US budget standoff masks a broader political, ideological battle

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October 5, 2025

The US budget row that's not about the budget — The last government shutdown came in 2018 and lasted for 35 days

Washington’s Empty Hallways and the Politics of a Shutdown

There is a strange hush in the corridors of power: fluorescent lights glow over largely darkened offices, coffee machines gurgle in the distance and the echo of hurried footsteps is replaced by the quieter thrum of worry. The federal government has hit a familiar snag — the legal authority to spend taxpayer dollars was not renewed in the Senate — and with it much of the machinery that keeps a modern superpower humming has idled, paused or been furloughed.

On paper it reads as a procedural failure, a dry bit of fiscal housekeeping gone wrong. In practice it looks like an argument everyone can see but no one can untangle: a fight staged in public about much more than line items on a ledger. You can call it a budget standoff; you can call it a partisan showdown. Either way, it belongs to the age-old American drama where money is the stage prop and identity, power and fear are the actors.

It’s Not Just About Dollars

When lawmakers debate spending, they talk about ceilings, appropriations and continuing resolutions — the technical language of governance. But people in grocery lines, on factory floors and in suburban kitchens don’t care about procedural names. They care about a simple, vivid sting: will their family lose access to affordable health care? Will an essential worker be paid?

At the heart of this dispute is health insurance. After pandemic-era subsidies temporarily eased premiums for millions, Washington set a date to let those top-up payments expire. According to public-health analysts, roughly 20–24 million Americans rely on expanded subsidies introduced during and after the Covid crisis; without them, premiums could rise dramatically for many households. The Kaiser Family Foundation has published numbers suggesting the average U.S. family is paying in the ballpark of $2,000 a month for health insurance — a figure that snaps like a rubber band around the finances of ordinary households.

And yet, paradoxically, the country that spends more on health care — nearly one-fifth of GDP by some measures — often lags behind other wealthy nations on outcomes. That mismatch makes the fight especially resonant: high cost with uneven results, and a political argument that promises solutions but often delivers gridlock.

“This is about people’s lives, not just ledger lines,”

a nurse in Ohio told me, folding her hospital jacket into a neat square during a rare break. “My patients ask me if they should skip medications because the subsidy ended. They’re choosing between insulin and rent — that’s not an abstract number.”

The Power Struggle Underneath

Strip away the policy paper and you find the raw political calculus. This standoff is not simply a quarrel over whether to extend subsidies. It has become a test of wills — an effort to contain or consolidate influence in a partisan era where norms are fragile. For many Democrats, forcing a confrontation over health coverage is also a way of testing a shift in the balance of power; for the President and his allies, any sign of yielding feels like political surrender.

“If you back down, the brand of governance that built this campaign evaporates,” a former senior White House aide said in a long, quiet conversation. “That’s why compromise — the old Washington craft — feels almost foreign to some of the current players.”

The Senate’s arcane rules amplify the spectacle. With 60 votes often required to move major legislation, a small coalition of senators can prevent a bill from crossing the finish line. In a chamber divided narrowly along party lines, that makes short-term funding measures the last battleground before the calendar flips over and new fiscal commitments need to be made.

Voices from the Ground

In downtown Philadelphia, a small café buzzed with local color. A barista — juggling tips and a second job — sighed when asked how a prolonged shutdown would land on her life.

“If the subsidies go, my sister, she’s paying more than half her paycheck for insurance,” she said. “She’s a teacher. That’s two paychecks we’re talking about gone for basics.”

An air traffic controller in Atlanta, who asked not to be named, was blunt. “We’re essential. We show up. But we’ve got mortgages, kids, car payments. You can only say ‘we’ll get through it’ for so long.” He added, voice low: “In 2019 some of us were at the limit. The job is different now. Fewer people, more strain. That’s dangerous on a runway.”

When Politics Becomes Persona

There is, too, the personal theater. Modern political entrepreneurs sell themselves on the promise of being anti-establishment, not beholden to the backroom compromises and the slow churn of legislative give-and-take. That posture makes a negotiated middle ground politically costly for those who built advantage on the narrative of disruption.

“The man at the top — he built a career telling people he won’t blink,” a political strategist who has worked on Capitol Hill said. “You can’t have him quietly sign off on something that looks like capitulation. It would contradict the brand.”

Whether that posture is leadership or posturing depends on your vantage point. For voters caught in the immediate fallout — parents, small-business owners, hourly workers — it feels like the elite once again playing chess with lives as pawns.

The Bigger Picture: Trust, Markets and the Global Stage

This is not only a domestic quarrel. America’s fiscal health matters globally: investors around the world watch Washington’s stability. The country’s ability to finance deficits at historically low rates has been a pillar of global markets. If political brinksmanship corrodes that reliability, the ripple effects are real — higher borrowing costs, shaken confidence and tougher choices for policymakers everywhere.

Here’s the crux: systems survive only as long as people believe they will. When routine procedures become battlegrounds for existential fights over identity and power, it erodes that trust.

Where Do We Go from Here?

There are ways out that do not require grand theatrical gestures: temporary measures to preserve subsidies while leaders hammer out a longer-term plan, or targeted relief for vulnerable populations. Yet each compromise risks fueling narratives of weakness on one side or betrayal on the other.

So I ask you, the reader: when governance is as much spectacle as policy, how do we restore room for the kind of quiet, effective problem-solving that keeps planes flying, hospitals open and families solvent? What would you be willing to do to bring politics back from the ledge?

One thing is sure: the corridors will not stay quiet forever. The question is whether those who return will sit across the table to trade drafts and concessions — or use the silence as a prelude to the next act in an unending political theater. Either way, the human cost will be counted long before the final vote is taken.

