China’s military parade: Do goose steps herald a new world order?

September 7, 2025

China military parade: Goose steps to a new world order? — Chinese soldiers march during military parade in Beijing

When Parades Become Proclamations: Beijing, Bluster and the New Geopolitical Dance

Walk through central Beijing the morning after the spectacle and you will find more than confetti in the gutters. There are conversations—sharp, curious, sometimes frightened—about what the footage meant, and what it will mean for the rest of the world.

At a street stall near Qianmen, an elderly tea vendor named Mrs. Zhang sips a steaming cup and watches a looped clip of the parade on a tiny phone. “They made it look eternal,” she says, fingers stained with tea, eyes on the screen. “But power is like tea—boiling now, cooling later. Nothing stays hot forever.”

That image—the theatrical projection of state power, set against tableaux of intercontinental missiles, synchronized troops, and sleek new weapons—wasn’t just domestic pageantry. It was a diplomatic broadcast, a message to audiences at home and abroad: that the axis of influence in global affairs is shifting, and fast.

Flags, Formations and the New Coalition

In Tianjin, not far from Beijing, leaders and delegations shuffled through the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation summit with a mixture of frank commerce and theatrical solidarity. Once dismissed as a sleepy, regional forum, the SCO now brings together a constellation of states that collectively wield serious economic and demographic weight.

Analysts estimate SCO members are responsible for roughly 30% of global GDP and together account for a sizable share of the world’s population—figures that matter in an era when geopolitical muscle increasingly follows economic heft. That numerical reality is part of why the gathering felt like more than a meet-and-greet: it was an attempt to knit alternative institutions and norms to the fabric of global governance.

“This is the attempt to show that multilateralism need not look a certain way,” says Dr. Amina Rahman, a political economist who has studied rising regional coalitions. “When powers like China and India move in concert—even if imperfectly—the calculus for Washington, Brussels and Tokyo changes.”

Not a Monolith, but Not a Sideshow

Make no mistake: the forces on display are not a lockstep alliance of identical aims. New Delhi’s handshake with Moscow—warm in photographs but transactional under the surface—illustrates that point. India buys Russian oil and refuses to be boxed entirely into any one camp. Pakistan, Central Asian republics and even some African and Middle Eastern partners watch with a mixture of interest and wariness.

“We are trading partners, not foot soldiers of anyone’s court,” says a senior Indian diplomat who asked not to be named. “Countries pursue their national interests—sometimes the map looks like alignment, sometimes like coincidence.”

Rhetoric, Reality and the Rules of the Game

Words weigh heavy in this moment. In speeches and policy papers, the language has shifted away from abstract liberal universalism toward “sovereignty,” “development cooperation,” and “non-interference”—phrases that ring differently depending on whether you sit in a small island state or a capitals’ defensive planning room.

China’s leader framed his vision as a call for a “reformed UN” and a multipolar world where the powerful institutions better represent a world that no longer mirrors the post-1945 architecture. He spoke of “rejuvenation” and warned against the “law of the jungle.”

Behind the rhetoric, Beijing has been busy building alternatives: the Belt and Road Initiative, the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank, and a steady roll of trade deals. The aim is clear—create pathways for influence that don’t run through Washington, London, or Brussels.

But the Old Order Didn’t Retreat Without Leaving Scars

Washington’s recent turn inward—withdrawals from the Human Rights Council, reduced engagement with some multilateral bodies and a rip-and-restore approach to alliances—has left gaps. In practical terms, the U.S. remains an economic titan and security guarantor, but its selective embrace of international rules has created credibility costs in some quarters.

“If you pick and choose the rules, others will too,” notes Marco Bellini, a Brussels-based analyst. “We are already seeing a world where norms are contested and alliances are malleable.”

Between Conspiracy and Convenience: What These Partnerships Mean

It would be tempting—and comforting—to simplify the new arrangement as a neatly defined bloc poised to replace the U.S.-led system. The truth is messier. There are partnerships of convenience, points of friction and divergent long-term visions. Russia, China, North Korea: a tableau of mutual interests but also mutual suspicions.

“There is a lot of theatre,” says Dr. Mei Lin, a historian in Beijing. “But there are also real transfers of technology, trade flows and security cooperation that underpin those scenes. That is what policymakers really look at.”

Consider the case of dual-use technology transfers and energy purchases: these are not romance—they are lifelines. Russian oil sales help keep Moscow’s economy afloat; China’s purchases and shipments feed industries and military modernization. These ties complicate the calculus for European policymakers scrambling to reconcile values with strategic realities.

Local Color, Global Consequences

In Vladivostok, a ferry captain mutters about shipping routes and fuel costs more than ideology. “We sell what they buy,” he says. “Politics changes, but ships still need bunkers. People still need to eat.”

On the other side of the map, a market vendor in Karachi worries about loans and infrastructure projects jammed with strings. “They build roads,” she says. “But who owns the tolls later?”

So What Should Europe—and the Rest of Us—Do?

Europe is at a crossroads. Some leaders call for strategic autonomy: investing in defence, creating resilient supply chains, and speaking with one voice on trade and human rights. Others urge caution, reminding us that raw geopolitical rivalry will reshape economies and livelihoods in ways that hit ordinary people hardest.

“If Europe wants to be a moral and geopolitical actor, it has to be consistent,” says Kaja Müller, a policy adviser in Brussels. “You cannot credibly call for rules-based order while appearing to apply double standards.”

And the wider question hangs in the air: what kind of world do we want? One where might makes rules, or one where multilateral institutions—reformed, inclusive and effective—mediate conflicts and distribute opportunities?

