Category: World News

He thought he was falling for someone named “Eliza” — and ended up losing everything he had saved. Meanwhile, halfway around the world, a young man was smuggled into a criminal compound, beaten, and forced to become “Ella” online. Though separated by thousands of miles, Chris Colocousis and Safeer Mohammed Koorimannil found themselves on opposite ends of the same ruthless global cyberscam machine.

A joint investigation by AP and FRONTLINE uncovered that American technology is woven throughout the digital supply chains connecting scammers to their victims. While most public attention has been directed at the social media platforms where victims are first contacted, the infrastructure enabling these crimes stretches much further back — from artificial intelligence tools that help create convincing fake personas, to satellite equipment that helps scammers dodge internet restrictions, to internet service providers carrying data out of the lawless border regions of Myanmar to the devices of millions of unsuspecting people worldwide.

Watchdogs note that while U.S. tech companies aren’t breaking any laws, they possess the technical ability to do more to prevent these abuses — yet face little legal, regulatory, or financial pressure to act.

For Colocousis, the trouble began when a woman reached out to him on Facebook. She had a New York phone number and claimed to work at a well-known financial firm in Atlanta. “Eliza” suggested they video chat, and when he saw her on screen — the same blonde woman from her profile photos, complete with small bags under her eyes — she seemed completely real.

Now, Colocousis, a divorced man in his 60s, has no way of knowing where “Eliza” actually is, whether he was ever speaking with a real person or an AI like ChatGPT, or even whether “she” is actually a woman. What he does know is that the $400,000 he said he “invested” at Eliza’s direction has vanished — along with the comfortable retirement he spent years building.

“I think I have a degree of PTSD from it, to be honest with you. I still wake up occasionally in the middle of the night with anxiety where it just all of a sudden hits me,” he said from his home in Massachusetts. “I really never want to leave my house.”

Colocousis said he had planned to retire within a few years, but now faces the prospect of continuing to work and possibly taking out a home equity loan to stay afloat.

“Most people react when they find out somebody was scammed, is like, how stupid could you be? Well, I’m an educated guy. You know, what is my flaw in this? My flaw is I was looking for a companionship,” he said. “I’m at peace for now being by myself.”

Koorimannil, 30, had a very different experience with the same criminal industry. According to records he managed to smuggle out to AP, the software on his computer at the Tai Chang scam compound in Myanmar allowed him to target approximately 50,000 victims from at least 17 countries in a single month. Among those targeted were a widowed tailor in Kurdistan, a pastry chef in Turkey, soldiers in Iraq, an engineer in Russia, and a building painter in Germany. Working with security nonprofit C4ADS, AP determined that the tools Koorimannil was forced to use were partly powered by American artificial intelligence models.

On a typical work shift, Koorimannil said he was managing conversations with more than 100 people across dozens of fake profiles simultaneously, all while supervisors walked the floor carrying electric batons. He said he was beaten when he failed to scam people effectively, and photographs document the red, swollen marks left on his body.

“When they came near my computer, my hands would shake and sweat,” he told AP in his native Malayalam language from his home in southern India.

At night, he said, he and his closest friend would huddle together in a single narrow bunk, too scared to sleep on their own.

Koorimannil said he ultimately paid more than $5,000 to secure his release and has since returned to work in his family’s fish business. He sometimes struggles to accept the limits of the life he was born into, but says the price of chasing something more was far too high.

“I’ve learned to stay hungry and I have learned to be patient,” he said. “I was not like this before. After coming back from Myanmar, I know how to be hungry and patient.”

This story is based on a documentary photo essay curated by AP photo editors.

A sweeping investigation conducted jointly by the Associated Press and FRONTLINE drew on tens of thousands of leaked documents, videos, and photos from scam centers, along with an in-depth analysis of how artificial intelligence is being misused at those facilities. The project also involved a close look at more than 200,000 internet connections made by devices at four scam compounds in Myanmar — all of which have been tied to entities under U.S. government sanctions. Researchers also spoke with 58 people who were defrauded and roughly three dozen individuals who worked at scam operations, representing 19 countries in total.

The AP examined a specific sample of 202,013 device connections traced to those four Myanmar compounds. The data used in the analysis was commercially available advertising technology data obtained by International Justice Mission, an anti-trafficking nonprofit organization, which then shared it with the AP. The data covers several time windows between February 2025 and January 2026.

Every entry in the dataset recorded a device’s physical location coordinates along with its IP address. The AP used a database from Scamalytics, a company specializing in fraud prevention, to determine which internet service providers were assigned those IP addresses. When results were unclear or conflicting, the AP defaulted to the information provided by Scamalytics.

This approach made it possible to pinpoint not only where internet traffic was physically originating, but also which companies were profiting by providing hosting services for it. The dataset was further analyzed using risk indicators from Scamalytics, which draws on several open-source blacklists — including those maintained by Firehol, IP2ProxyLite, IPSum, Spamhaus, and X4Bnet Spambot — as well as Scamalytics’ own scoring system based on fraud reports and internal analysis. Those scores reflect potential risk and are not proof of confirmed fraud.

Reporters note several important limitations. The dataset only captures devices that had geolocation enabled, meaning the actual internet infrastructure supporting these compounds is likely far more extensive than what the data reflects. Additionally, Spur Intelligence Corporation, a cybersecurity firm, reviewed the data and flagged instances of ad fraud. The AP removed those known cases from its analysis, though additional undetected instances may remain.

Telecommunications firms and internet service providers can serve scam operations in multiple ways — providing basic internet access, hosting fraudulent websites like fake cryptocurrency platforms or counterfeit shopping sites, enabling VPN or proxy services to hide real locations, or simply routing internet traffic. While patterns in the data may point toward certain uses, the commercially available data alone cannot support definitive conclusions.

The four compounds where devices were geolocated are: Tai Chang, Deko Park, KK Park, and a newly identified compound near Hpakalu, Myanmar.

KK Park, like many scam operations along the Thai border, operates under the protection of the Karen Border Guard Force — also referred to as the Karen National Army, or KNA — an armed militia composed of ethnic Karen people from eastern Myanmar that is affiliated with Myanmar’s military, according to U.S. and European government sanctions documents. In May 2025, the U.S. Treasury designated the KNA as a transnational criminal organization, pointing to its role in enabling cyberscams targeting Americans and facilitating human trafficking. Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control stated the KNA provided security at KK Park and profited from scam activities by leasing land to criminal groups. Myanmar’s military government launched a high-profile demolition effort against KK Park in October 2025, causing scammers to disperse — including to the emerging site near Hpakalu. The International Justice Mission found that some devices active at KK Park just before the raids later showed activity at the Hpakalu location in January 2026.

Deko Park and Tai Chang are situated in territory controlled by the Democratic Karen Benevolent Army, known as the DKBA. The U.S. Treasury Department sanctioned the DKBA in November 2025, citing its support for cyberscam centers, including the Tai Chang compound, where survivors of trafficking have reported being tortured and beaten by DKBA soldiers.

The AP also confirmed satellite imagery of 25 newly identified scam compounds in Myanmar, flagged by International Justice Mission, that have either appeared or expanded considerably since the October 2025 crackdown on KK Park and similar sites. The AP reviewed a sample of device activity at these locations between March 1, 2026, and June 1, 2026. At least 13 of those compounds showed connections using Starlink IP addresses. That data represents only a sample and may not capture all Starlink activity at those sites.

The AP provided detailed information about the timing and location of device connections to every company referenced in the investigation.

This investigation is part of a continuing collaboration between the Associated Press and FRONTLINE on PBS, which includes an upcoming documentary.

Even decades after the fact, Samar Kabouli treasures the memory of sitting among the women in her family, sharing cardamom-spiced coffee while they worked colorful threads through fabric in distinctly Palestinian patterns.

Kabouli was born in Lebanon to Palestinian refugees and had never set foot in her parents’ homeland. Yet with every stitch, she was weaving something deeper than decoration — a bond with her roots.

That craft is called “tatreez,” and Kabouli, now 48, began practicing this traditional Palestinian embroidery as a teenager as a way to earn money. Beyond the income it provided, tatreez became a pathway connecting her to the land her parents were forced to leave during the 1948 mass displacement that Palestinians refer to as the Nakba — meaning catastrophe.

During the 1948 war that accompanied Israel’s founding, hundreds of thousands of Palestinians were driven from or abandoned their homes in what is now Israel. They were never allowed to return.

Through her work, Kabouli communicates a message of endurance and survival.

“We’re still here,” she said. “All what has been happening in Gaza … and we’re still standing and we’ll not forget the cause.”

Whether in refugee camps, community stitching circles, museum galleries, or virtual classrooms, tatreez holds a significance for Palestinian diaspora communities that goes far beyond its visual appeal.

Practitioners view it as a celebration of their cultural roots, a link to their homeland and to scattered communities around the globe, and — through its many symbolic motifs — a visual form of storytelling. For many, regardless of whether they are refugees, tatreez has become an emblem of Palestinian identity and pride, a means of recording history, and an act of resistance.

Since the outbreak of the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza, some have used tatreez to raise money for people there, while others have stitched designs intended to draw attention to Palestinian suffering in the territory.

“We had a lot of people who came and they’re like, ‘OK, we want to do a T-shirt with a Gaza chest or we want to do a scarf with the Gaza motif,’” said Ali Jaafar, general manager of Inaash Association, where Kabouli is employed. The Lebanese organization gives Palestinian women living in refugee camps in Lebanon a source of income through tatreez, while also working to preserve and promote the tradition. It markets embroidered fashion, home decor, and artwork, and presents the craft in exhibitions and museums.

Broader efforts to keep tatreez alive and raise its profile among Palestinian communities both locally and internationally are part of a larger mission to protect a heritage and a connection to history and place that many fear could be wiped away.

“Palestinian tatreez is an identity and a document of our presence in every Palestinian village and town,” said Maha Saca, founder and director of the Palestinian Heritage Center in Bethlehem in the Israeli-occupied West Bank. She noted that antique embroidered thobes — traditional dresses — serve as evidence of Palestinian presence in specific locations before the widespread displacement of their people. “The Palestinian woman has written the story of her village through motifs from her surrounding environment and her beliefs,” Saca said. “We’re struggling through culture and saying we have roots.”

The Palestinian embroidery tradition was added to UNESCO’s list of Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity in 2021.

In New York, Lina Barkawi, who runs a small business teaching tatreez, said the “constant fight for liberation and having a Palestinian identity that’s recognized globally is really what has been driving a lot of this documentation.”

In Arabic, the word tatreez refers broadly to embroidery as well as to the specific Palestinian tradition, which is typically passed down through generations — from grandmothers to mothers to daughters. Some also seek out formal instruction.

The motifs Palestinian women historically drew from their natural and cultural surroundings mean that old embroidered thobes can reveal details about a woman’s personal story, her environment, and her regional identity through patterns, design, and color, according to Saca.

In the Palestinian context, those connections to specific times and places — including areas that now fall within Israel — carry added weight as proof of what once existed. “How do we have a Jaffa thobe if we hadn’t been in Jaffa?” she said. “We write history on our thobes.”

There is also a thread of continuity running through the craft. Saca’s grandmother’s embroidered wedding thobe bears the distinctive characteristics of Bethlehem dresses, she noted. Embroideries copied from that dress were later incorporated into her own granddaughter’s baptism gown.

Tatreez can carry political weight as well, both through its preservation and its creation.

“Just being able to have some of the dresses from pre-1948 is a political act,” Barkawi said.

There is also the tradition of the so-called “intifada thobe,” which featured embroidered political and Palestinian symbols including the flag. It is associated with the “first intifada,” or uprising, which began in 1987 against Israel’s occupation and was met with a forceful Israeli response.

Following the outbreak of the war in Gaza — triggered by Hamas’ October 7, 2023, attack on Israel — fashion designer Hama Hinnawi channeled her grief into tatreez. The craft is typically vibrant with color, she noted, but the moment called for something different.

The outcome was black embroidery on black fabric — a statement of mourning for the deaths, destruction, and displacement unfolding in Gaza. She has also experimented with transforming iconic images from the war into new embroidery motifs.

“We have a big responsibility on our shoulders to tell this story, not to be buried for the next generations … through tatreez, through art, through speaking.”

Born in Jordan to Palestinian parents, Hinnawi set out to bring awareness to Palestinian heritage through her fashion brand by blending tatreez with modern design. To her, tatreez simply means home — “identity, pride, storytelling,” said Hinnawi, who divides her time between Chicago and Jordan.

She has created embroidery work opportunities for Palestinian women in refugee camps in Jordan and has spoken about tatreez in the United States. Before the war, she also collaborated with women in Gaza.

Barkawi leads an online community of Palestinian and non-Palestinian embroiderers, some of whom have produced designs sold to raise funds for families in Gaza. One design incorporates a “water and seeds” motif alongside an embroidered message reading “Feed Gaza Now.”

Members living in different countries also collectively recreated a tapestry that once hung in a Gaza home that was bombed, with each person stitching a section and mailing it to the next.

Born in the United States to a Palestinian father and a Panamanian mother, Barkawi said that learning tatreez strengthened her sense of Palestinian identity. Completing her first thobe took two years. She wove in motifs with personal meaning — palm trees representing her name in Arabic, and orchids, Panama’s national flower, in honor of her mother. Though technically imperfect, it became the perfect dress for her Islamic marriage ceremony.

“I embedded my story as a Palestinian in the diaspora into this dress,” she said.

Back in Lebanon, Kabouli once dreamed of owning a tatreez piece for her wedding trousseau but could not afford one. After their parents passed away, an older sister had turned to tatreez work with Inaash to help support the family, and Kabouli learned the craft from her.

Now working as a production supervisor at Inaash in Beirut, Kabouli sees echoes of her younger self in the women laboring in refugee camps across Lebanon — many in the south, a region heavily affected by the most recent Israel-Hezbollah war. The richness of tatreez often stands in sharp contrast to the difficult conditions inside the camps, where residents face restrictions on employment and other aspects of daily life. With frequent power outages, women eager to complete a piece and receive payment may climb to rooftops to catch the last light of day, according to Jaafar.

Beyond the financial benefit, Kabouli said the act of embroidering can be grounding — almost meditative. She also carries a deeper longing: to one day visit the homeland her parents came from, in what is now Israel.

For now, tatreez gives her hope.

“I don’t feel like I am far away. I keep working on Palestinian heritage, following the cause,” she said. “It connects me to my homeland, especially since we’re deprived of it.”

After nearly 40 years of calling Britain home, a man named Ali Haydor says there are days when he wishes he could conceal the color of his skin.

Haydor, who moved to Britain from Bangladesh at the age of five, has watched his home city of Southampton erupt in violent protests following the murder conviction of a British-born Sikh man. That man had falsely claimed his white victim had carried out a racist attack against him. A video showing police handcuffing the dying victim — released at the time of the June 1 sentencing — ignited public outrage and prompted politicians across party lines to call for an end to police guidance that allows for different treatment based on ethnicity.

Just one week later, gangs of masked individuals went door to door in Belfast searching for migrants, after a white man was stabbed multiple times and lost an eye in an attack carried out by a Sudanese immigrant.

Although such incidents are uncommon, they have become a rallying point for right-wing politicians and activists who have zeroed in on crime to stoke long-simmering tensions over national identity and immigration. For many ethnic minority residents, the result is a Britain that once felt like a stable, welcoming home now feels increasingly threatening.

“Anybody of colour is at risk at the moment,” said Haydor, who is 44 years old. “As much as we love our heritage and identity, sometimes (I wish) we could just hide it.”

According to the Migration Observatory, British attitudes toward immigration were more open than most of Europe in the early 2020s. However, multiple polls indicate those views have hardened since 2022. Surveys consistently show younger and more left-leaning voters tend to be more welcoming of immigration, while older and more right-leaning voters are less so.

British Social Attitudes surveys suggest much of the public concern is tied specifically to asylum seekers arriving by small boats, rather than people coming to work or study.

Reuters spoke with policy experts and 10 trade unions whose members have reported a noticeable uptick in racist incidents. These include patients refusing medical care based on a nurse’s race, an increase in racist comments in workplaces, and migrant workers describing repeated experiences of discrimination on the job.

The Royal College of Nursing reported a 55% increase in workers experiencing racial discrimination since 2022. Paul Rees, head of the Nursing and Midwifery Council, noted in 2025 that roughly one-third of the sector’s workforce is Black, Asian, or from a minority ethnic background. He said many of those workers report “they are today facing the kind of abuse they haven’t received in decades.”

Prime Minister Keir Starmer has repeatedly spoken out against racism in all forms and against the violence connected to it, cautioning that racist language is making a troubling comeback. But union leaders and experts argue that political messaging — from the government as well as other political figures — has helped create an environment where open racism is increasingly tolerated.

Populist political leader Nigel Farage, speaking after Southampton protesters clashed with police, claimed British institutions were biased against white people. Starmer firmly rejected that claim and accused Farage of trying to exploit a tragedy to deepen divisions.

Haydor, a Muslim who works as a private hire driver, said he had seen racism ease from the mid-1990s onward, only for it to resurface during politically charged moments — including the 2016 Brexit vote, which placed heavy emphasis on immigration. But in recent weeks, he said he has felt more uneasy than ever. Passengers have brought up the murder case and asked for his views. Two passengers told him that Muslims were “not compatible” with Britain and the West.

Hardeep Singh, deputy director of the Network of Sikh Organisations, said he reported a hate email to police that called for Sikhism to be made “extinct.” He described social media as “a cesspit of venom” and said he had not seen “anything like this vitriol ever before.”

In Belfast, the stabbing of a local man by a Sudanese refugee who had been granted permission to remain in Britain set off days of civil unrest. Rioters targeted the homes and businesses of ethnic minorities across Northern Ireland, burning properties and vehicles and forcing many families to flee.

Twasul Mohammed, who escaped Sudan’s civil war as a refugee in 2016 and now lives in the British province, told Reuters, “women and kids are terrified… I haven’t sent my kids to school since this has happened.”

She said many minority ethnic residents feel Northern Ireland has grown more hostile since riots in 2024 — part of a broader wave of violence that swept the UK after three young girls were murdered at a Taylor Swift dance class in the English town of Southport. The attacker was initially and falsely reported online to be an asylum seeker who had arrived by boat. In reality, a 17-year-old boy born in Britain to Rwandan parents pleaded guilty to those crimes.

Shortly after the unrest in Southampton and Belfast, a 36-year-old man was charged in Edinburgh, Scotland, following a series of attacks that Prime Minister Starmer said appeared to be motivated by anti-Muslim bias.

Police-recorded hate crimes in England and Wales rose for the first time in three years during the year ending March 2025, with racially motivated offenses climbing 6% to 82,490 incidents.

Britain is home to large and diverse immigrant communities, many of which trace their roots to the country’s colonial era. According to the 2021 Census, 18% of the population of England and Wales identified as Black, Asian, mixed, or another ethnic group.

While racism has deep historical roots in Britain — connected to transatlantic slavery and colonialism and persisting throughout much of the 20th century — the country has been seen as relatively successful at integrating diverse communities, with ethnic minorities increasingly visible in public life.

Rishi Sunak became Britain’s first prime minister of color when he took over leadership of the Conservative Party in 2022. He was later succeeded in that party role by Kemi Badenoch, who was born in Britain to Nigerian parents and spent much of her childhood in Nigeria.

A 2016 EU survey found that migrants in Britain from Sub-Saharan Africa, Asia, and South Asia reported the lowest levels of discrimination compared to those in other European countries surveyed.

But public opinion appears to be shifting. The British Social Attitudes survey found the share of people who believe immigration benefits the economy and culture dropped from 50% in 2022 to just 32% in 2025.

Immigration was a central issue in Britain’s 2016 vote to leave the European Union. Yet net migration climbed sharply after Brexit, as Britain brought in healthcare workers from India and Nigeria to fill staffing shortages and saw a surge in non-EU students enrolling at its universities. While net migration averaged 223,000 during the 2000s and 260,000 during the 2010s, it hit a record 944,000 in the year ending March 2023.

Farage’s Reform UK party — which has had to remove certain candidates and activists for making racist remarks — has led every major political poll over the past year. Among its policy proposals are mass deportations of anyone who arrived in Britain illegally and the removal of foreign nationals from social housing.

Interior minister Shabana Mahmood warned in March that the record immigration levels recorded under the previous Conservative government had placed serious strain on public services. In pushing for stricter citizenship rules, she cautioned that people who had settled in Britain decades ago could face a backlash if the system was not fixed.

Tougher visa regulations did cut net migration significantly in 2025 — dropping to 171,000 from 331,000 the year before. However, the number of asylum seekers arriving by small boats continued to rise, increasing 13% to 41,000 in 2025. While those figures are far smaller than the number of legal arrivals, opposition politicians and anti-migration activists argue they demonstrate the government has lost control of its borders.

For many people, all of this has contributed to a more tense and divided Britain.

Marcia Dixon, a 61-year-old whose parents came to Britain as part of the post-war Windrush generation of Caribbean migrants invited to help rebuild the country, said she worries the racism of the 1970s is making a comeback. She said parties like Reform use inflammatory language when responding to news stories involving people of color, and she expressed concern about younger people being exposed to that kind of rhetoric for the first time.

“It felt like things were improving,” Dixon said. “But some of that now feels like it’s being slowly rolled back. If I was younger, I’d probably feel more fearful.”

BEIJING — China’s armed forces and coast guard announced Tuesday that they had conducted separate patrols in the waters surrounding Scarborough Shoal in the South China Sea, citing the need to defend Beijing’s territorial claims over the area.

The Southern Theatre Command of the People’s Liberation Army reported that its naval and air units carried out combat-readiness operations in the territorial waters and airspace around the shoal.

Scarborough Shoal, which China refers to as “Huangyan Dao,” is claimed by both China and the Philippines and stands as one of the most bitterly contested maritime locations in Asia.

In a separate announcement, the China Coast Guard said it also conducted law-enforcement patrols Tuesday in and around the shoal’s waters. The agency said it has stepped up patrols throughout the month and taken action against vessels engaged in what it described as “illegal rights-violation activities,” though it offered no further details.

The Philippine embassy in Beijing had not responded to requests for comment regarding the patrols by either the military or the coast guard.

The Tuesday patrols came on the heels of joint U.S.-Philippine military exercises conducted near Scarborough Shoal over the weekend. Washington stated those drills reflected a shared dedication to building regional and international cooperation in support of a free and open Indo-Pacific.

China’s military responded Monday, saying it had performed a routine patrol in the South China Sea during the weekend and criticizing the Philippines for bringing in countries from outside the region, claiming such actions threaten peace and stability in the area.

In recent years, Beijing has ramped up its sovereignty assertions over Scarborough Shoal, including establishing a national nature reserve at the site — a move the Philippines condemned as a “clear pretext for occupation.”

Earlier this month, the Philippines reported that China had placed a floating platform at the entrance to the shoal in late May, which was later removed. Beijing maintained that any activities it carries out there, including scientific research, fall within the legitimate rights of a sovereign nation.

WELLINGTON — Final results from New Caledonia’s provincial elections have revealed a fragmented legislature, with the pro-France coalition winning the most seats but failing to secure a governing majority, leaving a small centrist Pacific party holding the balance of power.

The vote, which took place on June 28, was the first provincial election in the French Pacific territory since 2019. It came after multiple postponements and followed violent unrest in 2024 triggered by proposed changes to the local electoral roll — tensions that laid bare the strained relationship between France and New Caledonia’s Indigenous Kanak people.

New Caledonia sits roughly 1,500 kilometers — about 930 miles — east of Australia and is home to approximately 270,000 people. The population includes around 41% Melanesian Kanaks and 24% of European descent, predominantly French. The territory has long been divided between those who favor independence and those who wish to remain part of France.

According to final figures released by the High Commission, Sonia Backes’ loyalist alliance, Les Loyalistes-Le Rassemblement, secured 24 of the 54 seats in the Congress. Meanwhile, the pro-independence grouping — made up of UC-FLNKS, UNI-Palika, and Dynamique Autochtone — captured 26 seats.

The remaining four seats belong to the centrist party L’Eveil oceanien, which is now positioned as the deciding force in determining the direction of the next executive government.

New Caledonia’s political system requires Congress to elect the government through proportional representation. Once formed, government members then select a president and vice president from within their own ranks.

The stakes are especially high because the incoming government is expected to play a central role in shaping future negotiations with France over the territory’s political status. Three referendums have been held on the question of independence, with the most recent in 2021 returning a majority in favor of remaining part of France. However, that vote was boycotted by pro-independence parties, who had sought a postponement due to a COVID-19 outbreak and a period of Kanak mourning.

Taiwan’s President Lai Ching-te delivered a strong warning to graduating military officers Tuesday, telling them to stay vigilant against China’s efforts to spy on and undermine the island’s armed forces.

Lai spoke at a graduation ceremony held at Fu Hsing Kang College, located on the outskirts of Taipei. The college, now part of the National Defence University, was established in 1951 — just two years after the Republic of China government retreated to Taiwan following its defeat in a civil war against Mao Zedong’s communist forces.

The institution was originally created to train military officers in political warfare and to foster a strong anti-communist identity within the ranks. That Cold War-era spirit remains very much present at the school today.

Addressing the graduates, Lai said a soldier’s honor is rooted in loyalty. He called on the new officers to be clear-eyed about who their adversaries are.

“In the face of various threats and challenges, as well as China’s infiltration, division, sabotage, and espionage activities targeting our armed forces, I ask all of you to establish a clear awareness of friend and foe,” Lai said.

“Only by resisting all forms of threat and temptation can we defend our nation’s sovereignty and security,” he added.

The president also urged graduates to oppose communism, protect against infiltration, and firmly uphold democratic values and freedom. He insisted that the Republic of China and the People’s Republic of China are not subordinate to one another — using Taiwan’s formal official name in making that point.

Taiwan and China have long engaged in mutual espionage, but Taiwan has recently reported a rising number of Chinese spying cases, particularly within its military. China, which considers Taiwan part of its own territory, has never ruled out using military force to bring the island under its control, and Chinese military activity around Taiwan occurs on a daily basis.

Inside the hall where Lai delivered his address, large Chinese characters flank both sides of the room. The inscription — “I regard the nation’s rise or fall as my own personal responsibility” — was written by former Taiwan leader Chiang Kai-shek shortly before his death in 1975. Chiang remains a divisive figure in Taiwan, condemned by some for his authoritarian rule while admired by others for his fierce opposition to communism.

During the Cold War, the college also trained military officers from other anti-communist nations around the world, and it continues to host international students today.

Among those attending Tuesday’s ceremony were the ambassadors of Belize, Guatemala, and Paraguay — three countries that maintain formal diplomatic relations with Taiwan — as well as the de facto ambassador from Jordan, which does not officially recognize Taiwan despite having maintained close military ties during the Cold War.

A large fire erupted early Tuesday morning at an oil refinery located in Haldia, India, according to reports from local media outlets.

The fire started in a pipeline that carries naphtha, a highly flammable petroleum liquid used in the refining process. Multiple workers at the facility were hurt in the incident, media reports indicated.

As of the initial reports, investigators had not yet determined what caused the blaze to break out.

CARACAS — Construction worker Anderson Daniel Salcedo had spent three months locked in U.S. immigration detention before stepping onto a repatriation flight last Wednesday. He touched down in Venezuela just hours before a pair of devastating earthquakes struck his homeland.

The 22-year-old, a passionate soccer fan, had spent more than three years living in the United States, sending money back home so his mother could build a house. After landing at Maiquetia airport near the capital Caracas, Salcedo and more than 140 fellow returning migrants — among them seven children — were transported to the nearby government-operated Hotel Santuario La Llanada, perched on a hilltop with views of the Caribbean Sea, where they were to wait for processing.

What happened next was catastrophic. Venezuela’s most powerful earthquakes in over a century tore through coastal La Guaira state, bringing the hotel down and, according to relatives, likely killing the majority of the deportees sheltering inside.

Salcedo made it out alive, but with life-altering injuries. Now, his family — along with relatives of others lost in the collapse — are raising serious questions about why returning migrants were placed at that location, and why their phones and identification documents were confiscated, which made it far harder to locate and identify survivors.

Venezuela’s Return to the Homeland Grand Mission, the government program responsible for receiving returning migrants, did not respond to questions from Reuters. Three days after the earthquakes, the program posted a message of condolence on its social media account along with phone numbers for families to call.

“We express our deepest sorrow and solidarity over the tragic loss of life caused by the recent earthquakes,” the post read. “Today we embrace each other in grief, but tomorrow we will rise stronger. We are a people of light, resilience, and hope; together, step by step, we will overcome this trial and find our way home again. You are not alone.”

Venezuelan authorities report that at least 1,750 people died in the earthquakes, which destroyed or seriously damaged more than 850 buildings, injured thousands more, and left approximately 16,000 people without homes. A website run by the country’s political opposition lists roughly 45,000 people as still unaccounted for.

Satellite images from Vantor show a large portion of the hotel reduced to a heap of concrete and twisted metal, with broken roof tiles strewn across the wreckage. Part of the structure remained standing.

Two families of passengers on the deportation flight — who connected through social media and began sharing missing-person notices — told Reuters that 12 people managed to escape the debris on their own. One family was shown an official list from the Grand Mission indicating 32 survivors from the flight.

Salcedo was pulled from the rubble 40 hours after the quakes struck, according to his grandmother, Marlene Lozano, speaking by phone from her home in Nueva Bolivia in Merida, roughly 700 kilometers (430 miles) from La Guaira. A video circulated among the families shows Salcedo being extracted from a hole in the debris by several men, his face twisted in pain as one rescuer says, “we’ll pull him right now.”

Salcedo’s family said SEBIN, Venezuela’s domestic intelligence agency, had taken his phone and identity card before the disaster. The Communications Ministry did not respond to a request for comment.

“He spent 40 hours in that hole, he didn’t have an ID, they couldn’t account for him because he had no documents,” Lozano said. “We had no way to communicate with him and didn’t know anything.”

A relative eventually located Salcedo at University Hospital in Caracas and contacted his aunt. His mother made the journey to the city by motorcycle with her husband.

“She went straight to the hospital, and that’s where she found him — but they had already amputated his legs. Because he had a lot, a lot of debris on top of his legs,” Lozano said.

Salcedo remains intubated. A doctor told the family that the damage to his legs was worsened by how he was removed from the wreckage.

“Here we are praying, asking God to give him strength and courage,” Lozano said. “We are trusting in God, that God will keep him alive as he is. We know he won’t be the same anymore — he’s missing his legs — but we love him, just the way he is.”

Lozano said the family has received no official information. When she visited the local SEBIN office, she was told they had nothing to share.

Another family is facing a similar ordeal. Oswadeliz Nunez, an industrial engineer and lawyer, has been unable to get any official word about her 28-year-old son, Daniel Nunez, who arrived on the same flight. When he landed, Daniel borrowed a phone and told his mother he was being taken to a hotel and would be released to go home the next day.

“Thank God my son called me, because otherwise I would never have spoken to him again,” Nunez said.

She rushed to La Guaira from El Tigre, in Anzoategui state — about 470 kilometers (290 miles) southeast of Caracas — and was told by a SEBIN official that her son had been taken away by ambulance. She could not find him at any clinic or hospital. She was later shown an official list on which her son appears as missing.

Nunez said SEBIN personnel have been digging through the rubble by hand, and that heavy machinery did not arrive at the site until Monday.

“We are earnestly asking the international community to help us recover the bodies, because if it was God’s will that my son was there, I want my son’s body. I can’t wait one or two months until the government decides to remove the bodies,” she said.

She added that had her son been allowed to go directly home upon arrival, he would still be alive.

“They did not commit any crime. They were already in their country, they had already been deported.”

Australian Federal Police have charged a Thai Airways flight attendant with smuggling more than a kilogram — roughly 2.2 pounds — of heroin into the country after border officers intercepted the drug at Melbourne Airport.

The 26-year-old woman arrived at the airport on June 25, at which point customs officials screened 12 tote bags she was carrying. Officers discovered heroin hidden within the lining of those bags, with an estimated street value of A$500,000 — equivalent to about $343,300 U.S. dollars.

Thai Airways confirmed the woman was employed as a flight attendant at the time of her arrival. The airline released a statement saying it maintains strict conduct rules for all of its employees and that it “stands ready to fully cooperate with the relevant authorities throughout the process.”

The woman was taken into custody on June 26 and now faces one count of importing and one count of possessing a marketable quantity of a border-controlled drug. Each of those charges carries a maximum sentence of 25 years behind bars. She is scheduled to appear before Melbourne Magistrates’ Court on September 14.

Australian Federal Police Acting Commander Simone Butcher emphasized the agency’s commitment to pursuing those who exploit their positions to move drugs. “The AFP remains unwavering in its efforts to target individuals who use their employment or community standing to support drug trafficking,” she said.

Australian Border Force Commander Clint Sims added that criminal organizations continue to recruit trusted insiders — including airline crew members — as a means of smuggling illegal substances into Australia.