UK police to step up questioning of synagogue attack suspects

By

hanad

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October 5, 2025

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Suspect among three dead following Manchester attack — Members of the public react as they gather near the Heaton Park Hebrew Congregation Synagogue

A day of prayer turned to terror: Inside the Heaton Park synagogue attack

It was supposed to be a day of stillness. Yom Kippur — the holiest day in the Jewish calendar — brings a hush that settles over families and communities: fasting, reflection, a folding of ordinary life into something quieter and intenser. In Crumpsall, Manchester, a small congregation gathered in the Heaton Park Hebrew Congregation to observe the fast. Instead, they found themselves at the centre of a night of violence that has left a community stunned, grieving and demanding answers.

On Thursday afternoon a car mounted a pavement outside the synagogue and a man armed with a knife tried to force his way into the building. Three people were killed — the attacker and two men who tried to stop him — and at least three others remain in hospital with serious injuries. The attacker, identified by police as a 35‑year‑old man who had been on bail for an unrelated allegation, was shot dead by armed officers at the scene.

Faces and names

Names become anchors in moments like this. Reports say the two men who died intervening to protect worshippers were aged 53 and 66. Both have been described by neighbours as familiar figures: volunteers who helped in the community, the kind of people who turn up at the synagogue not for headlines but because it is their life. “He was always there — holding doors, making sure everyone was safe,” said a woman who lives nearby. “You expect people like that to be invisible, and now they are the ones we notice most.”

Three others remain in hospital, including a security guard with injuries consistent with being struck by a vehicle and a worker from the Community Security Trust who suffered stab wounds. Authorities say a device attached to the attacker’s torso was later confirmed to be fake, and investigators are examining whether the assailant was motivated by extremist Islamist ideology.

Six people questioned, warrants granted

Counter-terror police are leading a sprawling investigation. Over the weekend warrants were granted allowing four people already in custody to be held for up to five more days while officers seek to untangle what appears to have been an attempted mass-casualty attack. Those detained include two men in their 30s and a woman in her 60s arrested in Prestwich, plus a woman in her 40s arrested in Farnworth. Separately, an 18‑year‑old woman and a 43‑year‑old man remain in custody in Farnworth for questioning.

“We are treating this as an appalling terrorist incident and our priority is to establish the full picture,” a Greater Manchester Police spokesperson said. “Significant resources from across the national Counter Terrorism network are in place.”

A community on edge

Walk the streets around Heaton Park and you can feel the tension. Shops are open, kids still play in the parks, but there is a new wariness in the air: more police patrols, more uniforms, more questions. A bakery owner on Crumpsall Lane paused while kneading dough to say, “Everyone knows everyone here. On Yom Kippur we are quieter than usual — you could hear a pin drop. To have this happen… it’s like a wound that won’t stop aching.”

The Community Security Trust, which monitors antisemitism in Britain, says the past years have seen a sharp increase in recorded incidents. Many British Jews say they have felt more vulnerable since international conflicts elsewhere stoked tensions here at home. “People worry less about parcel deliveries and more about whether they can attend their local shul safely,” one synagogue volunteer told me. “That shouldn’t be the case in 21st‑century Britain.”

Questions for the police watchdog and the public

The Independent Office for Police Conduct is probing the use of lethal force by Greater Manchester Police firearms officers, including whether police action may have contributed to the death of one of the intervenors. This inquiry is now central to public trust: when community members put themselves in harm’s way, did our systems — the law, bail procedures, policing tactics — protect them?

Prosecutors and counter‑terror investigators are also probing the attacker’s recent history. Police have said the man had a non‑terrorist criminal record and had been arrested recently on a serious allegation that resulted in bail. That fact has revived familiar debates about bail conditions, risk assessment and how the justice system balances individual liberty against public safety.

Leaders, vigils and the politics of protection

Political figures flocked to the scene in the days after the attack. The leader of the opposition urged people to “respect the grief of British Jews,” warning that large-scale demonstrations could deepen the pain of mourners. Other politicians called for increased security for Jewish communities, saying some people were even considering leaving the UK for Israel because they feel unsafe.

“People are telling me they feel they must go where their identity will be protected,” a member of the congregation said quietly. “That is a heartbreaking decision to contemplate.”

But public life cannot freeze for fear. Demonstrators in London — insisting on their right to protest — sought permission to march. Organisers argued that cancelling peaceful protests would give terror a victory, while others said timing and sensitivity were paramount. It is a fraught balance: the right to assemble and the duty to protect mourners and vulnerable communities.

Voices from the ground

At a candlelit vigil outside the synagogue, people of different faiths gathered to sing, to pray, to hold each other. “We came because we needed to be seen,” said one young man, his voice barely audible over the wind. “We came because silence would feel like consent.”

A local imam came to pay respects, laying a wreath and speaking of shared responsibility. “In communities like ours, it is ordinary people who bridge the gaps,” she told me. “If politics and policy fail to keep people safe, neighbours must not fail each other.”

Wider questions: radicalisation, community safety and the social media echo chamber

This attack sits at an uncomfortable crossroads. We are witnessing the dangers of lone‑actor violence that can be amplified by online radicalisation, the strain on social cohesion created by global conflicts, and the challenges law enforcement faces in pre‑empting such attacks. Experts warn that these are not isolated problems and that solutions will require work across policing, social services, faith groups and tech platforms.

“Prevention is more than intelligence; it is social glue,” said a university lecturer in counter‑extremism. “When communities are connected, when people report worries early and services respond, the risk is reduced. But those systems are under pressure.”

