‘Everything turned to ash’: Gaza residents return to razed, smoldering homes

October 17, 2025

'Everything turned to ash': Gazans return to razed homes — An elderly couple grieves in front of their destroyed home in Gaza City

Back to Rubble: Walking Home in a City That Forgot How to Be a City

They come back on foot, or in the backs of battered pickups, or clinging to the hope that a ceasefire can be more than the pause between blasts. They arrive at dawn, when the light makes the ruined skyline look almost gentle — and then their eyes take in the truth: rooms gone, stairwells collapsed, whole apartment blocks reduced to neat piles of concrete like giant, broken sugar cubes.

“I have to walk a kilometre and a half… just to fill two water containers,” said Hossam Majed, 31, as he stood beside a mound of rebar and masonry where his living room used to be. He had managed to salvage a few bits — a table, a chair, and a much-prized water tank — and with those he had begun the ritual of making a life out of what remained.

This is the northwest of Gaza City, Sabra neighborhood and its surroundings: empty streets lined with the detritus of ordinary lives. You can still see a child’s shoe catching the wind on a twisted piece of metal. A Palestinian flag flutters from a pole near a makeshift tent. The cadence of daily survival — water, food, warmth, safeguarding what’s left from looters — plays on repeat.

Faces of Return

Umm Rami Lubbad is one of those who fled south to Khan Younis as the fighting intensified, hoping to wait out the worst. She returned with a small fleet of hopes: a mother’s wish for stability, the idea that their home could be a refuge again. Instead she found a horizon of rubble.

“My heart nearly stopped when I saw the house reduced to rubble,” she told me, her voice quiet with a kind of exhausted disbelief. “I was looking as far as my eyes could see — and saw nothing.”

Her family sleeps on the street most nights. “We sleep in the street regardless. I don’t have a tent,” she said. When shelling made being outside simply impossible, neighbors took them in. They gather wood for cooking, a gas canister for warmth, and try—half-joking, half-pleading—to fashion sanitation out of scraps.

Ahmad al-Abbasi hoped for a more hopeful return. He had left the city when the onslaught began and came back expecting familiar doorways. “We came back north hoping to find our homes and rebuild our lives. As you can see… Gaza has turned into a ghost town,” he said, gesturing to the five-storey skeleton that once was his building. He had anchored sheets with cinder blocks and iron rods, draping a sheet to make a single room in the open air.

“We’ll try to fix even just one room or one tent to shelter ourselves, our children, and our families,” he added, adjusting the fabric that flapped loudly in the wind like a weary flag.

Daily Life: The Arithmetic of Shortage

Electricity is a rumor. Internet is intermittent. Food and basic goods — where available at all — cost more in the north because fewer suppliers make the journey and risk the crossing. “Even food is more expensive than in the south because it’s scarce,” Hossam said, tallying the new, harsher budget of survival.

Water journeys are a test of endurance. Clean drinking water, the most elemental human commodity, has become the object of a daily pilgrimage. Lines form at communal taps and distribution points; people queue with bottles and jerrycans, bargaining over an invisible currency: time. Without fuel, generators sit silent. Hospitals operate on the edge of feasibility. Clinics are overwhelmed. The very infrastructure that supported life begins to erode.

When Health Systems Are Hollowed Out

The World Health Organization has been blunt: infectious diseases are “spiralling out of control” in Gaza. Of the territory’s 36 hospitals, only 13 are even partially functioning, and in Gaza City — the urban heart of the strip — the WHO counts eight partially functioning health facilities. Staff shortages, depleted supplies, and the trauma of two years of conflict have left survivors trapped between injury and absence of care.

Hanan Balkhy, regional director for WHO, framed the scale of the crisis in stark terms: “Whether meningitis… diarrhoea, respiratory illnesses, we’re talking about a mammoth amount of work.” She warned that the challenge is not simply to repair, but often to rebuild — a job that will require billions of dollars and likely decades of effort.

The human toll is staggering. According to Gaza’s health ministry — figures reported by local authorities and considered reliable by international bodies — nearly 68,000 people have been killed since October 7, 2023, when Hamas’s attack on Israel sparked the current conflict. The United Nations reports that more than 800 attacks have hit health facilities since then. Almost 42,000 people are living with life-changing injuries, and a quarter of them are children.

Mental health needs have surged as well. The WHO estimates that over one million people in Gaza require urgent psychosocial support after enduring years of bombardment and displacement; services are stretched beyond breaking. “There are children who have received zero doses of routine immunisation in the last two years,” Balkhy said, underscoring the long tail of crises — from vulnerability to outbreaks to lost futures.

What Comes Next?

The ceasefire has created a fragile space in which aid might move more freely. International leaders and humanitarian agencies have called for corridors for fuel, medical evacuations, and large-scale shipments of food and medicine. But for families on the ground, the immediate calculus is brutally simple: Where will we sleep tonight? How do we keep our children fed? Who will mend the shattered roof?

An aid worker I spoke with, who asked not to be named for security reasons, said, “If we can get fuel, people can begin to run pumps, sterilize water, and power operating theatres. Without fuel, the whole system remains on its knees.”

Rebuilding will not be only about concrete and cranes. It will require political will, coordination across borders, and an honest accounting of what decades of neglect and two years of warfare have done to institutions and people alike. It will also require asking difficult questions about displacement, return, and how to rebuild communities, not just buildings.

Why This Should Matter to You

When a city is reduced to rubble, it is not just homes that crumble: schools, clinics, markets, stories. The consequences radiate outward — to neighboring regions, to economies, to the next generation. The echoes of this crisis will influence migration, health security, and geopolitical stability across the broader region.

What do we owe the families who carry a water tank across a torn street? What does a single flag, pinned to a makeshift tent, ask of the rest of the world? If you believe in basic human dignity, the images of Gaza’s rubble demand a response: not just sympathy, but the political and practical will to move aid, to protect civilians, and to invest in long-term reconstruction that centers people, not just infrastructure.

For now, people like Hossam, Umm Rami, Ahmad, and Mustafa remain on the edge — returning, sifting, salvaging, and imagining a future that feels unbearably distant. They ask for tents, water, fuel, doctors, and a space to grieve and to begin again. They ask, quietly and insistently, to be allowed to live with dignity.