Ask yourself: do you want global governance run like a club with exclusive membership, or like a city square where different voices are heard and negotiated? The answer will shape the next decades of trade, security, technology and human rights.

Closing, for Now

The banners will come down, the missiles will be returned to hangars, and the footage will feed endless commentary. But beneath the visuals, deep and durable shifts are quietly unfolding—trade lines being rerouted, institutions reimagined, and alliances that are sometimes adhesive, sometimes brittle.

History will have the final say about whether this week marked the beginning of a new, stable order or simply a particularly vivid episode in an ongoing struggle for influence. For now, citizens and leaders alike must navigate a world that refuses simple binaries—where theatre and transaction, symbolism and strategy, collide on the same stage.

How are you reading the signals? And more importantly, how will your country answer the questions being asked in capitals from Beijing to Brussels?

Pope names first millennial saint, hailed as “God’s influencer”

hanad

September 7, 2025

Pope declares 'God's influencer' first millennial saint — Canonisation is the result of a long and meticulous process

Under the shadow of St. Peter’s dome: a new kind of saint for a wired world

On a clear Roman morning, St. Peter’s Square felt more like a global village than the centre of a city. Flags from distant parishes fluttered beside backpacks, teenagers with earbuds threaded under their scarves stood shoulder to shoulder with nuns in habits older than the century. The Vatican estimated roughly 80,000 people had come to witness what many described as a hinge moment between ancient ritual and contemporary life: the canonisation of Carlo Acutis and Pier Giorgio Frassati.

The scene was all texture—tapestries unfurled across the basilica’s façade, papal banners catching the breeze, the smell of roasting chestnuts from nearby vendors mixing with incense. Smartphones lifted in unison produced a soft constellation of screens. English, Spanish, Tagalog, Italian, Portuguese and Polish stitched the air into a dozen conversations. “It felt like every continent had a seat in that piazza,” said Maria Lopez, a pilgrim from Colombia. “I came for the moment, but I stay for the people.”

“God’s Influencer”: a teenager in jeans and trainers

Carlo Acutis is not the sort of saint most art historians would have painted. Born in London in 1991 to Italian parents and raised in Milan, he died at 15 in 2006 after a brief battle with leukaemia. Yet his preserved body—dressed in jeans and Nike trainers—lies in a glass-walled tomb in Assisi and has become a destination for nearly one million pilgrims in the last year alone, according to the local diocese.

“Carlo was a normal teenager,” said Antonia Salzano, his mother, speaking quietly after the Mass. “He loved football. He loved computer games. But he loved the Eucharist more than anything. He believed that holiness is for everyone.”

Where older models of sainthood were forged in monasteries or on battlefields, Acutis built his devotion at a keyboard. A self-taught coder, he documented Eucharistic miracles online and taught friends how to merge their digital talents with their spiritual lives. That blending earned him the nickname that trailed in news reports and social feeds: “God’s Influencer.” Whether you find that label charming or jarring, it carries a simple truth—the Church is acknowledging that sanctity can be cultivated within the architecture of contemporary culture.

Miracles, the paperwork of heaven

Canonisation is not folkloric adoration: it is a painstaking process of investigation that, in modern practice, typically looks for two verified miracles attributed to the candidate’s intercession. For Acutis, Vatican investigators recorded two recoveries that doctors could not fully explain: firstly, the healing of a young Brazilian child born with a rare pancreatic malformation; secondly, the recovery of a Costa Rican student who survived serious injuries after an accident. In both cases, family members said they prayed to Carlo.

Miracle 1: Brazilian child with pancreatic malformation (healing attributed to Acutis)
Miracle 2: Costa Rican student, serious injuries reversed (also attributed)

“Science and faith are not enemies,” said Father Marco Bernini, a Vatican official involved with the cause. “The Church’s tribunals examine medical records, call experts, and weigh testimony. When doctors say there is no medical explanation, the Church acknowledges what the people of faith have experienced.”

Pier Giorgio Frassati: the mountaineer of charity

The other figure today lifted to the altars was Pier Giorgio Frassati, an earlier kind of youthful luminary. Born in 1901 and dying in 1925 of poliomyelitis at age 24, Frassati was an engineering student who spent weekends climbing the Alps and weekdays caring for the poor of Turin. His life—equal parts risk on the rock faces and risk for the destitute—has long been a touchstone for young Catholics drawn to action as prayer.

“Pier Giorgio taught that joy and service are bedfellows,” said Sister Lucia Pellegrino, who runs a shelter in Turin inspired by Frassati’s example. “He was irreverent, and he was real. That is why young people still come to him.”

For Frassati, the second miracle needed for sainthood was recognised in 2024: the unexplained healing of a young American man who had been in a coma. With that recognition, the path was clear for today’s elevation.

What this moment says about youth, faith and the internet

Look closer and you’ll see patterns that explain why two young men—one a mountaineer, one a coder—were chosen now. Nearly 1.3 billion people identify as Catholic worldwide. Yet the Church, like many long-standing institutions, is wrestling with how to retain the attention of a generation whose attention is fragmented across apps, global crises and rising secularism. Carlo’s story answers an anxious question: Can holiness be visible in the lived, messy middle of everyday modern life?

“I told my friends about Carlo on Instagram,” said Eleanor Hauser, a 15-year-old American on a school trip. “They laughed—then they Googled him. That’s how it works now. Faith travels through networks as much as it does through catechism books.”

Experts point out that this is not merely a PR move. “Canonising younger models is a pastoral strategy and a theological statement,” said Dr. Emiliano Rossi, a theologian at the Gregorian University. “It signals to youth that sanctity is not the exclusive domain of elders or monks; it can be lived in school corridors, soccer pitches, and online forums.”