What now? Questions for readers and a call to action

How do we mourn without retreating? How do we protect the right to protest while safeguarding those in mourning? What does community resilience look like when the fear of targeted violence grows?

These are not academic questions. They are practical and messy, and they demand answers from politicians, police leaders, community organisers and each of us. Want to help? Consider volunteering with local groups that support survivors of hate crime, donate to organisations that work on community safety, or simply reach out to your neighbours — sometimes the quietest actions matter most.

In the days to come Manchester will hold more vigils, investigators will comb through evidence, and a community will try, against its better instincts, to find a way forward. For those who were there on Yom Kippur, the memory will be burned into ordinary days: the rustle of prayer books, the sudden burst of sirens, the names of neighbours who stood in harm’s way. That is the human story beneath the headlines — and it is one that asks us, collectively, to be better custodians of each other.

Turkey confirms 137 activists from Gaza-bound flotilla disembark in Istanbul

By

hanad

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October 4, 2025

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Turkey says 137 flotilla activists arrive in Istanbul

The Night the Sea Rose Up

In the bruised light of an early autumn dawn, a flotilla of about 40 vessels — a stitched-together armada of fishing boats, yachts and small chartered ships — set out with a simple, stubborn intention: to carry humanitarian aid to Gaza and to challenge a naval blockade that has defined life along that coastline for nearly two decades.

By week’s end, more than 450 people who had sailed on that mission were in the custody of Israeli authorities. Of those, Turkey announced that 137 activists would be flown to Istanbul on a Turkish Airlines flight expected to land after 15:40 local time — a return that felt to many like the end of a long, hard, public argument played out on the open water.

Who Was On Board

The passengers were an unusually global crowd. The Turkish foreign ministry said the 137 included 36 Turkish nationals and people holding passports from the United States, the United Arab Emirates, Algeria, Morocco, Italy, Kuwait, Libya, Malaysia, Mauritania, Switzerland, Tunisia and Jordan. Other reports said about 20 Irish citizens were among the larger group detained when Israeli forces boarded the vessels of the Global Sumud Flotilla earlier in the week.

“We came from different ports and different lives,” one activist, speaking under the condition of anonymity, told me by phone after being released. “We had packages of food, medical supplies, solar lamps taped into boxes — and a mission: to say, by action, that people are watching.”

Faces and Stories

There were parliamentarians, doctors, students, sailors and retired teachers. Italy’s foreign ministry said 26 Italians were on board; four Italian parliamentarians returned home immediately after being released. “Those who were acting legally were the people aboard those boats; those who acted illegally were those who prevented them from reaching Gaza,” a returning Italian politician said at a press conference, echoing a refrain that has become familiar among flotilla organizers.

Others described a far less dignified reception. “We were zip-tied on our knees for hours,” said one freed volunteer. “You lose track of time when they keep you in the same position, and the sea becomes a long, slow clock.”

Detention and Treatment

From the moment of boarding, the official and unofficial narratives diverged. Israel’s foreign ministry posted on social media that the detained activists were “safe and in good health” and that authorities aimed to deport them expeditiously. Yet legal aid groups — including Adalah, which represented some flotilla members — described a much harsher reality: restricted access to lawyers, limited water and medications, denials of basic sanitation, and prolonged periods kneeling with hands bound.

“Several of our clients reported being forced to kneel with hands zip-tied for at least five hours after other participants chanted slogans,” said a spokesperson for Adalah in a statement. “We are documenting accounts that may constitute violations of detainee rights.”

In public, some Israeli officials called the flotilla a provocation. “This was a deliberate attempt to breach a lawful naval blockade,” one Israeli spokesperson told reporters. “Our forces acted in accordance with international law to preserve security.”

Legal and Political Ripples

The incident reopened old legal and moral debates about blockades, humanitarian access and the rights of civilians at sea. International maritime law allows for blockades in wartime — but it also imposes obligations to allow aid for civilians where possible. The flotilla’s organizers framed their act as a humanitarian gesture and a civil-disobedience campaign intended to spotlight Gaza’s situation. Critics called it a predictable standoff, engineered to provoke headlines and diplomatic rows.

“What you saw here is a globalized form of protest,” observed Dr. Lena Farouq, a maritime law expert. “Transnational activism uses the sea because it’s symbolic — it is the liminal space between sovereignty and solidarity. But symbolism does not handproof legal outcomes. That tension is where the conflict lives.”

Diplomatic Fallout

Governments reacted quickly. Italy’s foreign minister said he had instructed diplomats in Tel Aviv to ensure compatriots were treated with respect for their rights, while Turkey mobilized consular channels to receive its citizens. Others — from small civil-society organizations to bigger international aid groups — warned that these confrontations impede the delivery of aid and the possibility of sustained, coordinated humanitarian corridors.

On the Decks: Small Moments That Speak Volumes

Beyond the headlines, there were quieter scenes: volunteers passing around thermoses of coffee in the predawn cold, handwritten notes taped to boxes of supplies — “for families in Gaza” — and children’s toys among the donated goods. A retired nurse from Ireland kept a small journal; she recorded the names of those she’d interviewed and drew a tiny sketch of the horizon as it looked the night the flotilla pushed out.

“You could feel the sea’s hush before anything happened,” she said. “Not silence exactly — more like the world holding its breath.”

Why This Matters — Beyond the Incident

Ask yourself: what does a flotilla do in a world where humanitarian crises and geopolitical stalemates are increasingly interconnected? The answer is both simple and messy. On one level, a flotilla is a practical attempt to deliver goods. On another, it’s a message — a networked moral claim that justice, aid and attention should not be constrained by distant political calculus.