EU Unveils 2030 Roadmap to Strengthen Defence Readiness

hanad

October 17, 2025

EU presents roadmap for defence readiness by 2030 — Member states will be encouraged to plug gaps in capabilities across a range of areas including drone defence

A Continent on Guard: Europe’s Plan to Build a Shield by 2030

There is a new kind of drumbeat across European capitals—not the stomping cadence of tanks, but the quick, relentless hum of rotors and the faint, uncanny whisper of algorithms. In Brussels last week, the European Commission unveiled a road map that seeks to transform that hum into something Europe can see, track and, if necessary, stop.

At the heart of the plan is a simple but urgent premise: modern conflict is noisy, messy and often invisible. Sabotage at sea, incursions by drones, tests of undersea cables, and fleeting violations of airspace no longer belong only to thriller novels or Cold War archives. They are present-tense challenges that demand a new kind of preparedness—technical, political and psychological.

What the Commission is Proposing

The Commission’s blueprint, born from recommendations at the EU leaders’ June summit, lays out four flagship projects: counter-drone systems, bolstering the eastern borders, enhanced air-defence, and what officials are calling a European Space Shield.

These initiatives aim to move member states from ad hoc responses to collective readiness by 2030—so that governments can “anticipate, prepare for, and respond to any crisis, including high-intensity conflict,” as the road map puts it.

Capabilities on the Shortlist

Whenever Europe talks about defence these days, the list of needs reads like a technology catalogue for an uncertain future:

Air and missile defence
Artillery and ammunition stockpiles
Military mobility across borders
Cybersecurity and electronic warfare
Artificial intelligence for decision support
Drones and counter-drone systems
Maritime and ground combat capabilities

And the Commission is explicit: the pathway to faster, cheaper scaling is joint procurement and a harmonised European defence market. The goal is not just to buy more, but to cultivate an industrial base that can supply “at speed and volume.”

Why Now? The Shadow of Hybrid Warfare

For years analysts have warned of hybrid tactics that blur the line between peace and war. These are the acts that aim to destabilise democracies without necessarily drawing the red lines of traditional armed conflict. Think of clandestine sabotage, targeted cyber-attacks, and small, cheap drones that slip across borders to gather intelligence—and sometimes, to strike.

“We are witnessing a battlefield that feels almost domestic,” said Sofia Martinez, an EU defence analyst. “It’s not always created by armies. It’s orchestrated through technologies and tactics that exploit openness—our markets, our networks, even our waterways.”

One poignant example: fishermen in Baltic ports watch with a new kind of suspicion as unmanned aerial devices ripple the low clouds above their boats. “We used to worry about storms and nets,” said Jānis, a 47-year-old fisherman from a small Latvian quay. “Now I worry if what I’m seeing is a hobby drone or something meant to look for us.”

Eastern Flank Watch: Ditches, Drones and Deterrence

One of the more evocative elements of the plan is what officials call the Eastern Flank Watch. Picture two complementary lines of defence.

The first is the old-fashioned “ground wall”: anti-tank trenches, dragon’s teeth, reconstructed wetlands—hard infrastructure intended to slow an advance and complicate military manoeuvres. It sounds like history, but with a present-day twist.

The second is a “drone wall”: a network of acoustic and radar sensors, electronic warfare nodes, and interceptor systems designed to detect and disable drones before they become a threat. Latvia has begun building this very architecture, stitching acoustic sensors into a net that can hear and localise small unmanned craft.

“Detection is phase one,” said Andrius Kubilius, the EU’s defence commissioner. “Destruction in a cost-effective way—anti-drone interceptors, electronic warfare tools—is phase two. If we do one without the other, we leave ourselves exposed.”

From Dublin to Tallinn: A Patchwork Becoming a Quilt

This is also a story of geography and politics. Ireland—traditionally neutral and not a NATO member—announced support for the EU’s SAFE initiative in June. Dublin said it would use participation to acquire artillery, cyber-capabilities, and air-defence systems, while protecting maritime and critical infrastructure.

“Support does not mean surrender,” said an Irish defence official who asked not to be named. “We’re not ceding national decisions on procurement, but we recognise the security fabric must be woven together if everyone is to be safer.”

Small countries such as the Netherlands and Latvia are already coalescing around practical cooperation: a new “Drones Coalition” has started meeting. The objective is pragmatic—make anti-drone systems fully operational by the end of 2027 and do so in close coordination with NATO partners.

Industrial Strategy Meets Security

Beyond sensors and trenches, this road map is about industry—the factories and supply chains that can turn designs into delivered capabilities. The Commission has proposed tracking industrial capacity for air and missile defence, drones, and space systems so Europe knows whether it can scale production when crisis demands it.

“A simplified, integrated European defence equipment market is key,” an EU industrial official explained. “We need harmonised rules so companies can ramp up production across borders.”

The Human Angle: People Who Will Live with the Shield

In border towns, farmers and shopkeepers watch road convoys of military vehicles with a mix of unease and resignation. In military academies, cadets study a new curriculum that blends cyber tradecraft with old lessons on discipline and logistics. In coastal villages, a shipyard worker named Aoife explains the practical upside: “If there’s a shared order for parts, we get work. If we have contracts spanning five countries, my yard stays busy.”

But there are also questions of democracy and costs. Who decides what to buy? Which countries lead on procurement? How transparent will the harmonised market be? These are not small queries in a union that prized subsidiarity and national sovereignty for decades.

What This Means for You

Some readers will feel reassured by a European Union that is taking threats seriously and investing in collective defence. Others will worry about the militarisation of diplomacy and the risks of an arms race. But there’s another layer: resilience. Investing in cyber-defences, secure communications and hardened ports is about keeping economies moving and societies open when tensions rise.

Ask yourself: what would you want your hometown to have—the ability to spot a threat early, or the illusion of safety until it is too late? Where should the line be drawn between preparedness and provocation?

Europe’s road map is not a blueprinted war plan. It is, instead, an attempt to stitch together capabilities across 27 nations, to turn fragments of readiness into a shared architecture of deterrence and defence. The clock ticks toward 2030. The question is whether ambition, politics and industry can align in time to meet the threats that already whisper at the edges of the continent.