Faces in the crowd: local color and human stories

There were simple, human moments that the cameras missed. A vendor from Trastevere joked about the spike in sales of rosaries and espresso. A retired teacher from Poland sobbed quietly as she displayed a battered photo of Carlo clipped to a rosary she’d carried for years. Young Italians compared pilgrimage routes to hiking maps—Assisi versus Rome—while a Brazilian mother traced the name of the child healed by Carlo’s intercession on her palm.

“He’s not a statue to me,” said Filippo Bellaviti, 17, who came from Milan. “He’s someone who shows faith can fit inside homework and football practice. That’s hopeful.”

Beyond the rituals: questions to take home

Standing beneath tapestries that showed both young saints, one felt the pull of larger questions: What does holiness look like in an age of screens, algorithms, and global churn? How do communities form meaning today, and who gets to be a model? The canonisation of Carlo Acutis and Pier Giorgio Frassati asks us to expand our imagination of virtue—toward courage, yes, but also toward creativity, compassion, and the courage to be ordinary and extraordinary at once.

Are saints suddenly more relatable because they wore jeans or scaled mountains? Or is this a deeper call—to see divine possibility in skills and passions we might otherwise consign to the mundane? As you read this, somewhere someone is livestreaming a Mass, teaching a prayer on TikTok, or knitting a scarf for a stranger. Small acts. Big faith.

Whether you stand within Rome’s cobblestoned squares or watch the ceremony from a living room halfway across the world, the message reverberates: sanctity adapts to culture, but it never loses its essentials. It asks for kindness. It asks for courage. And, increasingly, it asks us to notice where the sacred and the secular quietly intersect.

UN: Wildfires are brewing a toxic cocktail of air pollution

hanad

September 7, 2025

Wildfires producing 'witches' brew' of air pollution - UN — A view of the Madrid skyline and Madrid airport during sunset last month, when Spain and Portugal experianced unprecedented wildfires

When the sky goes on a journey

Some mornings the light in my city turned the color of steeped tea. The sun rose, but it wasn’t warm—it was filtered through a haze that made faces softer and thoughts narrower. Children in schoolyards coughed; laundry dried with a faint film of soot that flaked off onto the balcony rail.

We were not living next to a factory or a coal plant. The smoke, when traced back, came from places thousands of kilometres away: fires in boreal forests, peat burning in tropical basins, farmers setting fields alight after harvest.

That is the unnerving truth the World Meteorological Organization laid out this year in its fifth Air Quality and Climate Bulletin: air pollution does not respect borders. When wildfires ignite, they create a moving, complex cloud of particles and gases that can travel across continents, changing the air you breathe in ways that are immediate and dangerous.

A witches’ brew on the winds

Wildfire smoke is not a single ingredient. It is a shifting cocktail of soot, organic carbon, volatile organic compounds and chemical fragments that react in the atmosphere. Scientists call many of these particles “aerosols.” Some reflect sunlight; some absorb it. Some seed clouds; others accelerate melting on distant glaciers when dark carbon settles on snow.

“What leaves the pyre is a witches’ brew,” said Lorenzo Labrador, a WMO scientific officer who coordinated this year’s bulletin. “Those components can travel, mix, age, and then arrive in valleys and cities hundreds or thousands of kilometres away.”

The most dangerous of those particles are PM2.5—particulate matter finer than 2.5 micrometres. They slip past the body’s defenses, embedding deep in lungs and entering the bloodstream. The World Health Organization links outdoor air pollution to more than 4.5 million premature deaths each year. The 2021 WHO air quality guideline now recommends an annual PM2.5 exposure of 5 micrograms per cubic metre or less—levels most of the world still struggles to meet.

Where the numbers spiked in 2024

The WMO bulletin mapped places where wildfire seasons pushed PM2.5 above seasonal norms in 2024: Canada’s forests, Russia’s Siberia, pockets of central Africa—and most dramatically, the Amazon basin. Smoke episodes from Canada even left a fingerprint on European air quality in certain meteorological setups. The message is blunt: a fire that ignites in one hemisphere can darken skies in another.

Voices from the frontlines

“We wake up and our throats are raw. My grandson’s asthma has become worse during these months,” said Rita Singh, 62, who farms rice and wheat in the Indo-Gangetic Plain. She described mornings when a persistent fog sits low over the fields, not merely a seasonal mist but a pall augmented by burning crop residue and household smoke.

On the other side of the globe, Aleksandr Petrov, a volunteer firefighter in Siberia, recalled hands blistered by heat and lungs made sore by ash. “You carry a smell with you for days,” he said. “Even in the village house, the curtains smell of smoke. We know the forests will grow back. The people do not have that patience.”

Dr. Maya Chen, an air-quality researcher at a university in Singapore, explained the science in plain terms: “When you have prolonged heat and drought—driven by climate change—fuels dry out. Fires are bigger, they burn hotter and longer, and they loft particles much higher into the atmosphere where winds can take them far.”

The human and economic toll

Air pollution is more than an abstract statistic. It is missed school and work days; it is births complicated by maternal exposure; it is harvests shorn by reduced sunlight and crops coated in ash. The economic ripples are enormous—lost wages, extra healthcare costs, and reduced labor productivity. Global assessments suggest the welfare and productivity losses from air pollution run into the hundreds of billions annually, if not more.

On the Indo-Gangetic Plain, where over 900 million people live, winter fog episodes laced with PM2.5 are becoming longer and more persistent—partly because millions of tonnes of agricultural residue are burned each year. “This fog is no longer just weather,” the WMO warned. “It is a symptom.”