This episode is part of a larger pattern. Across continents, activists are using creative, confrontational tactics to force issues onto international agendas. Whether it’s climate activists blocking ports, human-rights groups staging border crossings, or aid flotillas challenging blockades, the methods vary but the impulse is the same: to make the invisible visible.

What Comes Next?

Some of the detained will be deported; others may face legal processes. Governments will weigh diplomatic costs, and international organizations will continue to press for safe, sustainable humanitarian access to Gaza. For the people involved — those who sailed, those who were inside Gaza, and those who watched from afar — the episode will not easily fade.

“We sailed because we could not be silent,” said another activist as she left a small detention center. “Now the question is: will anyone listen?”

Final Reflection

There are no neat endings. The sea, having hosted this collision of conscience and state power, keeps its own counsel. Yet the faces that returned to ports in Istanbul, Rome and elsewhere — the mix of anger, relief and stubborn hope in their eyes — remind us that global politics is not only about diplomats and declarations, but about ordinary people making extraordinary choices.

As readers, what do we owe to those choices? How do we balance legal realities with humanitarian impulses? The flotilla did more than carry boxes of aid; it carried questions across the waves. It’s up to all of us, in different ways and places, to answer them.

Russian strikes hit Ukrainian rail services, killing one and wounding 30

By

hanad

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October 4, 2025

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Russian strikes on Ukraine trains kill one, injure 30 — Volodymyr Zelensky posted a video of the aftermath of the attack on X, calling it a 'savage Russian drone strike'

Smoke on the Platform: A Morning in Shostka After the Drones

The air in Shostka tasted of metal and diesel the way winter tastes of coal — sharp, persistent, intrusive. At the town railway station, a carriage lay on its side like a fallen animal, its windows blown out, its blue-and-yellow seats singed. Smears of soot traced the contours of a place that moments before had been simply ordinary: a commuter hub where people check watches, buy sunflower-seed snacks, argue about who takes what seat.

“We were waiting for the 08:10 to Kyiv,” said Maria Petrenko, a local schoolteacher, her voice small but steady. “My phone buzzed with messages; then the first blast. I thought it was the boiler room — something inside the station. Then the second strike, and people started running. I saw a man with blood on his hands helping an elderly woman. I have never been so afraid they would take our station too.”

What Happened

On the morning of October 4, two drones struck the railway station in Shostka, in Ukraine’s northern Sumy region, about 50 kilometres from the Russian border. Officials say one person was killed and roughly 30 others were wounded; regional governor Oleh Hryhorov reported eight people taken to hospital. President Volodymyr Zelensky described scenes of “wrecked, burning” carriages and accused Moscow of deliberately targeting civilian transport.

“A brutal Russian drone strike on the railway station in Shostka,” Mr Zelensky wrote on Telegram, posting footage that showed twisted metal and blackened windows. “The Russians could not have been unaware that they were targeting civilians. This is terrorism, which the world has no right to ignore.”

The “Double Tap” Accusation

Ukraine’s foreign minister, Andrii Sybiha, pointed to a chilling signature tactic: the “double tap” — when an initial strike is followed by a second attack meant to hit rescuers and those fleeing. “This is one of the most brutal Russian tactics,” he said, calling the strikes deliberate and targeted at passenger trains.

“In essence, they are hunting for locomotives,” Oleksandr Pertsovskyi, CEO of Ukraine’s state rail company, told reporters from a train en route to the scene. He said the drones aimed at locomotives and then damaged the attached carriages, undermining not just infrastructure but the basic confidence passengers need to travel.

On the Ground: Faces and Fragments

Inside the ruined carriage, a child’s backpack sat almost untouched beneath a seat, a small concession of normal life. Nearby, Dmytro Koval, a paramedic, knelt to bandage a young man’s arm. “We kept telling people to spread out,” he said. “But how do you scatter on a platform? You can’t fight smoke with your hands. You can’t rebuild trust with a plaster.”

Local vendors spoke of lost customers and a sudden quiet at the market across from the station. “The morning trade was different today,” said Halyna, who runs a tea stall. “People used to stop after the train. Now they run past, as if someone else might be waiting with a drone.”

Why the Railways?

Rail infrastructure has become a recurrent target during the war. Officials and transport managers in Ukraine say that, in the past months, attacks on rail lines and stations have been stepped up — sometimes almost daily in affected regions. The tactic is not only to disrupt supply chains and military logistics but also to terrorize civilians and make border and frontline communities feel unsafe.

“They’re doing everything to make frontline and border areas uninhabitable,” Pertsovskyi said. “So that people are afraid to go there, afraid to board trains, afraid to gather at markets, and so that students are afraid to return home.”

Context and Consequences

Since the full-scale invasion began, Ukraine’s civilian infrastructure has been heavily affected. Thousands of civilians have been killed across the country, and rail lines — the arteries of civilian life in both peace and war — have been repeatedly struck. The targeting of public transport brings a particular cruelty: trains are where ordinary routines meet the chaos of conflict.

“Attacks on civilian transport are not incidental; they are a strategy,” said Hanna Sokolova, an international humanitarian lawyer visiting from Kyiv. “Under international law, deliberately directing attacks against civilians or civilian objects is prohibited. When healthcare workers, rescuers, or commuters are targeted, those actions can amount to war crimes.”

Her words echo a long-standing concern for aid groups: when buses and trains are no longer safe, displacement patterns shift, markets shutter, and local economies implode. A small town like Shostka, once a stop on a commuter route, begins to feel like an outpost surrounded by fear.