Final Thought

In the end, defence is more than hardware. It is the sum of political will, shared values and the patience to build systems that last. As cities hum and drones continue to multiply, Europe is deciding what kind of guardian it wants to be—a patchwork of national efforts or a cohesive shield. The answer will define not only military postures, but the future shape of European cooperation itself.

Nestlé to slash 16,000 jobs as CEO ignites turnaround plan

hanad

October 17, 2025

Nestle to cut 16,000 jobs as CEO starts 'turnaround fire' — Nestle has endured an unprecedented period of managerial turmoil in recent months

A Quiet Storm at the Lake: Nestlé’s Big Reset and What It Means for People, Products and Place

On a crisp morning by Lake Geneva, where seagulls wheel over the placid water and the chocolate-scented breeze still clings to Vevey’s promenade, the world’s largest food company announced a change that will ripple far beyond Switzerland’s borders.

Philipp Navratil, Nestlé’s newly appointed chief executive, told markets and employees alike that the company will cut about 16,000 jobs — roughly 5.8% of Nestlé’s 277,000-strong workforce — as part of a deep efficiency push. The company is also lifting its cost-savings target to 3 billion Swiss francs (about $3.77 billion) by the end of 2027, up from an earlier 2.5 billion francs goal.

Short, sharp statements from the top — “The world is changing, and Nestlé needs to change faster,” Navratil said — capture the tone. But they are only part of a more complicated story: one that threads corporate boardroom pressure, geopolitical crosswinds, changing consumer habits, and the very human cost of reinvention.

Numbers That Bite: What the Cuts Look Like

The announced reductions include some 12,000 white-collar roles over the next two years, and a further 4,000 reductions tied to manufacturing and supply-chain rationalizations. For many, that math will feel abstract: a percentage, a fiscal target, a line in an investor deck. For others it is immediate and personal — a call from human resources, a notice taped to a factory board, or a family recalculating a monthly budget.

Navratil has said driving RIG-led growth — real internal growth, a measure focused on sales volumes rather than accounting contortions — is top priority. The latest quarter offered a small breathing space: RIG rose 1.5%, well above the 0.3% analysts had expected. Organic sales climbed 4.3%, outperforming a 3.7% consensus estimate. Those are encouraging signals, but they arrive with caveats.

Where the Pressure Comes From

Nestlé’s troubles are not unique. Across the food sector, firms contend with higher costs, stubborn inflation in commodity and logistics, and shifting consumer tastes — people increasingly choose fresh, health-forward options over processed staples. But Nestlé has an additional burden: new U.S. import tariffs on Swiss goods that went into effect in August, raising the duty on certain items to 39%.

“Tariffs have become a structural headwind,” said a European consumer goods analyst who asked not to be named. “You can localize production, which Nestlé has done in many markets, but tariffs still affect margins and strategic choices — whether to double down on premium coffee, restructure waters or rethink vitamins and supplements.”

Leadership Upheaval and a Boardroom Reset

These changes arrive during a period of exceptional managerial turbulence. Navratil stepped into the top role after Laurent Freixe’s sudden departure in September amid a controversy over an undisclosed relationship with a direct report. Chairman Paul Bulcke stepped aside early to make room for Pablo Isla, the former Inditex chief, who took the helm two weeks later.

For investors, the reshuffle is both risk and opportunity. Nestlé shares leapt around 8% in early trading on the announcement — a market nod to decisive action. Bernstein analysts described the headcount cut as a “significant surprise” but framed it as “fuel for the turnaround.”

Not Just Numbers: Voices from Vevey, a Factory Line, and a Corner Café

At a production site outside Vevey, a machine operator named Marco — who’s worked on chocolate wrapping lines for 14 years — folded his hands over a cup of coffee and sighed. “Nobody wants to see people lose jobs. We make things people put into their homes,” he said. “But when the company says things need to change, you feel it in the stomach.”

In a small Parisian café that sources Nespresso pods, the owner, Amina, explained how brand visibility is a double-edged sword. “People still buy KitKat for the kids and Nespresso for the morning, but they’re also cutting back on little luxuries. If prices rise because of tariffs or costs, customers start to nibble away at habits,” she said. “That’s where you see the market shift.”

Inside Nestlé’s finance corner, CFO Anna Manz offered a sober assessment of the company’s China strategy. “We were too focused on distribution breadth and not focused enough on building consumer demand,” she said. “So what you see in China is us correcting that — consolidating distribution while we rebuild the pull from consumers.”

Strategic Choices Ahead: Waters, Beverages, and Supplements

Navratil’s memo makes clear that the shake-up is not only about cutting costs. Strategic reviews are underway for certain parts of the business — notably bottled water, premium beverages, and lower-growth vitamins and supplements. These are categories that have struggled for consistent growth and carry low margins in a market that increasingly rewards agility and brand relevance.

For context, the company projects the bulk of the 3 billion francs in savings to arrive in 2026–27, with around 700 million francs expected in 2025. It is leaving its 2025 guidance unchanged, predicting organic sales growth that should improve on 2024 and signaling an underlying trading operating margin at or above 16% for 2025, with a medium-term target of at least 17%.

What This Tells Us About Global Business Today

There are larger currents at play here. Globalization is more brittle than the glossy decades of expanding trade would have suggested. Geopolitics can flip tariff switches overnight. Consumer preferences mutate quickly under the twin forces of health awareness and digital influence. Companies built for scale and reach face a paradox: how to be both global and local, massive and nimble.

And then there is the human dimension: the dignity of work, the communities that factories and offices support, the small businesses that rely on steady customers, and the shareholders who demand returns. Navratil’s call for a “performance mindset” is a leadership gambit — one that will define Nestlé for years to come.

Questions to Carry Home

As you sip your coffee this morning or pass a brightly wrapped candy bar on a grocery shelf, consider the intersections between corporate decisions and everyday life. Who pays the price for efficiency? Can multinational giants reinvent without eroding the social fabric they are part of? And in an era when policy and politics can reshape markets overnight, how should companies plan long-term?

These are not rhetorical luxuries. They are the kinds of questions facing workers in Vevey, managers in Shanghai, investors in New York, and café owners in Casablanca. Nestlé’s reset is at once a tale of balance sheets and human stories — a reminder that in our global economy, the steel of strategy meets the soft contours of people’s lives.