What works—and why isolated fixes aren’t enough

The story is not all bleak. Eastern China, for instance, has seen sustained declines in PM2.5 in recent years thanks to a mix of regulations, cleaner fuels, and industrial controls. Paolo Laj, the WMO’s global atmosphere chief, pointed out that when countries commit to air quality strategies, the atmosphere records the change.

“Take a decade-long view,” Laj said. “Cities that regulate, switch to cleaner heating, and invest in monitoring see tangible improvements.”

Yet there is no single silver bullet. Switching to electric cars helps in urban centres, but it doesn’t stop a wildfire on a distant continent from pushing PM2.5 into your city. Cutting coal is necessary for climate and local pollution, but massive wildfire seasons—aggravated by heat and drought—require land management, firefighting investment, and cross-border cooperation.

Practical levers for change

Build dense monitoring networks—satellite data helps, but ground stations capture the health-relevant details.
Reduce routine agricultural burning by offering alternatives—mechanization, incentivized residue management, and market-based disposal.
Strengthen early warning and air-quality alerts so schools can plan recess and cities can limit outdoor exposure during peaks.
Address black carbon specifically—reducing short-lived climate pollutants protects both health and ice sheets.
Invest in community health responses—clean cookstoves, masks distribution during peaks, and access to care.

Beyond borders: why this should matter to everyone

Ask yourself: what is the value of a blue sky? To many of us, it is aesthetic. To billions, it is life. This is a global issue because climate change lengthens fire seasons and makes extreme heat and drought more likely. It is a public health issue because PM2.5 is a silent killer. It is a social justice issue because the burden falls hardest on those who can least afford air purifiers and healthcare—children, outdoor workers, older adults and low-income communities.

There are moral and practical reasons for nations to cooperate more deeply. A soot-laden plume drifting from Canada across the Atlantic is a reminder that our atmospheric commons needs stewardship as much as any river or ocean.

Where we go from here

Somewhere between the farmer burning stubble to clear a field and the policymaker drafting emissions rules, there is an opportunity for new thinking—and for old habits to be reframed. Technology can help. Better weather forecasting, coupled with targeted advisories and international data sharing, can limit harm. Financial tools can smooth transitions for farmers and support reforestation rather than repeated combustion.

“We have examples where policy works,” Dr. Chen said. “Now we need scale and political will. People notice when the air clears; they demand action. That is how change happens.”

So what will you do when the sky turns brown where you live? Will you ask your leaders whether their air-quality plans consider distant fires as well as local emissions? Will communities push for incentives that keep fields from burning and invest in early-warning systems? The air is a daily commons—it carries our breath, our business, our future. Treating it as such may be the most practical form of solidarity we can muster.

Reform UK’s momentum keeps building, as support continues to rise

hanad

September 7, 2025

Reform UK has momentum and it continues to build — Nigel Farage, leader of Reform UK, at its annual party conference in Birmingham, UK

Theatrics at the NEC: Politics as Prime-Time

On a damp Birmingham morning, the National Exhibition Centre—the glass-and-concrete cathedral for conferences of every stripe—was buzzing like a festival ground rather than a political assembly.

Stalls hawked turquoise jerseys, enamel badges and glossy leaflets while conference-goers queued for coffee beneath banners that unfurled the party slogan in bold type: Make Britain Great Again. Sparks of staged pyrotechnics and strobe lights threw the hall into moments of wrestling-arena drama as speakers strode onstage to pulse-pounding music.

Jeremy Kyle, known to many as a television provocateur, prowled the aisles in the new role of roving reporter, his microphone prodding delegates and party heavies alike. He was one of the weekend’s most literal reminders that this was as much a media event as a policy convention—a show designed to be filmed, clipped and shared.

Song, Sequins and a Singing Mayor

There were lighter, stranger moments too. Andrea Jenkyns—recently elected Mayor of Lincolnshire—took the stage in a glittering sequin jumpsuit and sang a song called “Insomnia,” which she co-wrote two decades ago. Not everyone in the crowd rose to their feet in applause for the vocal performance, but the sight of a local mayor closing a political conference with a rendition of the national anthem felt like a deliberate recalibration of how politics can be staged.

“It was bonkers,” said one delegate, an exhausted but smiling man from Stoke. “You come for speeches, you get a pop concert and a singalong. That’s politics now—if you can’t get people’s attention, you’re not speaking to them.”

Showmanship Meets Messaging

If there was a theme to the weekend, it was that Reform UK has embraced spectacle as a tool. The turquoise jerseys—selling briskly—were intentional theater: a visual shorthand that recalled the red MAGA caps of America’s populist moment. It was an aesthetic choice with a political message; style here is policy-adjacent.

“It’s about creating an identity,” a campaign strategist said, asking not to be named. “You make a brand people can wear, and they do your thinking for you on the train home.”

Discipline, Discord and a Return to the Fold

But underneath the glitter, the conference also exposed the cleavage between brand and governance. Party leader Nigel Farage used his closing speech to remind members that, for all the razzmatazz, discipline matters. It was a pointed note after a year in which the party weathered public rows with former insiders—most memorably a fallout with ex-chair Zia Yusuf and public spats that spilled onto social media.

Mr Yusuf, who had publicly criticized a parliamentary intervention by the party’s Sarah Pochin, later returned to take a leading policy role. The episode, observers say, is emblematic of a party still trying to reconcile insurgent energy with the day-to-day business of political management.

“You can’t run a movement like a band,” a former local councillor grumbled. “At some point someone has to do the boring, hard graft of policy and compromise. Otherwise it’s just noise.”

Policy, Promises and the Limits of Spectacle

The weekend also revived controversial policy headlines. The party’s pledge to deport up to 600,000 asylum seekers—an idea that would require leaving the European Convention on Human Rights, its backers say—remains a flashpoint. Critics point out that the ECHR is a core element of the Good Friday Agreement: removing the UK from the convention would have implications for peace arrangements in Northern Ireland and require complex renegotiation.