Numbers That Matter

On this morning, the immediate tally was stark: one dead, roughly 30 injured, eight hospitalized. But the wider arithmetic is more diffuse. Even a single strike can ripple into absence — students too scared to return home, farmers reluctant to bring goods to market, parents rerouting children around trains. Ukrainian rail officials have reported an increase in attacks on rail infrastructure in recent months, and the psychological toll is difficult to quantify.

One fatality, approximately 30 wounded in Shostka.
Eight people transported to hospital as of initial reports.
Repeated strikes on railways reported “almost every day” in affected regions over recent months.

Voices and Verdicts

International observers and human rights organizations have condemned attacks that strike civilian infrastructure. “When mobility — the ability to move, commute, access hospitals — is attacked, it becomes a weapon against civilians’ everyday lives,” said Dr. Emil Rasmussen, a researcher on conflict and mobility at a European university. “Drones make that easier to do from a distance; that doesn’t make it less culpable.”

Back in Shostka, residents were pragmatic about what comes next. “We will fix the benches, repaint the sign, light candles on the platform if we must,” said Petro, a grandfather who walks his granddaughter to the station twice a week. “But when will the trains be safe again? That is the true question.”

Wider Lessons

What does the Shostka strike tell us about the future of warfare and civilian life? For one, it is a reminder that the frontline in modern conflict is not always a trench or a bunker. It can be a station platform where commuters wait for the next train home. It can be a marketplace, a school, a hospital corridor. The weaponization of drones has blurred the boundaries between military targets and civilian spaces.

For readers far from Sumy, ask yourself: would you feel safe waiting for a train if the skies above your town could be weaponized? How do societies preserve public life — schools, markets, transport — when those routines themselves become strategic targets?

After the Smoke

By nightfall in Shostka, the wreckage was cordoned off, candles flickered on makeshift memorials, and volunteer groups set up hot tea and first aid on the pavement. It felt, in its small way, like defiance.

“We will travel again,” Maria Petrenko said, folding her scarf against the wind. “Not because we are brave alone, but because there is nothing else to be if not stubbornly ordinary. We will get on trains. We will go to markets. We will send our children to school. They cannot make us stop living.”

That stubborn ordinariness — the refusal to let fear become the master of daily life — is at the heart of communities like Shostka. In a conflict defined by headlines and statistics, it is the human detail that lingers: a child’s backpack under a singed seat; the smell of diesel and burnt cloth; the quiet, steady hands of a paramedic stitching an arm closed. Those are the images that demand not only attention, but action.

More than 175 detained at pro-Palestine protest in London

By

hanad

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October 4, 2025

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Over 175 arrested at pro-Palestine protest in London — Police arrest an activist in Trafalgar square, London for defying the Palestine Action ban

Trafalgar Square on Edge: A Silent Vigil, Loud Arrests, and a City Wrestling With Grief

On a gray London afternoon, Trafalgar Square felt like the inside of a held breath.

Thousands of people flowed through the stone-paved plaza—some standing absolutely still, some pacing, some arguing in low, urgent voices—while police vans lined nearby streets like sentries. By the end of the day, at least 175 people had been arrested as demonstrations across the country defied appeals from politicians and police chiefs to pause in deference to the grief felt after the Manchester terror attack that killed two people this week.

The arrests, police said, were largely for offences connected to showing support for the banned organization Palestine Action. Six people were taken into custody after unfurling a banner on Westminster Bridge backing the proscribed group; dozens more were detained in and around Trafalgar Square as placards and silent vigils turned into moments of confrontation.

Scenes on the Square

It was an odd mixture of ritual and rupture. Organisers calling themselves Defend Our Juries had asked for a “mass silent vigil” to protest the proscription of Palestine Action, and they told reporters more than a thousand people gathered. Many observers described the mood as solemn; others said it was charged and febrile.

“We came to mourn, to protest a law that criminalises political expression,” said Hannah, a 28-year-old volunteer from east London, her breath fogging in the chill. “We didn’t come to hurt anyone. We’re here for Gaza and for justice.”

Across the square, a small knot of counter-protesters pressed forward, voices cracking into chants and obscenities—”F*** Hamas,” one yelled—while others shouted blessings for Israel and its armed forces. A short scuffle broke out when they attempted to approach the vigilers; police intervened before it escalated further.

“It felt surreal,” said Michael, a retiree who attends services at a local synagogue. “This is a city that has always allowed protest, but today there’s a rawness in the air. People are hurting and scared.”

Why the Police Acted

The Metropolitan Police issued a statement noting officers had started making arrests in Trafalgar Square where placards explicitly supported a proscribed organisation. They also observed that a wider crowd was watching: many apparently supportive but not carrying banners themselves.

Metropolitan officials said the decision to detain demonstrators was not taken lightly. “At a time when we want to be deploying every available officer to ensure the safety of those communities, we are instead having to plan for a gathering of more than 1,000 people in Trafalgar Square in support of a terrorist organisation,” a senior Met source told reporters on condition of anonymity. “We have to balance the right to protest with the need to prevent promotion of violence.”

The arrests highlighted a thorny legal reality: once a group is proscribed, public support can itself become grounds for arrest. That tension between civil liberties and public safety has rapidly become the fault line of this moment in Britain.

Voices From Both Sides

There was no single narrative amongst those gathered. Dave, a community activist at the vigil, said: “We’re not here to provoke. We’re here to resist a policy that criminalises dissent and to call attention to a humanitarian catastrophe that continues in Gaza.”

By contrast, members of the Jewish community and some elected officials called the timing “phenomenally tone deaf.” A director at a Jewish security charity told a radio programme that diverting police resources to manage politically charged protests risked leaving vulnerable communities exposed. “This isn’t the same thing as supporting Palestinians,” he said. “This is support for an organisation that is proscribed.”