Whether this move will stitch together the tumbling growth and investor nerves remains to be seen. But for now, on the shores of Lake Geneva and in kitchens the world over, the conversation has changed — and with it, the future of a company that has long been stitched into the fabric of everyday life.

Trump, Putin Set to Meet After Breakthroughs in Ukraine Talks

hanad

October 17, 2025

Trump, Putin to meet after progress in Ukraine talks — US President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin had a 'good and productive call'

A Phone Call, a Promise, and the Electricity of Uncertainty

Late one afternoon, across a web of encrypted lines and international anxiety, two presidents spoke. The result was unexpected even to veteran diplomats: an agreement — or at least a plan — for another summit between Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump in Budapest. The announcement landed like a pebble thrown into a pond: concentric ripples of hope, scepticism, and fear spreading from Kyiv to the corridors of power in Washington and Moscow.

“We spoke for more than two hours,” Mr. Trump told the press, describing the conversation as “productive” and adding that a meeting in Hungary would follow lower-level talks next week. No firm date was set; no communiqué clasped hands across the table. Yet the prospect of leaders sitting face-to-face stilled some immediate questions and opened many more.

Tomorrow’s Oval Office, Today’s Tension

President Volodymyr Zelensky, meanwhile, was preparing to fly to Washington. He would sit across the Resolute Desk to press a simple but consequential point: Ukraine needs weapons that can change the map of threat and deterrence. In Kyiv and beyond, the strongest demand is for long-range Tomahawk cruise missiles — weapons that would, by design, put distant Russian strategic targets within reach.

“If we have long-range precision, we can recalibrate the battlefield. It’s not about hurting so much as deterring,” said a senior Ukrainian military adviser who asked not to be named for security reasons. “We need options for when the frontlines and the energy grid are under constant assault.”

What giving Tomahawks would mean

A Tomahawk’s range — roughly 1,500–1,600 kilometres in many variants — would extend Ukraine’s strike envelope into the Russian interior. That possibility is precisely what makes the missile both attractive and terrifying. Ask any diplomat or defence analyst and you’ll hear two refrains: the first is the hard reality that longer reach could compel Russia back to a negotiating table; the second is the inescapable worry about escalation.

“This is the calculus of 21st century deterrence: precision at distance,” said Professor Anna Morozov, a security studies scholar. “But with each step you take to rebalance, the adversary may feel pressured to respond asymmetrically — in cyber, in energy, or through proxies. Weapons are not just tools; they are signals.”

The Soundtrack of an Escalating War

On the ground, the war’s drumbeat has not softened. Ukrainian authorities reported a staggering overnight barrage: more than 300 drones and 37 missiles targeting energy infrastructure across the country. Cities blacked out as grid components were damaged; towns braced for another winter of frayed power lines, freezing temperatures and the hum of gas-powered generators.

“Last winter we lit candles. This year we will keep the generators running,” said Oksana, a teacher in Dnipro, standing outside a café that has become an informal refuge when the lights go out. “You adapt. You survive. But you also ask: how much more can one community take?”

Ukraine’s own forces have stepped up strikes across the border, including an attack on a refinery in Russia’s Saratov region. The symmetry of strikes and counterstrikes has hard edges: wounded infrastructure, disrupted energy markets, and populations all along the supply chain feeling the shock.

Budapest as Symbol and Stage

Why Budapest? The Hungarian capital is more than a convenient venue; it is a symbolic crossroads between East and West. For many in Europe, the city is a reminder that geography and history cannot be ignored when trying to broker peace. For others, it is an arena where domestic politics and geopolitical theatre will meet.

“Leaders know the optics matter,” said a former diplomat who worked on European security issues. “A meeting in Budapest sends a message: this is about Europe’s security architecture, not just bilateral grievances.”

Voices from the Streets and the Briefing Room

Across Kyiv, conversations are full of pragmatism and weary humor. Vendors at the Besarabka market joke about vendors of heat packs and thermal socks doing brisk business. Café owners count the nights they’ll stay open through a blackout. And yet the mood is not only grim.

“We are exhausted, yes. But we have learned to hope in peculiar ways,” said Mykola, an electrician who volunteers on nights repairing downed lines. “When leaders talk, it can feel distant. But if a summit means fewer rockets, fewer bombs, fewer children in basements — that matters.”

In Washington, the calculus is different but equally fraught. There are legal, logistical and political hurdles to approving and supplying long-range missiles to a non-NATO partner. There are also votes to win and alliances to shore up. “The United States must measure not only what weapons do for Ukraine, but how they reshape the entire theatre,” said a U.S. foreign policy adviser. “That’s the conversation the president will have with Mr. Zelensky.”

What’s at Stake Globally

This is not a local quarrel. It is an episode in a global story about norms, sovereignty, and the mechanisms of modern warfare. State-to-state negotiations about war termination are rare, and when they occur they are messy and fragile. Each side frames the tempo: one seeks talks after being pressured; the other seeks reassurances before surrendering leverage.

Consider the larger trends: the weaponization of energy and infrastructure, the proliferation of increasingly accessible drone technology, and the growing role of public diplomacy — where leaders’ every utterance is filtered in real time by social media, pundits, and international audiences. These are the contours of future conflicts, and they are visible now.

Conflict origin: Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine began in February 2022.
Recent attacks: Ukrainian officials reported more than 300 drones and 37 missiles used in a single barrage on infrastructure.
Weapon in debate: Tomahawk cruise missiles have a range of roughly 1,500–1,600 km and could reach deep into Russian territory.

Questions to Carry Home

Will a summit in Budapest bring a real ceasefire or simply another set of preconditions? Can weapons extend the bargaining table without widening the war? And for ordinary people living under these headlines: what is the calculus of hope?

These questions have no tidy answers. They require patience, humility and, above all, accountability. Leaders can promise dialogues; communities can prepare for winters. But the daily toll — of families displaced, of cities without light, of economies buckling — must remain at the center of the global conversation.

As you read this, imagine an ordinary evening somewhere on the map where the lights flicker off and a family gathers around a small stove. Imagine a diplomat studying a map of missile ranges with a furrowed brow, and a leader deciding whether to send instruments of deterrence or extend a hand across a table. Which would you choose — escalation that might force a settlement, or restraint that risks prolonged suffering?