“Sovereignty talk without logistics is fantasy,” said Dr. Amina Hassan, a lecturer in international law. “Rights conventions are enmeshed in treaties across borders. You can’t just sign out of one document and expect the rest of the architecture to stand unscathed.”

When questioned, Mr Farage insisted the policy was workable, arguing the ECHR clause had been “tacked on” and would not derail peace accords. Opponents retorted that such assurance underestimates legal pathways, diplomatic consequences, and the practicalities of mass removals.

Immigration, Welfare and Fractured Lines

Inside the conference, voices were not monolithic. Sarah Pochin, one of the party’s MPs, told reporters she personally favors a policy that would limit access to benefits and NHS care for recent arrivals—a stance she acknowledged was not yet party doctrine. “If we’re serious about fairness, you have to start with residency,” she said in a conversation clearly meant for cameras.

These internal debates are signs of a party still constructing its playbook: bold headlines on the one hand, messy debates on the practical mechanics on the other.

Momentum, Money and the Lobbyists

Attendees noted an unusually robust presence of lobbyists and former Conservative operatives. “You wouldn’t see this at the Lib Dems,” one veteran of dozens of conferences observed. It’s a telling barometer: where money and influence shadow an event, people infer electability.

Some polls have suggested that Reform UK has been polling strongly in recent months—often cited figures place the party around 30% in certain national surveys since last year’s local elections—prompting nervous glances from Westminster. Whether that momentum can be sustained, and whether it translates into the concentrated support needed to form a government, are open questions.

Defections, Alliances and the Long Chess Game

High-profile defections—such as former Conservative ministers and aides flirting with the party—feed fears that Reform could become a de facto home for disaffected Tories. Nadine Dorries’ recent move and the presence of people like Jacob Rees-Mogg at fringe events underline a porous political landscape. “Politics is about coalitions,” the Rees-Moggs’ presence seemed to declare to anyone willing to read it.

But there is a paradox: absorbing more mainstream defectors risks diluting the insurgent identity that fuels Reform’s energy. If the party becomes seen merely as an offshoot of the Conservatives, it may lose its distinct appeal.

What Does This Mean for Britain—and for Us?

At the NEC, there was an unquestionable verve. Thousands left with new jerseys, brochures and a sense that they had witnessed something consequential. Yet spectacle is not governance. Glitter doesn’t draft legislation. Singalongs don’t negotiate treaties.

So ask yourself: are you drawn to politics that entertains or politics that deliberates? Is it comfort or competence you want in the places where policy meets people’s lives?

As Britain heads toward future elections, this conference may be remembered as the moment Reform UK graduated from insurgent movement to institutional contender. Or it may be seen as a high-water mark of performance politics—a clever, combustible mix of image, anger and improvisation that peaks before the hard reality of administration arrives.

“Momentum is fragile,” a campaign analyst said as the lights came down. “You can ride a wave of discontent—and sometimes that’s enough. But waves crash, and then you have to build a harbor.”

For now, the turquoise jerseys will take their place in cupboards across the country. The bigger questions—about policy coherence, international obligations, and the trade-offs between theatricality and governance—remain unresolved. And that uncertainty is where the real story lies.

Russian strikes on Ukraine kill three, including a child

hanad

September 7, 2025

Child among three killed in Russian attacks on Ukraine — The aftermath of a Russian drone attack on a residential building in Odesa

Smoke over Pecherskyi: A Morning When the City Held Its Breath

When dawn broke over Kyiv, the skyline was not the familiar silhouette of cupolas and cranes but a ribbon of smoke stitching itself into the pale sky. It rose from the heart of the city — the government quarter in Pecherskyi — and from residential blocks far from the gilded domes, where ordinary life had been abruptly interrupted by an overnight barrage of drones and missiles.

Three people were killed, officials said: an infant, a young woman, and an elderly woman sheltering in the Darnytskyi district on the east bank of the Dnipro. Eighteen others were wounded, and scores of buildings — apartments, high-rises and the very seat of municipal power — smoldered or bore the jagged scars of impact.

A child among the casualties

“An entire family’s life collapsed in the span of a few minutes,” said a woman who declined to give her name, standing outside a temporary aid station where volunteers wrapped blankets around survivors. “There was a baby. A life that hadn’t even begun. How do you sleep after that happens?”

Kyiv’s mayor, Vitali Klitschko, wrote on Telegram that a fire had broken out at the government building in the city centre after an attack that began with drones and was followed by missile strikes. Reuters journalists and witnesses saw thick black smoke billowing from the building in the Pecherskyi district, the smoke threading across the city as if to remind everyone below of the fragility of normalcy.

Neighborhoods scarred: Pecherskyi, Darnytskyi, Sviatoshynskyi

In Darnytskyi, state emergency officials described a residential building where two of its four stories were on fire and structural parts had been destroyed. In the western Sviatoshynskyi district, several floors of a nine-storey residential block were partially collapsed. Drone debris, they said, set further fires in a 16-storey building and in two more nine-storey apartments.

“The walls have been blackened, but the worst is the silence of the neighbours who no longer answer their doors,” said Ihor, a shopkeeper from Sviatoshynskyi who spent the morning salvaging what he could from his store. “You don’t plan for this. You never imagine your life will be split between ‘before’ and ‘after’ like a seam ripped open.”

Scenes from the city

Photos circulating from emergency services showed facades crumbled, stairwells exposed to the sky and smoke pouring out of shattered windows — images that mirror, in hundreds of cities across Ukraine, the human cost of modern, urban warfare. Fire crews in fluorescent jackets navigated rubble as neighbours handed over water and warm coats. Volunteers set up cots in school gyms. Churches opened doors to those seeking quiet and shelter, another familiar tableau from the war’s long months.