Jonathon Porritt, a human rights campaigner who attended the vigil, argued that grief for the victims of the Manchester attack and outrage at events in Gaza were not mutually exclusive. “I have no doubt that those taking part will demonstrate respect and real grief for those affected by the atrocity,” he said. “But the right to stand up for people in Gaza is not erased by another community’s pain.”

Manchester: A Different, Parallel Reality

Up north, Greater Manchester Friends of Palestine held a separate event. Roughly a hundred supporters gathered outside Manchester Cathedral before a planned march, while local police urged attendees to consider whether it was the right time.

Chief Constable Stephen Watson appealed directly to potential participants in published comments, asking them to “consider whether this is really the right time” given the recent violence and the strain on policing resources. Extra officers have been deployed to synagogues and Jewish community centres—to reassure congregations, and to deter copycat attacks.

Between Law and Sympathy: The Wider Questions

So what are we to make of this collision between protest and mourning? On one side is a long British tradition of street politics—marches, vigils, and civil disobedience that have shaped public life. On the other is a sharpened sense of vulnerability felt by a community that sees its places of worship fortified and protected.

A constitutional law academic I spoke with, Dr. Leila Ahmed, argues this is not an either-or choice. “The state must protect free expression and the security of all citizens,” she said, “but proscription changes the calculus. Once an organisation is proscribed, visible support becomes illegal and that has a chilling effect on protest. It’s a legal blunt instrument in a nuanced debate.”

That bluntness has broader implications. Around the world, democracies are grappling with how to handle hate, violence and political extremism without smothering legitimate dissent. Here, the answer is being played out in real time on stone plazas, in police custody suites, and in the living rooms of families who simply want to bury their dead.

What Comes Next?

As the sun slid behind Nelson’s Column, many of the demonstrators had dispersed. Some took to social media to urge calm; others vowed to return. The arrests will likely feed into legal challenges and fresh debates about what constitutes legitimate protest in a country still reeling from a terror attack.

For the communities at the center of the storm, the questions cut deeper: how to grieve without inflaming, how to protest without isolating allies, how to reconcile solidarity for distant suffering with care for neighbours at home.

What would you do if you were standing in Trafalgar Square right now—lift a placard, hold a candle, or walk away? These are not easy choices. They ask us to weigh principle against empathy, and to imagine public life as a shared space where rights and responsibilities are, in moments like this, painfully and unavoidably entangled.

Whatever the legal outcomes, the images from this day—police lines, silent vigils, angry confrontations—will stay with London and Manchester for a long time. They are a reminder that when the world’s great conflicts reach city streets, local communities are left to pick up the pieces.

Sheekh Shariif oo ka hadlay weerarka Shabaab ay ku qaaday Godka Jilicoow

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October 4, 2025

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Nov 04(Jowhar)-Madaxweynihii hore ee dalka, ahna guddoomiyaha Madasha Samata-bixinta mucaaradka, Sheekh Shariif Sheekh Axmed ayaa ka hadlay weerarka culus ee kooxda Al-Shabaab ay ku qaaday xarunta NISA ee loo yaqaan Godka Jilicoow, halkaas oo uu weli dagaal ka socdo.

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kooxda Shabaab oo weerar qaraxyo ku bilowday ku gashay xarunta NISA ee Godka Jilicow

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October 4, 2025

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Nov 04(Jowhar)-Wararka ka imaanaya magaalada Muqdisho ayaa sheegaya in qaraxyo ka dhaceen gudaha godka Jilicow oo ah goobta laga maamulo amniga caasumada & gobalada Shabeelooyinka.

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Church of England names first woman as its new leader

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hanad

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October 4, 2025

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First woman appointed to lead Church of England — Sarah Mullally is the 106th Archbishop of Canterbury

A New Chapter at Canterbury: The Church of England Names Its First Woman to Lead

There was a hush in the nave long before the official announcement — a pause you could feel in the stones of Canterbury Cathedral, as if the very architecture were holding its breath. Then the news rippled outward: Sarah Mullally, a woman whose career began at the bedside of patients and rose into the boardrooms of the NHS and the House of Lords, has been named the 106th Archbishop of Canterbury — and the first woman ever to hold the office.

It is a moment that feels both inevitable and seismic. For many, the image of a woman in the Archbishop’s pallium will be a picture of progress; for others it will be a quiet summons to reckon with the church’s past. “This is not a moment to celebrate alone,” said Rev. Jane Hargreaves, vicar of a parish on the outskirts of Canterbury. “It’s a call to deeper listening — to victims, to the poor, to voices long overlooked.”

From Nursing Stations to a Global Pulpit

Mullally’s path to the ancient office is unconventional by historic standards but strikingly modern in its contours. A former chief nursing officer for England, she has spent decades in clinical wards, hospital corridors, and the political corridors that shape healthcare policy. Her practical, service-oriented background is part of what many say made her appeal to the Crown Nominations Commission (CNC), the body that recommended her by the required two-thirds majority.

“She brings a discipline to leadership that comes from being accountable to patients and to the public,” said Dr. Amir Patel, a healthcare policy analyst who has worked with church-led community health initiatives. “That’s a different kind of moral authority — one that’s earned in the hard, everyday work of care.”

The CNC process was chaired by Lord Evans of Weardale, a former director-general of MI5, and the recommended name then moved through the familiar constitutional choreography: the Prime Minister was briefed, and the monarch formally received the nomination. While the King remains the Supreme Governor of the Church of England in law, the Archbishop is its spiritual anchor — and the role carries influence far beyond Britain, touching the Anglican Communion’s some 85 million members around the world.