An explosive device detonated outside a residential building in Monaco on Monday evening, leaving three people with serious injuries and sending the attacker fleeing across the border into neighboring France, according to local authorities.

The shocking incident rattled the wealthy Mediterranean principality, prompting Monaco’s ruler, Prince Albert II, to speak out strongly against what he described as “an odious act,” adding that all of the nation’s resources had been activated to maintain security.

Monaco’s top government official, Minister of State Christophe Mirmand, told reporters that both French and Monaco law enforcement are actively searching for the attacker, and that investigators are still working to determine a motive.

The blast took place at approximately 9 p.m. near the entrance of a residence close to the French border. Two adults and a child were injured in the explosion and transported to hospitals located in France, Mirmand said.

According to Mirmand, the suspect crossed into France on foot and was tracked through video surveillance footage captured in Monaco and in the nearby French town of Beausoleil.

A French national police official confirmed that French authorities are actively involved in the search for the suspect and are assisting with the investigation, though the official declined to provide additional details.

French broadcaster BFM and Ukrainian news outlet Ukrainska Pravda have reported that one of the injured individuals is Ukrainian construction tycoon Vadym Iermolaiev. Ukrainska Pravda further reported that Iermolaiev was placed under Ukrainian sanctions in 2023 due to alleged ties to Russia.

Oil prices slid on Tuesday as the world watched for any developments from potential negotiations between the United States and Iran in Doha, following a weekend of missile exchanges that strained a shaky ceasefire in a conflict now entering its fifth month.

Brent August crude futures, set to expire Tuesday, dropped 1.03%, or 75 cents, to $72.40 per barrel as of early morning GMT. The more widely traded September Brent contract fell 0.54%, or 40 cents, to $73.51 per barrel. U.S. West Texas Intermediate crude also declined, losing 0.66%, or 47 cents, to settle at $70.32 per barrel.

Tim Waterer, chief market analyst at KCM Trade, explained that traders are factoring in the possibility of a favorable outcome from the Doha discussions. “Investors are pricing in hopes of a positive outcome from the Doha talks, even though real normalisation of flows through the Strait of Hormuz is not yet visible,” he said.

Waterer further noted that the market remains cautious. “The market is cautiously hopeful but still hedging its bets until we see more tangible signs of de-escalation,” he added.

On Monday, Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister Kazem Gharibabadi told state television that Iranian and Omani experts would begin discussions in the coming days about redefining shipping routes through the Strait of Hormuz, and that Iran would work to block vessels operating outside those designated paths.

Despite that, Iran’s Foreign Ministry spokesperson Esmaeil Baghaei stated flatly that there would be no negotiation sessions with American officials at any level in the near future.

President Donald Trump offered an uncertain take on the situation when speaking to reporters in the Oval Office. “The meeting in Doha is going to be perhaps important, perhaps not. We’re going to find out,” he said.

The back-and-forth underscored how delicate the June 17 agreement to pause hostilities truly is. That deal has already been shaken by renewed fighting that has disrupted global oil shipments through the Strait of Hormuz and created a political headache for Trump ahead of November’s congressional elections. Israel has not participated in the U.S.-Iran peace process and has kept its distance from the agreement.

Even so, oil and liquefied natural gas producers in the Middle East have continued loading shipments despite fresh attacks on vessels in the strait and recent exchanges of strikes between American and Iranian forces, according to shipping data.

Analysts at Goldman Sachs wrote in a note dated June 29 that if Persian Gulf oil flows keep recovering at the same pace seen over the previous two weeks, output could return to pre-war levels of 23 million barrels per day as soon as early July. Shipping traffic through the region last week reached its highest point since the conflict began at the end of February.

A court in Jakarta is set to deliver its verdict Tuesday in a closely watched corruption case against Nadiem Makarim, the 41-year-old former Indonesian education minister and co-founder of the country’s largest tech startup, Gojek. Prosecutors accuse him of abusing his official authority to line his own pockets.

The ruling brings to a close a legal battle that has stretched on for months, attracting attention from prominent international figures and stoking fears that Indonesia’s judicial system may be serving political interests rather than justice.

According to prosecutors, Makarim personally profited from irregular laptop procurement deals carried out during the COVID-19 pandemic, resulting in roughly $125 million in losses to the Indonesian government.

Prosecutors are pushing for an 18-year prison term and demanding he pay approximately 5.6 trillion rupiah — equivalent to around $314 million — in fines and restitution. If convicted, this could rank among the most significant legal proceedings ever brought against a former Indonesian cabinet minister.

Makarim stepped down as chief executive of Gojek in 2019 to take on the role of education minister, a position he held until 2024. Prosecutors allege that between 2020 and 2022, he steered the procurement of Chromebook laptops and Chrome OS software for Indonesian schools in a way that enriched him by approximately 809 billion rupiah, or around $46.33 million.

Prosecutors further claimed that Makarim crafted tender requirements designed exclusively for the Chrome platform in order to, in their words, “make Google the sole controller of the education ecosystem in Indonesia.” They also argued that Google’s investment in Gojek’s parent company played a role in the laptop procurement decisions.

Google has not been charged in the case. Makarim has denied any connection between Google’s investment in Gojek and the procurement process. In January, Google stated that its investments in Gojek-related companies took place between 2017 and 2021 — before Makarim was appointed education minister.

Legal experts have raised serious doubts about the case. Tim Lindsey, a law professor at the University of Melbourne who has spent years studying Indonesia’s legal system, said the charges — which allege Makarim’s decisions caused losses to the state — rely on a legal standard that is frequently applied too broadly, blurring the line between corruption and simply taking risks or being inefficient.

“This is a huge expansion of the notion of corruption, way beyond what most people and most legal systems would consider corrupt,” Lindsey said.

He also cautioned that allowing politics to seep into legal proceedings is damaging Indonesia’s standing on the world stage. “These sorts of prosecutions, combined with the increasing intrusion of the state into the commercial sector, are contributing to damage to Indonesia’s reputation among investors,” he added.

The case has drawn sharp criticism from international figures. British billionaire Richard Branson wrote on LinkedIn that Makarim “should be celebrated for what he achieved, not prosecuted on trumped-up charges that seem politically motivated.”

In a recent interview, Makarim — a Harvard Business School graduate — maintained that he is innocent and described his situation as a warning to others. “My case is scary for young people, for public officials, for procurement officers, for investors,” he said.

Makarim, who was arrested in September, reflected on his ordeal in a LinkedIn post last week, writing through his legal team: “It’s been more than nine months since this nightmare began.”

He has said he will appeal if the court finds him guilty, adding: “I’m ready for the worst.”

($1 = 17,835 rupiah)

A press conference meant to highlight a significant security and diplomatic achievement regarding Lebanon quickly transformed into the opening act of Israel’s next election season.

Standing before cameras, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu declared that Israel had secured an unprecedented arrangement with Lebanon, brokered by Washington, that would allow Israel to maintain a security zone for as long as Hezbollah remained armed and posed a threat. But when reporters shifted their questions from Lebanon to the ongoing ultra-Orthodox military draft crisis, Netanyahu pivoted from military strategy to political vision — announcing that after the elections, he plans to form a “broad national government.”

The timing was deliberate. Netanyahu’s government had just survived yet another coalition crisis after reaching an agreement with ultra-Orthodox parties regarding draft enforcement and the detention of yeshiva students who had ignored military call-up orders. While the deal may have extended the coalition’s lifespan, it has also placed military service — and the parties that resist it — at the center of any future government Netanyahu says he wants to build.

“I am not boycotting anyone,” Netanyahu said, describing his proposed post-election coalition as open to any party willing to accept a set of core principles. He outlined those principles as: Israel as the nation-state of the Jewish people, respect for individual rights, a free economy, technological and defense independence, and broad agreement on draft and judicial matters. He later added one more condition: “There is no room for two states. From the sea to the Jordan, there is no room for two states,” explicitly rejecting Palestinian statehood as a foundational principle of any government he would lead.

That position sharpened the core political question of the campaign: How can a prime minister who promises a broad, Zionist-led government continue to depend on ultra-Orthodox parties that are historically non-Zionist and that prioritize military service exemptions for Torah students?

Netanyahu’s allies frame this as a matter of necessity rather than contradiction. Likud lawmaker Moshe Saada told The Media Line that a broad government is the appropriate response to a deeply divided society. “You cannot heal the rifts with a narrow government,” Saada said. “It will deepen the divide. We have to do everything to create connections among us.”

Saada also defended the government’s decision to halt arrests of yeshiva students, arguing that criminal enforcement fosters resentment rather than enlistment. “Every arrest of one haredi prevents the enlistment of another haredi,” he said. “It creates hatred and gives nothing.” He added that it is not practically feasible for the state to arrest tens of thousands of people, calling a focus on arrests “cheap populism.”

His preferred approach is a “no service, no benefits” model — relying on economic incentives and sanctions rather than arrests. “Only the economy moves people to action. Force and coercion, in the end, produce nothing,” he said. Saada compared this strategy to past reductions in allowances that helped increase ultra-Orthodox women’s participation in the workforce without requiring police enforcement.

That argument aligns with the government’s formal justification for the proposed arrest freeze. Cabinet Secretary Yossi Fuchs wrote to Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee chairman Boaz Bismuth that arrests were undermining efforts to bring haredi men into the military, deepening a rift with the ultra-Orthodox community, and risking what he warned could escalate into severe internal conflict — potentially approaching “civil war.”

Defense Minister Israel Katz also supported moving the issue to the committee and backed a temporary framework that would suspend arrests of yeshiva students under specific conditions.

The opposition sees it very differently. Yesh Atid’s Moshe Tur-Paz, a reservist who served in the conflict following October 7, told The Media Line that Netanyahu is not genuinely addressing the draft issue but rather trying to lock in ultra-Orthodox political support ahead of elections. “I think what Netanyahu is trying to achieve is to connect haredim stronger toward him, so he makes sure that they don’t leave him after the elections,” Tur-Paz said. “We’re seeing a terrified Netanyahu doing everything to keep the haredi parties on his side.”

Tur-Paz called the partnership “disgraceful,” particularly while Israeli soldiers continue to be killed in Lebanon and the country faces pressure on multiple fronts. “The price of … defending Israel’s borders these days is going up by the day,” he said. “Threats haven’t gone down, not in Lebanon, not in Syria, not in Gaza. And Iran is still a big enemy of Israel.” He argued the government should be expanding the pool of those who serve, not reducing pressure on those who refuse.

He acknowledged that more ultra-Orthodox men are serving in the military today than in the past, but said that progress was not driven by the haredi parties or Netanyahu’s government. “The army has done a bigger effort to bring in haredim, but nothing has been done or led by the political part of the coalition,” he said.

The issue carries real political risk for Netanyahu because it divides his own voter base. A recent Channel 12 poll found that 62% of respondents opposed the Netanyahu-ultra-Orthodox deal, while only 23% supported it. That same poll showed Likud rising to 23 seats, Gadi Eisenkot’s Yashar party holding steady at 21, and Naftali Bennett’s alliance slipping to 18. The coalition bloc reached 52 seats, while the opposition — including Arab parties — reached 68.

The poll numbers reveal the complexity of Netanyahu’s situation. Likud still claimed first place with 23 seats, and Netanyahu remained competitive in head-to-head matchups. But the warning sign lay elsewhere: Eisenkot led Netanyahu in prime ministerial suitability ratings, 38% to 36%, and the broader bloc numbers left the current coalition well short of a majority. That explains why Netanyahu is already talking about bringing in partners from outside his current camp — and why his phrase “broad national government” sounds less like a slogan and more like a preview of post-election deal-making.

The shift implies an unspoken acknowledgment. For years, Netanyahu’s political formula depended on a hard-right coalition with ultra-Orthodox and far-right partners. His repeated references to a future broad government suggest he is laying the groundwork for a different arrangement — not necessarily abandoning current partners, but signaling that the existing formula may not be enough to secure the stable majority he needs.

Tur-Paz did not rule out Likud as a future partner in a broad Zionist coalition — but only without Netanyahu. Saada, by contrast, did not seriously entertain the reverse scenario, in which Likud would join a government led by Eisenkot, Bennett, or another center-right figure. In his view, the most likely outcome remains a Netanyahu-led government that brings in at least one centrist party after the election.

The contrast is telling. The opposition is working to separate Likud from Netanyahu. Likud, at least as Saada describes it, is working to pull centrist voters and parties away from the opposition while keeping Netanyahu at the head of the table. In both cases, the same underlying question is being tested: whether Israel’s next government can be broader than the current one without first removing the man who built it.

National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir warned that talk of a broad unity government was “very troubling” and insisted Netanyahu must form a fully right-wing government. During a cabinet meeting, after Netanyahu again stated his intention to build a broad national government grounded in Jewish statehood, defense independence, and rejection of a Palestinian state, Ben-Gvir pressed him not to exclude any part of the right-wing bloc. Netanyahu replied that there would be no boycotts.

Saada echoed that position. “Every Zionist party that fights alongside me, … I have no problem with,” he said. He rejected the notion of sidelining parties on the right out of political discomfort, arguing that anyone fit to serve alongside others in combat should not be treated as illegitimate in government. “I do not boycott any Zionist party,” he said. “Period.”

That stance becomes more complicated when the current coalition is examined closely. Saada said he would not work with parties that reject Zionism or the state itself, but he treated the ultra-Orthodox parties as a different case. When asked how non-Zionist haredi factions fit alongside a party like Likud, he argued that the gap between rabbinic leadership and the broader haredi public is larger than it may appear from the outside.

The haredi public, Saada argued, is gradually drawing closer to the rest of Israeli society, even if the process is slow and uneven. The rabbis, he said, may be less connected to the broader Israeli experience, but the public is undergoing its own evolution. “The haredi mainstream is also part of the melting pot,” he said. “It is Jewish and national. It is more liberal than its rabbis.”

For Tur-Paz, that is precisely the contradiction. Netanyahu, he said, is deepening his ties with United Torah Judaism and Shas while presenting himself as the future leader of a Zionist coalition. “People find it hard to believe when they see an Israeli strong leader doing something and yet saying exactly the opposite,” Tur-Paz said. “He is adding more and more laws that are meant to strengthen the ties with them, stop the few haredim that are going to the army, do whatever he can to help them get money from the government, and yet he says, ‘I want a broad Zionist government.’”

Tur-Paz said Yesh Atid does not rule out a future coalition with Likud in principle — but not under Netanyahu. “I do hope there is a future for Likud as a Zionist right-wing party without Netanyahu,” he said. “But that has to be proven.” For now, he argued, Likud remains defined by the prime minister’s personal leadership and by lawmakers unwilling to break from him. “You really ask yourself, is there a place for different leadership in the Likud? At the moment the answer is no,” he said.

Netanyahu’s broad-government message has also been publicly rejected by opposition leaders outside Yesh Atid. Eisenkot dismissed the idea of joining any government under him, arguing that a leader who avoided accountability after October 7 cannot lecture others about national unity. Yair Golan called on the liberal and democratic bloc to declare outright that it would not sit with Netanyahu. Benny Gantz, who twice entered unity arrangements with Netanyahu, has also expressed doubt that the offer is sincere.

Netanyahu’s supporters counter that Israel’s security situation demands a larger governing structure, not a smaller one. Saada said the Lebanon agreement itself demonstrates that Israel has entered a period in which military gains must be converted into diplomatic and internal political progress. He described Israel’s position regarding Lebanon as “dramatic,” saying it gives Israel international legitimacy to remain there until Hezbollah is disarmed. He framed a broad government as part of the same strategic moment. “To heal the rifts, you need a real broad government,” he said.

The language of “civil war” now hovers over this entire debate. Netanyahu invoked the warning of former Prime Minister Menachem Begin against internal conflict, urging unity while external enemies remain active. Fuchs used similarly stark language in his letter on draft enforcement. Tur-Paz said such language is dangerous and should not become normalized. “We could argue, we can debate, we can be very anxious about things, but we can’t afford fighting each other because that means the end of Israel,” he said.

That is where the draft crisis and the election campaign now converge. Netanyahu’s agreement with the ultra-Orthodox parties may help him hold his current coalition together long enough to reach the next political stage. But it has also handed his rivals a powerful argument: that the same leader who speaks of national unity and a Zionist majority remains bound to partners whose political demands run directly counter to the principle of equal military service.

For Netanyahu, the answer is that a future broad government could generate the consensus the current system cannot deliver. For the opposition, the haredi deal is proof that no such consensus can be built under his leadership. Between those two positions lies the opening battle of Israel’s election campaign — not merely about who wins the most seats, but about what kind of government can claim to represent a nation exhausted by war, divided over military service, and uncertain whether “unity” is a genuine governing plan or simply another campaign promise.

Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz declared Monday that a US decision to connect Lebanon to the Iran ceasefire memorandum of understanding effectively shielded Hezbollah from being wiped out by Israeli forces.

Speaking at a briefing for military and diplomatic reporters centered on Iran, Katz addressed the halt in Israeli Defense Forces operations, arguing that “the pause prevented a massive blow the IDF had planned to continue inflicting on Hezbollah. Linking the arenas saved Hezbollah from a devastating blow, perhaps even its collapse.”

Katz made clear that Israel has no intention of pulling back from its security zone in Lebanon, stating: “In any case, we would not have withdrawn, and we will not do so in the future as long as Hezbollah is there.”

While insisting Israel holds no desire for Lebanese territory, Katz said any future Israeli withdrawal would hinge on the Lebanese Army clearing Hezbollah out of areas that Israeli troops vacate. “We have no territorial ambitions in Lebanon. The Lebanese Army will have to do the job in the areas from which the IDF withdraws. The IDF will have to verify that this has happened and that Hezbollah is no longer present in the areas from which it withdraws. The current mission is to remove Hezbollah from the Litani area,” he said.

Katz added bluntly: “I have no illusions. In the end, the one that will have to do the job is the IDF.”

He also told reporters that Israel had communicated to American officials that it would not pull out of security zones in Gaza, Lebanon, or Syria, framing this as a cornerstone of Israeli strategy. “This is Israel’s new security doctrine,” Katz said. “The condition for leaving these areas is the disarmament of the terrorist organizations.”

Katz noted, as previously reported by N12, that Israel had offered to hand over responsibility for the Ali Taher Ridge to the Lebanese Army, but that offer was turned down.

He closed his remarks on Lebanon with a firm warning: “We will respond to every Hezbollah violation. We will not tolerate violations. The equation still stands: rocket fire toward northern Israel and the frontline communities will be answered with strikes in Dahiyeh.”

Turning to Iran, Katz cautioned that hostilities could restart at any time and said Israel’s military is actively preparing for another confrontation. He revealed that the IDF has been ordered to prepare for what he called a “Blue and White operation in Iran.”

“If we have definitive intelligence about Iranian decisions, we will act on it,” Katz said. “If Iran attacks us with missiles, we will respond with force, and this has been made clear to the Americans.”

He outlined two scenarios under which he believes war with Iran could resume: “if President Trump decides and we join, or if they fire at us, it will be the Third Iran War. Israel’s position is clear—there is no scenario in which Israel will allow missile fire on its territory.”

Venezuelan opposition leader Maria Corina Machado announced Monday that she is “willing to do whatever it takes” to get back into Venezuela and assist with recovery efforts in the wake of two major earthquakes that struck the country last week.

Speaking from Panama, where she is currently based, Machado accused the Venezuelan government of preventing her from returning home. In a video she posted on X, she declared that she “will be in Venezuela to help coordinate and encourage citizens’ efforts during the emergency.”

She offered no additional details about how she plans to make her way back into the country.

Machado had spent time living in hiding inside Venezuela after claiming victory in the nation’s disputed 2024 presidential election. Last December, she secretly escaped the country by boat, traveling to Oslo to accept the Nobel Peace Prize — an award she later presented to U.S. President Donald Trump.

Her determination to return has created friction in Washington. A White House official told Reuters on Saturday that Machado has reached out to multiple U.S. administration officials — including contacts at the White House, the State Department, and members of Congress — seeking support for a potential return to Venezuela.

The situation surrounding Machado’s future role in Venezuela shifted earlier this year when U.S. forces captured former President Nicolas Maduro in January, raising hopes among some in the opposition that Machado, 58, would step into a leadership position in governing the country.

However, Trump threw his backing behind Maduro’s former deputy, Delcy Rodriguez, stating that Machado did not have enough support to lead Venezuela in the near future.

Before the earthquakes struck, Machado had already indicated she planned to return to Venezuela before the year’s end.

“At this moment, I am willing to do whatever it takes, speak to whoever I need to speak to, in order to coordinate and serve our people,” Machado said Monday.

NEW YORK — A Chinese billionaire once counted among the wealthiest people in China has been sentenced to 30 years behind bars in the United States after being found guilty of orchestrating a sweeping financial fraud.

Guo Wengui, who escaped China a decade ago and built a new identity as a U.S.-based critic of the Chinese Communist Party, received his sentence Monday from U.S. District Judge Analisa Torres in a Manhattan courtroom.

Before the sentence was handed down, Guo was given an opportunity to address the court. He complained about his treatment while in jail, telling the judge he had fainted and collapsed at 5 a.m. that morning. He said hospital doctors recommended he remain there for care, but he was transported back to jail instead, during which he vomited multiple times. He said a doctor came to see him at the jail before he was brought to court.

Speaking through an interpreter, Guo told the judge: “When I came here, I said I have a stomach ache, I need to go to the bathroom, I don’t feel well.”

He also declared: “The reason I came to the U.S. was to destroy the CCP” — a reference to the Chinese Communist Party.

Judge Torres, in delivering the sentence, read aloud portions of letters she had received from victims who described watching their entire life savings disappear, and who spoke of developing deep fear, crippling anxiety, and even losing loved ones.

“Mr. Guo preyed on those seeking to bring democracy to China,” Torres said from the bench.

She went on to say that even now, Guo “takes no responsibility for his actions and instead insists incredibly his conduct caused no loss and harmed no one.” She also noted that he “has called upon supporters to harass and intimidate those who dare to speak out against him.”

Guo had developed a close relationship with conservative political strategist Steve Bannon, and the two announced a joint effort in 2020 aimed at toppling the Chinese government. Before his arrest and detention without bail three years ago, Guo lived in a high-end Manhattan apartment with views of Central Park and had become a member of President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago golf club in Florida.

Federal prosecutors had urged the court to impose at least a 30-year sentence, arguing that his “astonishing” fraud — which ran from 2018 to 2023 — “destroyed hundreds of lives” and left behind “a wreckage of victims and families who have been devastated financially, emotionally, and psychologically,” even as Guo claimed many of his followers still believed in him.

According to prosecutors, the money Guo took from victims bankrolled “a lifestyle of extraordinary excess and indulgence, a gilded life of mansions, yachts, race cars, designer clothes and luxury furnishings.”

A jury convicted him on nine of 12 criminal counts after a seven-week trial. Prosecutors said the case exposed how Guo deceived thousands of investors through fraudulent ventures that personally enriched him.

Guo’s defense attorneys argued in court filings that their client was himself a victim — targeted by the Chinese Communist Party through a “grand, pervasive, and life threatening” campaign against him. They alleged the party enlisted powerful figures in American business, entertainment, and politics to work against him.

The defense also argued that a lengthy sentence would only serve to validate China’s smear campaign and “embolden further efforts to eliminate Chinese dissidents from public life.” They pointed out that defendants in comparable cases typically received sentences of just two to four years.

Defense lawyers also noted that a court probation officer reported to the sentencing judge that Guo — also known as Miles Guo and Ho Wan Kwok — bore physical scars and disfigurements from torture he said he endured in China, along with surgeries performed between 1993 and 2022 to address those injuries.

The Probation Department had recommended a 25-year sentence and cited what it called “astronomical losses” exceeding $1 billion suffered by victims.

The defense said Guo’s fortune was built after his family became the largest shareholder of China’s biggest publicly traded securities firm, but that he became a target of Chinese officials after exposing their alleged corruption. They said those officials then accused him of being a U.S. spy, eventually forcing him to flee to Hong Kong, then London, and finally New York in 2017.

Chinese authorities charged him with rape, kidnapping, bribery, and other offenses — all of which Guo denied, saying the accusations were fabricated to punish him for speaking out against senior Communist Party leaders.

Prosecutors say Guo persuaded hundreds of thousands of people to pour more than $1 billion combined into organizations he controlled, including his media company GTV Media Group Inc., as well as the so-called Himalaya Farm Alliance and the Himalaya Exchange.

The government described Guo as “entirely unrepentant” after taking advantage of U.S. asylum laws to build his life in America.

“He does not even offer the lip service of remorse or acceptance of any responsibility for the harms he caused so many individuals and their loved ones, some of whom have been pushed to consider suicide as a result of his crimes, and some of whom confronted him directly by bravely testifying at trial about how he brainwashed, cheated, and harmed them,” prosecutors wrote in court documents.

Police in the tiny Mediterranean principality of Monaco are on the hunt for a suspect believed to have set off a homemade explosive device Monday evening, wounding three people, according to reports from French media outlets.

The explosion took place just before 9 p.m. local time. French newspaper Le Figaro reported that security camera footage showed a man placing a backpack near the entrance of a residential building shortly before the blast went off.

French television network BFM TV, citing Monaco’s prosecutor general, identified the device as a “parcel bomb.”

Eric Ciotti, the right-wing mayor of Nice — a French city located just across the border from Monaco — responded to the incident on social media platform X, writing: “The attack committed this evening is a tragedy for Monaco.”

A representative for Monaco’s police force declined to provide any comment on the incident.

Monaco is a small, tax-free nation situated along the French Riviera and is widely recognized as a destination for the ultra-wealthy, who are drawn to the area by its luxury lifestyle and favorable financial conditions.

More than 100 people who had just been deported from the United States were staying in a hotel in Venezuela when a pair of powerful earthquakes struck, sending survivors scrambling through rubble and leaving the fate of many others unknown, according to those who made it out alive.

A deportation flight departing from Miami touched down in Caracas on Wednesday — just hours before the earthquakes hit. According to ICE Flight Monitor, a project run by Human Rights First that tracks deportation flights, the plane carried 146 Venezuelan nationals, including 19 women and seven children.

Lisbeth Portillo, 58, said she managed to escape the collapsed hotel along with roughly 20 other deportees. The group wandered the streets searching for assistance, witnessing chaotic scenes of people fleeing the destruction — some without shoes, others without clothing — as they emerged from the wreckage in La Guaira, one of the areas hardest hit by Wednesday’s 7.2 and 7.5 magnitude earthquakes.

“We walked about five kilometers, and I cried and cried … there was no communication,” Portillo said in a phone interview from her home in Maracaibo, Venezuela.

The group eventually reached a National Guard facility, where they were able to contact family members.

“I was born again; God gave me a second chance,” Portillo said, then paused and wept. “I am traumatized.”

The Venezuelan government has reported that more than 1,700 people lost their lives in the disaster.

Portillo was among those caught up in the current U.S. administration’s push for large-scale deportations. In May alone, ICE Flight Monitor recorded 288 deportation flights to 38 countries, including Burkina Faso, Cambodia, Cameroon, Chile, and the Ivory Coast. Twelve of those flights were to Venezuela, running three days per week. Deportation flights to Venezuela had resumed in February 2025 following a 13-month suspension.

Portillo said that upon arrival, authorities transported the deportees to the Hotel Santuario La Llanada, where they underwent medical evaluations and received identification documents. They were told they would be sent home the following day.

She had been sharing a second-floor room with 16 other women. Portillo stepped out onto a balcony to look at the ocean and noticed the sky had turned dark and the air was unusually hot. She went back inside, lay down on a bed, and then felt the shaking begin.

“I started hearing ‘papa, papa papapa,’ and I saw the women next to me start to fall,” she said, describing what the earthquake sounded and looked like. “They were all screaming for help.”

Almost immediately, a second earthquake followed.

“I fall and end up buried and covered by a beam, but the shaking shifted everything where I was buried and I was able to get out,” said Portillo, who sustained bruises across her body.

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement did not provide a response to the Associated Press when asked for information about the situation.

The Venezuelan government shared video footage on social media showing the deportees being welcomed by Venezuelan officials upon landing at the Caracas airport on Wednesday.

Jenny Rodriguez, 24, told the Telemundo network that she had been on the deportation flight and was taken to the hotel. “I was trapped under the rubble. A colleague who had been on the same flight came by; I managed to free my hand from the debris, grabbed him by the trousers, and begged for help,” she said. “Thanks to God — and to him — I was able to get out of there.”

Liliana Rojas told Telemundo she has been desperately trying to find her 33-year-old partner. The detention facility in El Paso, Texas, where he had been held only confirmed that he was deported, offering no further details. “No one is giving an answer about anything,” Rojas said.

Portillo, who crossed the U.S.-Mexico border in November 2021 and said she had a pending asylum claim, could not recall her children’s phone numbers after the ordeal. Instead, she called her husband in the United States.

“I said to him, ‘Cesar, I’m alive. Help me.’ And my husband kept saying, ‘It can’t be,’” she recalled. “‘I’m alive, I made it out of the rubble, I’m alive,’ I told him.”

Her husband then contacted their children, who located her and reunited with her the following night.

“I was born that day; on the 24th, I was born again,” said Portillo, who had lived in South Florida for more than four years.

FRANKFURT, Germany — The leader of the European Central Bank is standing firmly behind the institution’s decision to raise interest rates earlier this month, rejecting the notion that the move was simply a precautionary measure.

ECB chief Christine Lagarde stated Monday that the quarter percentage-point rate increase on June 11 was absolutely necessary. Without it, she argued, inflation could have remained above the bank’s 2% target all the way through 2028.

“Some have characterized our rate increase earlier this month as an ‘insurance hike,’” Lagarde said. “I’m sorry to disappoint them. That is not an accurate description. We faced an outlook of rising headline and core inflation.”

The ECB serves as the central bank for the 21 nations that share the euro currency. The June hike brought the benchmark interest rate up by a quarter point to 2.25% — the first rate adjustment in a full year. Despite the increase, economists project that inflation won’t fall back to the 2% goal until the final quarter of 2027. As of May, annual inflation across the euro area stood at 3.2%.

Lagarde was quick to note, however, that the bank does not anticipate needing the aggressive half-point or three-quarter-point rate increases it previously used to bring inflation under control after Russia halted natural gas supplies during the war in Ukraine.

Instead, she explained that improved economic forecasting now allows the bank to evaluate conditions on a meeting-by-meeting basis and respond more carefully to shifting price pressures. Among the current concerns are the economic fallout from the Iran war and disruptions to oil and gas shipments through the Strait of Hormuz. The bank’s next scheduled rate-setting meetings are set for July 22-23 and September 9-10.

Speaking at the bank’s annual monetary policy conference in Sintra, Portugal, Lagarde reflected on how the institution handled the earlier energy crisis. The Russian gas cutoff triggered “the fastest tightening cycle in our history, raising rates in increments we had never used before,” she said.

“We no longer need to act with the same force,” she added. “We can make measured adjustments to rates, calibrated to the shocks we face.”

Lagarde noted that bank analysts are now running scenarios covering both milder and more severe geopolitical outcomes to help avoid overreacting or underreacting to events. Oil prices have swung dramatically throughout the Iran conflict, while the broader European economy has shown more resilience than many anticipated in the face of new tariffs on European goods imposed by U.S. President Donald Trump.

Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum made clear Monday that she would not stand in the way of justice after a video emerged appearing to show Victor Rodriguez, the former chief of state-owned energy company Pemex, physically assaulting his wife.

The video was uploaded to YouTube on Friday by a woman who identified herself as Maria Felicia Jimenez, Rodriguez’s wife. The footage appears to have been captured by a home security camera in a living room and carries a date of March 15, 2026. Reuters has not independently confirmed the video’s authenticity.

At the time shown in the recording, Rodriguez was still serving as the top executive at Pemex. He later announced he was stepping down on May 14, in a joint video alongside Sheinbaum, who expressed gratitude for his work and described his exit as consistent with a timeline he had set before accepting the position.

Attempts to reach Rodriguez for comment were unsuccessful. A post on an X account that appeared to be his stated that he had withdrawn from any public-facing role while authorities investigate the matter, and that he was willing to cooperate with all relevant agencies.

“Let the law be applied, we will not protect anyone,” Sheinbaum declared at her regular morning press briefing.

“There can be no violence against women,” she added, making clear that Rodriguez would not be given any position within her government going forward.

In the five-minute clip reviewed by Reuters, Rodriguez is seen grabbing a woman by the throat, yanking her by the hair, pushing her, and pinning her down on a couch. He appears shirtless during portions of the video and is clearly recognizable throughout. A young child is briefly visible at the beginning of the footage before leaving the frame.

A written statement accompanying the YouTube video read: “Breaking my silence meant losing my job, my money, having nowhere to live, and having my children taken from me, simply because of his closeness to the highest spheres of power — the presidency, governors, members of congress, secretaries of state.”