Beyond Kyiv: ripples across the country

The strikes were not confined to the capital. Explosions rattled Kremenchuk in central Ukraine, cutting power to parts of the city; Odesa in the south reported damaged civilian infrastructure and fires in apartment blocks; Kryvyi Rih saw attacks targeting transport and urban infrastructure, officials said — although, in that case, no injuries were immediately reported.

“This is not just about damaged buildings,” said Marina Petrenko, a volunteer with a regional aid network. “When a transport hub, a school or an apartment block is hit, it fractures the web of everyday life. The elderly lose access to pharmacies. Parents lose access to childcare. The ripple effects are enormous.”

The tactics: drones, missiles, and civilian spaces

What began as a cascade of small, unmanned drones — the kind of weapon that has repeatedly blurred the line between battlefield and backyard — was followed by heavier missile strikes. Officials in Kyiv accused the attackers of intentionally striking civilian targets; Timur Tkachenko, head of the capital’s military administration, wrote on Telegram that Russia was “deliberately and consciously striking civilian targets.”

Whether launched to hit military or logistical nodes or to terrorize, the effect is often the same: civilian spaces become targets, making ordinary routines — walking to the store, taking a child to school, sleeping — fraught with danger.

Why drones matter

Drones have become a grim protagonist in this conflict. Small, relatively cheap and increasingly sophisticated, they can evade traditional air defences and strike with a precision that is maddening in its potential for harm. Across Ukraine, as of mid-2024 and into 2025, militaries on both sides have adapted to this new normal: layered air defences, mobile interceptors, and constant civilian alerts.

“We’re fighting a war where the sky is no longer a benign space,” said a military analyst who researches aerial threats and asked not to be named for security reasons. “Drones lower the threshold for damage, and when used in series they can saturate defences and inflict both material and psychological damage.”

Human cost and the wider picture

Three people killed, eighteen injured. These are numbers recorded on paper, but each digit represents a family, a set of routines upended, and a neighborhood that now has an empty place at table. Since Russia’s full-scale invasion in February 2022, the war has caused widespread loss: millions displaced internally and abroad, billions in infrastructure damage, and a toll on civilian life that is not fully captured by casualty tallies alone.

“If you walk through Kyiv today, the cost isn’t just the blackened walls,” said Dr. Olena Hrynenko, a psychologist working with trauma survivors. “It’s the mistrust, the sleepless children, the grandparents who no longer dare to walk to the market. Recovery will take years — perhaps a generation — and the healing work has to begin now, even as the war continues.”

International echoes

With western Ukraine under threat, Poland activated its own and allied aircraft to ensure air safety, according to the operational command of the Polish armed forces — a reminder that the conflict’s shocks reverberate beyond Ukraine’s borders. Governments and international bodies continue to juggle diplomatic pressure, sanctions, military aid, and humanitarian assistance, even as the violence reshapes neighborhoods and national conversations about security.

What does resilience look like?

Amid the rubble and alarm, ordinary acts of kindness persist. Volunteers ferry medicines across checkpoints. A bakery in Sviatoshynskyi handed out loaves for free to those queuing at the temporary shelters. Strangers shared their powerbanks. In a country used to defying the shock of each fresh assault, small rituals of solidarity have become, paradoxically, the architecture of endurance.

“We cannot let this define us,” said a young teacher who spent the morning registering displaced children at a makeshift classroom. “There will be mourning, yes. There will be anger. But there must also be school, there must be birthdays, there must be bread. That is how we keep our humanity.”

Questions to sit with

As you read this from wherever you are in the world, consider: what does it mean when civilian spaces are no longer safe? How should communities and governments balance immediate protection with long-term recovery? And what role do global actors play when the lines between military targets and everyday life blur?

These are not rhetorical exercises. They are the contours of policy, aid and empathy that will shape what comes next — for Kyiv, for Ukraine, and for any city that learns in the hard way that the modern battlefield reaches into living rooms and nursery rooms alike.

For now, Kyiv holds its breath and then exhales in small, stubborn acts: a bowl of soup shared on a cold stairwell, a firefighter going back into the smoke, a volunteer sewing warm hats for children who woke up to ash on their lips. The headlines will say “attacks” and “tally”; the city knows the softer, more painful ledger by heart.

British police arrest 425 protesters during Palestine Action demonstration

hanad

September 7, 2025

UK police arrest 425 people in Palestine Action protest — Police officers were deployed during a mass demonstration in Parliament Square against the ban on Palestine Action in London

Westminster at a Crossroads: When Protest Becomes a Crime

It was the kind of London afternoon that pins memory to place: a gray, indifferent sky, the Parliament buildings towering like an old argument, and the river running its patient course. But beneath that familiar backdrop, voices rose loud and uneven—chants, the slap of footsteps, the rustle of cardboard placards. “I oppose genocide. I support Palestine Action,” read one sign, raw with felt-tip urgency. Within hours, police fences tightened, squads pushed forward, and by the day’s end more than 425 people lay detained, cuffed and ushered into police vans. The Metropolitan Police confirmed the figure late last night.

A crowd, a slogan, a ban

On paper the scene was deceptively simple: a demonstration in front of the Houses of Parliament. In reality it was a collision of law and conscience. The group at the heart of the controversy, Palestine Action, was proscribed under the UK’s Terrorism Act 2000 earlier this year following a string of high-profile vandalism incidents—among them damage to a Royal Air Force base that authorities estimate cost roughly £7 million.