Canterbury, Pilgrims, and Public Expectation

Canterbury is a city that knows ritual and reinvention. Centuries after Chaucer’s pilgrims set out for the cathedral’s shrine, modern pilgrims — worshippers, tourists, clergy, and curious locals — gather under the same towers. In the weeks leading up to the announcement, the city felt like a small capital of hope and scrutiny: café conversations about leadership and liturgy, volunteers folding food parcels in parish halls, and a quiet stream of people coming to light candles.

“I packed soup and bread with her today,” said Margaret Price, 67, a volunteer at a local foodbank who met Mullally during a community visit. “She didn’t stand apart. She stood with us. That’s leadership you can touch.”

Mullally’s first public acts as archbishop-designate were deliberately down-to-earth. She visited a neighborhood church and helped prepare food parcels — a gesture that is at once symbolic and, for many, deeply earnest. It underscored one of the core expectations from the public consultation that informed the CNC’s brief: more than 11,000 people contributed their views earlier this year, submitting names and qualities they hoped to see in the next archbishop.

What People Asked For

Someone of “the utmost integrity” — candid about past failures.
A “servant leader” with compassion for the disadvantaged.
A confident voice who can contribute Christian perspectives to public debate.

Those demands were not abstract. They were shaped by recent wounds within the church, including the scandal that precipitated the resignation of Justin Welby. His departure last November followed an independent review which concluded that earlier actions might have brought a prolific abuser to justice had they been reported differently. The episode left institutions bruised, trust fractured, and a public hungry for plain truth and reform.

Balancing Conscience and Politics

Mullally arrives with clear convictions. She has been an outspoken opponent of an assisted-dying bill currently under debate in Parliament, arguing that legislation could put vulnerable people at risk and that the focus should instead be on palliative care provision. “We must oppose a law that puts the vulnerable at risk,” she has said, “and work to improve funding and access to desperately needed palliative care services.”

Her seat in the House of Lords gives her a vote on such matters, but it also makes her a public figure in a political arena that is increasingly polarized. During Justin Welby’s tenure, the archbishop used the office to speak against the two-child benefit cap and criticized the government’s plans to relocate asylum seekers to Rwanda — interventions that drew both applause and reproach.

“The archbishop’s voice can be prophetic or political, depending on your view,” observed Professor Lila Anderson, a scholar of religion and public life. “What matters is whether that voice is credible. Credibility is built by demonstrating integrity in how the institution responds to failure.”

Repair, Renewal, and a Global Stage

Beyond national debates, the Archbishop of Canterbury serves as a spiritual figurehead for a global communion where questions of gender, theology, and colonial legacies create friction. Many Anglicans in parts of Africa and the Caribbean might view Mullally’s appointment with curiosity — or caution. Yet for others, especially women and younger believers in the UK and beyond, the symbolism is electric.

“Seeing a woman step into that role changes what we believe is possible,” said Naomi Okafor, a theology student from Lagos now studying in London. “It tells girls who go to church that their faith and their gifts matter in the highest rooms.”

The confirmation ceremony is set to take place in Canterbury Cathedral in January, with a formal enthronement to follow — an event likely to draw members of the royal family and dignitaries from across the Anglican world. But the liturgical pageantry is only part of what lies ahead.

What will truly define this chapter is the daily ledger of listening, mending, and leading. Will the new archbishop be able to hold the painful truths about the church’s past in one hand and the tender work of pastoral care in the other? Can she marshal the church’s moral voice to advocate for the marginalized while rebuilding trust with survivors of abuse?

Those questions will not be answered in a single service. They will be answered in parish halls and hospital wards, in committee rooms and kitchen tables, in votes in Parliament and conversations in pews. They will be answered in the gestures big and small that show whether power is being used to protect, to serve, and to heal.

For now, Canterbury waits — its bells ready, its stones patient — as a new steward prepares to step into an office that marries history and responsibility. Will this be the start of a season of renewal? Only time, and the choices this church and its leaders make, will tell. But for many, the sight of a woman moving through the cathedral’s light-filled aisles already feels like a promise worth watching.

RW oo daah-furay qorshaha dib loogu furayo waddooyinka

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October 4, 2025

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Nov 04(Jowhar)-Ra’iisul Wasaaraha Xukuumadda Jamhuuriyadda Federaalka Soomaaliya, Mudane Xamsa Cabdi Barre, ayaa maanta daah-furay qorshaha dib loogu furayo waddooyinka xiran ee caasimadda, oo gaaraya 52 waddo, kuwaas oo 15-kii sano ee la soo dhaafay u xirnaa sababo amni.

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Flights Resume at Munich Airport After Reported Drone Sightings

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hanad

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October 4, 2025

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Munich airport shuts for second time due to drones — The drones have not yet been identified, police said (file pic)

Night of Interrupted Journeys: When Drones Ground a City of Celebration

It was supposed to be the kind of October evening Munich remembers for: amber lights along the Isar, the last thirsty crowds at Oktoberfest swapping steins and stories, families packing for a long weekend away. Instead, the hum that filled the skyline was not from a brass band or a fairground ride but from something smaller, stranger, and unnerving—unseen machines that sent aircraft, and the people inside them, reeling.

Munich Airport halted flights late into the night after multiple drone sightings near its runways, an abrupt interruption that resulted in more than 30 flights cancelled or diverted and, by officials’ count, nearly 3,000 passengers suddenly left with nowhere to go. Camp beds were rolled out in terminal halls, blankets handed to the chilly and confused. Bottled water and snacks made the rounds. It was improvisation in the face of a modern insecurity.