The statement continued: “This is a government led by women, so I am asking for help and for the necessary measures to be taken to protect me and my children who are minors.”

The attorney general’s office for the state of Morelos announced on X Friday that it had launched an investigation into suspected criminal conduct stemming from a video “in which a violent act against a woman is observed.”

Throughout her time in office, Sheinbaum has consistently championed gender equality, a violence-free life for women, and what she has called an “era of women” since taking power.

Rodriguez has been a long-standing ally of Sheinbaum, with the two sharing both a personal and professional history going back to their time as students. After departing Pemex in May, he was named to lead the energy transition institute INEEL, though the energy ministry later clarified in a statement that his appointment was never officially finalized.

BELGRADE, Serbia — Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic announced Monday that early general elections in the Balkan nation are expected within the next three to four months. He also repeated his intention to step down from the presidency before that vote takes place.

Vucic did not provide specific dates for either his resignation or the elections. Speaking to supporters at a rally on Saturday, he indicated it was likely the final time he would address them as president and said he plans to leave office within weeks.

Political observers widely view the move as a strategic maneuver that would position Vucic to take over as prime minister — a role that is formally the most powerful in the Serbian government. Vucic is currently serving his second presidential term and is prohibited by law from running for president again.

“Yes, it is logical that we will have elections soon, and when I say soon I mean the next three-four months,” Vucic stated. He added that he has not yet decided whether to pursue the prime minister’s position if his Serbian Progressive Party, known as SNS, wins the upcoming parliamentary election.

“Whatever I decide and whatever decision I make, it will be transparent, just like I have done by announcing my resignation,” he said. He noted he could step down at any point in July, August, or September, adding, “It will be no surprise.”

Under Serbian law, once Vucic formally submits his resignation, a presidential election must be held within 90 days. Regularly scheduled presidential and parliamentary elections in Serbia are not due until next year.

Vucic has been facing more than a year of widespread street demonstrations that originally erupted following a deadly train station tragedy in northern Serbia, which claimed the lives of 16 people. A youth-led movement demanding accountability for the collapse of a station canopy has rattled Vucic’s hold on power more significantly than any previous challenge.

Anti-government demonstrators have attributed the canopy collapse at the Novi Sad railway station to corruption-driven negligence in large government infrastructure projects.

Before assuming the presidency in 2017, Vucic had previously held the position of prime minister. His right-wing SNS party came to power in 2012, and since then he has steadily consolidated his authority. He has pushed back forcefully against protesters and has drawn criticism from the European Union over concerns about democratic backsliding in Serbia, including a crackdown on media freedom.

Hundreds of individuals have been detained during the protests, with demonstrators and international human rights organizations accusing Serbian police of using excessive force and conducting arbitrary arrests.

With fewer than 60 days left to hammer out a lasting peace agreement, the United States and Iran cannot even seem to agree on the details of the temporary deal they struck earlier this month — and it remains unclear when the two countries will sit down together again.

“The situation is sensitive and complex,” senior Iranian negotiator Kazem Gharibabadi wrote Monday on the social media platform X, underscoring just how fragile the diplomatic process has become.

Beyond the peace talks themselves, major unresolved disputes remain — including who controls the Strait of Hormuz, the future of fighting in Lebanon, and what happens to Iran’s stockpile of highly enriched uranium. Days of military strikes between the two sides appeared to have wound down as of Monday, but tensions remain high.

ARE TALKS EVEN HAPPENING?

The two sides can’t even agree on that. U.S. President Donald Trump announced on social media Monday: “IRAN HAS REQUESTED A MEETING. IT WILL TAKE PLACE TOMORROW IN DOHA!”

Iran’s Foreign Ministry spokesperson Esmail Baghaei flatly contradicted that, stating Monday: “There are no negotiation meetings with the U.S. side at any level scheduled in the coming days.”

The reality appears to be somewhere in between. Lower-level technical diplomats are expected to meet before any high-level negotiations resume. Pakistan, serving as a key mediator alongside Qatar, indicated talks would pick back up on Tuesday. White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told Fox News on Monday that envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, who is Trump’s son-in-law, were heading to Qatar for meetings with Iranian counterparts, with technical negotiations expected on the sidelines.

Later, Iranian state media quoted Baghaei as saying an expert delegation would travel to Qatar during the week — but with no U.S. meetings planned.

The two countries are working against a deadline of roughly mid-August to finalize a comprehensive peace agreement, which must also address Iran’s disputed nuclear program. However, the interim deal requires a halt to all fighting before substantive negotiations can continue. After clashes over the weekend, Iran threatened Sunday to completely walk away from the talks. By Monday, both sides appeared to have paused their attacks, though Tehran may be waiting to see if that calm holds.

THE STRAIT OF HORMUZ DISPUTE

The U.S. maintains that the Strait of Hormuz is open under the terms of the interim agreement. Iran sees it differently.

Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi stated Sunday: “Any attempt to establish new or separate arrangements from those currently being carried out by the Islamic Republic of Iran will only lead to further complications, delay the reopening of the Strait of Hormuz and increase the level of tension.”

The strait is a critical global waterway that carried one-fifth of the world’s oil and gas before the conflict began. During the war, Iran found it to be a significant source of leverage. The interim deal calls on Iran to immediately allow commercial shipping to pass through the strait, which lies between Iran and Oman, while permitting Iran to work with Oman and other Persian Gulf nations to manage the waterway in accordance with international freedom-of-navigation laws.

Iran has insisted that ships use its designated routes and check in with its authorities. It has pushed back against a new route overseen by the U.S. running along Oman’s coast — a disagreement that sparked the recent military exchanges. A U.S. official, speaking anonymously Monday because of the confidential nature of the negotiations, said the Trump administration is operating under the assumption that both sides are standing down and that vessels can move freely. Ships have started passing through again, though traffic remains lower than it was before the conflict.

THE SITUATION IN LEBANON

Iran’s position is that all fighting must stop and that Israel must pull its forces out of Lebanon before progress can be made on other fronts.

Hezbollah, the Iranian-backed militant group, has vowed to resist Israel’s occupation of large parts of southern Lebanon. Hezbollah leader Naim Kassem said Saturday that tying Israel’s withdrawal to Hezbollah’s disarmament is a “very dangerous suggestion.”

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, however, has made clear that Israeli forces will stay in southern Lebanon “until Hezbollah and the rest of the terrorist organizations are disarmed, and until no further threat to Israel is posed from Lebanon.”

A separate round of U.S.-brokered talks has been taking place between Israel and Lebanon’s government. Iran’s interim deal with the U.S. calls for a complete ceasefire in Lebanon and requires Israel to withdraw. But a different U.S.-brokered agreement between Lebanon and Israel allows Israeli forces to remain in southern Lebanon until Hezbollah has been disarmed. Hezbollah was excluded from those talks and has rejected that arrangement outright.

Hezbollah launched attacks against Israel two days after both Hezbollah and the U.S. struck Iran on Feb. 28. Israel responded with aerial strikes and a ground invasion. Lebanon’s government lacks the military capacity to forcibly disarm Hezbollah. Sporadic clashes continued in Lebanon over the weekend, which could further delay Iran’s willingness to return to the negotiating table.

ABDIN, Syria — When Israeli troops and military vehicles rolled into the southern Syrian town of Abdin, locals fought back the only way they could — blocking roads with rocks while young men and boys hurled stones at the patrol.

The confrontation on Sunday is the latest sign of rising tensions in a region where Israeli forces have taken control of a buffer zone previously monitored by United Nations peacekeepers. Residents of Abdin, located near that zone, attempted to resist what they described as a military incursion into their community.

According to residents, Israeli troops fired warning shots at walls and into the spaces between angry protesters before launching artillery rounds at the village. While no one was injured, the majority of residents fled their homes and remained too frightened to come back by Monday. Many now worry that the skirmish will bring even more aggressive military operations to the area.

“They come into the village regularly, every few days,” said resident Mohammad al-Hassan, speaking near a group of children gathered around an exploded shell. “They come in armored 4×4 vehicles, they roam around the village and search some houses, they knock on doors and if people don’t answer the door they break it down and enter the houses. Women and children start screaming, it’s a terrifying thing, them coming here.”

Israel took over the U.N.-monitored buffer zone in southern Syria back in December 2024, shortly after former Syrian President Bashar Assad was removed from power during an insurgent offensive. Israeli officials initially characterized the move as a temporary measure to guard their borders against militant groups. More recently, however, senior Israeli officials have stated that the occupation of the buffer zone will continue indefinitely.

The expanded Israeli military footprint in southern Syria fits into a broader strategic shift following the deadly Hamas-led attacks on southern Israel in October 2023. Since then, Israel has taken over large portions of Gaza, seized areas of Lebanon — where the Hezbollah militant group has launched missiles and drones across the border — and moved into Syria. Israel refers to these areas as “buffer zones” and maintains they are necessary to prevent future militant attacks.

Since Assad’s removal, there have been no cross-border attacks launched from Syria into Israel, aside from two rockets fired by a little-known militant group. Still, Israeli military operations in southwestern Syrian towns have at times triggered local resistance that has escalated into deadly confrontations.

Syria’s interim president, Ahmad al-Sharaa, has demanded that Israel pull out of the territory, which the United Nations estimates covers 235 square kilometers — roughly 91 square miles. The Syrian government also formally condemned the Israeli military’s incursion and shelling in Abdin.

The clashes in Abdin were actually the second violent episode within a 24-hour span. Earlier Sunday, the Israeli military announced it had killed armed individuals in southern Syria but provided no additional details.

On Monday, an Israeli military official — speaking anonymously under military briefing rules — confirmed that Israeli soldiers had killed two militants who were allegedly planning an attack on Israeli forces. The official did not specify the exact location within Syria.

Meanwhile, the mayor of the Syrian village of Hadar reported that two unidentified individuals traveling in a pickup truck just south of the village were killed in an attack, and that their bodies were taken by the Israeli military.

“There was the sound of an explosion when it happened,” Imad Hassoun told the Associated Press. “They weren’t from Hadar. If they were, we would immediately know.”

On the Abdin incident specifically, the Israeli military official said armed militants had opened fire on one of Israel’s military positions but that no one was hurt, offering no further details.

Residents of Abdin had held out hope that U.S.-brokered talks between Israel and Syria held in France — aimed at reaching a security agreement — would help ease the situation. Those negotiations, however, appear to have stalled.

With the security situation unstable and residents struggling with a lack of employment and basic services, many people in these border communities are leaving. The nearest Syrian government security checkpoint to Abdin sits about 10 kilometers — roughly 6 miles — away, and those who remain face persistent shortages of water and electricity.

Sobhi al-Tawlbi, 66, said farmers have had a particularly difficult time reaching their crops and water sources.

“We need the government to support us a little so we can remain steadfast in our villages,” he said, calling on the international community to pressure Israel to end its military incursions.

Residents throughout the broader border region have consistently maintained that they pose no threat and simply want to live stable lives after more than 13 years of civil war that devastated Syria.

“Why are they bothering us? We are living here peacefully in this border area,” al-Hassan said.

Dakar, Senegal — Senegal’s National Assembly voted Monday to approve a controversial set of constitutional changes that would boost the legislature’s authority and reduce the powers held by the country’s president. Despite the vote, the government announced the reforms will ultimately be decided by a public referendum.

The move comes at a time of heightened political friction between President Bassirou Diomaye Faye and his former prime minister, Ousmane Sonko. Sonko was dismissed from the prime minister’s post last month and subsequently elected to lead the National Assembly.

The reform package was put forward by Pastef, the political party led by Sonko. Opposition groups are calling it an act of political payback, arguing that Sonko continues to wield considerable influence over the parliamentary majority.

Protests erupted outside the parliament building Monday, with demonstrators responding to calls from opposition parties and civil society groups. Crowds waved signs and chanted “Hands off my Constitution!” as police responded with tear gas and detained a number of opposition leaders and activists.

Among the changes included in the reform is a requirement that the government keep the legislature informed about agreements involving the extraction and use of natural resources. The package also expands the investigative authority of parliamentary committees.

Additionally, the reform calls for replacing the existing Constitutional Council with a newly created Constitutional Court. The new body would include nine members, two more than the current seven-member council.

Other provisions in the reform would bar the head of state from simultaneously serving as the leader of a political party, place limits on executive decisions made during the period between a presidential election and the official announcement of results, and tighten restrictions on the president’s ability to dissolve the National Assembly.

The government confirmed a referendum on the proposed changes will be held but did not provide a timeline for when that vote might occur.

LONDON (AP) — Penelope Keith, the celebrated British actress who charmed audiences with her portrayals of haughty yet endearing upper-class characters in beloved sitcoms, has passed away at the age of 86.

Her family announced Monday that Keith had received a cancer diagnosis and died at her home in Surrey, just outside London.

Keith launched her career on the stage, joining the Royal Shakespeare Company in 1963, before television brought her to the height of her fame.

In 1977, she took home a BAFTA award for her role as Margo Leadbetter in “The Good Life” — a snobbish suburbanite horrified by her neighbors Tom and Barbara Good, who were portrayed by Richard Briers and Felicity Kendal, as they abandoned modern comforts to live off the land.

Kendal remembered her co-star warmly, describing Keith as a “comic genius.” “She was a joy to know and work with, and she will be much missed,” Kendal said.

Keith brought a similar blend of commanding presence and dry humor to “To the Manor Born,” which aired from 1979 to 1981 and returned for a Christmas special in 2007. In that series, she played Audrey fforbes-Hamilton, a cash-strapped aristocratic widow who is forced to sell her country estate to a newly wealthy buyer played by Peter Bowles — a man she shares a complicated love-hate relationship with.

Beyond her sitcom roles, Keith’s distinctive voice was heard on the children’s program “Teletubbies” and in advertisements for products ranging from Pimm’s to Parker Pens. She also hosted warm, documentary-style television programs, among them “Penelope Keith’s Hidden Villages.”

Even into her 80s, Keith continued to take on stage roles. As a tribute to her legacy, theaters along London’s West End will dim their lights Wednesday evening in her honor.

In 2014, she was awarded the title of dame — the female equivalent of a knighthood — in recognition of her contributions to the arts and to charitable causes.

She is survived by her husband, Rodney Timson, and their two adopted sons.

LONDON — A former British Conservative lawmaker who had access to inside information about when then-Prime Minister Rishi Sunak would call a national election entered a guilty plea Monday on charges of cheating at gambling.

Craig Williams, who served as Sunak’s parliamentary private secretary, is among more than a dozen individuals charged in connection with a betting scandal surrounding the timing of Britain’s most recent general election.

While election gambling is legal in the United Kingdom — and wagering on when a prime minister will set an election date is a common bet — it becomes illegal when a person relies on confidential inside knowledge to place those bets.

Sunak caught many off guard in May 2024 when he announced the election would be held on July 4, as most political observers had expected him to wait until autumn. The announcement itself turned chaotic when Sunak was caught in a heavy rainstorm outside 10 Downing Street, and word quickly spread that several individuals with ties to the Conservative Party had placed suspiciously well-timed bets. Six weeks after that announcement, the Labour Party defeated the Conservatives, ending 14 years of Conservative rule.

Williams, 41, was present in meetings where the election date was discussed. He admitted in Southwark Crown Court that he used confidential information to place wagers. Prosecutors stated he placed three bets ranging from 22.50 pounds ($29.80) to 250 pounds ($331).

Williams, who lost his bid to keep his parliamentary seat in Wales, had previously acknowledged placing a 100-pound ($132) bet on a July election several days before the date was publicly announced.

In a video posted to social media in June 2024, Williams addressed the situation directly, saying: “I committed an error of judgment, not an offense, and I want to reiterate my apology directly to you.”

Prosecutor Zoe Johnson confirmed that three additional charges Williams had denied would be dropped at the time of his sentencing, which is scheduled for a later date. “He has now accepted by his plea that he used highly sensitive and confidential information to place bets and to profit,” Johnson said.

Other individuals still facing charges include additional members of the Conservative Party who were part of the government at the time, as well as a police officer. Those charges carry a potential prison sentence of up to two years upon conviction.

Twelve other defendants entered not guilty pleas Monday and are set to face trials scheduled for September 2027 and January 2028.

Also pleading guilty Monday was Amy Hind, 35, the wife of Conservative deputy digital director Anthony Hind. She admitted to cheating at betting and is scheduled to be sentenced on October 23. A separate charge against her husband for allegedly passing information to her was dropped.

The Democratic Republic of Congo has prohibited public gatherings across four provinces, including the capital city of Kinshasa, as the government works to contain a deadly Ebola outbreak that has claimed hundreds of lives.

The order was issued on June 27 by the country’s interior minister and applies to Kinshasa, Tshopo, Haut-Uele, and Bas-Uele provinces. Notably, none of those four provinces have recorded any Ebola cases so far. Officials cited the regions’ proximity to already-affected areas as a significant risk for transmission. Authorities in the affected provinces are also required to monitor individuals showing symptoms and submit daily surveillance reports.

The outbreak was officially declared on May 15 and has since infected 1,274 people and killed 360 across three eastern provinces — Ituri, North Kivu, and South Kivu — according to government figures released Monday.

However, the timing of the ban has raised red flags among opposition leaders. The restriction arrives just days before a scheduled protest in Kinshasa set for July 8, where demonstrators planned to rally against proposed constitutional changes that critics say could allow President Felix Tshisekedi to pursue a third term in office.

Prince Epenge, a spokesperson for the opposition Lamuka coalition, condemned the gathering ban as “politically motivated” and made clear to Reuters that the July 8 demonstration would move forward regardless of the government’s order.

The political tension is not new. A previous protest on June 12 was forcibly dispersed by police using tear gas and live ammunition, resulting in the death of one demonstrator and injuries to 38 others, according to the UN Human Rights Office.

BASEL, Switzerland — When a brutal European heat wave sent temperatures soaring to around 39 degrees Celsius (102 degrees Fahrenheit) this past weekend, performers at Switzerland’s national yodeling festival found a creative way to stay cool — they took their rehearsals straight to the city’s fountains.

At one Basel fountain on Saturday, a folk band waded in and dangled their feet in the water while onlookers clapped along and dipped their hands into the flowing stream to escape the heat.

Throughout the three-day event, which ran from Friday through Sunday, singers and alphorn players spilled into the streets, and spontaneous yodeling broke out inside restaurants — catching diners off guard at first before they warmed up and joined in.

In the central Basel square of Petersplatz, seamstresses stood ready the entire festival to mend the traditional Alpine folk costumes worn by competitors whenever something tore or came undone.

But it was the fountain rehearsals that ended up defining this year’s gathering, as the city struggled through record-high temperatures.

The Eidgenössisches Jodlerfest — Switzerland’s national yodeling festival — drew roughly 12,000 performers and close to 200,000 visitors to Basel. It marked the first time the northwestern Swiss city had hosted the event since 1924.

The festival also carried added historical weight: Swiss yodeling was added to UNESCO’s Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity in December 2025, making this the first national gathering since the tradition received that international honor — something many Swiss people hold with considerable pride.

Swiss yodeling differs from the style most people associate with Austria and the Tyrol region. Rather than bright and melodic, the Swiss version is slower and more emotionally complex, rooted in the unique dialects of different regions.

One performer, Freddie Conquer, a member of Jodlerclub Echo Basel — one of the clubs organizing the festival — shared how the tradition has followed him across the globe. “I’ve always loved music, and I left here as a child. When I moved back to New Zealand, I wanted to stay connected to Swiss culture, so I joined a New Zealand-Swiss-Kiwi yodeling club,” he said.

Competitors took part in three categories during the festival: yodeling, alphorn playing, and flag-throwing.

The alphorn is a lengthy wooden instrument with deep roots in Alpine herding culture. Stretching more than 3 meters — or about 10 feet — in length, it was traditionally used to send sound echoing across mountain valleys. During the festival, those sounds rang through Basel’s streets instead. The instrument relies entirely on natural harmonics, with no valves or keys to assist the player.

Pierre-André Karlen, who was practicing on a school lawn, explained the challenge of playing it: “Everything is down to the mouthpiece, hearing the note in your head, and then using your lips to shape the pitch. The higher the note, the harder you have to blow.”

On Sunday morning, competitors gathered in front of the town hall, anxiously waiting to hear the competition results. Members of Jodlerklub Balfrin, from the town of Visp in the canton of Valais, nervously scanned the posted scores — then erupted in celebration after earning a perfect score of one, joining several other top-scoring groups.

The festival wrapped up with a closing parade through Basel’s historic old town, where members of Jodlerklub Muttenz rode by on a tractor to cheers from the crowd. Alphorn players marched behind them, their heavy instruments and thick traditional costumes no match for the heat — though the smiles on their faces never faded.

KHARTOUM, Sudan — Three years of war have turned Khartoum into something resembling a ghost town, with the Sudanese capital bearing deep scars from the ongoing conflict between the country’s military and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces.

Children now wander through an abandoned amusement park surrounded by some of the city’s most recognizable buildings, which have been reduced to hollow shells following repeated attacks. The ground throughout the city is scattered with bullet casings, shrapnel, and unexploded weapons — a constant reminder of the danger that still lingers.

Though the military has retaken Khartoum, fighting continues in other parts of the vast nation, and the possibility of renewed violence has not disappeared.

Throughout the capital’s streets, makeshift burial sites have emerged, and volunteers are now working to exhume the remains. While some of the dead have been identified, thousands of others remain unknown.

For families desperately searching for missing loved ones, one source of hope is the morgue database at Al Nao Hospital — the only facility in Khartoum’s neighboring city of Omdurman that continued operating while the capital was under RSF control. The hospital, which has been bombed multiple times, continues to care for the injured, including a young girl who lost an eye during the conflict.

Since the military recaptured Khartoum last year, officials have been encouraging displaced residents to come back and begin rebuilding some sense of everyday life in the war-torn city.

Jonathan Conricus, a senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies and a former international spokesman for the Israel Defense Forces, is framing the Middle East not as one single crisis but as a series of overlapping collisions — each one demanding attention at the same time.

In a wide-ranging discussion, Conricus touched on attacks in the Strait of Hormuz, US military retaliation, and the nature of a memorandum of understanding between the United States and Iran. He questioned whether the document truly qualified as an MOU at all, arguing that it hands Tehran sanctions relief and diplomatic breathing room while doing nothing to confront Iran’s nuclear ambitions, its ballistic missile program, or its backing of proxy armed groups across the region.

The conversation also included a reference to President Trump’s threat to “complete the job” in connection with Iran and Bahrain, adding another layer of tension to an already complicated diplomatic picture.

But it was Lebanon where Conricus struck a notably different tone. He called the Lebanon diplomatic development “the big news of the weekend” and said it gave him “a glimmer of hope that maybe the future will be different” from the near-constant state of conflict Israel has endured over the past nearly three years.

Conricus also weighed in on Egypt and Prime Minister Netanyahu, offering assessments that ranged from pointed criticism to cautious optimism depending on the topic.

Iran’s top judicial authority declared Sunday that the country intends to bring human rights cases against the United States — both within Iran and on the international stage — and will move to confiscate American assets whenever the chance arises.

Judiciary Chief Gholam-Hossein Mohseni Eje’i made the announcement following a directive from Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei, who has not made a public appearance since being appointed to the position in March.

According to Eje’i, the legal efforts will center on casualties and damage that Iran attributes to military strikes carried out by the United States and Israel. Iranian courts, he said, would press forward with those claims while actively looking for opportunities to seize U.S.-owned property.

Khamenei had previously called on the judiciary to open legal proceedings against both the United States and Israel over losses stemming from military conflict last June and again starting on February 28, 2026.

During a message delivered in observance of Judiciary Week, Eje’i stated that Iran’s courts have a duty to hold accountable what he called “the crimes of international criminals, arrogant powers and global aggressors,” with special focus on events that took place in 2025 and 2026.

While conceding that Iran’s practical ability to get its hands on American assets is limited, Eje’i made clear that authorities would not stop pursuing such cases when openings present themselves.

“From now on, if we gain access to the properties of criminal Americans, we will seize and confiscate them in accordance with the legal ruling of the courts,” he said.

Eje’i also referenced a past instance in which Iran took possession of an American ship, saying it was done “for the benefit of compatriots who have suffered losses from American crimes.” He did not name the vessel in question.

The specific ship he referred to was not immediately clear. However, in 2023, Iran’s navy seized the cargo aboard the Advantage Sweet, a Suezmax crude tanker sailing under the Marshall Islands flag, in international waters in the Gulf of Oman.

BEIRUT — A security framework agreement between Israel and Lebanon may do more to cement an ongoing standoff than to resolve the deeper conflict between Israel and Hezbollah, according to regional analysts and politicians who say the deal’s central demand — that Hezbollah disarm — is simply not achievable.

The fundamental problem, analysts say, is that the agreement rests on a trade that doesn’t hold up: Hezbollah has outright rejected any notion of disarmament, and Lebanon’s government lacks the power to force the issue.

Because Hezbollah is unlikely to lay down its weapons, analysts argue that Israel now has political justification to maintain an indefinite military foothold in southern Lebanon — territory it entered after Hezbollah fired on Israel on March 2 in a show of solidarity with Tehran during the war in Iran.

The result, according to those analysts, is that Lebanon finds itself caught between obligations it has no means of fulfilling and a sovereignty it cannot fully reclaim.

The deal also runs headlong into Lebanon’s fragile political landscape. It asks a divided sectarian state to confront the most powerful armed group in the country — a task made even harder by Lebanon’s post-civil war system, which was built on power-sharing rather than confrontation.

“This is not an agreement, it is an imposed settlement,” said a senior Lebanese politician who asked not to be identified.

That politician added that the Lebanese army was neither built nor equipped to disarm Hezbollah, and that expecting it to do so ignores both the group’s deeply rooted military strength and the delicate sectarian balance that holds Lebanon together.

All the Weight on Lebanon

Political analysts say the agreement was designed with a fundamental imbalance — Lebanon is saddled with sweeping responsibilities while Israel faces no binding commitment to pull its forces out.

“This agreement has put all the burden on Lebanon,” said Michael Young, an analyst based in Beirut, who added that it “creates a structure that allows the Israelis to remain (in southern Lebanon) indefinitely.”

Fawaz Gerges, a Lebanese scholar at the London School of Economics and Political Science, went further, calling the deal “born dead” and structurally broken because it hinges on a condition that cannot realistically be met.

Gerges noted that Israel has already established a buffer zone roughly eight to ten kilometers — about five to six miles — deep in southern Lebanon, while making any future withdrawal contingent on Hezbollah’s disarmament. He warned that the deal risks turning that buffer zone into a permanent fixture with diplomatic cover, calling it a political “gift” to Israel.

The Lebanon conflict has been a key element in broader diplomacy surrounding the wider U.S.-Iran war. Gerges said Washington’s decision to treat the Lebanon situation separately from that larger conflict gave Israel more room to act freely in Lebanon.

Fears of Internal Strife

The framework agreement, signed in Washington, states that Israel makes no claim to Lebanese territory and links Lebanese army control in the south to the verified disarmament of non-state armed groups, including Hezbollah.

Netanyahu has described the deal as a historic achievement that could open the door to broader peace, even as Israeli troops remain in what Israel calls a security zone intended to shield northern Israel from attack.

“We will continue to hold it (territory in the security zone) until Hezbollah and other terrorist organisations are disarmed, and until no further threat to Israel is posed from Lebanon,” Netanyahu said on Saturday.

Three senior Israeli officials acknowledged that Israel has little confidence Lebanon can actually disarm Hezbollah, but they view the deal as an important diplomatic step toward eventual peace with Lebanon.

The human toll of Israel’s military campaign against Hezbollah has been severe — approximately 4,000 people have been killed in Lebanon and one million have been displaced.

Lebanese President Joseph Aoun welcomed the agreement as an initial step toward restoring Lebanese sovereignty, expressing hope that it would allow Lebanese citizens to return to fully liberated land.

Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri, however, called it an “agreement of dictates, not one that preserves Lebanon’s rights,” and declared it would not be carried out.

Hezbollah chief Naim Qassem declared the deal “null and void” and a “surrender,” vowing his group would continue fighting until Israel is compelled to leave. Hezbollah lawmaker Hassan Fadlallah raised the specter of “internal conflict” within Lebanon.

Analysts warn that any attempt to forcibly strip Hezbollah of its weapons could ignite dangerous sectarian tensions. Young said the deal “won’t lead us anywhere except to civil conflict, and maybe an insurrection by the Shi’ite (Muslim) community.”

Questions Surround Whether the Deal Can Work

Danny Citrinowicz, a regional analyst and former Israeli military intelligence officer, said Hezbollah’s dismantlement was “something that would never happen” and that the deal effectively gives legal standing to an open-ended Israeli military presence.

“Nothing will happen. Israel won’t withdraw, and Hezbollah won’t dismantle,” he said.

Citrinowicz argued that no Israeli prime minister has the political room at home to order a withdrawal while Hezbollah remains armed and communities in northern Israel remain displaced. He suggested a more limited agreement — one focused on pushing Hezbollah north of the Litani River, expanding the Lebanese army’s presence, and extending state authority — would have had a better chance of succeeding.

Pro-Hezbollah analyst Mohammed Obeid also expressed doubt the deal would ever be implemented, warning that its provisions were “like explosives” capable of blowing apart Lebanon’s internal stability, since they depend on the Lebanese state taking action against Hezbollah.

A confidential security annex attached to the Israel-Lebanon agreement grants Israeli military forces ongoing authority to conduct operations inside the Yellow Line and makes any future withdrawal from southern Lebanon dependent on conditions on the ground — not a fixed schedule, according to a report by N12.

While the broader Israel-Lebanon agreement was made publicly available on the U.S. State Department’s website, the accompanying security annex was kept secret at the explicit request of the Lebanese government. The core provisions of that annex have now been approved for public disclosure.

A central element of the annex states that neither government is bound to a set withdrawal timeline. Instead, any Israeli military redeployments will be determined by operational assessments and whether specific objectives have been met — a framework that Lebanon agreed to.

The annex also outlines a gradual process for bringing the Lebanese Army into designated pilot zones. Under the disclosed terms, no new pilot areas can be established without Israeli approval. Two such zones currently exist in areas previously agreed upon by both sides, and Israeli officials expect it will take several weeks before Lebanese forces are actually deployed there.

A separate provision formally establishes the Israeli military’s right to act within the Yellow Line, authorizing operations against both immediate threats and those that are still developing.

Beyond concerns about Hezbollah testing the agreement on the ground, Israeli officials are also tracking what they see as a potential indirect challenge from Iran. According to N12, Israeli officials believe Tehran may try to leverage its separate dealings with the United States to push for additional concessions from Israel.

Israeli assessments suggest Iran could urge Washington to pressure Israel into pulling back from Lebanese territory, or potentially use progress on an Iran nuclear deal as leverage. Israeli officials fear this approach could be used to push the U.S. into demanding a full Israeli withdrawal from southern Lebanon — even as the annex explicitly ties any such withdrawal to operational conditions and preserves Israel’s military freedom of action in the area.

The Israel Defense Forces announced Sunday that Capt. David Hazutt, a platoon commander serving in the 12th Battalion of the Golani Brigade, lost his life during an overnight confrontation with a Hezbollah fighter in southern Lebanon. Military officials described the incident as the first direct engagement of its kind since the signing of an agreement with the Lebanese government.

According to the IDF, the clash took place at around 2:00 a.m. while a Golani Brigade Combat Team unit was conducting operations in the Deir Siryan area. During that mission, the soldiers came across a Hezbollah member who opened fire on them.

Capt. Hazutt was fatally wounded in the firefight. A second soldier was also hurt and was transported to receive medical attention. Israeli forces returned fire on the attacker, though the military stated it remained unclear whether the gunman was killed. In the aftermath of the encounter, the IDF carried out artillery strikes in the surrounding area.

Hazutt was 21 years old and originally from the city of Ashkelon, where he had served as a platoon commander in Battalion 12 of the Golani Brigade.

Ashkelon Mayor Tomer Glam offered his condolences, stating: “The city of Ashkelon bows its head and mourns the fall of Capt. David Hazutt, a resident of the city, a platoon commander in Battalion 12 of the Golani Brigade, who fell in battle defending the homeland in southern Lebanon at the age of 21. David is survived by his mother, sister, and a heartbroken family.”

A new framework brokered by Washington between Israel and Lebanon has been signed, but it sits within a broader regional landscape that remains unstable, contradictory, and far from resolved.

The United States is simultaneously pursuing two diplomatic tracks. One involves a preliminary memorandum of understanding with Iran — giving both sides 60 days to hammer out final terms covering nuclear restrictions, sanctions relief, Strait of Hormuz provisions, and language aimed at halting hostilities across the region, including Lebanon. On a separate track, Washington has tied Israel’s gradual pullback from Lebanese territory to the confirmed disarmament of Hezbollah and the restoration of Lebanon’s exclusive authority over its own armed forces.