The ban makes it an offense to “support” or “encourage support” for the organisation. That legal framing has turned routine protest into a potential criminal act. According to Metropolitan Police briefings, “the majority of these arrests were made for supporting a proscribed organisation.” Before yesterday, police had already arrested more than 800 people in connection with Palestine Action activity; 138 of those had been formally charged.

On the ground: voices from the crowd

The human geography of the protest was immediate and varied. There were retirees who came with conviction and carefully folded placards; students who had sprinted out of lectures; fathers who had brought children, who watched with wide, baffled eyes as lines of officers moved in. I spoke with Polly Smith, 74—an erstwhile school librarian who calls herself a “professional protestor” and would not be drawn into cliché. “These people are not terrorists,” she said, breath visible in the cold air. “If saying ‘stop killing civilians’ is terrorism, then what does that make the rest of us?”

Nigel, 62, who runs a small recycling company and declined to give his surname, echoed the sentiment. “The ban feels totally inappropriate,” he told me as officers approached. “They should be spending their time trying to stop genocide, not trying to stop protesters.” Minutes later he was among those taken away.

Not everyone at the march was resolutely peaceful. Skirmishes broke out as some demonstrators tried to prevent arrests. The Met said more than 25 people were detained for alleged assaults on police officers and other public order offenses. “Our officers were subjected to intolerable abuse,” Deputy Assistant Commissioner Claire Smart later said, describing incidents of punching, kicking and spitting. “We will not tolerate violence against police or the public.”

What was at stake

For many of the protesters, the march was less about one group than about a principle: the right to speak, assemble and call attention to suffering overseas. Around the square there were conversations in Arabic, English, French—people trading stories of relatives in Gaza, of friends who had fled. A teacher I met, Aisha Hassan, wore a keffiyeh and carried homemade leaflets listing casualty figures from Gaza. “We’re not here to vandalize; we’re here to witness,” she said. “If our only recourse is to stand and be heard, then we will.”

Legal lines, moral questions

The government’s decision to proscribe Palestine Action has sparked a broader debate that resonates far beyond Westminster. Rights organisations—including Amnesty International, Greenpeace, and the UN human rights office—have criticized the ban as disproportionate and a threat to free expression. “Proscribing campaigning groups for their views—and for the tactics of some—is a dangerous escalation,” an Amnesty spokesperson said in a statement. “It risks criminalising legitimate protest.”

On the other side, officials argue that the state must draw boundaries where protest becomes direct action that risks public safety or targeted damage. The government has been granted permission to appeal a judicial decision that allowed one of Palestine Action’s co-founders, Huda Ammori, to challenge the ban in court.

If convicted of supporting a proscribed organisation, most defendants face up to six months in jail. Those found guilty of organising or orchestrating activities tied to the group could face sentences of up to 14 years—penalties that critics say are crushingly disproportionate for political expression.

Bigger currents: global protests and national security

This is not just a London story. Around the world, governments are balancing three competing pressures: preserving public safety, preventing violent or destructive acts, and protecting the democratic right to dissent. In the age of viral footage and fast-moving movements, the line between civil disobedience and illegal action often blurs in public perception and on legal textbooks alike.

Just yesterday, thousands of other Londoners marched in separate pro-Palestinian demonstrations elsewhere in the capital—while, simultaneously, Israel launched new strikes on Gaza, saying it intended to seize Gaza City in operations it framed as necessary to defeat Hamas. The war next door, and the images on social media, feed the urgency here. For many protesters, a legal ban at home feels like another layer of displacement—their voices restricted when they most want to be heard.

Questions for us all

What should a democratic state do when activism crosses into property damage? Where should the line be drawn between security and censorship? And perhaps most urgently: how do we create spaces where people can grieve and protest without risking criminal sanction?

When I asked a young woman named Leila why she kept coming back to protests despite the arrests, she smiled, not a bitter smile but a resolute one. “Because history remembers the ones who stood,” she said. “We are not naive about consequence. But silence is its own sentence.”

What to watch next

The legal appeal over the ban and the ongoing judicial challenge by Huda Ammori—this could set precedent for how the UK treats politically motivated direct action.
Further policing operations and the number of charges laid—so far, 138 charged and hundreds more arrested.
Public debate: will civil society groups coalesce in defense of free speech, or will the specter of vandalism harden opinion in favor of stronger policing?

As the sirens faded and the placards were folded away, Westminster returned to its habitual rhythm. But the questions stirred there did not vanish with the crowd. They spread, quietly and insistently, through living rooms and classrooms across Britain and beyond: how do we contest power without losing our voices? How do we protect one another without muzzling dissent?

London has always been a theatre for argument. Yesterday that theatre brimmed with urgency, pain and protest. The law will do its work; the courts will make their decisions. But on the pavement, in the faces of those taken into custody and in the whispered conversations of those who stayed behind, the story felt less like a legal docket and more like a moral reckoning. What side of that reckoning do you find yourself on?

Trump Intensifies Crackdown Threats, Issues Stark Warning to Chicago

hanad

September 7, 2025

US may 'unwind' EU trade deal if it loses tariff case — Donald Trump and Ursula von der Leyen seen in July when the deal with the EU was struck

“Department of War” at the River: Chicago Becomes a Symbol in a New National Drama

There is a particular light that falls across the Chicago River in late summer — silver on steel, the city’s towers standing like witnesses. It is the kind of ordinary beauty that makes it hard to imagine tanks or troops marching down LaSalle Street. And yet, that image was splintered this week when a presidential post promised something close to urban martial law: “Chicago is about to find out why it’s called the Department of War.”

The words landed like a slap in a city still raw from the last time federal force moved near its neighborhoods. Governor J.B. Pritzker answered in kind, publicly calling the threat “not a joke” and warning that “Illinois won’t be intimidated by a wannabe dictator.”