We stand at one of those uneasy hinges in history, when a phone call can open a door but not necessarily the path through it. The world will watch whether Budapest becomes a turning point, or merely another caption in the long scroll of conflict.

Court urged to re-examine complaint over West Bank rental properties

hanad

October 17, 2025

Review of complaint over West Bank rentals, court told — The High Court case was taken by a Palestinian man and Sadaka - The Ireland Palestine Alliance

When a Holiday Cabin Becomes a Courtroom Story: Airbnb, an Irish Complaint, and a Palestinian’s Lost Land

Imagine a quiet valley of olive trees, sunlight poured over stone terraces, and two wooden cabins tucked beneath the hills. To a tourist they might look like a rustic escape; to one man whose family tended that land for generations, they are the visible proof that part of his life has been taken.

That man—unable to be named in Irish court because of fears for his safety—has spent the past year chasing answers not in the courts of Jerusalem or Ramallah, but in Dublin. His complaint against Airbnb’s Irish arm, backed by Sadaka – The Ireland Palestine Alliance and the Global Legal Action Network (GLAN), accused the company of listing and thereby facilitating bookings for properties built on land he says was seized from him in the West Bank.

On one level this is a case about a single plot of land and two cabins. On another, it is a test of how multinational tech platforms, headquartered in European capitals, are entangled with conflicts half a world away.

The Legal Thread Unspools

In August 2023, Sadaka and GLAN filed a detailed complaint with the Garda National Economic Crime Bureau (GNECB). The complaint argued that Airbnb Ireland—whose Dublin office handles operations across Europe and the Middle East—was committing offences under Irish law, including potential breaches of obligations under the Geneva Conventions and provisions of Irish money laundering legislation.

The GNECB’s initial response: no investigation. The bureau concluded the complaint did not disclose an offence within the jurisdiction of Ireland and that a criminal probe was not warranted. For activists and legal campaigners, that verdict simply reopened questions about the reach of European law when applied to business activities tied to Israeli settlements—the kind of settlements most governments and the United Nations regard as illegal under international law.

Now, however, the High Court in Dublin has been told that the Garda Commissioner is willing to reconsider that decision, after legal action seeking to quash the refusal to investigate. “We pressed for scrutiny because this isn’t a moral complaint alone—it’s a legal one,” said Aoife McMahon, barrister for Sadaka and the anonymous complainant, as she described the concession in court.

From Olive Grove to Online Marketplace

The man’s story, as set out in the court papers, is clear in its heartbreak and its chronology. He alleges he was barred from accessing his land by Israeli defence forces in 1998. In 2009, two cabins were built on the land. By 2018, those cabins were listed on Airbnb as properties visitors could rent.

“It’s like they’ve turned our history into an itinerary,” the man said in a brief, anonymised statement read in court. “You can book where my father walked.”

GLAN calls the case one of the first of its kind worldwide. The human detail—cabin photographs and online listings, booking calendars and guest reviews—makes the allegations more than abstract legal argument: if the complaint is correct, travelers are paying money that ultimately flows through channels managed by a European corporate hub for stays on land claimed by displaced Palestinians.

Numbers, Policy and Precedent

There are more than 300 accommodation listings in the occupied West Bank currently discoverable on Airbnb, according to GLAN’s figures shared with the court. Those are not vast hotels; they are often small properties, beds in stone houses or isolated cabins in olive groves—but their cumulative significance has drawn legal scrutiny.

Airbnb has been through its own policy shifts on this issue. In 2018 the company announced it would remove listings in Israeli settlements, only to reverse course a year later. Since 2019, the company says it has pursued a policy of donating profits from the “very small number of bookings” in the West Bank—an approach that, GLAN argues, does not remove the legal question of whether the handling of funds could amount to money laundering under Irish law when the underlying assets are alleged to have been derived from criminal acts.

“Under Irish legislation, it is an offense to handle proceeds of crime, including money or other property derived from criminal acts,” GLAN said in a statement. “Where European companies have links to settlement activity, they face legal risks.”

Voices from Dublin, Ramallah and Beyond

“We’re not against travelers,” said a Sadaka spokesperson. “People want to experience the region. But you cannot treat homes seized in contravention of international law as inventory.”

An Airbnb spokesperson told us: “Airbnb operates in compliance with applicable laws in Ireland. Since 2019, our policy has been to donate profits generated from the very small number of bookings in the entire West Bank.”

A legal analyst familiar with transnational business litigation, speaking on condition of anonymity, warned: “If this is allowed to proceed, it could be a blueprint for how European jurisdictions hold companies accountable for business activities tied to contested territories. Money laundering statutes don’t care about borders; they care about the provenance of funds.”

Local Color: How the Issue Resonates in Ireland

Ireland has a long history of vocal solidarity with Palestine that runs from student activism to political resolutions in parliament. In Dublin, a café on Capel Street has a faded poster from the 1980s calling for boycotts of companies linked to occupations; in Limerick a local film festival has featured Palestinian storytellers for years. Sadaka’s campaign taps into that cultural memory of solidarity—an Irish civic thread that often draws on Ireland’s own colonial history to empathise with other struggles over land and identity.

“When I was a child, my grandparents talked about eviction in County Kerry,” said an Irish activist involved with Sadaka. “There’s a cultural understanding here that land is not only property but memory.”

Why It Matters—and What Comes Next

Why should readers in Tokyo, Nairobi, São Paulo or Sydney care about a Dublin courtroom and two cabins in a West Bank olive grove? Because this case sits at the crossroads of three powerful global forces: the reach of digital platforms, the murky economics of occupation, and the ability of national law to exercise jurisdiction over transnational corporate conduct.

The High Court’s hearing and the Garda Commissioner’s willingness to revisit the decision signal a willingness—at least in Ireland—to consider those intersections seriously. Whether that leads to a full criminal investigation depends on legal tests that are yet to be applied and on the political will to enforce them.

“We’re asking a simple question: should scaffolds, cab services, booking platforms and bank transfers be blind to whether the goods they profit from were built on someone else’s land?” asked a GLAN lawyer. “That’s not only a moral question; it’s a legal one.”