These two diplomatic efforts are not aligned. They reveal a central tension in American regional strategy. The US-Iran track could open economic doors for Tehran, while the Israel-Lebanon framework is designed to cut off money, weapons, and political support to Hezbollah. One approach treats Iran as a partner in de-escalation. The other essentially pushes Tehran out of Lebanon’s political equation and reframes Hezbollah not as a resistance movement, but as the primary obstacle to both Lebanese sovereignty and Israeli security.

The Israel-Lebanon framework, signed in Washington, lays out a step-by-step process. Lebanon’s military is expected to take charge in two initial “pilot zones” in southern Lebanon, where Hezbollah’s infrastructure would be dismantled and Lebanese civilians allowed to return under state control. If successful, the model would expand to other areas. A security annex — not yet made public — is believed to spell out the operational specifics.

The agreement also signals a broader political shift. Rather than simply seeking calm along the border, it addresses Lebanese sovereignty, the disarming of nonstate armed groups, blocking reconstruction funds from reaching armed factions, and establishing working groups aimed at a future comprehensive peace deal. For Lebanon, the text cuts to the heart of the country’s most sensitive modern political question: whether the Lebanese state — and not Hezbollah — holds the sole authority to decide on war and peace. For Israel, the concern is whether any withdrawal can be trusted given that previous agreements were signed but never fully carried out.

Sarit Zehavi, founder and president of Alma Center, said the most critical part of the agreement may be the section that has not been released to the public.

“It’s an MOU, so not all details are published. It seems like there is another part of the agreement that was not published, which is the security part,” Zehavi told The Media Line.

She noted that the pilot-zone mechanism still lacks clarity — specifically whether the Israel Defense Forces, the Lebanese Armed Forces, or both would be tasked with removing Hezbollah’s infrastructure from those areas.

From Zehavi’s standpoint, the framework’s key advancement is that Israeli withdrawal is no longer contingent on Lebanese promises alone, but on verified, concrete actions.

“I think the positive development of this agreement, with regard to the pilot zone, is the fact that there is an understanding that Israel is withdrawing only under proven actions of disarmament in Lebanon,” she said. “This was not the case in the two previous agreements that we had in 2006 and in 2024. In both cases, we had withdrawn based on a Lebanese promise that was never fulfilled. This time, it’s exactly the opposite.”

That sequencing is also where Israeli doubts take root. The deal hinges not just on the Lebanese army moving into areas the IDF vacates, but on ensuring Hezbollah cannot return alongside the civilian population. For communities in northern Israel — many still bearing the scars of prolonged fighting — this is the ultimate test.

“It is clear that it’s for the Lebanese army to make sure that Hezbollah is not coming back with the civilians,” Zehavi said. “Israel will not withdraw completely if it does not have proof that any area that was evacuated by the IDF is not being used for Hezbollah to come back. That’s the main achievement from the Israeli point of view.”

Zehavi also views the framework as something more politically significant than a standard ceasefire arrangement.

“The second achievement, which works for both sides, I think, is the fact that there is mutual recognition in the very existence of the State of Israel,” she said. “And the idea is that it’s an MOU for a peace agreement, not for a ceasefire agreement.”

That is precisely why Hezbollah has rejected the deal. The group has long defended its weapons as essential tools of resistance against Israel. A framework that makes disarmament a precondition for Israeli withdrawal flips that logic: Hezbollah’s arsenal becomes the reason Israel stays, not the reason it leaves.

“Hezbollah doesn’t want to be disarmed. Hezbollah wants to preserve its power,” Zehavi said.

There are fears within Lebanon that Hezbollah will portray any Lebanese army effort to enforce the agreement as an assault on the Shiite community and on the so-called “Axis of Resistance,” raising the threat of civil conflict. Zehavi acknowledged that danger but said failing to confront Hezbollah carries its own serious risks.

Within Lebanon, the framework has generated sharply opposing reactions. Supporters see it as a possible escape from a permanent state of war, a route to rebuilding, and a chance to reclaim Lebanese sovereignty. Critics — particularly Hezbollah and its allies — describe it as capitulation, normalization under duress, or an arrangement that validates Israeli military presence until Hezbollah lays down its arms.

Marwan Abdallah, head of the Foreign Affairs Department of the Lebanese Kataeb Party, argued that the Israel-Lebanon framework should be treated as a standalone agreement, not as an extension of the US-Iran diplomatic track. He said it has no connection to broader regional discussions involving Iran, Qatar, Oman, or Pakistan.

“Not Islamabad, not Tehran, not Qatar, not Oman. None of these processes is linked to the framework agreement between Lebanon and Israel,” Abdallah told The Media Line.

In Abdallah’s view, the only acceptable role for Iran in Lebanon would be to sever its financial, political, and military ties with Hezbollah.

“As Lebanese, and I think as Israelis, we don’t acknowledge Iran’s role in our process,” he said. “If Iran wants to have a role in our process, the only role that it’s required to do is to stop supporting Hezbollah, stop financing it, stop giving it orders to support their front and to launch attacks, and help us dismantle the organization.”

“Otherwise, there’s no role for Iran, irrespective of what is mentioned in the MOU that they signed with Washington,” he added.

This is where the contradiction with the broader US-Iran framework becomes politically hazardous for Lebanon. The Israel-Lebanon agreement seeks to stop funds from reaching Hezbollah and other nonstate armed groups. But if Tehran receives economic relief under the US-Iran deal, critics of Hezbollah in Lebanon worry those resources could ultimately bolster Iran’s regional network.

Abdallah said Western assumptions that any unfrozen Iranian assets would be directed toward domestic needs reflect a misunderstanding of Iran’s ideological priorities.

“We know for a fact that none of the money will go to the people of Iran, and it will be used to support the terrorist activities of Iran,” Abdallah said. “So, this is a naive approach from the West and the Americans.”

Zehavi echoed that concern from an Israeli perspective, saying the two diplomatic tracks appear to undercut each other. The Israel-Lebanon agreement aims to block money from reaching Hezbollah, she noted, while the Iran-US track could provide Tehran with resources that might eventually find their way to the group.

“I don’t know how to solve this contradiction. This is something that America created, and they will have to solve it. Time will tell,” she said.

Despite their reservations, both analysts regard the Israel-Lebanon framework as a potential turning point — even as both remain cautious about whether it will actually be carried out.

For Abdallah, the pilot zones represent a practical test of whether the Lebanese army can assert state authority and dismantle Hezbollah’s infrastructure one village at a time. He said the army could receive intelligence through the monitoring mechanism — including from Israel and the United States — and then be directed to take control and clear Hezbollah infrastructure in one area before moving on to the next.

He described the Lebanese army’s role as essential because it would restore authority through a national institution rather than a foreign one.

“For us as Lebanese, it’s the Lebanese army that’s taking control, so it’s not a foreign army. And I think this is the best thing that can happen,” he said.

But Abdallah also acknowledged that the opportunity came only after enormous destruction in the south. He said Lebanon failed to act before Israel attacked, occupied territory, and destroyed many villages along with Hezbollah infrastructure. He blamed Hezbollah for launching a war it could not sustain and then refusing to surrender its weapons even after the devastation of southern Lebanon.

Abdallah argued that the framework should not be limited to areas south of the Litani River. If the pilot zones prove successful, he said, the same model should be extended across the entire south and eventually throughout Lebanon.

The political opening is connected to a deeper shift in Lebanese society. During the war, discussions about peace with Israel became less of a taboo in some Lebanese circles. Lebanese officials, including President Joseph Aoun and Prime Minister Nawaf Salam, took firmer stances against Hezbollah than many would have anticipated years ago. Israeli voices appeared on Lebanese television. Polling indicated that a growing number of Lebanese people no longer supported permanent confrontation with Israel.

Abdallah said Aoun and Salam represent a broad parliamentary majority and are acting in Lebanon’s national interest. He pointed to recent polling he said showed 55% of Lebanese supporting peace with Israel.

“Peace, not just cessation of hostilities, not going back to the truce of 1949,” Abdallah said.

That position directly challenges Hezbollah’s warning that disarmament would trigger civil war. Abdallah said the term is being misapplied. A clash between political parties or sectarian factions, he said, would constitute civil war — but a national army enforcing the law against an illegal armed group is an act of state authority, not civil conflict.

“But when the army, the legitimate army of the country, is implementing the law and the constitution of the country, and is given an order by the president, the prime minister, and the cabinet of the country to dismantle a military group that is illegal, it’s not a civil war. It’s a terrorist organization or a military group resisting the law enforcement entities and resisting the rule of law.”

Abdallah said Hezbollah is the only actor capable of turning the process violent.

“No one wants to do a civil war except for Hezbollah,” he said. “No one is capable of doing a civil war except for Hezbollah because they are the ones who are armed and have their own militia.”

He said the Lebanese state is offering alternatives, including disarmament, demobilization, and reintegration programs.

“We are proposing many nonviolent paths to disarm willingly, to create economic opportunities and incentives for the people who are in Hezbollah, to do a DDR process, to help them rebuild their villages, to help them go back to their villages,” he said.

“If you want to stay stubborn about what you are doing or what you are deciding because Iran asked you to, then you have to pay the price,” he added.

The question of recognition may be the most symbolically charged element of the entire framework. Lebanon and Israel have technically been at war since 1948. Even an indirect acknowledgment of Israel’s legitimacy is politically explosive in Lebanon, where Hezbollah and its allies have built much of their identity around armed resistance.

Abdallah said Lebanon has spent too many decades trapped in a cycle of war and that the time has come to pursue peace.

“I think it’s time. No human being lives to fight. No people in the world, no country in the world exists to keep fighting all the time,” he said.

He also drew a clear line between Lebanon’s national interests and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

“The idea of removing Israel from existence is not something that we believe in,” Abdallah said.

“There’s a problem between the Israelis and the Palestinians. It’s for the Israelis and the Palestinians to solve. It’s not for us, the Lebanese, to solve,” he said. “We are too small a country. We carried the Palestinian cause for 80 years now, and now is the time to move on.”

For Abdallah, the desire to end the conflict crosses sectarian lines.

“The decision is clear, and it’s cross-sectarian by the way. It’s not Christian only. The Sunnis, the Druze, the Christians, and some of the Shia are fed up with the war, and we want to live in peace,” he said.

“So yes, recognizing Israel is a big step, but it’s normal. The big step would be when we find peace, and this would mean ending 100 years of conflict,” he added.

On the Israeli side, Zehavi said communities in the north are not opposed to peace with Lebanon, but they are waiting to see whether the words translate into action on the ground.

“The feeling is: let’s wait and see,” she said. “This agreement will only be proved to be a success if it is implemented. And this is a question, whether it will be implemented. The people here are welcoming the idea of peace with Lebanon. Nobody is against that here.”

“But since we were disappointed so many times, we want to wait and see if it will succeed,” she added.

The weeks ahead will reveal whether Washington can manage both diplomatic tracks simultaneously — a regional deal with Iran that does not end up reviving Hezbollah, and an Israel-Lebanon framework that depends on Hezbollah’s weakening without destabilizing Lebanon from within.

The framework’s central premise is straightforward but politically explosive: Lebanon cannot reclaim its sovereignty while Hezbollah maintains an independent military role, and Israel will not fully pull back while Hezbollah retains the ability to return to the border.

The question now is whether the Lebanese state — backed by Washington and tolerated by Israel — can enforce that premise without the country being pulled into another internal crisis. For those who support the framework, this is the first genuine opening in decades. For those who oppose it, it represents forced surrender. For both Israel and Lebanon, it is a test of whether the end of one war can avoid becoming the start of another.

Israel has deployed search and rescue teams to Venezuela in the wake of devastating twin earthquakes that claimed at least 1,450 lives, left more than 3,200 people injured, and resulted in tens of thousands of individuals being unaccounted for. Israeli humanitarian organizations have joined the relief effort to help survivors and evaluate the most urgent needs on the ground.

The Israeli delegation consists of 16 rescue workers joined by specialists from Magen – Disaster & Emergency Management Company, the Ready for Rescue non-profit organization, and SmartAID. The team is delivering humanitarian aid and working alongside local rescue crews in the search for survivors.

Beyond search and rescue, the mission includes professionals focused on mental health and psychological first aid, water safety, sanitation, hygiene, and rapid evaluations of humanitarian conditions in the communities hit hardest by the disaster.

IsraAID Colombia, which has maintained ties with Venezuelan communities in Colombia since the peak of the Venezuelan refugee crisis in 2019, has continued building partnerships with local Venezuelan organizations in recent years. Those partnerships have included remote training in mental health and protection to better prepare communities for emergencies.

The two earthquakes, registering magnitudes of 7.2 and 7.5, struck northern Venezuela and caused widespread destruction across the region.

Officials have reported as many as 50,000 people listed as missing in government databases, though thousands have since been located. The earthquakes caused 189 buildings to completely collapse and left 38 hospitals damaged. The United Nations placed the estimated economic toll at approximately $6.7 billion.

The Committee of the Jewish Communities of Venezuela launched an emergency fundraising drive on Sunday with an initial target of $2 million. By Sunday evening, the campaign had already collected $176,000 to help Jewish families affected by the earthquakes.

“About 80 Jewish families have lost their homes, and another 200 are afraid to return home. The community is currently assisting all of them,” a member of Caracas’s Jewish community told Walla.

Israeli rescue workers are continuing to operate alongside local authorities as humanitarian groups broaden their relief operations throughout the earthquake-stricken areas of Venezuela.

Pakistan conducted airstrikes and ground military operations along its border with Afghanistan on Monday, with Islamabad claiming at least 29 suspected terrorists were killed. Afghan officials, however, told a very different story — saying the attacks left dozens of civilians dead and hundreds injured.

According to Reuters, Pakistani forces reported killing at least 29 suspected militants during the operation. Authorities said 25 of those killed died in airstrikes targeting three separate locations in the Afghan provinces of Paktia, Paktika, and Kunar. Four additional fighters linked to the Jamaat-ul-Ahrar faction of Pakistan’s Taliban were killed in ground operations in the Bajaur district of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.

Pakistan’s Information Minister Attaullah Tarar announced on social media platform X that the strikes destroyed “large quantities” of weapons and ammunition, adding that the country’s security forces had carried out precise hits on terrorist camps and hiding places.

At a press conference, Tarar said the military action was triggered by a string of recent terrorist attacks, pointing specifically to a Saturday assault by Jamaat-ul-Ahrar on a Sindh Rangers facility in Karachi. That attack killed three troops and left four others wounded. Tarar also acknowledged that Pakistani aircraft carried out a second strike on one of the targeted sites while rescue efforts were already underway.

Afghanistan strongly rejected Pakistan’s version of events. Government spokesperson Hamdullah Fitrat said the strikes resulted in 38 civilian deaths and left 163 people injured, including women and children. Fitrat said the bulk of those casualties came from a Pakistani strike on a home in Paktia province, where 28 people were killed and 158 others were hurt.

The stark difference in casualty numbers has deepened the rift between Islamabad and Kabul, and analysts say the situation is likely to further inflame tensions along the shared border — tensions that already boiled over in clashes between the two countries back in February.

Pakistan has long accused Afghanistan’s Taliban-led government of sheltering terrorists who plan and carry out attacks on Pakistani soil. The Afghan Taliban has repeatedly denied those accusations, maintaining that terrorism is a domestic problem for Pakistan to address on its own.

Turkey and Azerbaijan are speaking out strongly against Israel’s move to formally recognize the Armenian genocide, following a unanimous vote by Israel’s Cabinet on Sunday. Both nations are calling on Jerusalem to walk back the decision before it reaches the Knesset, Israel’s parliament, for a final vote.

Azerbaijan’s Foreign Ministry took issue with the Cabinet’s action, stating, “The decision by the Israeli government concerning the so-called ‘Armenian genocide’ is a matter of serious concern.” The ministry went on to say that “The distortion of the historical facts surrounding the events of 1915, and the reduction of a complex historical issue to a political decision without a sound legal or scholarly basis, are unacceptable.”

Baku also warned the move would do nothing to strengthen its relationship with Israel, declaring, “Such actions do not contribute to reconciliation or mutual understanding. Instead, they deepen existing divisions and undermine efforts to achieve lasting peace and stability in the region. We call on the Israeli government to reconsider this decision.”

Turkey, whose relationship with Israel has been strained since the Hamas attack on October 7, 2023, responded even more harshly, characterizing the proposal as a politically driven maneuver.

Turkey’s Foreign Ministry stated, “The Israeli government, which has systematically persecuted the Palestinian people before the eyes of the entire world and is being tried at the International Court of Justice on charges of committing genocide against the people of Gaza, is seeking to cover up its own crimes through the political decision it has adopted regarding the events of 1915.”

Ankara added, “Turkey will continue to work resolutely to bring an end to Israel’s expansionist and destabilizing policies in the region.”

The proposal was put forward by Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar and received unanimous Cabinet approval Sunday. It formally acknowledges the mass killings of Armenians carried out under the Ottoman Empire and calls on Israel to stand against any attempts to deny or downplay those atrocities.

According to background text included in the proposal, the Armenian genocide began in April 1915 with the arrest, forced removal, and killing of hundreds of Armenian intellectuals, community figures, and educated leaders in Constantinople.

The document further describes how Ottoman authorities expanded the campaign, forcing Armenian men into labor before executing them, while women, children, and elderly people were sent on death marches toward the Syrian desert, where victims endured mass killings, rape, starvation, and dehydration.

The proposal estimates that around 1.5 million Armenians lost their lives and says the campaign wiped out a cultural and historical legacy that had existed across Anatolia for thousands of years. It also contends that despite extensive historical documentation, organized denial efforts persist — pointing specifically to what it describes as the manipulation of history books, primarily by Turkey.

The proposal notes that 32 countries have already formally recognized the Armenian genocide through parliamentary votes, legislation, or official government declarations.

Israeli President Isaac Herzog stood before a solemn gathering in Romania on Sunday to mark 85 years since the Iași pogrom, honoring the thousands of Jewish victims murdered during the Holocaust while sounding a warning about the resurgence of antisemitism across parts of Europe.

The commemoration was held at the Iași Jewish cemetery, attended by Romanian government representatives, city leadership, and members of the local Jewish community. The ceremony began with the recitation of Kaddish, led by Romania’s Chief Rabbi, Rabbi Rafael Shaffer. Herzog also took part in a reburial ceremony for the remains of 22 pogrom victims who were recently identified.

The event reflected the shared commitment of Israel and Romania to keeping alive the memory of the Holocaust and the history of Romanian Jewry.

Speaking at the ceremony, Herzog said, “It is with humility and trepidation that I have come from Jerusalem, with the blessings of the nation of Israel, to stand here today, as President of the State of Israel, to meet this solemn duty of remembrance.”

He acknowledged that no act of remembrance could undo the crimes of the pogrom or fully explain how such violence was carried out in a city that had long been a thriving center of Jewish life. Referring to the atrocities that unfolded between June 28 and July 6, 1941, Herzog said the only response to how such cruelty was possible was “a deafening silence.”

Herzog drew on the words of Romanian-born Holocaust survivor and Nobel laureate Elie Wiesel, quoting his account of the pogrom: “From the simple soldier to the high-ranking officer; from the anonymous employee, to the official invested with the high and implacable authority of the state, the Jews of Iași could not expect any trace of compassion or humanity.”

The Israeli president said the memory of those who perished should inspire efforts to build a better future, not simply serve as a tribute to the past. He stressed the obligation to ensure that future generations learn about the atrocities and visit the site.

Herzog also touched on the deep historical connections between Romania and Israel, noting that Naftali Herz Imber wrote the original draft of what would become Israel’s national anthem, “Hatikvah,” in Iași, and that Romanian Jews helped establish some of Israel’s earliest communities, including Rosh Pina in 1882.

Addressing the growing threat of antisemitism, Herzog declared, “The moral infrastructure that humanity established in response to the moral destruction of the Holocaust is weaker than it has been for eighty years.” He expressed gratitude to Iași Mayor Mihai Chirica and Romania’s leadership for their work to preserve Holocaust memory and push back against antisemitism. Herzog also announced plans to address the Romanian parliament in Bucharest on Monday to honor the bond between the two nations.

PARIS (AP) — It was supposed to be men’s fashion season. But women were a constant presence throughout.

At Amiri and Ami, women and men shared the runway together. At Vetements, female models wore much of what was billed as menswear, with Sharon Stone closing out the show in thigh-high boots.

Within the fashion world, none of this raised an eyebrow.

The blurring of gender lines wasn’t happening on the fringes — it was woven into the fabric of Paris Men’s Fashion Week, which concluded Sunday. The event is where a multibillion-dollar luxury industry previews what it believes men will want to wear next.

The trend has made its way into advertising as well. In 2023, a pregnant Rihanna served as the face of Pharrell Williams’ debut Louis Vuitton men’s campaign, appearing on a massive Paris billboard with her baby bump on display and her arms draped in Vuitton bags.

Joseph McBrinn, an art historian at Ulster University, noted that this isn’t entirely new territory. Women have been appearing in menswear collections for so many seasons that fashion insiders barely take notice anymore — even as a Gen Z audience, only now discovering the gender-bending style that David Bowie made famous in the 1970s, treats it as something revolutionary.

Over recent decades, McBrinn said, fashion has shifted “from very binary understandings of gender and fashion to something which is today very fluid” — a reflection, he added, of how younger generations now see the world.

At Issey Miyake’s IM Men, the brand said the entire cast was male — yet the show still carried a distinctly androgynous feel.

The boundary between men’s and women’s clothing keeps wearing away, both on bodies and on the fashion calendar. It hasn’t disappeared entirely, and that erosion has as much to do with money as with gender identity.

Andrew Groves, a menswear systems professor at the University of Westminster, put it plainly: “Androgyny only works because people understand what is being crossed.” He added that the real story isn’t that menswear has broken free of its rules, but that designers are discovering new creative freedom within one of fashion’s most restrictive playbooks. The runways may look like they’re dissolving gender — but it’s precisely those categories that make the statement meaningful.

At Dior, Jonathan Anderson — the first designer in the house’s history to oversee both its men’s and women’s lines — dressed models in pearls, pink, and sheer blouses with soft bows at the collar. He told reporters the collection was about how he “connects with the feminine.”

At Saint Laurent, male models went shirtless in body-hugging tops, wore leather briefs, and walked in transparent shoes borrowed directly from the women’s runway. Saint Laurent opened Paris Men’s Week, and its investment in menswear goes beyond aesthetics — reports indicate the house has set a goal of doubling men’s sales by 2030.

Many fashion houses have merged their men’s and women’s collections onto a single shared runway. What once felt like a bold provocation became a scheduling strategy by the late 2010s — part creative vision, part convenience, and largely driven by commerce.

When Anthony Vaccarello took the helm at Saint Laurent in 2016, he eliminated the brand’s standalone menswear show and integrated men into the women’s runway, only bringing back a separate men’s show in 2018. Vetements and Balenciaga made similar moves around the same time.

Valerie Steele, director of the Museum at the Fashion Institute of Technology, was candid about the motivation: “I don’t think having men and women on the same runway means a greater belief in nonbinary genders. That’s really more of an economic thing.”

A combined show consolidates media attention and allows a designer to tell one unified story — something that matters in a luxury market that has faced headwinds over the past couple of years.

Women already purchase menswear regularly, which helps explain why Ami, originally launched in 2011 as a men’s brand, eventually expanded into womenswear.

The blending of clothing styles is actually the older part of this story. Long before “nonbinary” entered everyday conversation, Yves Saint Laurent was putting women in men’s tailoring back in 1966. Bowie smudged the line in the ’70s. Jean Paul Gaultier sent men out in skirts in the ’80s. Fashion was speaking this language long before society had the words for it.

Veteran fashion critic Suzy Menkes traces the history even further back. Men once wore “the most dramatic, precious, glamorous and priceless jewels,” she noted, without anyone questioning whether such adornments were appropriate for them. It was the 20th century, she said, that narrowed the concept of male dress — before fashion began to push those boundaries open again.

The exchange between men’s and women’s fashion has never been balanced: a woman in a men’s suit, 60 years later, barely registers; a man in a skirt or heels still reads as transgression.

“Women’s bodies are still consumed in ways that men’s bodies are not,” McBrinn said. Men, he added, “can still be seen as deviant” when they cross that line.

Away from the runway, the cultural moment is tense: aggressive online masculinity movements, “manosphere” influencers like the Tate brothers, and a wave of anti-trans legislation are all part of the backdrop.

Last year, J.Crew sparked a conservative backlash simply by marketing a pink sweater to men — even as Dior, Paul Smith, and Willy Chavarria were sending pink down their own runways. The controversy was cultural, but there was a commercial dimension too: reports showed pink apparel sellouts climbed 17% year-over-year in spring-summer 2025.

Menkes said color is part of the same broader story. Post-war Europe helped cement the idea that certain colors were “suitable” for men, she said, and it took “a surprisingly long time” for shades like lilac or pale pink to be accepted as male choices.

Steele noted that openness to androgyny peaked in the 1920s, the ’70s, and the ’90s — and pulled back each time.

“Everything is moving to the right,” McBrinn said. “Fashion may go back to being much more entrenched within gender binary” — possibly, he warned, within five to 10 years.

After years of expanding legal protections for LGBTQ+ people, progress is now reversing in many countries, with transgender individuals at the center of the debate.

“We are seeing tremendous backlash internationally against trans people,” Steele said.

Ultimately, Steele argued, the runway matters less than everyday life. Real change happens when people see androgynous clothing on friends, coworkers, and the men around them.

Increasingly, she suggested, they’re just clothes.

KYIV, Ukraine — At least eight civilians lost their lives and 35 others were hurt Monday after Russian missiles and drones struck multiple locations across Ukraine, prompting Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to denounce what he called “horrific attacks.”

Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine more than four years ago and has since carried out sustained bombing campaigns aimed at crippling the country’s infrastructure and breaking the will of its people. The United Nations reports that more than 16,000 Ukrainian civilians have been killed since the conflict began.

Zelenskyy announced on social media that a Russian missile aimed at infrastructure hit the central city of Dnipro, leaving five people dead and 29 injured. Separately, Russian drones struck a passenger minibus in the southern city of Zaporizhzhia, killing three people and wounding six others, including a child.

National Police also reported that drone attacks in Ukraine’s northeastern Sumy region claimed the lives of a 69-year-old woman and a 77-year-old man. Authorities said deadly strikes also took place in at least six additional regions of the country.

The wave of attacks also disrupted electricity service for customers across eight Ukrainian regions on Monday. Grid operator Ukrenergo noted that demand had already been elevated due to hot weather, as residents turned to air conditioning to cope with the heat.

Zelenskyy used the occasion to renew his appeal for European nations to accelerate the development of air defense systems capable of intercepting Russia’s ballistic missiles, which have proven difficult to shoot down.

“People need greater protection from such horrific attacks,” Zelenskyy said. “Above all, we need anti-ballistic capabilities. It is essential that Europe is as active as possible in developing its own anti-ballistic defense – its own systems and missiles.”

Western officials say the war has shifted notably in recent months, as Ukraine’s growing drone strike campaign has caused fuel shortages inside Russia and in Russian-occupied territory. Analysts say those strikes have weakened Russian military supply lines along the eastern and southern front lines, slowing Russia’s advance.

Ukraine’s advancements in drone technology have made it a recognized leader in military drone use, and the country is now assisting partner nations — a reversal from its earlier position of seeking foreign military aid.

Russian President Vladimir Putin acknowledged Sunday that Ukrainian long-range drone strikes on Russian oil facilities have contributed to fuel shortages within Russia. Those shortages have sparked public frustration, with people waiting in line for hours at gas stations. Despite this, Putin rejected any concessions to end the war and maintained that Russia would ultimately win, dismissing current difficulties as “temporary.”

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov echoed that position, saying Russia’s stance on Ukraine has not changed and that Russian forces are pressing forward with their offensive operations. “Their effort makes us confident that our goals will be achieved,” Peskov told reporters.

The Institute for the Study of War, a Washington-based think tank, characterized the Kremlin’s posture as an attempt to pressure the West and Ukraine into accepting Russia’s terms. However, the organization added that “Russia’s battlefield performance continues to decline in 2026 and Russia’s ability to seize its objectives militarily is in question.”

Russia’s Defense Ministry reported that its air defenses intercepted 209 Ukrainian drones between late Sunday and early Monday. Ukraine’s air force said it shot down 82 of the 108 drones Russia launched overnight.

Five people lost their lives Monday in a shooting at a youth welfare facility in Stade, a town in northern Germany, according to police. Two individuals were taken into custody in connection with the incident, one of whom is believed to be the gunman.

Authorities confirmed that additional people were injured in the attack, though no specific number of wounded was provided.

The shooting occurred at a facility on Dankersstrasse, a street located south of Stade’s town center. The facility serves as temporary housing for pregnant women and young mothers with children.

Police stated there is no ongoing threat to the general public. Video recorded after the shooting showed a heavy law enforcement presence at the scene, joined by other emergency responders and multiple ambulances.

Investigators said they are actively working to determine the circumstances surrounding the shooting and piece together exactly what took place.

Germany maintains stricter gun laws than the United States, and while mass shootings in the country are uncommon, they are not without precedent.

Stade is home to roughly 50,000 residents and sits approximately 40 kilometers — about 25 miles — from the city of Hamburg.

Elite units from Iraq’s Counter-Terrorism Service took 38 politicians, lawmakers, and high-ranking government figures into custody during overnight raids carried out inside Baghdad’s heavily fortified Green Zone, as part of a widening corruption probe.

The operation was conducted under the direct supervision of Prime Minister Ali al-Zaidi. Security forces sealed off all access points to the Green Zone at approximately 2:00 a.m. Sunday before launching coordinated raids on the residences of prominent officials throughout the secured district.

Security sources also confirmed that authorities simultaneously raided the headquarters of the Midland Oil Company, located south of Baghdad, as part of the same operation.

In the wake of the arrests, videos circulating on social media captured extended bursts of gunfire in the area. Military vehicles and tanks were also filmed moving through the Green Zone following the operation.

Among those taken into custody were at least five sitting members of Parliament, whose legislative immunity had previously been lifted. Several senior security officials and civil servants were also arrested. Security sources noted that a number of suspects managed to flee before authorities arrived, triggering an expanded manhunt for additional individuals connected to the investigation.

The crackdown traces back to the arrest last month of former Deputy Oil Minister Adnan al-Jumaili. Officials say his confessions, along with documents recovered during his detention, allegedly revealed what investigators described as a large, organized network engaged in corruption, illegal accumulation of wealth, and abuse of power.

According to security sources, Sunday’s overnight operation stands as one of the largest coordinated enforcement actions ever taken against senior officials in the Iraqi capital. The raids were concentrated within the Green Zone, the tightly guarded enclave that houses major government buildings and official residences.

Authorities have not indicated that the investigation is complete. The search for suspects who evaded arrest continues, and officials say the broader corruption inquiry remains active as they pursue all individuals allegedly tied to the reported network.

In a unanimous decision on Sunday, Israel’s cabinet approved a resolution formally recognizing the Armenian Genocide — a significant policy reversal that now moves to the Knesset for a final legislative vote.

The measure was put forward by Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar, who described the formal acknowledgment of the mass killings as a “moral and historical duty.” Following the cabinet’s approval, Sa’ar took to X to express his reaction, writing: “It’s never too late to do the right thing.” He went on to say, “I thank Prime Minister Netanyahu for the support and the government ministers for their unanimous support in approving the resolution proposal.”

The resolution formally acknowledges the killing of approximately 1.5 million Armenians during the dying years of the Ottoman Empire. It also calls on Israel to stand against any attempts to deny, downplay, or distort the historical record surrounding those events.

Sa’ar introduced the proposal last week, setting off what the government characterized as a notable change in policy direction. For many decades, Israel had avoided formally recognizing the genocide in order to preserve diplomatic and trade ties with Turkey and Azerbaijan. The cabinet’s vote signals a departure from that stance, coming amid growing tensions between Israel and Turkey in recent years.

The legislation still requires approval from the Knesset before it can take effect as state law.

Background text accompanying the proposal explains that the Armenian Genocide began in April 1915, when Ottoman authorities arrested, deported, and killed hundreds of Armenian intellectuals, community leaders, and members of the educated class in Constantinople. What followed, according to the proposal, was a broader, systematic campaign against the Armenian population at large.

Armenian men were forced into labor before being killed. Women, children, and elderly civilians were driven from their homes and made to march toward the Syrian desert, where victims were subjected to mass murder, rape, deliberate starvation, and dehydration, the proposal states.

The document further notes that the genocide wiped out a cultural and historical legacy that had existed across Anatolia for thousands of years. It also highlights what it describes as ongoing, organized efforts to deny or minimize what happened — pointing specifically to what it calls the manipulative rewriting of history books, primarily by Turkey.