From a Social Feed to a Show of Force

The line came not from a podium but from a social media post — accompanied by an AI-generated image of the president and a swaggering, darkly comic riff on the famous line from the Vietnam film Apocalypse Now: “I love the smell of deportations in the morning.” In the movie, the line is about napalm; here it was repurposed as a spectacle. For many Chicagoans the post felt less like satire and more like a threat.

“When you see those words, you don’t just hear policy — you feel the possibility of violence,” said Marisol Rivera, a community organizer on the city’s Southwest Side. “This is about making people afraid to come to protests, afraid to walk home at night, afraid that the city they love could be occupied.”

What followed was predictably public: thousands of protesters marched through downtown Chicago, carrying banners that read “Stop this fascist regime!” and “No Trump, No Troops.” The parade routed past the riverfront tower that bears the president’s name; onlookers jeered and offered rude gestures to the building’s glass façade. The energy was as much show as resistance — a civic performance aimed at a national audience.

Echoes in the Capital and on the West Coast

This is not an isolated scene. Earlier, tens of thousands demonstrated in Washington after the National Guard and federal agents were deployed there under a declared “crime emergency,” marching beneath inverted American flags — a traditional sign of national peril. Los Angeles, too, saw confrontations after ICE agents, sometimes masked and operating in unmarked cars, were accused of snatching people from the streets without warrants.

Legal fights have already begun. Constitutional scholars point to the Insurrection Act — a 19th-century statute that allows the president to use federal military force to suppress insurrection or enforce federal law — as the likely hinge point for any large-scale domestic troop deployment. But many civil libertarians say the threshold for using that law has not been met, and that its invocation risks eroding norms the republic has depended upon for nearly two centuries.

“When you start talking about troops in American cities,” said Prof. Lena Mahoney, a constitutional law expert, “you’re not talking about a policy tweak. You’re talking about a paradigm shift in how this country sees dissent, policing, and federal power.”

What “Department of War” Signals

On paper the president signed an order rebranding the Defense Department as the Department of War, calling it a “message of victory.” The secretary of the renamed department offered a headline-ready affirmation, arguing that the United States must “decisively exact violence to reach its aims.” To many, the rhetoric underscored a growing readiness to frame domestic challenges as battles rather than as civic problems to be solved by law, public health, and community work.

Words have weight. In cities like Chicago — where the El rattles past neighborhoods of mixed-income housing, blues clubs, and little storefront churches — language that frames policing and migration as theater or war has real consequences. For many residents, it felt like another sledgehammer blow aimed at communities already suspicious of heavy-handed state action.

Voices from the Street

“I raised my kids here,” said Tyrone Daniels, who runs a barbershop on the Near West Side. “We’ve seen police change, seen mayors change. But the idea of the federal government rolling in with soldiers? That’s something else. It would tear at the fabric of neighborhoods.”

A younger protester, a student wrapped in a patchwork flag, put it bluntly: “You can’t intimidate people into not wanting a country where they belong.”

Activists have compiled growing lists of incidents they say show the dangers of using federal force in cities. They point to aggressive immigration sweeps in Los Angeles, alleged abuses by masked agents, and the friction created when federal priorities clash with local strategies for safety and rehabilitation. These are not abstract worries. They are worries rooted in anecdotes, court filings, and municipal budgets.

Why This Matters Beyond Chicago

Ask yourself: what does it mean when the commander-in-chief frames domestic policy as war? The question cuts beyond Chicago and into the heart of democratic norms around dissent, local autonomy, and civil liberties. It brings to mind broader global patterns: leaders who amplify threats and justify extraordinary measures often end up curtailing basic freedoms in the name of order.

And yet, the debate also reveals a deeper anxiety in parts of the country. Many Americans — particularly in cities confronting concentrated gun violence, opioid crises, and visible homelessness — demand decisive action. Political leaders have weaponized that demand, promising quick, muscular solutions. The risk is that short-term triumphalism may sacrifice long-term democratic practices and trust.

Possible Outcomes and Questions for the Future

Would a federal troop deployment in Chicago require invocation of the Insurrection Act, and under what legal basis?
How would local police and community organizations react? Cooperation could vary block by block.
Would such a move quell violence, or would it inflame tensions and create new flashpoints?

These are not merely legal hypotheticals. They are strategic, moral, and human questions. If the federal government moves into cities as a matter of policy, what becomes of local democracy? How do you rebuild trust after a neighborhood has been “stabilized” by soldiers rather than social workers, negotiators, and youth programs?

Living Through an Uncertain Moment

Walking along the river after the protest, you see the city’s contradictions in miniature: a kid selling cold water on a corner, the smell of garlic and tomato from a nearby pizzeria, a woman folding handbills about a community clinic. These ordinary scenes are the social tissue that policy decisions, in the end, can protect or rip apart.

“We want safety,” said Pastor Emily Okafor, who runs a small church outreach program on the South Side. “We want our kids to grow up. But soldiers in the streets don’t do that work. They don’t tutor, they don’t clean up leaded playgrounds, they don’t get kids to evening classes.”

So the debate continues: which tools work in which contexts? Which institutions do we trust to keep us safe and free? And perhaps most urgently: when the leader of a nation speaks about “war” at home, how do citizens respond? By fear, by acquiescence, or by taking to the streets in a chorus of dissent?

Chicago, like other cities now in the spotlight, is forcing the country to answer these questions in real time. The next scenes of this political drama will matter — not only for the skyline and the river, but for the habits of governance and public life that will shape generations to come. What would you choose if you had to decide between order and liberty? Between immediate control and the slow work of rebuilding?

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