Questions for the Reader

What responsibility do global platforms have when their services intersect with areas under occupation? When does a vacation become complicity? And if money laundering laws can be extended to cover these situations, what other business-as-usual activities might be brought into the light?

For the unnamed man whose land has been turned overnight into lodging inventory, the questions are far more immediate. “I don’t want my land to be a listing,” he said. “I want to see the olive trees again.”

The Dublin case will be watched not only by legal specialists and activists, but also by businesses whose bookings and listings cross lines drawn by conflict. It’s a vivid reminder that the internet connects more than travelers to destinations; it connects them to histories, disputes, and the people who live through those histories.

Whatever the court decides next, the cabins in the olive grove will keep their calendars open—or closed—depending on the larger legal and moral arguments now being tested beneath the stone terraces.

French government fends off second no-confidence vote, stays in power

hanad

October 16, 2025

French government survives second no-confidence vote — If Sébastien Lecornu were defeated in either vote, he and his ministers would have to immediately resign (File image)

France on a Knife-Edge: How Lecornu Survived Two No-Confidence Votes — and What Comes Next

Under the amber lights of the Palais Bourbon, where centuries of French debate hang in the oak-paneled air like a stubborn perfume, the government of Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu eked out survival — twice.

Two separate motions of no confidence were brought to the floor in quick succession, each a gauntlet thrown down by opposite ends of the political spectrum. The far-right National Rally mustered 144 votes for its motion; the hard-left France Unbowed rallied 271 deputies behind its challenge. Both fell short of the 289 votes needed to topple Lecornu’s administration in the 577-seat National Assembly. For now, the government stands, a fragile truce propped up by political bargains and an electorate that seems more fractious than ever.

“It was a night of whispers and hard breathing,” said an exhausted Socialist MP, clutching a thermos of coffee in a corridor off the chamber. “We saved the government; we did not save certainty.”

A fragile truce: the pensions concession that bought time

The lifeline that kept Lecornu in office was simple and seismic: a pledge to suspend President Emmanuel Macron’s controversial pension reform until after the 2027 presidential election. That promise persuaded enough Socialist deputies to side with the government, turning a likely collapse into a reprieve.

The reform at the center of the storm would legally raise the statutory retirement age by two years to 64 by 2030 — a move Macron framed as bringing France in line with other EU peers. Yet for many French people, pension rights are more than policy; they are identity and hard-won social contract.

“You touch the retirement age and you touch people’s dignity,” said Lucie Martin, a nurse in her fifties from Lyon. “I worked nights for twenty years. To think they might push me out later — we feel betrayed.”

Those feelings draw on history. In 1982, Socialist president François Mitterrand lowered the retirement age to 60; the policy has since become part of the national fabric. Today, the average effective retirement age in France is 60.7 years, compared with an OECD average of 64.4 years — a gap that helps explain why pension changes are political kryptonite in Paris.

Behind the concession: political math and uneasy alliances

For Lecornu, the calculus was stark. If his government fell, ministers would have resigned immediately, and President Macron would have faced mounting pressure to call a snap parliamentary election — a gamble capable of plunging France further into turmoil. By promising to mothball the pension reform, Lecornu bought time; but the price was surrender of a signature Macron legacy.

“We are not celebrating,” admitted a Socialist negotiator. “We did what our voters asked: we defended protections. But now we have to bargain on everything else — budgets, taxes, and the very soul of the fiscal compact.”

The arithmetic of instability

France’s legislature is a landscape of three clashing blocs: the centrist presidential supporters, a resurgent far-right, and a constellation of left-wing forces from moderate Socialists to hard-left parties. With 265 lawmakers openly aligned with factions that said they would attempt to topple the government, and several others flirting with the idea, numbers — not arguments — are the daily currency.

“This assembly looks like a chessboard where half the pieces have different rules,” said Claire Fontaine, a political scientist at Sciences Po. “Minority governance is inherently unstable. Add a contentious reform and thin majorities and you have a perpetual state of negotiation and brinkmanship.”

Now Lecornu heads into what may be the most gruelling weeks of his tenure: wrangling a pared-back 2026 budget through a hostile and divided chamber. Every line in that spending bill will be a battlefront. Opposition MPs have already signaled they will press for measures ranging from a tax on billionaires — a demand raised by the Socialist contingent after the pensions deal — to protective spending for public services.

Budget battles and the specter of a snap election

If Lecornu fails to secure the budget, another no-confidence motion could end his government. If the assembly forces a resignation, France could be forced back into the chaos of a snap parliamentary election. For markets and ordinary people alike, the stakes are tangible: investor confidence, public services, household finances.

“Every day of indecision costs,” said Jérôme Dubois, who runs a patisserie near the Assemblée. “My suppliers worry. People talk about interest rates and taxes between croissants. Politics is not just for the Palais Bourbon — it affects the price of flour and the number of hours I can work.”

On the streets and in cafés: what people are saying

Across Paris and in smaller towns, reactions range from wary relief to deep skepticism. In a café on the Left Bank, a retired teacher sipped espresso and shook her head.

“They say they’ve bought time,” she said. “But time is not the same as courage. They will ask us to decide at the next election if we want stability or change.”

In Marseille, a delivery driver voiced a different anxiety: “I voted for change. The old system didn’t work for us. Yet nothing seems to change — only the arguments change.”

These everyday voices reveal an electorate tired of high drama and short on trust. A recent wave of opinion polling — many surveys since the last national vote showed rising distrust of traditional parties — points to a Europe-wide trend: fragmentation and volatility. France is not alone.

What this moment tells us about democracy and the future

The spectacle in the National Assembly is more than a domestic tiff; it is a mirror of wider democratic strains across Europe. Aging populations, stretched public finances, rising inequality and the attendant political polarization make compromise both more necessary and more elusive.

“The question is not whether one government survives,” said Claire Fontaine. “It’s whether institutions can adapt to govern with fractured mandates. Can politics build coalitions that resemble governing projects rather than tactical alliances?”

There are no easy answers. The suspension of a major reform is a temporary balm that exposes how political capital can evaporate overnight. It raises urgent questions: How do societies balance fiscal sustainability with social protections? How do leaders win consent for hard choices? And how much patience does a public have for reform promised and then delayed?