According to the proposal, 32 countries have already recognized the Armenian Genocide through parliamentary resolutions, legislation, or official declarations. Beyond recognition, the Israeli resolution calls for condemnation of all efforts to obscure, minimize, or deny the atrocities carried out against the Armenian people.

Hezbollah’s top leadership came out swinging on Saturday against a newly signed Israel-Lebanon framework agreement, branding it a “humiliation” and declaring it has no legal standing.

The agreement was finalized on Friday following five rounds of negotiations in Washington. It lays out a step-by-step plan to wind down the conflict by gradually replacing Israeli Defense Forces positions in southern Lebanon with the Lebanese army, while also pushing forward the disarmament of the Iran-backed terrorist organization Hezbollah.

Hezbollah leader Naim Qassem declared the deal “null and void” and a “humiliation,” insisting it should be thrown out in favor of a memorandum of understanding currently being negotiated — one that would fold a Lebanon ceasefire into a broader agreement involving Iran. Israel has pushed back against that approach.

Qassem drew a hard line, saying any attempt to link an Israeli withdrawal from southern Lebanon to Hezbollah giving up its weapons crossed “red lines.” He further argued that entering into such a deal with Israel would “legitimize the Zionist occupation.”

Lebanese Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri, a known ally of Hezbollah, went even further, calling the accord an “incitement to civil war.”

Hezbollah’s Lawyers’ Association also weighed in, contending the agreement conflicts with Lebanon’s constitution because it states that Israel and Lebanon “affirm the right of each state to exist in peace.” The group argued the constitution “considers Zionism to be a challenge to human dignity” and calls for working “to eliminate it.”

The U.S. State Department, for its part, described the framework as a structured process to dismantle Hezbollah’s terrorist infrastructure, strip the group of its weapons, and allow Israeli forces to exit Lebanon once the threat posed by Hezbollah has been neutralized.

Under the terms of the deal, the United States will create a new trilateral body called the Military Coordination Group for Lebanon, or MCG4L, charged with overseeing how the framework is put into practice. Washington also pledged to bolster the capabilities of Lebanon’s armed forces, back Lebanese military operations against Hezbollah, and deliver $100 million in humanitarian aid to be coordinated through the United Nations.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu praised the agreement on Friday, calling it “a major achievement for the State of Israel.” He said Israel would “remain [in] the security zone in southern Lebanon” while working through a phased withdrawal of Israeli Defense Forces as the Lebanese army moves in, disarms Hezbollah, and asserts its authority over the region.

“The favorite is whoever is not in power, not whoever is on the right,” said Andrés Malamud, a senior research fellow at the Institute of Social Sciences of the University of Lisbon, as he described the changing political landscape across Latin America. The victories of Javier Milei in Argentina, José Antonio Kast’s rise in Chile, Abelardo De La Espriella’s win in Colombia, and Keiko Fujimori’s return to power in Peru may appear to be a sweeping conservative movement — but Malamud says the data tells a more complicated story: voters are turning against whoever holds power, punishing governments that failed to control crime, rein in inflation, fight corruption, and maintain basic order.

“What is happening in Latin America in this decade is a shift toward the opposition more than a shift toward the right,” he said. That distinction carries real weight as right-wing parties gain ground across the region. Argentina kicked off this cycle in November 2023 when Milei, a libertarian outsider, channeled widespread anger at the political establishment into a presidential victory. Chile followed when Kast took office in March 2026 after a campaign focused on crime, immigration, and fiscal discipline. Colombia rejected Gustavo Petro and chose De La Espriella, a hardline right-wing newcomer to national politics. Peru, after years of political turmoil and repeated unsuccessful runs, has brought the Fujimorismo movement back to the presidency under Fujimori.

The picture is not uniform, however. Brazil and Mexico — the two largest nations in Latin America — remain under left-wing leadership. Uruguay returned the Frente Amplio to power in 2024. In Brazil, President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva is still polling ahead of Senator Flávio Bolsonaro before an October election that analysts say will either confirm the regional rightward drift or reveal its limits. That uncertainty is why experts are hesitant to declare a definitive ideological realignment. The right is winning more frequently, but not everywhere, and not always by large margins.

What has spread more rapidly than any ideology, analysts say, is voter impatience.

Malamud offered historical context for the shift. In the first decade of this century, he said, left-wing candidates won approximately 60% of presidential elections in Latin America. In the following decade, that figure dropped to around 55%. So far in this decade, the share has fallen further to roughly 40%, meaning right-wing candidates now win more often than before. But the stronger pattern, he said, is alternation — opposition candidates now win about 75% of elections regardless of ideology. “The right wins 60% in this decade, the oppositions win 75%,” he said. “That means the favorite is the one who is not in power.”

That framing matters, Malamud explained, because several recent victories — including those in Colombia and Peru — were decided by narrow margins. Describing the moment as a simple rightward tide, he argued, risks underestimating how closely divided public opinion actually is and how intense political polarization has become. Latin America, in his view, is moving both to the right and against incumbents simultaneously.

The new wave of right-wing leaders is far from a unified bloc. Milei represents an economic and libertarian rebellion in Argentina. El Salvador’s Nayib Bukele has built his government around a security-first approach. Kast’s Chile leans more conservative and institutional. De La Espriella’s Colombia blends law-and-order politics, deregulation, and open admiration for President Donald Trump. Fujimori carries a family political brand tied to security, market economics, authoritarian history, and Peru’s long institutional crisis. Malamud said what these leaders share is a common language of rejection — broadly opposing what they label communism, globalism, socialism, and feminism — more than any shared governing agenda.

Christian Pino, a Chilean journalist with a master’s degree in international relations, security, and defense from Chile’s National Academy of Political and Strategic Studies, ANEPE, views the movement through the lens of Chile’s history of political pendulum swings. Chile, he noted, has spent two decades alternating between left and right: Michelle Bachelet, Sebastián Piñera, Bachelet again, Piñera again, Gabriel Boric, and now Kast. Similar back-and-forth patterns have played out in Argentina — moving between Kirchnerism, Mauricio Macri, and Milei — and in Brazil, which shifted from Jair Bolsonaro to Lula.

But Pino said the pendulum is now “being dyed with more conservative ideas,” primarily because voters are demanding order. In Chile and elsewhere, he argued, irregular immigration, organized crime, and new forms of violence have reshaped political debate. “Mainly, I understand it, because of the demand for order that irregular immigration has brought in several countries,” he said, drawing comparisons to the appeal of the punitive public security model championed by El Salvador’s President Bukele.

Security stands out as the clearest common thread running through many of the region’s new right-wing campaigns, even where economic platforms differ. Malamud said Kast, Fujimori, De La Espriella, and Bukele are all responding to public safety as a top voter concern. Milei is an exception, he noted, because Argentina’s crisis was primarily economic. Bolsonaro’s original rise, Malamud added, was driven more by opposition to Brazil’s Workers’ Party and anger over corruption than by crime — even though insecurity has long been a serious issue in Brazil.

Prof. Arie Kacowicz, professor of international relations and the Chaim Weizmann Chair in International Relations at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, also urged caution against drawing simple conclusions. “It is not one explanation,” he told The Media Line. Some observers link the shift to what they call the “effect” of President Donald Trump’s return to power — as though Latin American countries were rushing to align with Washington. Kacowicz acknowledged that may be part of the backdrop but said he does not view it as the central driver. The deeper issue, he argued, is whether citizens believe governments “deliver or do not deliver.”

For Kacowicz, Latin America’s capacity to punish incumbents is one of the region’s most powerful political forces. When voters conclude the economy is stagnant, corruption remains entrenched, or crime is unchecked, governments get replaced. That dynamic, he said, helps explain the elections in Colombia, Peru, and Chile without reducing them to a single ideological narrative. He described the current moment as a “grey tide” — a conservative counterpart to the earlier “pink tide” of left-wing governments — but emphasized that voters typically prioritize their daily lives. The average Latin American voter, he said, is less focused on geopolitical issues like Iran, Hezbollah, Israel, or the Middle East than on whether he can walk down the street without being robbed.

Immigration — particularly from Venezuela — has intensified that domestic debate. Malamud said Venezuelan immigration has had its greatest political impact in the Andean countries and in Chile, where it has become a central political rather than merely social issue. In Argentina and Uruguay, he noted, many Venezuelan migrants arrived as professionals and did not provoke the same political reaction. In Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, and Chile, by contrast, Venezuelan immigration became closely linked to debates over public safety, state capacity, and national identity.

Pino described the Venezuelan crisis as a regional shock that disrupted Chile’s long-held sense of geographic isolation. Chile, he said, had traditionally viewed itself as protected by the northern desert, the Andes to the east, Antarctica to the south, and the Pacific Ocean to the west. The arrival of new criminal networks and high-profile violent crimes shattered that self-image. Kast’s promise of “order and justice,” Pino said, created high expectations that will be difficult to meet quickly. He added that Brazil could face a similar political dynamic if crime and public frustration come to dominate that country’s campaign.

Beyond domestic politics, the shift carries geopolitical implications. The new right-wing governments tend to speak more comfortably with Washington, more warmly toward Israel, and more skeptically about China, Russia, and Iran. But the gap between campaign rhetoric and actual state policy remains large. The Trump administration has positioned Latin America within a broader competition over influence, infrastructure, communications, and strategic alignment. Yet even governments sympathetic to the US president cannot easily break from Beijing, which has become central to trade, investment, and infrastructure across much of South America.

Malamud said Washington’s concern about China extends beyond Trump and reflects a broader anti-Chinese consensus within the US political establishment. That consensus, he said, has produced red lines for allies — especially regarding communications technology such as Huawei’s 5G and 6G networks — and in sensitive infrastructure like deep-water ports or space observation facilities with potential military applications. Sometimes Washington manages to shape or block projects before they move forward; sometimes it arrives too late.

He also rejected the idea that China, Russia, and Iran function as a coordinated bloc in Latin America. Washington may group them together, he said, but in practice their cooperation is limited. China pursues commercial interests. Russia pursues its own agenda. Iran seeks political influence, but neither Russia nor China intervened directly when Iran came under attack. Right-wing Latin American leaders may be inclined to accept Washington’s framing, but trade creates firm limits. Both Bolsonaro and Milei talked about reducing business with China, Malamud said, yet neither could break from Beijing because the commercial relationship was too important.

Brazil illustrates that constraint clearly. During Bolsonaro’s presidency, Malamud said, the government’s public rhetoric leaned strongly toward the West, but the military establishment quietly maintained ties with China. Former Vice President Hamilton Mourão, himself a military figure, helped preserve that relationship when Bolsonaro neglected it. For Malamud, the example demonstrates why ideology does not automatically override trade relationships, institutions, or geography.

Chile faces a similar tension. Pino said China, Russia, and Iran have all expanded their presence in Latin America, with China especially visible in Argentina and Chile. He cited the debate over a Chile-China communications cable as an example of the pressures facing Santiago. Chile, he said, is “caught in the middle” — a country of 20 million people navigating a relationship with a power the size of China. In his view, Kast’s government is working to repair what he described as a damaged foreign policy under Boric, particularly regarding Israel and in areas connected to defense and commerce.

Israel is where the ideological shift becomes most visible, even if it rarely drives voter decisions. Under Milei, Argentina has developed an unusually close relationship with Jerusalem. Chile, after years of diplomatic friction under Boric, is moving toward rebuilding those ties. Colombia, after Petro severed relations with Israel, is expected to restore them under De La Espriella. Brazil remains the larger unresolved question: relations under Lula have been deeply strained but not formally broken.

Kacowicz said Israel tends to view Latin American elections through a narrow lens — whether a given candidate is pro-Israel or anti-Israel. Colombia is the clearest case, because Petro broke off relations and a new government is expected to reopen diplomatic channels. Kacowicz noted that Colombia has historically been a close Israeli partner in security matters and also sells coal to Israel. Brazil, he said, is more strategically significant and more complicated. Lula, he said, is not anti-Semitic, but made “very, very extreme” statements about Israel’s actions in Gaza, including comparisons to the Nazis.

Still, Kacowicz cautioned that pro-Israel rhetoric does not translate equally across the region. Argentina has gone further than most under Milei, moving its embassy to Jerusalem and deepening ties with Israel. Brazil remains more complicated because of its relationships with Arab nations, China, and Iran, and because its diplomatic tradition has generally resisted abrupt breaks. Those constraints apply even to governments that are friendlier toward Israel. “It is complicated,” he said. Even so, he added, Israel stands to benefit from the rightward shift if diplomatic relations improve in Chile, Colombia, and — depending on Brazil’s election — in Brasília as well.

Malamud was more direct in describing Israel as an ideological marker. In today’s Latin America, he said, left-wing governments tend to be suspicious of Israel’s government while right-wing governments tend to support it. But he stressed that this matters far more to political elites than to ordinary voters. Leaders can take strong positions on Israel because the electoral cost is typically low. Latin American voters, he said, mostly cast their ballots based on security, the economy, and immigration — with Israel ranking much lower on the public agenda.

In Chile, Pino said the issue is especially sensitive because of the country’s large Palestinian community and much smaller Jewish community. Publicly supporting Israel, he said, carries social and political costs. But he also argued that the Middle East remains distant for most Chileans, beyond activists and communities directly engaged with the issue. Chile lost citizens in the October 7, 2023 attack, but Pino said the country never fully told their stories or made the attack part of a national conversation. For most voters, crime, wages, and immigration remain far more immediate concerns.

That is why Brazil now stands at the center of what comes next. If the right wins in October, the ideological map of South America will look dramatically different. If Lula survives, the region stays divided, and the notion of a consolidated conservative wave becomes much harder to sustain.

Kacowicz called Brazil the most important case to watch — for both Latin America and Israel — not only because of its size but because its runoff election system makes coalition-building decisive.

Malamud argued that even a right-wing victory in Brazil would not automatically produce a coherent conservative bloc across the region. Ideological affinity, he said, has rarely generated durable regional institutions in Latin America. The left-wing cycle of the early 2000s brought leaders like Lula, Néstor Kirchner, and Hugo Chávez to power simultaneously, yet left few lasting structures. “There is no pipeline that goes from Caracas to Buenos Aires,” he said. A new right-wing wave could generate enthusiasm and high-profile summits, but economic integration would remain limited because the region’s main commercial partners lie outside Latin America. Security cooperation would also face obstacles because right-wing leaders tend to be strongly protective of national sovereignty.

That leaves Latin America in a paradox. The region is moving right, but it is not necessarily building a conservative international order. Its leaders may speak more favorably about President Trump, more warmly about Israel, and more skeptically about China, Russia, and Iran. But they govern divided societies, unstable legislatures, crime-plagued borders, and economies tied to Chinese demand, US pressure, and local hardship. Their voters want immediate order — not geopolitical doctrine.

For now, the balance has shifted enough to be significant. Argentina has moved openly toward Washington and Jerusalem. Chile is repairing its relationship with Israel and drawing closer to regional conservatives. Colombia is preparing to reverse Petro’s break with Israel. Peru is returning Fujimorismo to the presidency. Ecuador, Panama, and others have added to the broader rightward trend. But Mexico remains under Morena, Brazil remains under Lula, Uruguay has returned to the center-left, and the new conservative governments still have to prove they can actually govern after winning on public anger.

For Israel, the change is already tangible. A region that recently included several governments openly hostile to Jerusalem now offers the possibility of restored diplomatic ties, renewed security cooperation, and a more receptive political climate in Santiago, Buenos Aires, Bogotá, and — depending on Brazil — Brasília. For Washington, the same movement creates an opening to rebuild influence in a hemisphere where China has become too economically embedded to ignore.

But the rightward turn will not erase the other powers already deeply rooted in Latin America. China will remain a buyer, lender, and infrastructure partner. Russia and Iran will continue seeking political, media, and diplomatic space. Even governments that feel ideologically aligned with Trump or Israel will face the constraint Malamud described: campaign language can move faster than trade relationships, institutions, or geography. The new political map should be read as an opening — not a reversal of the regional order.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu took to the podium Saturday to defend the framework agreement his country reached with Lebanon, making the case that the deal strengthens Israel’s position rather than limiting it.

At the start of the briefing, Netanyahu explained that Israeli forces had only pulled back from two pilot areas that military commanders determined were not operationally needed. He said Israeli troops would continue holding what he referred to as the “yellow security zone.”

“We remain in the yellow security zone that protects us, and that is a tremendous, tremendous achievement,” he said, noting that outside pressure to remove Israeli forces from that area had not succeeded.

Netanyahu extended thanks to President Donald Trump, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Ambassador Yechiel Leiter, the Israeli negotiating team, and the Lebanese government for their roles in reaching the accord. He said Israel had “dealt Hezbollah a severe blow” and was “breaking not only Iran’s axis of terror, but also its political axis.”

The prime minister said Hezbollah had held approximately 150,000 rockets and missiles before the conflict began. He said Israel had destroyed around 90% of that stockpile, eliminated Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah along with commanders of the Radwan Force, and killed more than 1,000 Hezbollah fighters since the war started — including more than 200 in just the past two weeks.

Netanyahu also noted that Israeli forces had taken control of the Beaufort and the Ali al-Taher Ridge overlooking Bint Jbeil, and that operations to dismantle Hezbollah’s infrastructure throughout the security zone were continuing.

“There are bunkers there, there are tunnels there, there are terror villages there. We are eliminating all of it,” he said, while acknowledging that explosive drones remain a significant ongoing threat.

When i24NEWS reporter Nadav Elimelech asked whether the agreement restricts Israel’s operational freedom against Hezbollah, Netanyahu was direct. He said military orders remain unchanged and that soldiers are required to act when they identify a threat.

“If you see a threat, act,” he said. “It is not only the right to act — it is the obligation to act against an immediate threat.” He cited a recent operation in which Israeli forces destroyed a building housing seven Hezbollah fighters before they could carry out an attack.

On the topic of domestic politics, Netanyahu called for national unity, invoking former Prime Minister Menachem Begin. “As Menachem Begin said, ‘No more civil war.’ There will not be one here,” he said. He expressed his intention to form “a broad national government — not a narrow government, not a left-wing government dependent on Arab parties,” and said any party that supports Israel as the nation-state of the Jewish people, individual rights, a free economy, technological progress, and Israel’s right to defend itself would be welcome.

On the question of Haredi conscription, raised by Elimelech, Netanyahu said arresting Torah students inside yeshivas discourages military enlistment rather than encouraging it. “Young Haredim want to enlist,” he said, arguing that such enforcement produces “exactly the opposite” effect. He added, however, that those not engaged in Torah study should still be subject to the full force of the law.

Channel 14 reporter Saria Herush pressed Netanyahu on what would happen if Hezbollah violated the agreement and what guarantees Israel had received from Lebanon and the United States. Netanyahu replied that Israel’s main assurance was its own military strength. “The moment they violate the agreement … we strike with great force,” he said. He called Lebanon’s decision to sign the deal “a very courageous move” because it effectively communicated to Hezbollah and Iran, “We are making peace with Israel.”

Netanyahu said support for the agreement had come from Lebanon’s Christian, Druze, Muslim, and even some Shiite communities. He cautioned, however, that Israel would evaluate the deal based on Lebanon’s actions, and he said the Lebanese army still needs to reform because, in his words, “There are jihadists within its ranks.”

Ynet reporter Itamar Eichner raised criticism from opposition lawmaker Gadi Eisenkot, who called Lebanon “a political graveyard for prime ministers.” Netanyahu brushed off the remark, saying that following Eisenkot’s advice would have meant halting operations in Khan Yunis, bypassing Rafah, staying out of Lebanon, and leaving Hamas and Hezbollah largely untouched.

“So, you know what I say? I’ll answer you in Yiddish,” Netanyahu said. “Who cares?” He added that national security, not politics, drives his decisions. On a separate question about recognizing the Armenian Genocide, he responded, “I did not block it, and I certainly support it.”

Israel Hayom reporter Danny Zaken asked whether the Lebanon deal conflicted with a US-Iran memorandum of understanding. Netanyahu said Israel is not party to that agreement but will continue acting in its own interests. He announced plans to send a delegation to Washington to present Israel’s stance on Iran’s nuclear program and said Secretary of State Marco Rubio had backed Israel’s position on maintaining the security zone in southern Lebanon.

On the question of future coalition partners, Netanyahu said he would welcome any party that accepts his core principles. He firmly rejected the creation of a Palestinian state “between the Mediterranean Sea and the Jordan River,” saying public sentiment has shifted during the war. He argued that most Israelis oppose internal conflict and that a broad national consensus is needed to build on military gains in Gaza, Lebanon, and Iran.

Closing the press conference, Netanyahu pushed back against critics who said Israel had fallen short of its wartime goals. “Your government didn’t achieve 100 percent; you only achieved 80 or 90 percent,” he said of his opponents. “That is a joke. It is simply not serious.”

He said Israel had neutralized the immediate nuclear threat from Iran, significantly damaged Tehran’s ballistic missile production, secured the return of all hostages from Gaza, dismantled most of Hamas’s military capability, and shifted the strategic balance in Lebanon. He concluded that those achievements must now be protected through a broad national government capable of tackling what remains and pursuing further regional agreements.

LA GUAIRA, Venezuela — A powerful aftershock shook Venezuela in the early morning hours Monday, adding to the fear and uncertainty already gripping the country following last week’s pair of devastating earthquakes, as both civilians and emergency crews pressed on in their search for anyone still alive beneath the wreckage.

The tremor hit at 7:01 a.m. local time, centered roughly 27 kilometers — about 17 miles — north of Caraballeda along Venezuela’s Caribbean coast. The United States Geological Survey measured the aftershock at magnitude 4.6, while Colombia’s geological survey placed it slightly higher at 5.1.

Jorge Rodríguez, the head of the Venezuelan National Assembly, reported that no additional damage had been confirmed from Monday’s quake, though the shaking was strong enough to send residents of the capital city of Caracas running and screaming into the streets.

Among those who fled their homes was Concepción Hernández, a 51-year-old resident of the Chacao municipality of Caracas, who evacuated her apartment building when the ground began to move. “Here we are again, back in the street. I don’t know when we’ll have a moment of true peace,” she said.

The aftershock also rattled the already hard-hit port city of La Guaira, where local and international rescue teams have been working around the clock since the twin earthquakes struck the northern region five days ago.

The government has confirmed at least 1,450 deaths tied to the earthquakes, and thousands more people are still unaccounted for. Officials are facing mounting criticism from Venezuelans who say the government’s response has been insufficient and overshadowed by civilian-led rescue operations at collapsed buildings.

Despite the dwindling odds of finding survivors as time passed, rescue workers continued to pull people from the debris, giving desperate families reason to hold onto hope. While the critical window for survival following a disaster is typically the first 48 to 72 hours, experts note that survival is possible longer when victims have access to food and water.

Venezuela’s acting President Delcy Rodríguez said late Sunday that the search for survivors would go on even after that time threshold had passed. The government reported that more than 2,600 rescue workers had arrived from countries around the world, bringing with them trained search dogs and heavy equipment.

LA GUAIRA, Venezuela — A coastal housing complex built under the late Venezuelan leader Hugo Chávez once represented hope for residents displaced by deadly flooding years earlier. Today, two devastating earthquakes have reduced parts of that same development to rubble, and engineers are demanding the government immediately inspect similar public housing that remains standing.

The 1,100-unit complex, informally called ‘Los Cocos’ after a nearby beach, was partially destroyed when two back-to-back earthquakes struck on Wednesday. Resident Yelsa Rojas, who has lived on the second floor of the building since 2015, returned to find her apartment completely destroyed.

“I lost my whole apartment,” Rojas said. “We think everyone on the second floor is dead.” She survived only because she happened to be at a medical appointment when the quakes hit.

While construction specialists say it is premature to pinpoint the exact reasons individual buildings failed, they believe that years of neglect, poor enforcement of building codes, and questionable licensing practices under both Chávez and his successor, Nicolás Maduro, likely increased the human toll of the disaster. Experts also cited soil instability in La Guaira state as a major contributing factor.

As rescue teams continue searching for survivors in the debris, civil engineers fear other structures may still be at risk. So far, the government has met with the country’s main professional engineering association but has not launched any formal assessments — a delay that is drawing sharp criticism.

“It’s criminal that the government is not taking up offers from engineers and universities more quickly,” said Enrique Larrañaga, an architect and urban planner at Simon Bolivar University who has previously advised the government on national development.

Venezuela’s Communication Ministry did not respond to a request for comment. On Sunday, interim President Delcy Rodriguez announced she was forming a commission to evaluate damaged housing structures, though she gave no timeline for when those evaluations would begin.

The government has also faced criticism for being slow to deploy heavy rescue equipment and search teams in the critical first days after the disaster, leaving residents to dig through wreckage with their bare hands, shovels, and ropes. By Saturday, state television showed heavy machinery sorting through crushed concrete and brick. Residents said foreign rescue teams had helped recover bodies and called for additional support.

Larrañaga said many housing developments were rushed for political reasons and have been safety hazards for years. He also noted that Venezuela lost a significant portion of its engineering expertise during the country’s economic collapse that began in 2013. “They need to give people that have know-how access to information and resources,” he said.

Because the government has yet to begin its own inspections, volunteer engineers have stepped in to assist residents directly, according to Glennys Gonzalez, an architect and civil engineer who is coordinating dozens of professionals. Her group’s early findings suggest building codes were not followed in many instances, but further study is needed to understand why some structures survived while others completely collapsed.

La Guaira has a long history with catastrophic natural disasters. In 1999, mudslides wiped out entire coastal communities in the area, killing between 10,000 and 30,000 people. The region’s geography — steep mountains that drop sharply to a narrow strip of coastline — means floods and landslides tend to funnel directly into populated areas, said Richard Casanova, director of Venezuela’s College of Engineers.

That same geography produces soft soil, Casanova explained, making the area especially vulnerable during seismic events. He drew a comparison to the 2023 earthquakes in Turkey and Syria, where similar geological conditions contributed to the deaths of more than 50,000 people.

Four days after the 7.2-magnitude and 7.5-magnitude earthquakes, Venezuelan officials confirmed on Sunday that at least 1,450 people had died and 3,150 others were injured. Citizen-organized efforts to document the missing have gathered nearly 50,000 names.

Nicolás Labrópoulos, a civil engineer and professor at Universidad Católica Andrés Bello in Caracas, explained that the loose sand, gravel, and debris that makes up La Guaira’s ground can cause seismic waves to slow down but grow more intense, amplifying the shaking felt at the surface. Casanova added that, squeezed between mountains and sea, the soil can become almost fluid during an earthquake, making building there even more dangerous.

Many private buildings in the area also collapsed, likely due to a combination of the same soil weaknesses, years of corrosion, and inadequate quality control, Casanova said. He also noted that older structures may not have been updated to meet stronger codes put in place after a 1967 earthquake. “You can build there,” he said, “but you have to really adhere to strict codes, and given how the government has handled construction over the past two-and-a-half decades, I have my doubts in many cases.”

Following the 1999 disaster, Venezuela updated its construction laws and building codes, Casanova said. The problem, however, has never been the code itself — it has been enforcement.

Chávez’s government began constructing complexes like Los Cocos just before Venezuela’s 2012 elections as part of a broader initiative to build millions of affordable housing units across the country. Maduro continued and expanded the program. But as both leaders consolidated power, institutional oversight weakened, and so did quality controls over new construction and maintenance of existing buildings, according to architects and engineers.

The developments were built rapidly by a mix of government agencies and contractors from China, Turkey, and Belarus, working under military supervision but with little public transparency, according to Gonzalez and Casanova. The lax enforcement of codes in public buildings also sent a signal to private developers that they could cut corners, Casanova said — a stark contrast to countries like Chile, where stricter enforcement has kept earthquake death tolls relatively low.

A magnitude-8.8 earthquake in Chile in 2010 killed roughly 525 people, an outcome widely credited to rigorous building codes. In contrast, a weaker magnitude-7.0 quake in Haiti that same year killed hundreds of thousands.

Reports from multiple organizations and news outlets in recent years have documented corruption and shoddy construction tied to Venezuela’s public housing program, including buildings erected in geologically risky zones and structures showing cracks, leaks, and other serious deficiencies.

“The history of Chávez’s public housing is one of corruption and low-quality constructions built without supervision, inspection or adherence to specific codes in many cases,” Casanova said.

KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia — The Malaysian government has agreed to extend its deep-sea search for the missing Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 by another year, keeping alive the hopes of families who have waited more than a decade for answers.

The country’s Cabinet gave its approval on Friday to extend a contract with marine robotics company Ocean Infinity through June 30 of next year. Transport Minister Anthony Loke announced the decision Monday, describing it as a sign of the government’s dedication to the families affected.

“This decision is a manifestation of the government’s continuous and unwavering commitment to provide a closure for the next of kin of the passengers aboard flight MH370,” Loke said in a written statement.

The additional time will allow Ocean Infinity to finish searching the remaining 7,428.54 square kilometers — roughly 2,868 square miles — of ocean floor that has yet to be covered. The company had temporarily shifted its main search vessels to other commercial work before the extension was granted.

Flight MH370 was a Boeing 777 that vanished from radar shortly after departing on March 8, 2014. The aircraft was carrying 239 people, the majority of them Chinese nationals, on a trip from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing. Satellite tracking data indicated the plane deviated from its intended route and flew south toward the far reaches of the Indian Ocean, where investigators believe it went down.

A large-scale multinational search effort failed to locate the aircraft, though pieces of debris later washed up along the East African coastline and on various Indian Ocean islands. A separate private search conducted by Ocean Infinity in 2018 also came up empty.

Last year, Malaysia authorized Ocean Infinity to launch a renewed effort at a new search zone covering 15,000 square kilometers — about 5,800 square miles — in the southern Indian Ocean. Ocean Infinity, which maintains headquarters in both the United States and Britain, stands to receive $70 million only if wreckage from the plane is actually found.

Loke noted that Ocean Infinity’s vessels are expected to return to the MH370 search mission sometime between November and April of next year. That window is considered the safest and most productive period for underwater operations due to calmer sea conditions in the region.

A Russian court has sentenced three people — the owner of an LGBT nightclub and two of its employees — to prison terms in what the court described as the first case prosecuted under Russia’s prohibition on what the government labels the “LGBT movement.”

The court announced Monday that the three individuals, arrested following a law enforcement raid on a club called “Pose” in the southwestern city of Orenburg two years ago, had organized and taken part in activities connected to what authorities classified as an “extremist organization.”

Club owner Vyacheslav Khasanov, 37, was sentenced to seven years in prison and ordered to pay a fine of 1 million roubles, equivalent to approximately $12,755. Club manager Diana Kamilyanova, 30, received a sentence of six years and three months, while art director Alexander Klimov, 23, was sentenced to two years and three months behind bars. All three maintained their innocence.

Under President Vladimir Putin, Russia has significantly restricted LGBT rights, framing them as a Western influence that undermines what the government describes as traditional Russian values rooted in family, national identity, and Orthodox Christian faith.

In 2023, Russia’s Supreme Court officially classified the “LGBT movement” as an extremist organization, and those who support it have been designated as terrorists. That ruling opened the door to serious criminal charges against LGBT individuals and those who advocate for them.

The crackdown has extended broadly — music platforms and online film services face routine fines for hosting LGBT-related content, and in April, employees of a Russian book publisher were questioned by authorities over potential “LGBT propaganda” found within its catalog.

The Pose club had been in operation since 2021, regularly hosting drag performances. As restrictions on LGBT expression grew, the venue began promoting itself as a “parody bar theatre,” according to Russian independent news outlet Mediazona.

In March 2024, the club was raided by Orenburg regional authorities alongside Russia’s National Guard. Video footage posted online by a far-right group captured patrons standing with their hands raised as masked individuals moved through the club’s neon-lit interior. Others were shown lying on the floor with their hands crossed over their heads.

In its ruling, the court stated that the three defendants had “under the guise of running a nightclub, organised events centred on the common theme of demonstrating affiliation with people of non-traditional sexual orientation for an unspecific group of the venue’s patrons.”

LGBT rights attorneys in Russia have stated that the Orenburg case will function as a legal precedent, enabling future prosecutions of LGBT people and their supporters, while also eliminating what they describe as remaining “safe havens” for LGBT individuals within the country.

An Israeli airstrike struck a tent housing displaced Palestinians in the Gaza Strip on Monday, leaving at least three people dead, among them a young child. Israel said the strike was aimed at a militant sheltering in the tent.

Gaza health officials said the attack hit a residential area in Deir al-Balah, a city in central Gaza that has seen relatively less destruction than other parts of the territory. Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital reported that those killed were two adult men and an 8-year-old child, with a fourth person — another man — suffering injuries.

The Israeli military named the intended target as Zaher Abu Salem, describing him as an active member of Islamic Jihad who played a role in the October 7, 2023 militant attack on Israel — the assault that set off the current war.

Although the most intense combat has died down since a ceasefire went into effect in October, Israeli forces have continued to carry out airstrikes across Gaza. Health officials in the territory say those strikes have claimed the lives of 1,045 Palestinians. Israel has publicly announced multiple strike operations targeting militants, including three separate strikes over the past weekend.

