in fact reflects a systematic policy,” he added.

  • Trump warns US will ‘bomb shit out of’ Oman if it strays from Washington’s line on Iran

    Trump warns US will ‘bomb shit out of’ Oman if it strays from Washington’s line on Iran

    In a startling revelation from Fox News, former US President Donald Trump has issued a direct and aggressive threat to bomb Oman if the Gulf nation disrupts Washington’s ongoing diplomatic efforts to strike a new agreement with Iran over control of the strategic Strait of Hormuz. The inflammatory comment came during an exchange with Fox News correspondent Trey Yingst, who posed a question to Trump about the parallel bilateral negotiations between Iran and Oman focused on strait governance. Yingst confirmed that Trump’s blunt response was unreserved: “If Oman gets in the way, we’ll bomb the shit out of them.”

    This threat lands against a backdrop of advancing diplomatic progress between Tehran and Muscat, which have already reached a preliminary understanding on a new framework for managing maritime transit through the strait. The two neighboring states are currently working through final technical and procedural details to release an official joint statement outlining the agreement, Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Esmaeil Baghaei confirmed amid continued negotiations on Monday. Baghaei noted that the talks have been slowed by persistent security instability stemming from recent US and Israeli military operations across the region, describing the process of drafting the maritime transit route framework as uniquely time-consuming due to overlapping security complexities inherent to the strategically critical waterway. “The issue is inherently complex,” he added.

    The proposed bilateral mechanism, according to Baghaei, is designed to achieve two core, mutually reinforcing goals: protecting the full sovereign rights and national interests of both Iran and Oman, while also guaranteeing unimpeded safe passage for commercial shipping vessels moving through the strait. He emphasized that this framework marks a historic first for the region, creating a structured system that simultaneously upholds the sovereignty of the two littoral states and addresses the global need for secure commercial transit through the key chokepoint. Intensive negotiations to finalize the joint statement are still ongoing, he confirmed.

    The Strait of Hormuz, which carries roughly 20% of the world’s daily supply of oil and liquefied natural gas, saw a sharp, unexpected drop in shipping traffic over the most recent weekend. Data compiled by leading shipping analytics firm Kpler shows that only five commodity-carrying vessels transited the strait on Saturday, with zero recorded transits on Sunday — a dramatic decline from the 31 vessels that passed through the same route the previous weekend.

    In additional comments made on Monday, Trump doubled down on his hardline stance toward Iran, urging the country to what he described as a “white flag of surrender.” He dismissed Iran’s negotiating position, claiming “They’re good poker players, but they’re dying.” The former president also made an unprecedented admission, confirming that Washington maintains active backchannel communication directly with officials from Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), a group that the US has formally designated as a foreign terrorist organization. “We have a backchannel with the IRGC. We are speaking directly with the IRGC officials in Iran,” Trump stated.

    Turning to the ongoing conflict in Gaza, Trump made unexpected claims about ceasefire and disarmament efforts, saying “Israelis should not be striking in Gaza. Hamas agreed to lay down their weapons.” He further confirmed that the US maintains a separate, dedicated channel of communication with Hamas leadership, asserting “We have a different channel with Hamas, and ultimately they are giving up their guns.”

    Trump’s reported approach to Gaza centers on a revised peace plan that would see Hamas complete full disarmament in exchange for a complete withdrawal of Israeli military forces from the Gaza Strip. Even as Washington pushes forward with this proposal, Israeli officials have publicly rejected the framework, creating a diplomatic deadlock that persists as of Monday.