For now, the Palais Bourbon returns to its usual rhythm of debate, strategy and small acts of theater. Deputies file in and out, each aware that the next vote could redraw the map. Outside, the cafés will keep humming and people will keep talking — about retirement, taxes, and whose future is worth protecting.

What would you do if you had to decide between fiscal stability and social guarantees? France is asking that very question, and the answer will shape not only a government but a country’s sense of itself.

Trump, Putin to hold talks in Budapest after phone call

hanad

October 16, 2025

A River Between Two Leaders: Budapest as the Unlikely Stage for a High-Stakes Weekend

There is a cool, river-scented hush along the Danube this week, and Budapest—its bridges lit like punctuation marks—has taken on the improbable role of global mediator. In a diplomatic choreography that would have seemed surreal a few years ago, U.S. President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin have agreed to meet here after what the White House described as a “good and productive” phone call.

The announcement landed amid a whirlwind of other moves: Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky is preparing for a visit to the White House, keen to press for more military aid, while Kyiv reels from another night of strikes that Ukraine says involved more than 300 drones and 37 missiles aimed at energy and critical infrastructure.

What Was Said—and What Was Left Unsigned

The contours of the Trump–Putin exchange were sketched publicly in short, guarded lines: the two men spoke at length and instructed their teams to meet next week at a high level, the White House said. Mr. Trump also broke into his social media account mid-conversation to notify followers. “The conversation is ongoing, a lengthy one,” he posted on Truth Social. “I will report the contents, as will President Putin, at its conclusion.”

There was the unmistakable political calculus: Mr. Trump suggested he could offer Ukraine long-range Tomahawk missiles—but only if Mr. Putin fails to come to the negotiating table. The implication is stark. Range equals leverage, and those missiles would put major Russian cities within reach of Ukrainian forces for the first time.

On the Ground in Kyiv and Budapest: Voices and Vantage Points

In Kyiv, the atmosphere is a peculiar mix of fatigue and fierce hope. “Every time the winter clouds gather, we brace for nights without heat,” said Olena Moroz, a schoolteacher turned volunteer who answered my call from a shelter in central Kyiv. “We hear about meetings and phone calls, but we measure safety in whether the lights stay on tonight.”

In contrast, Budapest feels like a diplomatic crossroads—historic, slightly theatrical, and humid with expectation. A taxi driver who gave only his first name, Tamás, pointed at the Parliament building as we drove by. “We are a small city, but we are convenient,” he said with a wry smile. “It is what our forefathers called Hungary’s geographical luck—and sometimes, our geopolitical trouble.”

Security is obvious but unobtrusive: extra uniformed officers at tram stops, and a heightened presence near hotels where delegations are known to stay. Cafés near the river continue to serve strong coffee and goulash—reminders that while world leaders bargain, everyday life persists.

Experts Weigh In: Negotiation, Deterrence, and the Price of Delay

Strategists and diplomats say the meeting is as much about optics as outcome. “This is a signaling event,” explained Dr. Amrita Dasgupta, a senior fellow in European security at an international policy think tank. “Both leaders can use the conference to show constituencies back home that they are seeking a path forward. But the real test will be whether the staff-level talks next week translate into verifiable steps on arms, ceasefires, or humanitarian corridors.”

There are risks. Supplying Tomahawk cruise missiles—if that remains on the table—would be a dramatic escalation that Moscow has repeatedly warned against. “The transfer of long-range strike capabilities changes the calculus dramatically,” said Lieutenant Colonel Mark Harrelson (ret.), a former NATO planner. “It either coerces negotiators to the table or amplifies the incentives for retaliation. It’s a double-edged sword.”

Energy as Weapon and Target

Analysts are also watching the pattern of Russian strikes: this winter, as in earlier ones, Russian forces have concentrated on energy and gas infrastructure—striking the places that light homes and heat hospitals. The result is not only immediate human hardship but a longer-term erosion of civic confidence. “Cutting winter heat is a strategy, not an accident,” Dr. Dasgupta told me. “It’s aimed at turning civilians into political pressure.”

Behind the Headlines: People, Pain, and Politics

Ukrainian requests for expanded weaponry have a human face: municipal officials, aid workers, and families who have endured rolling blackouts and frozen pipes. “If your choice is sheltering your child by candlelight or giving him up to evacuation, it’s not a policy debate,” said Natalia, an aid coordinator in Kharkiv, her voice steady despite the tremor of recent power cuts. “It’s survival.”

At the same time, political realities in Washington and Moscow will shape what is feasible. Mr. Trump’s promises to “end the war” resonate with parts of his base tired of distant conflicts. In Moscow, Kremlin spokespeople will read any concessions through a domestic lens, framing outcomes in service of national pride and strategic interest.

Global Ripples: Why This Meeting Matters Beyond Europe

This rendezvous in Budapest reverberates far beyond the Danube. Energy markets watch, because damage to pipelines or power grids can rattle global prices. NATO watches, because airspace incursions and strikes near alliance borders raise collective defense questions. Humanitarian organizations watch, because civilian suffering does not obey ceasefire lines.

For the rest of the world, there is a broader lesson in real time: how crises that begin locally become global through supply chains, migration flows, and geopolitical alignments. “We are reminded that no conflict today is contained,” said Dr. Harrelson. “Weapons, rhetoric, and refugees cross borders; so do economic shocks.”

Questions to Sit With

So where does this leave us, the global public who watch, comment, and sometimes fear? Are high-profile meetings a path to peace or simply another stage for brinkmanship? Can the conditional promise of long-range weapons be a bargaining chip toward a negotiated halt to attacks, or will it harden the opponent’s stance? And perhaps most urgently: whose voices are center stage when decisions are made—the leaders in gilded halls or the families huddling in basements?

As the sun sets over Budapest and the two leaders prepare to face each other, the answers will not arrive in a single communique. They will be worked out in staff rooms and field reports, in the hum of power stations and the cries of displaced people. For now, the world watches—hopeful, wary, and painfully aware that the next move could warm the hearths of millions or plunge them further into darkness.

Will the meet in Budapest be remembered as a breakthrough, a blip, or the opening of a new and dangerous chapter? Only the coming days will tell. Till then, the Danube keeps flowing, indifferent and patient—an ancient witness to another moment when the world tried to negotiate the future.