Gaza’s Health Ministry, which operates under the Hamas-led government, keeps detailed records of casualties. United Nations agencies and independent analysts generally consider those records to be credible, though the ministry does not distinguish between civilian and militant deaths. Militants have also carried out shooting attacks against Israeli troops, and Israel says its ongoing strikes are a direct response to those and other violations of the ceasefire terms. Five Israeli soldiers have died since the ceasefire began.

The October 7 attack killed approximately 1,200 people in Israel and resulted in 251 individuals being taken hostage. In response, Israel launched a military offensive in Gaza. Since that campaign began, Gaza’s Health Ministry reports that more than 73,058 Palestinians have been killed, a figure that includes those who have died since the ceasefire took effect.

Australian police announced Monday that a Thai airline worker has been arrested and charged with allegedly smuggling more than one kilogram — roughly 2.2 pounds — of heroin into Melbourne.

The 26-year-old woman was working aboard an international flight when it landed at Melbourne Airport on Thursday. Authorities say she drew suspicion during a routine baggage screening, prompting a closer look by the Australian Federal Police.

An X-ray scan and follow-up testing revealed white powder hidden inside the linings of 12 tote bags she was carrying. A preliminary test came back positive for heroin, and the total seizure was estimated to have a street value of roughly 500,000 Australian dollars — approximately $345,000 U.S.

She now faces charges of importing and possessing an illegal drug. The offense carries a maximum penalty of 25 years behind bars. She is scheduled to appear before a Melbourne court in September.

The agency’s Acting Commander Simone Butcher issued a firm warning in the wake of the arrest. “The AFP remains unwavering in its efforts to target individuals who use their employment or community standing to support drug trafficking,” she said.

Australian police have not released the woman’s name or identified the airline she works for. However, Thai Airways — Thailand’s national carrier — confirmed in a statement Monday that one of its staff members had been detained in Melbourne and said the airline has been working with the relevant authorities.

Thai Airways said it would “take decisive action” if misconduct is confirmed, adding that its workers are strictly forbidden from any involvement with narcotics or illegal items. The airline also stated it is working to ensure the detained employee has access to basic legal protections.

MANCHESTER, England — Andy Burnham, the man widely expected to become Britain’s next prime minister, is preparing to deliver a major speech Monday laying out a sweeping economic plan centered on shifting power away from London and toward local governments across the country.

Burnham’s office says the speech will present a 10-year vision for what he calls “good growth in every postcode” — a direct response to the long-standing concentration of wealth and political power in London and southern England.

Speaking in Manchester, where he spent nine years serving as mayor, Burnham is expected to announce plans to relocate part of his prime ministerial operation to the northwestern city. He also intends to expand the authority of regional mayors, giving them greater control over housing, welfare, and education policy.

His broader economic approach draws from his time leading Greater Manchester, where he worked to combine public and private investment to improve transportation, housing, and infrastructure. He hopes to apply that same model across the entire United Kingdom.

The speech is also expected to include pledges to create new industrial jobs, expand educational opportunities, and overhaul the country’s privatized water and energy utility systems, which have been widely criticized as inefficient and costly.

While Burnham earned considerable praise for his work revitalizing Manchester, he has been absent from national government for nearly two decades. Critics question whether his so-called “Manchesterism” approach can be successfully scaled up to a nationwide level.

His rise to power comes as current Prime Minister Keir Starmer prepares to step down. Starmer, who won a landslide election victory in July 2024 after announcing his own 10-year national transformation plan, is departing after just two years in office. His tenure was marked by a series of political missteps and poor judgment calls that damaged his standing with both his own party and the broader public.

Burnham secured a seat in Parliament through a special election on June 18 and was officially sworn in as a lawmaker on June 22 — the very same day Starmer announced his resignation, effective once a replacement is selected.

As the clear frontrunner in the Labour Party leadership contest, Burnham faces no declared challengers at this point. If that remains the case, he could be installed as prime minister as soon as July 20.

Despite being regarded as more personable than the reserved Starmer, Burnham will inherit many of the same difficult challenges — a sluggish economy, struggling public services, and a cost-of-living crisis. He will also be bound by Labour’s 2024 election promises, which included a commitment not to raise taxes on working people.

On the international front, Burnham will face pressure shared by all NATO member nations to significantly boost defense spending in response to growing Russian aggression and uncertainty about U.S. reliability as an ally. A long-awaited defense investment plan — which triggered the resignation of Defense Secretary John Healey on June 11 — is expected to be released ahead of a NATO summit in Turkey scheduled for July 7 and 8. Burnham’s government would be expected to honor whatever commitments are included in that plan.

Not everyone is impressed with Burnham’s pitch. Conservative Party Chairman Kevin Hollinrake dismissed the economic vision, saying: “Andy Burnham’s big idea is to shuffle power between politicians. Not fix the welfare system. Not cut the taxes strangling working families and British business. Not fund the defense our country desperately needs.”

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates — Iran’s president declared Monday that $6 billion in frozen Iranian funds held by Qatar are set to be released, even as ongoing hostilities in the Persian Gulf put pressure on negotiations between Iran and the United States.

President Masoud Pezeshkian’s remarks appear designed to build domestic support for the interim agreement, especially as Iran’s hold over the Strait of Hormuz has come under pressure. Recent efforts have sought to open Oman’s territorial waters to both incoming and outgoing traffic through the Persian Gulf. Iranian attacks and threats had halted the movement of cargo ships and oil tankers through the strait — a waterway through which roughly one-fifth of all globally traded oil and natural gas passed during peacetime — triggering a worldwide energy crisis.

Though the strait runs through the territorial waters of both Iran and Oman, it has long been treated as an international waterway. In recent days, Iran attacked vessels twice along a route near the Omani side of the strait, prompting retaliatory U.S. airstrikes and raising fears that peace negotiations could be thrown off course. On Sunday, Iran also launched drone and missile attacks directed at Bahrain and Kuwait.

Pakistan, which is serving as a key mediator in the talks, indicated that negotiations between the U.S. and Iran over the terms of their interim agreement would pick back up on Tuesday. The Trump administration stated Sunday that nothing has been called off and that technical discussions remain on schedule. Iran has not yet confirmed whether it will participate.

Pezeshkian praised the interim deal in remarks published Monday by Iran’s state-run IRNA news agency, describing it as “a great victory for the Iranian people.”

“Based on the plans made, $6 billion out of the total $12 billion of Iranian resources in Qatar will be released and returned to the country, and necessary follow-ups are being carried out,” he said, without providing further details.

Pezeshkian, who is considered a reformist within Iran’s theocratic government, is the most senior Iranian official to publicly reference the release of the Qatar-held funds. Qatar, along with Pakistan, has been playing a central mediating role in the negotiations. However, U.S. officials maintain that no frozen Iranian assets have actually been released. Qatar has not acknowledged any such transfer, and notably, Iran struck a tanker carrying Qatari crude oil during the weekend’s clashes in the Persian Gulf.

BEIRUT — Lebanon’s Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri, a prominent ally of Hezbollah, is speaking out forcefully against a U.S.-brokered agreement between Lebanon and Israel, warning that it could fracture Lebanese society and declaring that it will never take effect.

In remarks published by Lebanon’s al-Akhbar newspaper on Monday, Berri argued that negotiations between Iran and the United States represent the only realistic path toward getting Israeli forces out of Lebanon. He said any effort to keep Lebanon separate from the U.S.-Iran diplomatic track would only extend Israel’s occupation of the country.

Israel has been occupying a portion of southern Lebanon following a war with Hezbollah that began on March 2, when the group launched attacks against Israel in a show of solidarity with Tehran after Iran came under assault by U.S. and Israeli forces.

The conflict in Lebanon has become deeply intertwined with broader diplomatic efforts to resolve the wider U.S.-Iran standoff. Iran has insisted that any interim deal with Washington must include a ceasefire in Lebanon. Meanwhile, the United States has been facilitating separate, direct negotiations between the Lebanese and Israeli governments — talks that Beirut has participated in despite Hezbollah’s strong opposition.

The agreement was signed by the Lebanese and Israeli ambassadors to Washington on Friday. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu praised the deal, saying it allows Israeli troops to remain in southern Lebanon as long as Hezbollah has not disarmed. Hezbollah, which had demanded that Beirut walk away from direct talks with Israel, has rejected the agreement outright, calling it a capitulation to Israel.

Berri, who leads the Shi’ite Muslim Amal Movement, dismissed the agreement as nothing more than “dictates.” According to al-Akhbar, he said the most alarming aspect of the deal was not just its political terms, but “the potential for it to incite internal divisions and draw the Lebanese into a confrontation among themselves.” He added flatly that the agreement “won’t be implemented.”

The Lebanese government, led by Maronite Christian President Joseph Aoun and Prime Minister Nawaf Salam, a Sunni Muslim, chose to engage in direct talks with Israel early in the conflict despite fierce resistance from Shi’ite Hezbollah. The move exposed deep rifts over Hezbollah’s decision to enter the war in support of Iran. Since last year, the Beirut government has been working toward disarming Hezbollah, after the group suffered significant losses during a previous war with Israel in 2024.

President Aoun spoke by phone with U.S. President Donald Trump on Saturday, expressing hope that Washington would push Israel to pull its forces out of southern Lebanon. Israel established what it calls a security zone stretching into Lebanese territory during the war, saying it was necessary to protect northern Israel from Hezbollah rocket fire.

On the ground, the Israeli military reported overnight that it destroyed a Hezbollah tunnel measuring 200 meters — roughly 656 feet — in the south. The military also said it struck three Hezbollah command centers in southern Lebanon on Sunday, citing what it described as ceasefire violations by Hezbollah.

Hezbollah pushed back in a statement issued Monday, saying it has honored the ceasefire “until now” and asserting its right “to defend its homeland and its people.”

Malaysia has given deep-sea exploration company Ocean Infinity one additional year to continue its underwater search for the long-missing Malaysia Airlines flight MH370, according to the country’s transport ministry.

The Boeing 777 jet disappeared in 2014 while traveling from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing. The aircraft was carrying 227 passengers and 12 crew members when it vanished, leaving behind one of aviation history’s most baffling unsolved mysteries. Despite multiple search efforts focused on the southern Indian Ocean, the plane has never been found.

Ocean Infinity had previously conducted search operations for the aircraft through 2018. Last year, the company entered into a renewed agreement with Malaysia to resume the search across a zone covering 15,000 square kilometers — roughly 5,792 square miles. Under the terms of that deal, Ocean Infinity would only receive payment of $70 million if it actually locates the wreckage.

Malaysia’s Transport Minister Anthony Loke announced that the contract extension covers the period from July 1 of this year through June 30, 2027.

“This decision is a manifestation of the government’s continuous and unwavering commitment to provide a closure for the next of kin of the passengers aboard flight MH370,” Loke said in an official statement.

The additional time is intended to allow Ocean Infinity to finish searching a remaining area of approximately 7,428.54 square kilometers that has yet to be fully covered, Loke explained.

The minister also noted that the extended timeline accounts for Ocean Infinity’s other business obligations, which will require the search team’s main equipment to be temporarily shifted to a different location between November 2026 and April 2027.

With a critical deadline just hours away, several non-governmental organizations across Spain are making a last-ditch effort to help undocumented migrants register for the country’s special mass regularisation program before it closes on Tuesday.

The program, which offers a one-year residence permit, has drawn far more interest than officials expected. Between April and June, the Spanish government received close to double the 500,000 applications it had projected. By Friday, the total number of submissions had climbed to 1.27 million, according to Cesar Perez, the union leader for Spain’s immigration officers.

Rights organizations CEAR and Cepaim are urging migrants to submit their applications even if they are still waiting on required documents from countries such as Mali, Iran, or Venezuela. Spain is estimated to have around 840,000 people working without legal status, and obtaining legal residency through normal channels can take more than a year.

Elena Muñoz, coordinator of CEAR’s legal team, described the final push underway at her organization. “We’re carrying out a final check of all the people who have come to our offices and who may have been missing some documentation at the start of the process,” she said. “If a case is not yet complete … we will submit it before June 30 so that they do not miss the opportunity to benefit from the regularisation process.”

Juan Segura, director-general of Cepaim, explained that migrants are being encouraged to apply now because doing so will give them additional time to supply any missing documents afterward.

Experts have noted that migrants from conflict-affected nations such as Iran and Mali have run into obstacles when trying to get documents authenticated at Spanish consulates — a process that has also proven difficult in Algeria and Nigeria. Venezuelans, meanwhile, have faced delays in obtaining apostilles for criminal record certificates. Spain’s policy changes earlier this month also forced some asylum seekers to switch to this regularisation process with little time to prepare their paperwork.

“This meant some Venezuelans had less time to gather the necessary documents,” Segura said, adding that extending the deadline would be advisable given the difficulties many applicants now face.

However, Spain’s Migration Ministry has stated it has no plans to push back the deadline.

Silvana Cabrera, who leads an NGO in Valencia, reported that the application platforms had experienced technical problems in the final hours. “It’s a distressing situation … many migrants may not manage to register,” she said.

NGOs are also concerned about what happens after the deadline. CEAR has argued that a permanent solution is needed so that migrants are not required to spend two years in an irregular status before they can obtain residency. Advocates also fear that at least 20% of the roughly one million applications submitted could ultimately be rejected, largely because of missing documents and limited flexibility within the administrative process.

One applicant, Jose Luis Quiroga, a Colombian migrant who arrived in Spain just hours after the eligibility cutoff date, submitted his application on the advice of the NGO Aculco. “There’s no certainty, but it seems unfair they wouldn’t approve my application just because I was four hours late,” he said.

KABUL, Afghanistan — At least 36 civilians are dead and more than 160 others were injured after Pakistani military forces carried out overnight airstrikes inside Afghanistan, Afghan officials announced Monday, deepening an already volatile conflict between the two neighboring nations.

Pakistan’s Information Minister Attaullah Tarar said security forces first conducted a ground operation along the shared border late Sunday, then followed up with strikes against what officials described as militant hideouts and safe havens. Pakistani authorities reported 29 fighters were killed in the operations, which they said were launched in direct response to a series of militant attacks carried out inside Pakistan.

Afghanistan’s Taliban government sharply condemned the strikes, calling them a “cowardly act of aggression” and an “act of brutality.”

Hamdullah Fitrat, the deputy spokesman for Afghanistan’s Taliban government, said Pakistani forces initially struck a residence in the Chamkani district of Paktia province, killing an elderly man and a child while injuring several other family members. When local residents rushed to the scene to help the wounded, the area was struck a second time, leaving 28 villagers dead and 158 more injured, Fitrat said.

Six additional people — most of them women and children — were killed when another home was hit in the Giyan district of Paktika province, according to Fitrat. A separate home in Kunar province was also struck, though no human casualties were reported there; approximately 30 livestock were killed.

Militant attacks on Pakistan’s police and security personnel have risen sharply in recent years. Pakistani authorities have attributed most of the violence to the Pakistani Taliban — formally known as Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan, or TTP — along with allied militant organizations. The Pakistani Taliban, while distinct from Afghanistan’s ruling Taliban, share an alliance with the Afghan Taliban, who reclaimed power in 2021.

The military operation came after a militant assault on the regional headquarters of Pakistan’s paramilitary Rangers in Karachi, which left three soldiers dead. Pakistani security forces killed three of the attackers and captured a fourth, who the military identified as a wounded Afghan national. Jamaat-ul-Ahrar, a splinter group of the Pakistani Taliban, claimed responsibility for the Karachi attack.

Sunday’s strikes and ground operation took place less than three weeks after Pakistan’s military conducted a previous round of airstrikes on alleged militant positions inside Afghanistan — ending roughly a month of relative quiet following what Islamabad had characterized as an “open war” between the two countries, despite international efforts to negotiate a durable peace agreement.

The latest violence is part of a months-long cycle of retaliatory military exchanges. Hundreds of lives have been lost in cross-border clashes since February, when Afghanistan launched its own strikes in response to earlier Pakistani airstrikes on Afghan soil.

Numerous rounds of diplomatic talks have failed to produce a lasting ceasefire. China brought both sides together for negotiations in April, and Beijing later reported that Pakistan and Afghanistan had agreed to avoid further escalation and to work toward a peaceful resolution.

COPENHAGEN — Canada has awarded C$7 million (approximately $4.93 million U.S.) in grant funding to support a molybdenum mining operation in Greenland, according to an announcement Monday from Greenland Resources.

The company is working to develop the open-pit Malmbjerg mine in eastern Greenland, which sits atop significant deposits of molybdenum — a metal that both the European Union and the United States have classified as a critical mineral.

The Canadian government formalized the commitment through a signed agreement providing a non-repayable contribution via Natural Resources Canada’s Critical Minerals Research, Development and Demonstration programme, the company said.

Greenland Resources noted that Canada has become the first G7 nation to put money into Greenland’s mining sector.

Molybdenum is a silvery-white metal used mainly to reinforce steel and boost its ability to withstand heat and corrosion. Those properties make it essential for industries including defence manufacturing and clean energy development.

Western nations have grown increasingly uneasy about access to the metal after China — which produces roughly 40% of the world’s molybdenum supply — imposed export restrictions on it in early 2025.

Interest in Greenland’s mineral wealth has surged in recent months following efforts by former President Trump to pursue control of the Arctic island, a push that was rejected by both Denmark and Greenland’s government. Despite its abundant natural resources, Greenland’s mining sector has historically struggled to grow due to regulatory hurdles and limited access to financing.

MELBOURNE, Australia — Australia and Vanuatu have officially signed a long-anticipated security and economic treaty that prohibits China from establishing a military base on the South Pacific island nation.

Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and his Vanuatuan counterpart Jotham Napat put pen to paper on the so-called Nakamal Agreement in Australia’s capital on Monday. The signing came nine months after Vanuatu’s government turned down an earlier version of the deal, citing concerns that the original terms would restrict its ability to bring in infrastructure investment from other countries.

Speaking to reporters after the signing, Albanese said, “Our agreement reflects and confirms Australia’s role as Vanuatu’s largest and most comprehensive economic, security and development partner, a responsibility that we take seriously.”

Napat added that the pact “reaffirms our shared commitment to continuing and strengthening the comprehensive partnership between our two countries, founded on mutual respect, trust and our common vision for a peaceful, stable and prosperous Pacific.”

According to an official government statement, the agreement requires Vanuatu to prohibit any foreign military base or military-related infrastructure within its borders. It also mandates that the nation’s critical infrastructure remain free from militarization, foreign interference, or unauthorized access.

The Nakamal Agreement is part of a broader effort by Australia to strike security deals with neighboring Pacific nations in order to limit China’s growing influence in the region.

Under the finalized terms, Vanuatu must consult with Australia before entering into any third-party arrangements involving its critical infrastructure. However, unlike the original proposal, Australia does not hold veto power over those decisions.

The agreement also commits Vanuatu to giving priority to policing cooperation with members of the Pacific Islands Forum — a group of 18 countries and territories that includes Australia. Notably, the deal does not explicitly exclude Chinese police. While China does not maintain a permanent police presence in Vanuatu, Chinese police personnel do make regular visits to the nation, which has a population of approximately 350,000 people.

Additionally, Vanuatu has agreed to turn first to Australia, New Zealand, and France when responding to major natural disasters.

The original draft of the agreement had included a proposed financial commitment of 500 million Australian dollars — roughly $344 million U.S. — to be provided to Vanuatu over ten years. Albanese indicated that the financial details of the updated agreement would be released publicly by December.

Napat also addressed a separate agreement Vanuatu is negotiating with China, saying the details would be shared once the deal received “clearance from Beijing.” He has previously referred to that deal — known as the Namele Agreement — as a “comprehensive development cooperation” arrangement, stressing that it is not a security pact.

Vanuatu has received substantial loans and aid from China in recent years, funding the construction of buildings, wharves, and other infrastructure projects.

“Currently, it’s not yet signed. We will share the (Namele) agreement. There is nothing to hide. Our government is transparent and I am so grateful that the Prime Minister (Albanese) has also given me the clearance to share with them (China) the Nakamal Agreement,” Napat said.

The road to Monday’s signing was not without setbacks. Last September, Albanese was informed that Vanuatu had rejected a previous draft of the treaty just hours before he was scheduled to fly there for the original signing ceremony.

KYIV/NEAR DRUZHKIVKA, Ukraine — Russian forces are slowly fighting their way into Kostiantynivka, a pivotal stronghold in Ukraine’s eastern defensive corridor that Moscow has long sought to capture, even as progress along most of the roughly 1,200-kilometer front line has largely ground to a halt.

Combat has now begun to spill into the city itself. Senior Ukrainian military commanders reported last week that small groups of Russian soldiers are attempting to push into the city’s outskirts — a development that suggests street-level, close-quarters fighting may be on the horizon.

Kostiantynivka sits at the southern end of a chain of four critical settlements that form a defensive line Ukraine is relying on to hold the heavily industrialized Donetsk region in the country’s east.

Russia’s continued push toward the city highlights Moscow’s persistent advantage in troop numbers, even as Ukrainian mid-range drone strikes targeting Russian supply lines have degraded some of its battlefield capabilities, according to analysts.

Emil Kastehelmi of the Black Bird conflict analysis team in Finland put it plainly: “The effect (of mid-range strikes) hasn’t been so great that it would have forced the Russians to suspend their offensive. So even though Russia has been taking increasingly heavy losses in the rear, they are still able to continue their offensives, at least in certain sectors.”

Taking Kostiantynivka would give Russian forces a launching point to push northward along the defensive belt, which has become the central focus of their military campaign. However, analysts warn that any such advance would likely be prolonged and costly — potentially mirroring the brutal sieges seen in other eastern cities like Pokrovsk and Avdiivka.

President Vladimir Putin has repeatedly stated that Russia must gain full control of the Donetsk region before the war concludes. Ukraine still controls roughly one-fifth of the region after more than four years of conflict.

Putin said last week that Russian forces were on the verge of capturing Kostiantynivka, a city whose pre-war population of nearly 70,000 has dwindled to around 2,000 residents. Senior commanders of Ukraine’s 19th Army Corps pushed back on that claim in comments to Ukrainian media, calling it an exaggeration and saying their troops were eliminating small Russian units that had managed to enter the city.

Maj. Gen. Viktor Nikoliuk, who leads Ukraine’s eastern operational command, told Ukraine’s public broadcaster on Thursday that Kostiantynivka could continue to hold at the current pace, provided troop levels and resources remain steady.

While the situation on the ground is deteriorating for Ukrainian forces, the U.S.-based Institute for the Study of War said in a June 23 assessment that the Russian infiltrations are not sufficient to trigger “a rapid operational breakthrough.”

Nevertheless, Russian efforts to surround the city using pincer movements are steadily making it more costly for Kyiv to keep defending it, according to Ukrainian analyst Ruslan Mykula of the DeepState open-source mapping group. “A choice will have to be made: either raise the stakes or withdraw,” Mykula said. “And right now, the situation is such that the stakes are rising with each passing day.”

Kastehelmi added that the city’s fall “seems to be more of a question of time.”

Russian troops are also pressing on the northern end of the defensive corridor, threatening the cities of Sloviansk and Kramatorsk with regular air and drone attacks launched from roughly 15 kilometers away.

Ukrainian supply routes in the area are under sustained attack, with artillery, drones, and guided bombs striking infrastructure along the road running north from Kostiantynivka, according to troops stationed nearby.

Reuters recently accompanied members of the “Predator” rifle brigade, part of the National Police, as they patrolled the battered supply route against drone threats and remotely dropped mines. Fiber-optic cable used to guide first-person-view drones was visible strewn across anti-drone netting stretched over the road, glinting in the intense summer heat.

Ground robots carrying food, water, and supplies — now the primary means of delivery within what soldiers call the “kill zone” — rolled back and forth along the route while soldiers zipped past on quad bikes.

Serviceman Oleksandr Kosmin, 34, explained that the route is far too dangerous for standard vehicles to carry out casualty evacuations: “Everything happens on foot.”

Civilian life in the surrounding area is collapsing under the weight of the ongoing fighting. In Druzhkivka, located about 12 kilometers to the north, residents are being forced to flee as the conflict creeps closer. On one tree-lined street, a husband and wife were found dead inside a van that had been struck by a Russian drone — white ribbons intended to identify the vehicle as civilian still fluttered from its roof.

Larysa Sereda, 59, spoke from inside a police evacuation vehicle as she prepared to leave. “Why am I leaving? Because I’m scared. Drones are flying,” she said. “But I plan to return home. I don’t want to stay in some strange place. The war will end, and I’ll come home.”

Russia’s slow advance around Kostiantynivka is unfolding despite growing pressure on its war effort from Ukrainian strikes on supply lines to and from Crimea, as well as longer-range attacks on Russia’s oil sector. Russian-installed authorities on the occupied Black Sea peninsula have declared a state of emergency to address economic problems and have suspended all fuel sales to individuals and businesses.

Across the broader battlefield, Russian forces appear stretched thin, with frontline assaults often involving only one or two soldiers at a time, according to analyst Mykula.

Still, Denis Pushilin, the Kremlin-installed leader of the occupied portion of Ukraine’s Donetsk region, told Reuters that Russia’s push to take more cities was ongoing. “Talking about whether this is happening slowly or quickly isn’t really the point,” he said.

Meanwhile, Russian hardliners have been pressuring Putin to walk away from the U.S.-backed peace process and escalate military operations as Ukrainian strikes intensify — including attacks reaching into Moscow itself.

SYDNEY — Australia is set to introduce new legislation in parliament aimed at strengthening its ban on social media use for children under the age of 16, while also expanding the powers of its internet regulator to take tech giants to court when they fail to follow the rules.

The proposed laws come after the country became the first in the world to enact such restrictions, which went into effect last December. Many other nations have been watching Australia’s approach closely, especially as evidence continues to emerge that children are still finding ways onto the platforms.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said tech companies are not doing nearly enough to comply with the existing law, and that far too many children remain active on social media.

“We’re calling time on the social media companies today and doubling down on the changes that we have made and that we’re prepared to make,” Albanese told reporters in Canberra.

“Today, we’ll introduce legislation this afternoon that goes further to ensure social media companies are doing everything within their power to stop children under 16 being on their platforms,” he added.

Australia’s internet regulator is currently investigating five platforms for possible violations: Meta’s Facebook and Instagram, Snapchat, TikTok, and Google’s YouTube. Meta, Google, and Snapchat had no immediate response, while TikTok declined to offer any comment.

Albanese also urged the conservative coalition opposition to support the bill, pointing out that the original policy received backing from both sides of the political aisle.

The proposed changes, which were announced on Sunday, would double the maximum penalty for non-compliance from A$49.5 million to A$99 million — roughly $68.2 million U.S. dollars.

The new legislation would also give the eSafety Commissioner the authority to demand internal company documents, including board meeting minutes and private emails, to help build the strongest possible legal cases against platforms that are not complying.

Communications Minister Anika Wells made clear the government has no intention of backing down.

“My message to Big Tech is this: we are not stopping. Every effort you make to frustrate these laws will be met with our efforts to make these laws work,” she said.

“If the eSafety Commissioner finds companies are not doing everything they can to comply, they will face the full force of the law,” Wells added.

TAIPEI, Taiwan — China announced new export control measures Monday targeting 40 Japanese companies, accusing them of contributing to what Beijing calls Japan’s “remilitarization.”

According to China’s Commerce Ministry, 20 of those companies — including Mitsui E&S, a manufacturer of ship engines and related equipment — have been added to a watch list covering dual-use items, meaning products that can serve both civilian and military functions.

Chinese companies that wish to export goods to those firms will now be required to obtain special licenses, provide risk assessment reports on the Japanese businesses, and submit written commitments that any dual-use items will not be used for military purposes.

Separately, 20 additional Japanese companies that were placed on a watch list back in February have now been moved to a stricter control list. Under that designation, both Chinese and foreign exporters are prohibited from selling them any dual-use products manufactured in China. Among those on the control list are several divisions of Mitsubishi Corporation.

In its official statement, China’s Commerce Ministry defended the actions: “China’s measures are entirely justified, reasonable and lawful. They are aimed at firmly deterring Japan’s reckless pursuit of ‘new militarism.’”

The statement went further, adding: “We hope Japan will recognize its mistakes, reverse its wrongful course, genuinely reflect on its past and return to the right track.”

The friction between the two nations has been building since Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi suggested last year that Japan could step in militarily if China moved against Taiwan — a self-governing island democracy that Beijing claims as its own territory.

Takaichi’s government has also been expanding Japan’s military capacity, including placing longer-range missiles on remote islands and opening the door to lethal weapons exports under a newly adopted policy. Japan is also expected to revise its defense and security documents by December, a move that could push its defense budget even higher.

On Monday, Japan’s Ground Self-Defense Force announced the deployment of a Type-12 missile launcher on Minamitorishima, the country’s southernmost remote island — a move widely seen as a response to China’s growing military presence in the Pacific.

China’s latest actions mirror steps it took in February, when it placed 20 Japanese companies on an export control list and another 20 on a watch list.

Beijing has been steadily increasing military pressure on Taiwan, viewing the island as territory that must eventually be reunified with the mainland, by force if needed.

Earlier this month, China’s Coast Guard conducted patrols east of Taiwan, which state media described as a “pointed warning” to Japan and the Philippines following a joint announcement that the two countries would discuss their shared maritime boundaries in waters Beijing considers its own.

Last week, the United Kingdom, Germany, and France issued an unusual joint statement condemning Chinese actions in the waters east of Taiwan and declaring their opposition to any change in the current status quo between China and Taiwan.

PARIS (AP) — The phone at one Paris mortuary rings every few minutes, and the answer is almost always the same. Since a record-breaking heat wave began claiming lives across France and filling cold storage facilities beyond capacity, funeral directors and grieving families have been calling mortuary owner Zouhaeir Hertelli with one desperate question: Is there any room left?

With all 32 spaces in his cold room occupied, Hertelli finds himself forced to gently say “Non” — again and again.

“We’re facing a really catastrophic situation,” he said. “I’m getting hundreds of calls.”

As the historic heat wave pushed its deadly temperatures eastward into other parts of Europe over the weekend, France began the grim task of counting lives lost in its aftermath.

The full accounting of heat-related deaths — a process that can take weeks or even months — has only just begun. But it is already clear that the suffering caused by the relentless extreme temperatures was severe in France, the first country to be struck starting in mid-June. Older people who died alone at home made up a significant portion of the casualties.

“We’re dealing with an enormous spike of deaths because of the heat wave and we’re really full, full, full,” Hertelli said.

In an initial preliminary estimate, France’s national public health agency reported that deaths climbed sharply during the heat wave’s peak last week, when temperatures in many areas surpassed 40 degrees Celsius (104 degrees Fahrenheit) across much of the country. Nighttime temperatures also broke records, leaving already exhausted bodies with no chance to recover.

Public Health France reported more than 1,200 deaths last Wednesday — the day France recorded its hottest temperature ever, breaking a record that had only been set the day before. The death toll climbed further to more than 1,400 on Thursday and another 1,400 on Friday. For comparison, France’s typical daily death rate in April and May hovered between 900 and 1,000.

The agency warned that its estimate of at least 1,000 additional deaths during just those three peak days is likely to grow as more death certificates arrive from people who died at home and in care facilities for the elderly — locations where electronic death registration is still not widely used.

“Mortality will as a consequence be higher than these first figures,” the agency stated.

The agency also noted that 85% of deaths recorded during the three days studied involved people aged 65 and older, and that deaths at home jumped by roughly 40%, particularly in the Paris region.

Hertelli and other funeral industry professionals said Paris mortuaries ran out of storage space almost immediately. City Hall announced that two temporary storage units, each holding 20 bodies, were set up at municipal mortuaries, and city hospitals added another 50 spaces. Even so, Hertelli said funeral directors told him they were transporting bodies as far as Chartres — 80 kilometers, or about 50 miles, from Paris — and to other surrounding regions just to find available space. He said he has requested permission from authorities to set up refrigerated containers outside his mortuary near Paris’s Orly airport, but is still waiting for approval.

“Families are suffering,” he said. “We have no solution to offer them, because the funeral homes are full. So we are deeply affected, we have empathy for them, but there’s nothing we can offer. We are really facing a problem, a big problem.”

The current heat wave surpassed the historic high temperatures of 2003, which were blamed for 15,000 deaths in France and sparked a national conversation about how the country cares for its elderly population. An exceptionally hot summer the previous year was also linked to more than 5,700 deaths.

Paris funeral director Véronique Bertrand said she worries that the hard lessons of 2003 have faded from public memory.

“Most of the deaths that we are dealing with at the moment were people who were living alone at home, isolated. Given the circumstances in which they were found, there can be no other conclusion than that these were deaths caused by the heat,” Bertrand said.