“We resumed flight operations this morning according to schedule,” a Lufthansa spokesperson later told reporters, noting that 19 of the carrier’s services had been affected—either cancelled or rerouted—by the temporary airspace suspension. But for the travelers who watched their plans evaporate under flickering departure screens, that bureaucratic reassurance arrived after a long night of waiting.

At the gates: small dramas, big anxieties

“I was meant to fly to Berlin to see my sister for Unity Day,” said an older woman wrapped in a Munich scarf, voice tight with disappointment. “We were told to stay in the waiting area. They gave us a blanket but it felt like being forgotten.”

A young festival worker, still wearing his lederhosen, shrugged with a rueful laugh. “You expect the odd thing in Munich—rain, a delayed tram—but not drones. Especially during Oktoberfest’s final weekend when the city is already on edge after a bomb scare closed the fair for hours earlier in the week.”

Airport staff became the quiet glue of the night. A volunteer airport aid described setting up cots and trying to soothe adrenaline. “People were tired, embarrassed. Some were angry, some were laughing to keep calm. We tried to be real with them: ‘We don’t know everything yet, but we’re here.’ That seemed to help.”

Not an isolated whisper: the pattern across Europe

Munich’s disruption was the latest note in a dissonant chorus. Airports across Denmark, Norway and Poland have reported similar sudden intrusions. Estonia and Romania explicitly raised concerns about whether these incidents trace back to Russian operations, a charge Moscow has repeatedly rejected. NATO and European officials have spoken of ‘enhanced vigilance’ in the Baltic region; European capitals are scrambling to speak clearly—and act swiftly—about what some call a new front in a cross-border, low-cost campaign of disruption.

Ukraine’s president warned this week that the pattern of incursions suggests intent to “escalate” tensions across the continent. Whether these are deliberate signals, accidental overflows from conflict zones, or covert tests of defenses, the result is the same at the human level: disrupted lives and a hard question—how do you keep the skies safe in an age when someone can buy a drone off a website and pilot it across borders?

Why tiny machines cause big problems

On paper, a consumer drone is a modest object: a battery, a camera, a GPS, and propellers. Cost? Often under a few thousand euros for those capable of sustained flight and some degree of autonomy. In practice, those little machines complicate everything from the calculus of airspace safety to the politics of accountability.

“Drones present a dual-use problem,” explained an independent security analyst, Dr. Lena Hoffmann. “They’re legitimate for filming weddings, surveying crops and delivering packages. But the same characteristics—small size, low heat signature, ease of acquisition—make them ideal for harassment, reconnaissance, or worse when deployed en masse. Defending against them with traditional air defense is like swatting gnats with a hammer.”

That tension is why European leaders met this week in Copenhagen to talk about forming a defensive “drone wall”: a coordinated capability to detect, disrupt and, when necessary, neutralize hostile small drones before they endanger critical infrastructure or civilian populations. Denmark accepted an offer from Sweden to use Stockholm’s anti-drone technology for the summit; the United States has also pledged defensive support to bolster Copenhagen’s systems.

Choices, trade-offs and the shadow of escalation

German Interior Minister Alexander Dobrindt has been quoted saying the country must “find new responses to this hybrid threat,” invoking measures that could include shooting down suspect drones. The option is fraught. Shooting into civilian airspace risks debris, collateral damage, and regulatory headaches. It also carries a diplomatic price if the attribution—who launched the drone—remains uncertain.

On one edge of the debate sit the local business owners who want to keep commerce moving. “Every minute a flight is delayed costs our suppliers and hotels money,” said Klaus Meyer, owner of a family-run hotel near the airport. “But if people don’t feel safe, they won’t come at all. That’s the real loss.”

At the other edge are the civil liberties and legal scholars who worry about how defensive measures could be weaponized domestically. Who gets to declare a drone ‘hostile’? Under what legal framework can it be shot down over a city? The answers are not only technical; they’re constitutional. They require balancing public safety with the rights of peaceful citizens and businesses who happen to be using the same airspace in benign ways.

Detection: radar, acoustic sensors, radio-frequency jammers and optical systems are being tested across Europe.
Interdiction: options include nets, trained birds, laser systems, and kinetic options—but each has trade-offs.
Policy: clearer rules for attribution, a legal framework for interdiction, and cross-border intelligence-sharing are urgent priorities.

On the pavement: what this feels like

Walk the streets of Munich now and you feel the odd juxtaposition: the festive aftertaste of Oktoberfest—pretzels, roasted almonds, the echo of accordion riffs—alongside a new tightness in conversations about security. “We love tourists, we love the fun,” said Anja, a tent matron who has spent three decades pouring beer. “But there’s a worry in the air. We never imagined a drone could interrupt our festival. It feels like a science-fiction plot come true.”

For the passengers stranded in the airport, the lesson was immediate and mundane—the fragility of plans. For city officials and defense planners, the lesson is structural: modern conflict and technology do not stop at frontline maps. They spill into shopping malls, into festivals, into family reunions.

So what would you do if the hum returns above your city? Would you accept more checkpoints and fewer freedoms for the promise of safety, or embrace the risk that openness entails? There are no easy answers. But as Europe learns to navigate these newly crowded skies, the conversations happening in airport terminals, parliamentary chambers and kitchen tables alike will shape not just policy but the everyday feel of public life.

Tonight the beer tents will reopen, the last pints will be poured, and travelers will board. But the memory of a night under improvised blankets, the sight of smiling volunteers handing out water, and the hush that fell when planes were forced to wait will linger. The drones may be small, but their echo has been amplifying questions that Europe—and the world—must now answer together.