Atmospheric CO2 rose by the largest amount on record last year

hanad

October 16, 2025

Last year saw biggest increase of CO2 in atmosphere — Among the likely reasons for the record growth between 2023 and 2024 was a large contribution from wildfire emissions (file pic)

The Sky Did Not Lie: A Year When the Atmosphere Won

On a hazy afternoon in late 2024, children in a riverside town in the Amazon learned what the word “airlock” meant without ever opening a textbook: windows shut, stoves turned off, and the smell of smoke threaded into every breath. Across the globe, coastal fishermen in Mozambique remarked that the sunsets looked different—thicker, almost syrupy with particulates carried on winds from fires half a world away.

These are the small, human moments that give texture to a cold line of data: 423.9 parts per million of carbon dioxide floating in our atmosphere in 2024, the highest annual average ever recorded. That number is not neutral. It is a ledger of choices, of seasons gone dry and forests turned to ash, of oceans that once gulped carbon in to steady the planet now breathing a little less deeply back.

Numbers That Haunt the Globe

The World Meteorological Organization’s recent bulletin reads like a wake-up call. CO2 concentrations leapt by 3.5 ppm between 2023 and 2024—the steepest year-on-year rise since systematic measurements began in 1957. To put the march into perspective: when the WMO’s monitoring network first began reporting annually in 2004, the global mean stood at 377.1 ppm. Before industrialization, the atmosphere held roughly 280 ppm. We have not just nudged those boundaries—we have run past them.

Even more alarming than the absolute number is the pace. Average annual growth rates of CO2 have tripled since the 1960s, from roughly 0.8 ppm per year back then to about 2.4 ppm per year during 2011–2020. Methane and nitrous oxide—potent greenhouse gases in their own right—also rose to record levels in 2024, adding to the warming torque on Earth’s climate.

Why 2024 Was Different

Scientists point to a toxic trio: continued fossil fuel emissions, an upsurge in wildfire outputs, and a weakening of the natural sinks—forests and oceans—that have long absorbed a sizable fraction of humanity’s carbon emissions.

“What we’ve seen is the amplifying effect of several stressors arriving at once,” said a senior atmospheric scientist who asked to be identified as Dr. M. Alvarez. “A strong El Niño heated the planet, drying soils and vegetation, priming landscapes for fire. When forests burn, they not only stop pulling carbon out of the air—they put more of it back in.”

Indeed, 2024 was the warmest year on record, and El Niño years are notorious for exposing the vulnerabilities of terrestrial sinks. Droughts and mega-fires in the Amazon and southern Africa were not mere background events; they pushed carbon fluxes into unfamiliar territory.

Voices From the Frontlines

In a village on the edge of the Amazon floodplain, 48-year-old river guide Maria Santos describes mornings that begin with smoke as if it were fog. “You wake up and decide the day by whether you can smell it,” she says. “The children cough. We worry about the gardens. The river looks tired.”

On the other side of the planet, a volunteer fire captain in Mozambique, Thabo Ndlovu, remembers the 2024 fire season as relentless. “We were running on borrowed time and thinner tanks,” he told me. “There’s a point when you stop counting hectares and start counting people you managed to move out.”

These testimonies underscore a simple truth: climate statistics are migration stories, health charts, and lost livelihoods in human clothing.

What the Scientists Worry About

Researchers are increasingly concerned that the natural buffers which have masked some effects of rising emissions are weakening. “If terrestrial and oceanic sinks continue to decline in efficiency, a larger fraction of our emissions will remain in the atmosphere,” explained an oceanographer, Dr. Leila Hassan. “That accelerates warming and reduces the time we have to adjust our systems.”

Warming oceans are less efficient at taking up CO2, and stressed forests—hit by drought, pests, or fire—flip from being carbon sinks to carbon sources. The result is a feedback loop familiar to climate modelers, and increasingly visible in real-world observations: more heat, more fires, less uptake, more heat.

Why It Matters Beyond the Numbers

Rising greenhouse gas concentrations are not an abstract calculation. They turbocharge heatwaves, deepen droughts, swell storms, and exacerbate food and water insecurity. Economies that are already fragile are pushed further to the brink. Insurance sectors reprice risk almost by the season. Health systems see more respiratory and heat-related illness. Inequity, in short, is climate-accelerated.

Food security: Crop yields are sensitive to heat and water stress; 2024’s heat spikes reduced yields in vulnerable regions.
Health: Global estimates link increased wildfire smoke exposure to higher respiratory and cardiovascular hospitalizations.
Economies: Damage to infrastructure and disruptions in global supply chains raise costs and widen inequity.

Choices, Costs, and the Road Ahead

So where do we go from here? The blunt answer is mitigation—dramatically cutting fossil fuel emissions—and adaptation: reinforcing communities, protecting and restoring ecosystems, and investing in resilient infrastructure. But policy choices are political choices, and people vote, lobby, and vote with their wallets.

“Monitoring is our eyes on the problem,” said an environmental policy analyst in Geneva. “Sustained observation tells us where feedbacks are beginning to bite. But data alone is not action. We have to translate these readings into policy—rapidly.”

There are glimmers of innovation. Renewable energy costs continue to fall, reforestation projects are scaling, and early warning systems for fire and drought are improving. Yet solutions must reckon with inequity: those who did the least to cause the problem often shoulder the heaviest burdens.

A Question for Every Reader

When you look up at the sky tonight, what do you see? A blanket of stars or a hazy echo of a fire halfway across the world? Will you treat this moment as an emergency—an invitation to lobby, vote, invest, and change—or as another headline to scroll past?

How we answer is not merely a moral choice; it is an investment in the architecture of our shared future. The atmosphere does not negotiate. It computes. And at 423.9 ppm, the math is increasingly unforgiving.

Closing—A Call, Not a Conclusion

Data will keep arriving. So will stories of communities adapting, of scientists watching sinks falter, and of policymakers testing the limits of courage. We will need both the rigor of measurements and the stubbornness of citizens to mount a meaningful response.

If you feel overwhelmed, remember that action lives in many forms: demanding stronger policy, supporting local restoration projects, reducing wasteful energy use, and lifting the voices of those on the front lines. The atmosphere is a commons; preserving it will require common cause.

Where will you stand when the next bulletin arrives?

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