She urged the public to reconnect with a sense of community responsibility. “I think people absolutely need to wake up, that solidarity needs to come back, that what happened in 2003 led to a movement in that direction, with people thinking about their neighbors, of those around them who live alone and perhaps checking from time to time that they’re drinking water and are being looked after,” she said.

“With the passing years, we’ve perhaps forgotten that it could happen again and that things would even perhaps be worse,” Bertrand added.

HONG KONG — A nearly 40-hour voyage on a small rubber dinghy with a fading phone battery and detention in South Korea — that’s part of the extraordinary ordeal Chinese dissident Dong Guangping went through to escape his homeland. He touched down in Canada late last week, reaching a country he had been trying to get to for more than ten years.

Dong had been imprisoned in China multiple times, including for activities honoring the memory of pro-democracy demonstrators who were suppressed in Beijing’s Tiananmen Square in 1989, as well as for previous escape attempts.

“It’s like living in a cage. Very suffocating,” he told The Associated Press during a video interview conducted from Toronto, describing the absence of free expression in China.

The 68-year-old said that following his release from prison, he was cut off from retirement benefits, could not renew his passport, and was kept under continuous police surveillance.

He had tried to flee China at least three times before: in 2015 to Thailand, where he was deported back to China; in 2019 when he attempted to swim to a Taiwanese island off China’s eastern coast; and in 2020 when he made it to Vietnam, only to be sent back once again.

Last month, he made another attempt.

In the early morning hours of May 24, Dong departed from Weihai — a coastal city in Shandong province in eastern China — aboard a gray rubber dinghy equipped with an engine, under clear skies. His destination was Japan, where he believed authorities would not force him to return to China.

The following day brought thick fog. When he noticed his phone — his only GPS navigation tool — was down to its last bar of battery, panic set in. His backup power bank had also given out. He quickly pivoted to his backup plan and set his course for South Korea instead.

He recalled the deep fear that gripped him, knowing his small vessel could overturn if conditions worsened. But he had no way to turn back, and he pushed past his fear of dying.

“Living conditions back in the country are so terrible that being alive is little different than being dead. So there is no point fearing death,” he said. “If you move forward, there’s a chance at life.”

As evening fell, he spotted lights in the distance and steered toward them. The first vessel he approached could not hear his calls for help and moved on. He eventually came across a fishing boat whose crew agreed to bring him aboard. He asked the fishermen to contact authorities on his behalf.

The South Korean Coast Guard took him into custody for allegedly breaking the country’s immigration laws. Officials sought a formal arrest warrant, but a court turned it down, ruling it was “difficult to recognize sufficient grounds and necessity” for his arrest.

Dong was then transferred to a refugee center in Incheon, a port city near Seoul. Earlier this month, the U.N. refugee agency reached out to him via video call, he said.

A manager at the refugee center later asked him about his height, weight, and eye color. Though he was initially nervous, it turned out to be a promising sign. His attorney informed him the request had come from the Canadian diplomatic mission, he said.

Roughly a week later, Dong boarded a plane and arrived in Toronto on Friday. He said he was still unsure exactly what legal steps were involved, but believed it came down to coordination between the South Korean and Canadian governments along with the U.N. agency.

“I feel very surprised, extremely surprised. It’s like still in a dream. It’s very fast,” he said.

He believes the resettlement status in Canada that his family secured back in 2015 — before Thai authorities sent him back to China — remains valid.

The Canadian Embassy in South Korea declined to comment on his situation. The U.N. refugee agency and the South Korean government did not respond to requests for comment in time for publication.

Dong said he feels at home now that he’s in Toronto, describing it as the first taste of genuine freedom he’s had in more than a decade.

“There’s not even a hint of fear,” he said.

He hopes to support himself by working as a truck driver or an Uber driver.

Despite his relief, Dong has not forgotten how Thailand and Vietnam both sent him back to China. In 2015, he and his family traveled to Thailand to seek refugee status through the U.N. refugee agency, but Thai authorities arrested him and returned him to China, according to Amnesty International. His ex-wife and daughter were able to settle in Canada. He fled to Vietnam in 2020 but was sent back in 2022. Each time he was returned to China, he was jailed. He said he intends to consult a lawyer about the possibility of suing both Thailand and Vietnam.

For Dong, the struggle is not over. He also plans to continue advocating for China’s democratization.

In the late 1990s, the former police officer distributed leaflets containing his writings on subjects including the Tiananmen crackdown. He was sentenced to three years in prison in 2001 on charges of inciting subversion of state power. He also spent more than eight months behind bars after being arrested in 2014 for participating in a memorial for victims of the crackdown.

“My ultimate goal is for China to achieve constitutional democracy,” he said.

A senior Israeli cybersecurity official says the number of Iranian cyberattacks targeting Israel has risen sharply since the start of a U.S.-Israeli military offensive against Iran this year.

Yossi Karadi, Director General of Israel’s National Cyber Directorate, spoke with German newspaper Die Welt, revealing that Israeli authorities recorded approximately 1,600 hostile cyber incidents during June 2025, when Israeli military operations against Iran were underway. That number soared to roughly 4,800 incidents during the same month in 2026.

“Some groups are very skilled,” Karadi told the newspaper. “We can handle them, but we have to take them seriously. Unlike in the kinetic realm, there’s no ceasefire in cyberspace.”

Karadi explained that the attacks have been aimed at a wide range of targets, including critical infrastructure systems, major organizations, small and medium-sized businesses, and the general public. He specifically mentioned law practices and accounting firms among the smaller entities that have been hit.

“So far — and hopefully it stays that way — we’ve managed to fend off attacks on critical infrastructure,” he said.

He added that organizations with weaker defenses often had their computer systems completely wiped out, though he declined to name any specific victims.

Iran has historically denied involvement in hacking operations against other nations, even as it reports being the target of cyberattacks itself.

Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko traveled to Beijing for a face-to-face meeting with Chinese leader Xi Jinping, according to the Belarusian presidential Telegram channel Pul Pervogo, which reported the development on Monday.

During the meeting, Xi told Lukashenko that relations between China and Belarus have reached their “historic peak,” as quoted by Pul Pervogo.

Lukashenko responded warmly to the remark. “This is exactly what we talked with you before,” he said, according to the Telegram post. “And perhaps, to some extent, what we had dreamed of on the eve of this global cooperation between Belarus and … China.”

The Beijing visit follows talks Lukashenko held with Russian President Vladimir Putin just last week. The diplomatic activity comes at a time of heightened tension between Belarus and Ukraine, whose president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, has stated his belief that Putin is working to push Lukashenko into increasing his backing of Russia’s ongoing war against Ukraine.

Australia and Vanuatu formally signed a long-awaited security and development agreement on Monday, ending months of delays that stemmed from concerns the deal could limit Vanuatu’s access to investment from outside countries.

Under the terms of the agreement — called the Nakamal Agreement — Australia will be consulted whenever a third party seeks to invest in Vanuatu’s critical infrastructure. Australia will also remain Vanuatu’s primary partner in security and policing matters.

The deal comes as Australia works to maintain its influence across the Pacific in the face of growing competition from China. Canberra had previously committed A$500 million, roughly $344.50 million U.S. dollars, to be paid out over 10 years as part of the arrangement.

Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese spoke at a joint news conference alongside his Vanuatu counterpart, Prime Minister Jotham Napat, emphasizing the agreement’s scope. “It encapsulates Vanuatu’s sovereign decision not to permit its territory to be used for any foreign military base or infrastructure and that Vanuatu’s critical infrastructure remains free from militarisation,” Albanese said.

The agreement had originally been scheduled for signing in September, but negotiations stalled after Napat indicated that a coalition partner had raised worries the pact might prevent Vanuatu from securing infrastructure funding from other nations.

China plays a significant financial role in Vanuatu, serving as the island nation’s largest external creditor. Chinese banks have funded Chinese contractors to carry out major construction projects there, including the presidential office complex, the parliament building, and a road network.

Vanuatu is also currently working toward its own separate economic agreement with China. Napat said Monday that deal is still waiting for approval from Beijing.

When asked whether that China agreement might include security provisions, Napat said, “We will share the agreement, there is nothing to hide.”

DHAKA — Deposed former Bangladeshi Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina has made a bold declaration: she intends to return to her home country before the end of this year, even in the face of a death sentence issued against her while she remains abroad.

Hasina, 78, has been living in India since a student-led uprising brought down her government in August 2024. In a recent interview with Indian television network NDTV, she said no obstacle or conspiracy would stop her from going back.

“I want to say clearly: overcoming every obstacle and every conspiracy, I will return to my country this year,” she stated when pressed on whether she would return despite the death sentence hanging over her. It marked the first time she had publicly set a timeline for her return.

A court in Dhaka handed down the death sentence last November, convicting her of inciting killings, ordering violence, and failing to stop atrocities during the unrest that swept Bangladesh in 2024.

Hasina flatly rejected the verdict, accusing the country’s court system of being weaponized for political purposes. She described the judiciary as “an instrument of political revenge” designed to destroy the leadership of her Awami League party.

“I do not fear death,” she declared, adding that previous attempts to dismantle her party had ultimately failed — and would fail again.

She framed her planned return not as a personal political comeback, but as a mission to restore democratic rights, the rule of law, and the values of Bangladesh’s 1971 Liberation War.

Despite a ban on the Awami League’s activities — restrictions first put in place by a previous interim administration and still enforced under Prime Minister Tarique Rahman’s government, which came to power following February elections — Hasina insisted the party remains a powerful force.

“The Awami League is not a paper organisation but a political force rooted in the soil of Bengal, in the people of Bengal, in the history of Bengal and in the identity of the Bengali nation,” she said.

Hasina also called on the Tarique Rahman-led government to lift the ban on her party, drop what she characterized as fabricated charges against its leaders, free political prisoners, and allow peaceful political activity to resume.

In response, the government has defended the legal actions against her, saying the proceedings are part of a broader effort to hold accountable those responsible for alleged crimes committed during the final period of Hasina’s rule.

MELBOURNE, Australia — Australia is preparing to significantly toughen its penalties against social media companies, including Facebook and Instagram, after critics say the country’s groundbreaking ban on social media accounts for children under 16 is falling short.

Communications Minister Anika Wells, speaking Monday, pointed the finger at the platforms themselves, saying their pushback against age restrictions is forcing the government’s hand on strengthening the rules that went into effect on December 10.

“We can all agree we would like the scheme to work better than it is currently, but that is on Big Tech taking the Mickey,” Wells told the Australian Broadcasting Corp., using an Australian slang expression meaning to deceive or mock someone.

On Sunday, the government announced it would submit draft legislation to Parliament this week that would raise the maximum penalty to 99 million Australian dollars — roughly $68 million — for platforms that fail to take reasonable steps to stop Australian children from maintaining accounts.

The proposed amendments would also expand the authority of eSafety Commissioner Julie Inman Grant, the country’s top online safety official, giving her greater ability to demand records and information to verify that platforms are following Australian law.

Under the new powers, the commissioner could also seek information from outside parties — such as companies that provide age verification technology — to evaluate the platforms’ claims about how children under 16 continue to get around the ban.

Senior opposition lawmaker Jane Hume indicated her party would likely support the reforms, acknowledging that the “social media ban wasn’t working” due to weaknesses in the original legislation.

“The legislation was clearly undercooked in the first place. The eSafety Commissioner wasn’t given the powers to be able to pursue these Big Tech companies,” Hume said.

Parliament originally passed the law with broad bipartisan support in 2024, and the affected platforms were given more than a year to prepare for the ban’s implementation.

Countries around the world that are considering or have already enacted similar restrictions have been keeping a close eye on how Australia’s approach has played out.

Initially, the government reported that more than 5 million children had their accounts removed, deactivated, or restricted once the ban became law. However, eSafety reported in March that seven out of ten children who had accounts on restricted platforms as of December 10 were still active on Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, and TikTok.

In April, Commissioner Inman Grant said she was weighing legal action against those platforms as well as YouTube, alleging they were not doing enough to keep children off their services. She noted she was satisfied with the progress made by the other restricted platforms — X, Kick, Reddit, Threads, and Twitch.

Wells said she has been receiving monthly progress reports from eSafety since March and that “we are not seeing improvements.”

“These (draft) changes ensure that the eSafety Commissioner has the tools and powers she needs to hold platforms to account and we’re making sure that she can do just that,” Wells added.

South Korea is preparing to announce three ambitious “mega-projects” designed to drive the country’s next era of economic expansion, including a major semiconductor hub planned for the nation’s southwest region that local media report could draw hundreds of billions of dollars in investment from Samsung and SK over several years.

The announcement represents President Lee Jae Myung’s most significant push yet to align the country’s artificial intelligence and chip industry goals with his commitment to reducing regional inequality and boosting economies outside the Seoul metropolitan area.

President Lee will lead the event, which his office has described as a national “great leap” forward. Ministries overseeing industry, science, climate, and transportation are expected to lay out specific policy support measures at the gathering.

Samsung Electronics and SK are both anticipated to share their investment plans at the event. The chairmen of those companies — Jay Y. Lee and Chey Tae-won — are among the business leaders local media expect to be in attendance. Representatives from other major companies, including LG Electronics, HD Hyundai Robotics, Korea Electric Power Corp, and Korea Water Resources Corp, are also slated to participate, according to Lee’s office.

The initiative will encompass semiconductors, AI data centers, and physical AI technologies such as robotics. Social media posts from the president pointed to a new chip cluster being developed in the southwest, including the Gwangju area and South Jeolla province — regions that have historically lagged behind the Seoul area in economic development.

Local media have reported that the total planned investments could surpass 1,000 trillion won, which is equivalent to roughly $651.41 billion, over the years ahead.

South Korean construction and engineering stocks jumped in early trading ahead of the formal announcement, as investors anticipated a wave of regional infrastructure spending. Major cement producers Asia Cement and Hanil Cement saw their shares rise 15% and 7%, respectively. Meanwhile, the broader KOSPI index fell more than 2%, with chipmakers Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix each dropping more than 4% and 3% as global tech stocks pulled back from a recent strong run.

South Korea is home to two of the world’s largest memory chipmakers — Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix — whose high-bandwidth memory chips play a central role in the global effort to develop advanced AI systems. Both companies currently operate major semiconductor facilities in and around the Seoul metropolitan area.

The government is expected to announce a wide-ranging support package that includes provisions for power supply, water access, land use, infrastructure development, workforce training, and housing.

President Lee spent part of the weekend defending the proposed southwest chip hub in a series of posts on X, pushing back against criticism that the project is intended to benefit a liberal political stronghold. He described the initiative as a “national survival strategy” aimed at easing regional imbalances and building the capacity needed for the AI era.

“The creation of a semiconductor industrial ecosystem in (the southwest) is not a special favour for a particular region,” Lee wrote in one post. “It is the additional creation of the most rational semiconductor industrial centre through the decisions of relevant companies under full government support.”

Industry analysts acknowledge that spreading chip investment beyond Seoul could help relieve infrastructure strain, but caution that constructing state-of-the-art fabrication plants demands enormous amounts of electricity and water, sophisticated logistics, extensive supplier networks, and a highly trained workforce — all of which may be difficult to develop quickly enough in a new location to keep pace with rapidly growing AI demand.

Opposition politicians have been vocal in their criticism, questioning whether the project is driven more by political calculations than economic logic, noting that 85% of voters in the southwest region supported Lee in last year’s presidential election.

The unveiling comes as Lee’s approval rating has declined for six consecutive weeks, reaching 46.5%, according to pollster Realmeter.

Singapore’s largest opposition party has decided to stand by its leader, voting to keep Pritam Singh in the role of secretary-general despite a court conviction that cost him his official parliamentary designation earlier this year.

The Workers’ Party held a meeting on Sunday where Singh addressed members and fielded their questions regarding his conviction before the vote was taken. A supermajority of the party’s cadres backed Singh in the decision, according to Workers’ Party Central Executive Committee member Gerald Giam, who spoke to local media.

“This decision reflects the considered judgment of the Party’s cadres, and the Party’s commitment to democratic principles and due process,” the party said in an official statement.

In February 2025, a Singapore court found Singh guilty of providing false testimony to a parliamentary committee in 2021 concerning a fellow party member. He had appealed the ruling, but the High Court rejected that appeal in December of last year.

Following the conviction, Prime Minister Lawrence Wong removed Singh from the designated role of Leader of the Opposition in January of this year, stating that Singh’s position had become impossible to maintain. In Singapore, it is the head of government — not the constitution or parliament’s standing orders — who designates who holds the Leader of the Opposition title.

Wong had urged the Workers’ Party to put forward a different lawmaker, one not connected to the controversy, to fill the opposition leader role. The party, which secured 10 seats in last year’s general election, declined to nominate anyone else. The party maintained in January that whoever leads the largest opposition bloc in parliament should naturally hold the Leader of the Opposition designation.

The position carries meaningful benefits and responsibilities, including additional financial allowance, dedicated staff support, and access to confidential government briefings.

In the rough waters of the Taiwan Strait, a coast guard officer named Yeh Chih-sheng boards his patrol vessel carrying something beyond standard equipment — temple charms blessed by deities long revered by seafarers for protection on the water.

Yeh serves as first mate aboard the CG1005, a 2,400-ton vessel stationed in Taiwan’s Penghu islands. His ship stands as part of Taiwan’s maritime defense line as China continues to press its claim of sovereignty over the democratically governed island.

When he’s not on duty, Yeh takes on a very different role — that of an assistant priest, known in Taiwanese as a “sio-huat,” at a Penghu temple dedicated to the Five Lords, guardian deities traditionally worshipped by coastal communities for calm seas and protection from disease.

Yeh’s connection to these deities goes back to his childhood, when he began assisting spirit mediums during religious rituals in which gods are believed to come down from the heavens and offer guidance.

“The Coast Guard is a tangible backing people can see,” Yeh said. “The Five Lords are a spiritual anchor in people’s hearts. Both help bring fishermen and ordinary people a sense of reassurance.”

That combination of professional duty and personal faith has grown increasingly meaningful for Yeh as China ramps up military pressure on Taiwan. Beijing has not ruled out using force to bring Taiwan under its control, while Taipei firmly rejects those territorial claims — including China’s assertion that it has the right to conduct “law enforcement” patrols in Taiwanese waters.

The situation has drawn concern from the United States and some of its allies, who said last week that recent Chinese operations off Taiwan’s eastern coast posed a threat to regional stability. China’s defense ministry pushed back on Thursday, calling its coast guard patrols “lawful, legitimate and necessary.”

Reuters was given rare access to Yeh’s ship while it was anchored in Penghu, an island chain sitting in the Taiwan Strait — a critical waterway through which billions of dollars in trade flows annually.

Yeh described a changed reality at sea, saying Chinese warships and coast guard vessels now regularly cross what was once an informal dividing line — the median line — and come close to Taiwan’s 24-nautical mile contiguous zone.

“They have already erased the median line,” Yeh said. He added that his mission is to monitor and warn off Chinese vessels using tools like water cannons, loudspeakers, LED display boards, and radio communications, rather than escalating confrontations.

He said he follows the coast guard’s guiding principle of “not provoking and not yielding,” and he takes talismans and ceremonial command tablets from the temple with him whenever he goes out on patrol.

Standing near the temple’s Chienchiu Paochien — a ceremonial divine boat — Yeh drew a parallel between the sacred vessel and his coast guard ship, saying both exist to guard the Taiwan Strait and shield fishermen and everyday people from harm.

“What we protect is people’s sense of safety and peace of mind,” Yeh said. “With the coast guard and navy there, people can live normally.”

All 14 people aboard a helicopter owned by Aramco, the world’s largest oil company, died when the aircraft went down in Saudi Arabia early Sunday morning, according to the Saudi Ministry of Energy.

The crash took place at approximately 6 a.m. in Ras Tanura. Officials confirmed that every person killed was a Saudi national. Authorities have opened a formal investigation to determine the cause of the accident.

The helicopter was the property of Aramco, a company that is majority-owned by the Saudi Arabian government.

The crash comes at an already challenging time for Aramco. The company has been navigating disruptions caused by the Iran war, which has affected oil supplies and pushed prices higher. Aramco has stated that it managed to redirect some of its oil exports through a pipeline in order to work around the Strait of Hormuz, a key waterway that has seen disruptions as Iran has moved to assert control over it.

BANGKOK — A human rights organization is raising serious concerns about Vietnam’s growing use of broadly worded criminal laws to detain activists, critics, and others seen as threats to Communist Party rule, according to a new report released Monday.

The 88 Project, an organization focused on human rights conditions in Vietnam, recorded 56 politically motivated arrests in 2025 alone — the third year in a row that figure has climbed, and twice the number seen in 2022. Ben Swanton, co-director of the group, noted the report only counts cases where the arrested individual could be identified by name and the case monitored, meaning the true total is likely far greater.

The report describes Vietnam under leader To Lam as a government that “routinely weaponizes criminal law” to stamp out dissent. To Lam, who previously served as the country’s top security official, has held the position of general secretary of the Communist Party since 2024 and was also elected president earlier this year.

According to the report, much of the crackdown stems from the leadership’s fear of a popular uprising — the kind of so-called “color revolution” seen in Ukraine’s 2004 Orange Revolution or the Philippines’ 1986 Yellow Revolution.

That same fear is shared by Communist Party leadership in neighboring China, which has faced similar accusations of suppressing critics. Despite tensions over competing territorial claims in the South China Sea, Vietnam and China agreed earlier this year to jointly “prioritize political security and enhance efforts to prevent and resist color revolutions,” according to the Chinese state-run Xinhua News Agency.

“With the ascendancy of To Lam, the country has become a literal police state that tolerates no dissent,” Swanton said. “This represents a serious regression from the period of relative openness in the 2010s when some dissent was tolerated and civil society groups were able to engage in policy activism.”

Vietnam’s Foreign Ministry did not respond to requests for comment on the report’s findings.

The report highlights a growing reliance on Article 331 of Vietnam’s penal code, a law that makes it a criminal offense — carrying up to seven years in prison — to “abuse democratic freedoms to infringe upon the interests of the state.”

Once rarely enforced, New York-based Human Rights Watch wrote in a report last year that authorities have “enlarged the scope and application of Article 331 so that it reaches further into society, beyond human rights and democracy dissidents … to all those who voice any grievance with state or local Communist Party and government officials.”

Human Rights Watch also described the trend as “a little known facet of the government’s expanding crackdown on ordinary people who are seeking to use social media and other peaceful means to publicly raise important social issues, including religious freedom, land rights, rights of Indigenous people, and government and Communist Party corruption.”

Among those arrested under Article 331 last year were three men behind a YouTube channel called “Nguoi Da Tin” — translated as “The Messenger” — who were accused of uploading videos containing “distorted content” that violated the law, according to The 88 Project.

Other politically related arrests documented in the report include an activist representing the minority Montagnard community who was detained in Thailand and sent back to Vietnam, a writer accused of spreading “propaganda against the state,” and an individual who assisted residents of Ha Tinh province in filing complaints seeking fair payment for land seized to build a new highway.

“The Vietnamese government has dealt alarmingly severe punishments to longstanding targets like journalists and human rights activists, while displaying an increasing willingness to attack groups previously thought safe, such as political exiles and legal petitioners,” the report concluded.

Argentine President Javier Milei announced Sunday that he is replacing his chief of cabinet, tapping Interior Minister Diego Santilli for the top government post. The announcement came via a post on Milei’s X account.

Santilli steps into the role vacated by Manuel Adorni, who submitted his resignation Saturday following corruption allegations against him. The transition is scheduled to take effect Tuesday.

The leadership change comes at a difficult moment for Milei, whose approval ratings have been slipping amid the corruption controversy and growing tensions within his administration.

Santilli brings a lengthy political resume to the position. An accountant by training, he comes from the center-right PRO party, which was founded by former president Mauricio Macri. He has previously held positions including deputy chief of the City of Buenos Aires, congressman, senator, and security minister of the City of Buenos Aires.

In his own post on X, Santilli expressed his commitment to the administration’s agenda. “I am going to give everything so that this government continues to advance in the structural reforms that Argentina has needed for decades,” he wrote.

Adorni, the outgoing cabinet chief, is currently under investigation for alleged illicit enrichment, among other charges. He also drew public criticism over several personal trips taken with family members — including a first-class holiday to the Caribbean island of Aruba during the Christmas season and a private jet trip to Uruguay during Carnival.

Adorni has pushed back against the criticism, maintaining that his wealth was accumulated before he joined the government and that all personal travel expenses were covered with his own private funds.

LA GUAIRA, Venezuela — A father and his son have been pulled from the ruins of a collapsed building, surviving four days beneath the rubble left behind by Venezuela’s deadly earthquakes.

The dramatic rescue unfolded Sunday in La Guaira, offering a rare moment of hope for the French and American rescue crews working around the clock to find more survivors before time runs out.

Rescue workers carried both men through debris-covered streets on makeshift fabric stretchers, visibly exhausted and wearing masks, toward a waiting ambulance as onlookers gathered near the emergency vehicles.

La Guaira, a coastal state, was the hardest-hit area when the earthquakes struck on Wednesday, leaving at least 1,450 people dead and thousands more unaccounted for.

The rescue took approximately 12 hours of careful, painstaking work. Teams used specialized search cameras to comb through the unstable wreckage before safely reaching the two survivors.

“They are extremely weak, as any patient trapped under rubble for four days would be, so we are doing everything possible to rehydrate them and administer various medications during the extraction process, which is moving very slowly,” said a member of the French Civil Security.

The rescue operation in that area involved members of the French Civil Security alongside American responders from the Fairfax County Urban Search and Rescue Team in Virginia. That same team had rescued a mother and her 9-month-old baby just the day before.

Prior to removing the father and son from the rubble, rescuers set up intravenous drips and cleared surrounding debris. Other team members stayed close to the wreckage, searching for additional signs of life and staying in communication with colleagues working through the remains.

At least 33 people were rescued over the course of the weekend. However, tens of thousands are still reported missing, raising growing concerns that the window for finding survivors alive is closing fast.

Specialists warn that after 72 hours following an earthquake, the chances of locating victims alive under rubble drop sharply.

Residents across the Philippines are racing to put solar panels on their rooftops as electricity bills climb to painful levels, pushing the island nation to the top of the global rankings for solar panel imports.

The country’s leading power distributor, Meralco, has raised electricity rates by 10% since a conflict broke out in the Middle East in late February. For a typical household using around 200 kilowatt-hours per month — roughly the amount consumed by three people — electricity now eats up about 12% of monthly income.

Unlike most of its neighbors in Southeast Asia, the Philippines offers almost no government subsidies for power, leaving residents with some of the highest residential electricity rates in the region. Only Singapore has comparable prices, but Singaporeans have nearly 13 times the purchasing power of the average Filipino.

Adrian Sabatera, a 39-year-old software engineer, had considered going solar for years but held off due to the cost. As panel prices dropped and electricity bills kept climbing, he finally made the move — spending 570,000 pesos (about $9,300) on a system for the Manila home he shares with three others.

“I wouldn’t be shocked if a third of the middle-class population eventually finds their way to this setup,” Sabatera said.

The surge in rooftop solar installations has driven $407 million worth of panel imports in the three-month period ending in May — a 145% jump compared to the same period a year ago, according to trade figures from China, which supplies the bulk of the world’s solar panels. Even when overall Chinese panel exports fell 13% in May following the removal of a tax rebate, shipments to the Philippines actually grew by nearly a third.

While the Netherlands technically ranks as a larger market on paper, analysts note that it functions primarily as a transshipment hub rather than an end consumer.

INQUIRIES FLOODING IN

Philergy German Solar, a Manila-based installation company, reported receiving more than two-and-a-half times as many customer inquiries in the first five months of this year compared to the same stretch last year. At peak times, the company was handling as many as 3,000 inquiries in a single day, according to managing partner Jochen Staudter.

Staudter noted that customers are making up their minds “much faster than before” and predicted that “demand will continue to be driven by high electricity prices.”

According to Alnie Demoral, an analyst at energy think tank Ember, distributed solar capacity in the Philippines could nearly triple to 3,500 megawatts within two years — matching the country’s existing large-scale solar infrastructure. Loan repayment periods are also shrinking, from four years down to about 3.1 years, making the investment more attractive.

Currently, solar power accounts for less than 4% of the country’s total electricity consumption, according to government figures.

OBSTACLES REMAIN

A weakening currency has made the electricity crisis worse, since the Philippines depends heavily on imported coal and natural gas to generate power. That dependency has contributed to rising inflation and slower economic growth.

Manila entrepreneur Jason Porciuncula installed a 12-kilowatt solar system with battery storage back in January. When power prices hit record levels in May, his monthly electricity bill fell to just one-fifth of what he paid last summer — when bills reached 21,000 pesos.

Still, the industry faces real growing pains. Brenda Valerio, the Philippines director at New Energy Nexus, said installations are struggling to keep pace with demand due to hoarding of components, unpredictable equipment costs, and insufficient quality control.

Government loans for solar installations are available up to 500,000 pesos at a below-market interest rate of 5%, but private-sector employees are excluded from the program.

The biggest barrier remains the steep upfront cost, which typically exceeds the average annual household income of 353,200 pesos.

“The opportunity is real, but the upfront cost is often too high for a household or business, no matter how quick the payback time is,” Ember’s Demoral said.

(Exchange rate: $1 = 61.29 Philippine pesos)

Russian President Vladimir Putin announced Sunday that Russia has no intention of slowing its military push to seize full control of four Ukrainian regions, dismissing a recent Ukrainian proposal aimed at reducing the intensity of the ongoing conflict, now in its fifth year.

Speaking in an interview with Russian state television, Putin said Russia also needs to rapidly expand its air defense capabilities in response to a growing wave of Ukrainian drone strikes targeting the country’s oil sector. He maintained that Russia is handling the fuel supply disruptions caused by those attacks.

Earlier that same day, Putin acknowledged at a Kremlin meeting with government ministers and senior officials that the drone strikes had caused fuel shortages in several Russian regions — but insisted the situation was under control.

During the television interview, Putin addressed a Ukrainian proposal calling for both sides to stop launching long-range strikes as a possible step toward peace. He dismissed the idea, saying Moscow viewed it as nothing more than a tactic to ease military pressure on Ukrainian forces along the 1,250-kilometer (775-mile) front line.

“It is clear why this proposal is being made, because our counter-strikes deep into Ukrainian territory are much stronger, have greater impact and are, frankly, more destructive,” Putin said.

“Given their catastrophic shortage of personnel, the Ukrainian Armed Forces apparently believe this could be their salvation. But saving the Kyiv regime is not part of our plans,” he added.

A spokesperson for Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy did not respond to a request for comment on Putin’s statements, as the request was submitted during late-night hours in Ukraine.

Earlier this month, Zelenskiy sent Putin an open letter requesting a direct, face-to-face meeting — an invitation the Russian leader has turned down.

Putin framed Ukraine’s ongoing strikes as an attempt to pull Russian forces away from their core military goals, saying the attacks were “aimed at diverting our attention and forces from achieving the main objectives – the complete liberation of Donbas and Novorossiya.” That phrase refers to the Donbas region as well as the neighboring regions of Zaporizhzhia and Kherson.

Putin has consistently demanded that Ukraine give up its remaining positions in the Donetsk region of Donbas as a fundamental condition for any peace agreement. Seven months after launching its 2022 invasion, Russia formally annexed all four regions — Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson, and Zaporizhzhia — though it only partially controls the latter two.

On the subject of Ukraine’s drone campaign, Putin said the top priority is to “quickly and significantly ramp up production of those air defence systems that are most needed.”

He also downplayed the impact of the strikes, saying: “All the strikes, wherever they hit our infrastructure, absolutely do not affect the situation on the front, on the line of combat contact.”

Putin said Russia is anticipating a renewed round of U.S.-led diplomatic efforts to end the war, including a planned return visit to Moscow by U.S. envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner — but only after the “hot phase” of the U.S.-Israeli conflict with Iran has concluded.

He also appeared to align with remarks made last week by U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who said no formal agreement came out of Putin’s talks in Alaska with U.S. President Donald Trump, though American proposals were discussed.

“Nobody signed anything, but we talked about certain possibilities for ending the conflict in Ukraine,” Putin said, adding that the U.S. side had asked Russia for compromises as part of those discussions.

Putin also suggested that Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko — with whom he held two days of talks this week — could play a role in facilitating peace negotiations. He made no mention of Ukraine’s claims that Russia is trying to draw Belarus more deeply into the conflict. While Belarus allowed Russian forces to use its territory during the February 2022 invasion, Lukashenko has pledged not to send Belarusian troops into combat.

By Vivian Sequera

LA GUAIRA, Venezuela — She was lying on her bed, thinking about watching a Brazil soccer match, when the bedframe began shaking violently, like a mechanical bull.

Reuters journalist Vivian Sequera pressed herself against the mattress, fixed her eyes on the open window, said a prayer for her parents, shut her eyes, and braced for the ceiling to come down on her.

The two earthquakes that hit Venezuela on Wednesday evening arrived just 39 seconds apart — the first registering a magnitude 7.2, followed almost immediately by a magnitude 7.5.

Then, suddenly, it stopped.

She grabbed her phone and sent a message to her Reuters colleagues. The power had held — at least for the moment. In other parts of the area, electricity had already gone dark.

The walls of her apartment were left with long cracks running through them, resembling claw marks on fabric. As she made her way down the emergency stairwell from the sixth floor, the damage grew progressively worse. By the time she reached the ground floor, the glass doors had been completely shattered.

Outside, there was no cell signal. Anxiety set in. She photographed neighbors gathered in the street and documented damage to surrounding buildings before steeling herself to go back upstairs to retrieve her laptop and phone charger.

These were the fifth and sixth earthquakes she has covered since beginning her journalism career with newswires in 1991 in Caracas.

Each one, she said, shares a familiar pattern in its early moments: chaos, silence, pain, uncertainty, and thousands of stunned faces trying to process what just happened — followed by the arrival of foreign rescue teams, varying levels of government response, delays in aid, looting, and ultimately, burials.

TWO DAYS LATER: RANDOM, INDISCRIMINATE DESTRUCTION

Two days after the quakes, Sequera traveled to the city of La Guaira, roughly a 30-minute drive from Caracas — the area the government had designated as ground zero for the disaster.

The contrast she encountered was striking.

In some parts of the city, streets were clean, buildings were standing, and avenues were nearly empty, all bathed in soft Caribbean morning sunlight. Then, just one block away, structures on both sides of the road had been reduced to rubble.

The further her team ventured into the city’s parishes — Caraballeda and Los Corales — the more devastating the scenes became. In the early morning hours, near silence dominated the streets.

But as the sun climbed higher, voices grew louder and movement increased. Swarms of motorcycles carried aid and transported survivors through a backdrop of noise, disorder, and scattered sobbing.

Thousands of young people in shorts and t-shirts — some barefoot or wearing sandals — moved rocks from debris piles that towered more than 10 meters high. Others swung sledgehammers at concrete slabs in a desperate race to find anyone still alive beneath the wreckage.

Meanwhile, exhausted survivors sat motionless in plastic chairs under trees, seeking whatever shade they could find from the relentless midday Caribbean heat.

To cope, Sequera pressed handfuls of ice from a cooler in the car against her skin. She made a mental note: next time, bring two coolers.

Many residents of La Guaira expressed frustration over delays in the arrival of rescue equipment and food. There was also some looting reported in the disaster zone.

Standing amid the wreckage, she described the feeling that the mountains of rubble seemed immovable — and the question that kept surfacing: when can any of this be repaired?

What struck her most, she said, was the sheer and indiscriminate force of tectonic violence. It does not distinguish between neighborhoods, social classes, or religions. And yet it is also unpredictable — one building left completely intact while the one right next to it is entirely gone.

Back home, on her nightstand, a glass of wine sat untouched and upright. Nearby, photographs of her parents from when they were dating remained standing, along with a photo of her elderly mother at a flower market in Caracas.

Everything still in place.

She said she feels very fortunate.

Oil prices ticked upward on Monday following several days of exchanged military strikes between the United States and Iran across the Middle East, raising fresh concerns about the durability of the two countries’ short-term peace arrangement and once again slowing the flow of energy tankers through the Strait of Hormuz.

Brent crude futures gained 50 cents, or 0.69%, reaching $72.49 per barrel as of 2204 GMT. Meanwhile, U.S. West Texas Intermediate crude rose 73 cents, or 1.05%, to trade at $69.96 per barrel.

The uptick in prices reflects growing market anxiety as the renewed hostilities between Washington and Tehran cast doubt on whether the fragile ceasefire arrangement between the two nations can hold, particularly given the strategic importance of the Strait of Hormuz as a global energy shipping corridor.

LA GUAIRA, Venezuela — On Sunday, a crowd of rescue workers and civilians gathered around a massive pile of rubble along Venezuela’s northern coastline — wreckage that looked much like the countless other collapsed structures left behind by two catastrophic earthquakes.

For days following Wednesday’s magnitude 7.2 and 7.5 quakes, search teams and local residents had seen no indication that anyone could still be alive beneath the concrete debris in La Guaira state, one of the regions hit hardest by the disaster.

Then Sunday brought an extraordinary development. Rescue crews from Virginia, France, and Venezuela reached into a gap in the rubble and pulled out a pair of dust-covered legs — and then the man they belonged to.

Workers carefully lifted the man from the structure where he had spent four days trapped, his body limp but his hand still clutching his phone. Rescuers placed him on a black tarp and began administering an IV.

Moments later, his young son was brought out — shirtless and barely conscious — passed over the heads of hard-hat-wearing rescue workers with the words “Fairfax County Urban Search & Rescue” printed across their backs.

“Slow, slow, gentle, gentle,” teams called out in a blend of Spanish and English as they moved the father and son through the watching crowd and into a waiting ambulance.

The rescue teams erupted in applause — a rare celebration during days of grim search efforts when the prospect of finding survivors had been fading.

Associated Press journalists Juan Pablo Arraez and Matías Delacroix were among those who witnessed the rescue firsthand. Arraez said the team had been combing the La Guaira area “trying to see if we can see any miracles” when they came upon the U.S. rescue crews and local civilians quietly working to free the two survivors.

“At this stage many begin to lose hope. You see that in their faces,” Arraez said, as helicopters passed overhead. “When somebody makes it out alive, this father and son. It’s more than a glimpse, it’s real hope for people.”

The back-to-back earthquakes represent the worst natural disaster Venezuela has experienced in decades. By Sunday, authorities had confirmed at least 1,450 deaths, with thousands more injured and many others still unaccounted for.

Disaster response experts note that the first 48 to 72 hours following a major earthquake are the most critical window for rescuing survivors, though people with access to food and water can sometimes survive much longer.

Amid the widespread grief, small but powerful moments of compassion and resilience have emerged. Venezuelan firefighters were seen carefully pouring water into the mouth of a dust-covered dog whose head was poking through cracks in the concrete.

One woman, after spending 70 hours buried beneath debris, was brought out on a stretcher sitting upright — smiling and waving to cheering onlookers as she was loaded into an ambulance.

LONDON — Andy Burnham, the Labour lawmaker widely anticipated to take over as Britain’s next prime minister, is preparing to share his governing vision on Monday, according to his office. The centerpiece of his pitch: shifting political power away from London and into the hands of regional communities across the country.

Burnham made his return to Westminster earlier this month after securing a parliamentary seat, and he stands as the sole declared candidate to succeed Keir Starmer. He could be taking up residence at Downing Street within a matter of weeks.

Starmer announced last week that he would be stepping down — just two years after leading Labour to a sweeping parliamentary victory — as his public approval ratings declined sharply.

Burnham built his national profile as mayor of Greater Manchester, earning the nickname “King of the North.” His Monday address will place the devolution of power to regions and local communities at the heart of his leadership platform.

Beyond governance structure, Burnham is also expected to commit to a decade-long effort to improve living standards through reindustrialisation, expanded housing, infrastructure investment, and reform of utility services. His office described the focus as being not just about who holds power in Britain, but about fundamentally changing how the country is governed.

He plans to outline how he intends to “lift Britain back up to where it should be” and deliver the “circuit-breaker it needs,” along with a pledge to overhaul public procurement in ways that better support British workers and industry.

Should Burnham take office, he would become the seventh person to serve as British prime minister within a single decade. Many within his party believe he uniquely possesses both the personality and the vision needed to reconnect with voters and push back against the growing influence of Nigel Farage’s anti-immigration Reform UK party.

Despite the ambitious agenda, economic realities may constrain how far Burnham can go. Britain’s economy has been strained by the fallout from the war in Ukraine and, more recently, the energy disruptions tied to the U.S. conflict with Iran, leaving little room for sweeping new spending commitments.

Burnham previously suggested the government should “get beyond this thing of being in hock to the bond markets,” though he later maintained those remarks had been taken out of context. He has also walked back earlier positions calling for widespread nationalisation or a near-term return to the European Union.

Housing minister Steve Reed said Sunday that Burnham intends to honor the commitments Labour made ahead of the 2024 election and to abide by the government’s fiscal rules — including keeping day-to-day spending in line with tax revenues and reducing national debt as a proportion of economic output.

“When it comes to the fundamentals, Andy has been clear he will stick to the fiscal rules that have delivered this country stability in the economy for the first time in over 15 years,” Reed told Sky News.

Pakistan’s military conducted an intelligence-driven ground operation along its border with Afghanistan on Sunday, then followed up with what officials described as “calibrated strikes” against militant hideouts, resulting in the deaths of 29 fighters, according to a Monday report from the Associated Press citing government officials.

Information Minister Attaullah Tarar announced the operation on the social media platform X, stating it was launched in direct response to a series of militant attacks that had taken place across the country.

Reuters, which reported on the AP account, noted it was unable to independently confirm the details at the time of publication.

CAIRO — Israel’s military has demolished an underground tunnel network belonging to Lebanese militant group Hezbollah in a southern Lebanon village, according to a Sunday joint statement issued by Israel’s prime minister and defense minister.

The strike hit a 200-meter (656-foot) tunnel located in the town of Majdal Zoun. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Israel Katz confirmed in their statement that the United States was notified before the attack took place.

According to the Israeli statement, the tunnel was packed with hundreds of weapons and rocket launchers.

The operation followed earlier Israeli military strikes the same day, when forces targeted Hezbollah fighters carrying rocket-propelled grenades and hit a rocket launcher in the Nabatieh region of southern Lebanon.

Just days earlier, on Friday, a security deal brokered by the United States was reached between Lebanon and Israel. The agreement calls for a gradual Israeli pullback from certain parts of southern Lebanon while the Lebanese army moves in. However, Israeli forces would be allowed to remain in an expanded security zone for the foreseeable future.

Hezbollah’s leader Naim Qassem flatly rejected the deal, calling it a capitulation to Israel and vowing that his group would press on with armed resistance.

In his Sunday night statement, Netanyahu said Israeli forces would hold their position in the southern Lebanon security zone and would “continue to destroy terrorist infrastructure, remove threats from the northern communities, and safeguard the security of Israel’s citizens.”

The ongoing conflict has forced more than one million Lebanese residents out of their homes. Hezbollah and Iran have claimed that Washington committed to ending hostilities in Lebanon as part of a memorandum of understanding signed two weeks ago to bring a halt to the broader war with Iran.

DEIR AL-BALAH, Gaza Strip — At least four Palestinians, including a 13-year-old girl, were killed Sunday in Israeli strikes across the Gaza Strip, according to local health officials.

The Palestinian Red Crescent Society reported that the first strike hit a group of people in Beit Lahiya in northern Gaza, leaving two dead and one wounded.

A second Israeli strike in southern Gaza took the life of a man, health officials at Nasser hospital confirmed.

Also in southern Gaza, a 13-year-old girl named Eileen al-Farra died after being struck by shrapnel from Israeli tank shelling, Nasser hospital reported.

The Israeli military did not immediately respond to a request for comment, though it did state that one of the strikes targeted a “Hamas terrorist,” offering no further details.

Residents across Gaza described a Sunday marked by heavy tank shelling and the constant presence of quadcopters — small unmanned aerial vehicles — flying overhead.

While the most intense fighting in Gaza has subsided following a fragile ceasefire agreement reached in October between Israel and the Hamas militant group, Palestinians report new deaths nearly every day. Israel maintains that its strikes target Hamas and other militants who pose a threat or who have violated the terms of the ceasefire.

Gaza’s Health Ministry, which operates under the Hamas-led government, reports that more than 1,040 people in Gaza have been killed since the ceasefire went into effect. United Nations agencies and independent experts generally consider the ministry’s casualty data to be reliable. The ministry does not separate civilian deaths from militant deaths, but notes that women and children account for roughly half of all fatalities.

Israel has reported five of its own soldiers killed since the ceasefire began.

The current conflict was sparked by a Hamas-led attack on southern Israel on October 7, 2023, in which approximately 1,200 people were killed and 251 others were taken hostage. Israel’s military response in Gaza has since resulted in the deaths of more than 73,050 Palestinians, including those killed after the ceasefire, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry.

Pakistan’s military announced that its security forces launched an intelligence-driven ground operation along the border shared with Afghanistan, followed by what officials described as “calibrated strikes” targeting terrorist hideouts and safe havens in the area.

According to Pakistani authorities, the combined operation resulted in the deaths of 29 militants. The strikes were focused on known terrorist positions within the border region.

As of the time of the announcement, no response had been issued by officials in Kabul regarding the Pakistani military action.

Iran opted out of technical negotiations that were set to take place on Sunday, according to a statement carried by Iranian state television. An official from the Office of Preservation and Publication of the Works of Iran’s Supreme Leader cited two main reasons for the decision: recent attacks on Iran and conditions outlined in a memorandum of understanding with the United States that have yet to be satisfied.

Mehdi Fazaeili, the official who spoke to state TV, pointed to the frozen funds issue as a key sticking point. “For example one of the reasons is checking if we have access to the unfrozen funds, if there is no access then this condition has not been fulfilled,” he said.

The announcement signals continued tension in diplomatic efforts between Iran and the United States, with Iran making clear it will not move forward in talks until it believes the agreed-upon conditions have been honored.

At least four people lost their lives Sunday as Russian forces carried out attacks in two separate regions of Ukraine, according to regional officials.

In the southeastern city of Zaporizhzhia, two people were killed and 16 others were wounded in strikes that tore through the area. Regional Governor Ivan Fedorov shared details of the attack on Telegram, posting images that showed a building engulfed in flames and portions of a neighborhood left in ruins.

Further north, in the Kharkiv region along Ukraine’s northeastern border — an area that has been repeatedly targeted by Russian forces — a missile strike hit the town of Zmiiv. That attack killed one person and left eight others injured, including two children, according to Regional Governor Oleh Syniehubov.

Authorities in the Kharkiv region also reported that a police officer was killed while working to coordinate the evacuation of residents in a community located to the north of Zmiiv.

Reuters was not able to independently confirm the accounts provided by officials from either side of the conflict. Both Russia and Ukraine maintain that they do not deliberately target civilians in what has now become a more than four-year-long war.

LA GUAIRA, Venezuela — Rescue workers from Venezuela and around the globe are growing increasingly desperate in their search for survivors four days after two powerful earthquakes devastated the northern state of La Guaira.

Venezuelan authorities reported a death toll exceeding 1,400 as of Saturday, even as the government faced mounting criticism that its response has been insufficient. Much of the search effort has been driven by ordinary citizens looking for missing loved ones beneath the ruins of collapsed buildings. Online databases set up for families to report and track missing persons indicate thousands of people are still unaccounted for.

Acting President Delcy Rodriguez announced Sunday that 33 people had been pulled from the wreckage the previous day, though she stopped short of releasing a new total death count.

A rescue team from Virginia in the United States successfully freed a man and his son from the debris Sunday morning. The two survivors, coated in dust, were carefully transported on a black tarp into a waiting ambulance, where they received fluids through an IV as a large crowd looked on.

Aid organizations generally regard the first 48 to 72 hours following a natural disaster as the most critical window for finding people alive — though that timeframe can stretch longer if survivors have had access to food and water. The United Nations reported that more than 2,200 rescue workers from countries around the world had arrived by Saturday, with additional teams still coming in.

As expressions of solidarity poured in from across the globe, Pope Leo offered prayers for “the eternal rest of the deceased.” He added, “Likewise, I express my gratitude and encouragement to all those who are generously working in the search and rescue efforts.”

Rodriguez stated on state television Saturday that more than 14,000 military and police personnel are now patrolling La Guaira state, which has been closed to the public — requiring special permits to enter. Despite this, many residents in the disaster zones reported seeing little presence from their government.

The catastrophe presents an enormous challenge for Rodriguez, the former vice president who assumed office in January following the capture and removal of then-President Nicolás Maduro by the United States. Venezuela has been mired in economic turmoil for over a decade, and significant portions of the population do not recognize the legitimacy of the political movement Rodriguez leads.

Scenes of anguish played out across the disaster zone. Some people climbed the ruins of buildings and called out names, hoping to hear a response. A thick layer of dust blanketed coastal communities, and as temperatures soared, more people began wearing masks as the smell of decomposition spread through the air. Elsewhere in La Guaira, workers loaded stacks of bodies — some in white bags, others without covering — onto white trucks from a dirt hospital parking lot, where they were being identified.

Lacking proper safety equipment, both civilian volunteers and rescue workers resorted to wearing motorcycle helmets while picking through debris.

Frustration with the government’s handling of the disaster boiled over in some areas. After state workers were seen taking selfies in front of flattened buildings before leaving without assisting, some angry residents physically blocked an excavator from departing a collapse site and removed the operator from the cab. Officials from the ruling party are known to frequently photograph themselves at government-related events.

The International Organization for Migration estimated that more than 6 million people could ultimately be affected by the disaster, including roughly 2 million in the capital, Caracas.

Experts noted that the damage was worsened by the rapid sequence of shallow quakes. Smaller aftershocks have continued to rattle Caracas and surrounding areas in the days since, including one registering 4.8 on Saturday.

Search and rescue teams and humanitarian aid have been arriving from Mexico, the United States, Brazil, El Salvador, France, and other nations.

On Saturday, Mexican rescue teams scaled collapsed structures and pressed into gaps in the crushed concrete, listening for any signs of life. “We’re rescuers from the Mexican military, if there’s anyone down there still alive, make noise or scream. Now!” one team member shouted into the rubble.

For survivors like Yonahí Regalado, the arrival of international teams offered a measure of hope. She had been calling out the names of her sister and 1-year-old nephew and godson since 1 a.m. the morning after the earthquakes — continuing until foreign aid workers began showing up. “It doesn’t matter who it is, whoever, whether it’s family or somebody else. If there is anyone alive, let’s get them out,” she said, as helicopters circled above.

Moments of compassion emerged amid the devastation. One video captured a Venezuelan rescuer reassuring a frightened elderly woman trapped under rubble who feared moving would cause the structure to collapse on her. “The roof won’t cave in. If it falls, I’ll be here with you,” he told her.

Simón Bolívar International Airport, which serves Caracas, sustained significant damage. Jeremy Lewin, a senior State Department official overseeing foreign assistance, told reporters that one runway is now operational as U.S. teams work to restore the airport’s full capacity. Lewin also said a U.S. Navy transport vessel is stationed off the coast and ready to receive airlifted survivors requiring medical care, calling the ongoing effort “a race against the clock.”

Qatar’s interior ministry announced Sunday that a Qatari national lost his life after suffering shrapnel wounds attributed to what officials described as “military operations in the area.”

The incident came to light after a boat carrying the deceased and one other individual was reported missing. Search efforts launched the day before ultimately led authorities to locate the vessel in the early morning hours of Sunday.

The second person aboard the boat survived but sustained injuries, according to the ministry.

Officials did not disclose the exact location where the incident took place. The ministry also stopped short of clarifying whether the shrapnel that struck the victims had any connection to Iranian drone attacks launched against U.S. military installations in Kuwait and Bahrain on Sunday.

Thousands of protesters were expected to flood the Serbian city of Kraljevo on Sunday, just one day after President Aleksandar Vucic announced his intention to resign and open the door to early presidential and parliamentary elections.

Vucic has held the reins of power in Serbia — first as prime minister, then as president — for 12 years. His tenure has been rocked by months of student-led demonstrations that were ignited by the deadly collapse of a concrete canopy at a railway station in the northern city of Novi Sad in late 2024, which claimed the lives of 16 people.

That tragedy has come to represent widespread frustration over what many citizens view as government corruption and mismanagement under Vucic’s leadership. The resulting wave of protests has grown into the largest Serbia has seen since the fall of Slobodan Milosevic in 2000. Vucic has consistently denied any wrongdoing or corruption.

“This is not just a political struggle but a fight between good and evil,” said Jelena Danicic, a Serbian language professor who met up with friends in the city center ahead of the rally.

Despite sweltering heat, crowds made their way into Kraljevo, where street vendors hawked T-shirts bearing the slogan “Students are winning.”

What started as a demand for accountability over the deaths in Novi Sad gradually evolved into broader calls for Vucic to leave office and hold early elections.

While many in the protest movement feel that Vucic’s announcement vindicates their efforts, they are not convinced he will truly exit the political stage. Political analysts suggest he may seek to run for prime minister and place a trusted ally in the presidency, allowing him to maintain his influence behind the scenes.

“I cannot imagine that he will step down and leave power to someone else,” said Marko Djokic, a 41-year-old IT professional who traveled back to his hometown specifically to take part in the demonstrations.

The situation in Serbia is drawing close attention from both the European Union and Russia. Serbia is a candidate for EU membership and sits just outside the bloc’s eastern border, but it also maintains deep ties with Russia and China — a delicate balancing act Vucic has long navigated.

Before Serbia can join the EU, it must strengthen the rule of law, create conditions for free and fair elections, crack down on corruption and organized crime, bring its foreign policy in line with EU positions, and normalize relations with Kosovo, which declared independence from Serbia in 2008.

Both Brussels and Moscow are watching closely to see how the situation unfolds in the weeks ahead. The EU has spoken out against the use of force on peaceful protesters and has also expressed concern about press freedom and judicial independence in the country.

MOSCOW — Russia’s ruling party has announced its slate of lead candidates for a parliamentary election set to take place this September, placing a wounded Ukraine war veteran and a state television correspondent at the top of the ticket.

At United Russia’s pre-election congress, party chairman and former president Dmitry Medvedev revealed that Vladislav Golovin, a veteran of the Ukraine conflict, and Yevgeny Poddubny, a war correspondent for state television, would head the party’s candidate list.

Golovin, 29, gained recognition through state media coverage beginning in 2022, when he served as a naval infantry platoon commander during the battle for the Ukrainian port city of Mariupol — a fight in which he sustained injuries. Poddubny was also wounded, suffering injuries in 2024 while covering combat in Russia’s Kursk region.

Rounding out the top five are Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin — both described as among Russia’s most prominent and well-regarded officials — and Maria Lvova-Belova, who serves as Russia’s commissioner for children’s rights.

United Russia has consistently captured large majorities in every national election it has entered, though polling data suggests the party is considerably less popular than President Vladimir Putin, who secured another presidential term in 2024 that keeps him in power through at least 2030.

Despite the ongoing war in Ukraine and fuel supply disruptions caused by Ukrainian drone attacks, analysts expect United Russia to again win a commanding majority, aided by Putin’s backing and a parliamentary opposition that largely aligns with the Kremlin’s position on Ukraine.

While high-profile national figures frequently appear on United Russia’s candidate lists, they do not always claim seats in the lower chamber of parliament, known as the State Duma. Putin has spoken on multiple occasions about his desire to see Ukraine war veterans become part of Russia’s new political leadership class.

Thirty-three people have been rescued so far this weekend in the aftermath of Venezuela’s catastrophic twin earthquakes, the country’s interim president announced, among them several children. However, tens of thousands of people remain unaccounted for, and rescuers say the critical window for finding survivors alive is rapidly closing.

The death toll from Wednesday’s dual earthquakes climbed past 1,400 as of Saturday, as international rescue teams flooded into La Guaira — the coastal state that bore the brunt of the destruction.

Before those more than 1,600 foreign rescue workers arrived, families and volunteers spent days pulling both survivors and bodies from collapsed buildings. Many complained of a lack of heavy equipment and minimal official support, while hundreds of aftershocks continued to cause additional damage and kept residents living in fear.

Venezuela’s government — currently led by interim President Delcy Rodriguez, who took over after her predecessor was removed by the United States in a January raid — had initially praised civilian volunteers for delivering aid to La Guaira. The government later significantly restricted access to the road leading to the area, citing traffic as an obstacle to emergency vehicles and limiting use of the roadway to accredited individuals only.

While the government has acknowledged hundreds of people as missing or trapped, a website run by the country’s political opposition listed just under 50,000 people as unaccounted for as of Sunday. That number represented a slight drop from Saturday’s figure of 55,000.

The U.S. Geological Survey has estimated that more than 10,000 deaths could ultimately result from the magnitude 7.2 and 7.5 earthquakes — a toll that would rank them among the deadliest in Latin America over the past century.

Rescue experts stressed that time is running out. “There exists a window of roughly three days, 72 hours, where the probability afterwards decreases that you can save people alive,” said Sebastian Eugster, the leader of the Swiss rescue team, speaking to reporters on Saturday. His 80-member team had located multiple living survivors in the rubble with the help of eight search dogs, but was unable to extract them in time to save their lives. Saturday evening marked exactly 72 hours since the earthquakes struck.

Eugster said the Swiss team will coordinate with other rescue groups and local authorities to determine when to officially end rescue operations, though the team plans to stay in the region to assist with broader relief efforts.

Among those rescued were several children. The U.S. State Department celebrated the rescue of an infant by American crews on Saturday, sharing video footage on social media showing rescuers in helmets lifting a blanket-wrapped, crying baby from the debris.

A Colombian rescue team saved an 11-year-old boy named Moises, who had been buried roughly 3 meters — about 10 feet — underground. Rescuers used a scanner to pinpoint his location and removed him on a stretcher with a broken arm, his eyes covered with cloth to shield them from the sudden exposure to daylight. His mother and sister did not survive.

In the town of Caraballeda, Mexican rescuers pulled another 11-year-old boy from the ruins of a collapsed building, interim President Rodriguez announced late Saturday on social media, sharing video of crews carrying the child out on a stretcher. “In these hours each life is hope for Venezuela,” Rodriguez said. The government also shared footage of a young man being freed from debris by rescue workers.

Additional government videos showed Rodriguez meeting with international rescue teams, during which she provided the updated count of people saved on Saturday. Officials also reported that more than 3,000 people have been injured and a similar number are currently living in emergency shelters.

In Caraballeda on Saturday, U.S. rescuers worked side by side with civilian volunteers, some of whom were searching for their own missing family members. Rescuers had originally marked the rubble with the name of the apartment building that once stood there. By Saturday evening, they had updated the markings with codes indicating they no longer believed any living person remained in that section of ruins.

Pope Leo addressed worshippers gathered for the Angelus prayer in Rome on Sunday, expressing his desire to “express my closeness to the Venezuelan sisters and brothers affected by the recent earthquakes” and offering gratitude to all rescue workers involved.

The European Union’s foreign policy chief announced on social media that the EU had mobilized 5 million euros — approximately $5.9 million — in emergency aid, and that the EU’s Copernicus satellite system is being used to map the damage and guide assistance to the areas most in need.

A senior U.S. official said Saturday that a funding package worth hundreds of millions of dollars is expected to be announced within the next day or so, in addition to $150 million already committed by the Trump administration.

The disaster may carry political consequences for Rodriguez, who has presented herself as a force for change despite having previously served as vice president under her predecessor. Meanwhile, electrical power was gradually being restored across the region, though Venezuela’s power grid — weakened by years of underinvestment and economic sanctions — routinely suffers from failures that cause hours-long blackouts in parts of the country.

BAGHDAD (AP) — Dozens of Iraqi political figures have been taken into custody on corruption charges, according to a report Sunday from Iraq’s state-run Iraqi News Agency.

Authorities said the arrests stemmed from a statement given by former Deputy Minister of Oil Adnan al-Jumaili, who himself was arrested last month. The report noted that the detained individuals “included members of Parliament whose immunity had been lifted.”

Early Sunday morning, Iraqi security forces locked down all entry points to Baghdad’s heavily fortified Green Zone — the compound that serves as home to major government buildings and foreign embassies — and carried out raids throughout the area.

The state news agency later put the total number of arrests at 47, though it remained unclear whether all of those individuals were taken into custody on Sunday or whether some had been detained in earlier operations.

Officials released the names of 15 people who were arrested, among them 12 current members of Parliament, one former legislator, a former advisor to ex-Prime Minister Mohammed Shia al-Sudani, and another senior official from the oil ministry. Several of the arrested lawmakers were affiliated with al-Sudani’s Shiite political bloc, while others belonged to the Azm Alliance, a prominent Sunni political party.

The specific charges each individual faces were not immediately disclosed.

Al-Sudani’s political bloc secured the largest number of seats in November’s parliamentary elections, but he ultimately withdrew from contention for a new term after a stalemate within the Coordination Framework — a coalition of Shiite parties with ties to Iran that originally helped bring him to power — over who should lead the country next.

Al-Sudani was succeeded by Ali al-Zaidi, a businessman with no prior political experience, who emerged as a compromise choice and received support from the United States.

The wave of arrests is expected to have far-reaching consequences across Iraq’s fragmented political environment, where corruption allegations are often entangled with broader struggles for power and influence.

A small aircraft carrying skydivers crashed in northeastern France on Sunday, leaving no survivors among the 11 people on board, officials confirmed.

The plane experienced a mechanical failure and “fell almost vertically” shortly after departing from the Nancy-Essey airfield, located on the edge of the city of Nancy, according to Yves Séguy, the prefect of the Meurthe-et-Moselle region.

Séguy told broadcaster BFM-TV that the aircraft went down near a residential neighborhood close to the airfield. “Had it occurred just a few dozen meters away, the accident could have caused collateral casualties,” he warned.

Flight tracking data from Flightradar24 showed the plane veered left after liftoff and struck the ground less than a minute later, coming to rest near nearby homes.

According to local newspaper L’Est Républicain, those killed included five parachuting instructors, five clients, and the pilot.

Nancy Mayor Mathieu Klein told public broadcaster France Info that the passengers had been planning tandem jumps — a type of skydive in which two people, typically an experienced instructor and a first-time jumper, are harnessed together for the descent.

Klein also noted that some of the victims had family members and friends present at the airfield who watched the plane go down, resulting in “numerous” cases of psychological trauma.

Séguy said emergency responders were on scene immediately and were offering psychological support to relatives of those killed, while authorities also worked to gather witness accounts. “We are deploying all available resources,” he said, citing emergency medical teams, firefighters, police, and mental health professionals.

Flight tracking websites identified the aircraft as a single-engine Pilatus PC-6, a small plane commonly used to transport freight, passengers, and skydivers.

A nearby resident, identified by BFM-TV as John Curaku, said he was in his garden when he heard what sounded like an engine cutting out, followed immediately by a loud impact. He said he went to the scene and found “no signs of life,” with two victims found several meters from the wreckage. Police have since cordoned off the crash site.

TEL AVIV, Israel — Israel’s Cabinet has unanimously voted to formally label the mass killing of Armenians by the Ottoman Empire during World War I as a genocide, a significant diplomatic step that still requires approval from the country’s parliament.

The decision reflects the increasingly troubled relationship between Israel and Turkey. Turkey has long and aggressively pushed other nations not to officially classify the Armenian deaths as genocide, while Armenian advocates have worked just as hard to gain that recognition.

Scholars and historians estimate that as many as 1.5 million Armenians lost their lives at the hands of Ottoman Turks around 1915 — an event widely regarded by academics as the first genocide of the 20th century. Turkey rejects that characterization, arguing the death toll has been exaggerated and that those who died were casualties of civil conflict and widespread unrest.

For many years, Israel deliberately avoided taking an official stance on the matter to preserve its relationship with Turkey. However, those ties have steadily deteriorated over the past two decades, and have grown especially strained in recent years amid ongoing conflicts in Gaza, Lebanon and involving Iran.

Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar, who brought the proposal before the government, spoke strongly in support of the recognition. “Despite the extensive and unambiguous historical documentation, the Armenian Genocide remains to this day the subject of an institutionalized campaign of denial and minimization, including a manipulative rewriting of history, mainly by the Turkish government,” he said.

Saar pointed out that Israeli leaders — including Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu — have previously referred to the violence against Armenians as a genocide in personal statements. However, Israel’s parliament, the Knesset, has never put the matter to a formal vote.

“It is never too late to do the right thing,” Saar declared on Sunday, describing the recognition as a “moral and historical duty.”

He also noted that 32 other nations — among them the United States, Syria and Lebanon — have already officially classified the killings as genocide. It remains unclear when the Cabinet’s unanimous decision will be brought before parliament for a vote. Turkey had not issued any public response as of Sunday.

Israel and Turkey were once considered close allies, but that partnership began unraveling with the rise of Turkey’s Islamist President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, prompting Israel to reconsider its long-held silence on the Armenian question.

The move comes as Israel itself faces genocide accusations from multiple fronts, including from the United Nations and Turkey, related to its military offensive in Gaza. Israel, a nation established in the aftermath of the Holocaust, strongly denies those allegations.

Israel launched its military campaign in Gaza following Hamas’ attack on October 7, 2023. Gaza’s Health Ministry, which operates under the Hamas government, reports that more than 73,000 people have been killed, with roughly half being women and children. Israel maintains that it does not deliberately target civilians and accuses Hamas of using Palestinian civilians as human shields.

Just last week, a panel of independent experts appointed by the United Nations accused Israel of intentionally shooting children in Gaza and repeated claims that Israel’s actions amount to genocide. Israel dismissed the report as a “libelous sham.”