Christian group reports 315 students abducted from Nigerian school

November 22, 2025

315 kidnapped from Nigerian school, Christian group says — The dormitory after gunmen attacked a boarding school and abducted 25 girls in Kebbi state on Monday

A Schoolyard Silenced: Morning Raids, Missing Children

At first light in the rivers of red dust that mark central Nigeria’s dry season, St Mary’s school in Papiri should have been a place of chalk, laughter and shouted arithmetic. Instead, the compound went quiet when masked men arrived, and by the day’s end the numbers that filled the town’s whispering circles were stark and terrible: roughly 315 people — students and teachers — had been taken.

This is not a single headline to scroll past. It’s a rupturing of everyday life: classrooms emptied, mothers who will not sleep, and a nation that has been bruised repeatedly by kidnappers who treat schools as soft targets. The Christian Association of Nigeria, after what it called a verification process, said the total was 303 students and 12 teachers. To put that in human terms: nearly half of the school’s 629 pupils were taken that morning.

What Happened and Who Was Affected

Witnesses say gunmen arrived with coordinated speed. One local trader, Mariam Musa, described it to me over a cup of tea: “They came like a storm. I saw boys running, some fell. Mothers screamed. The teachers tried to hide the children, but there were too many.”

Reverend Bulus Dauwa Yohanna, the Catholic bishop for the area, later told visitors that an initial tally of escapees was incomplete. “We checked and checked again,” he said in a statement that was passed around the community. “People we thought had gotten away were captured when they tried to flee.”

Authorities in neighbouring states — Katsina and Plateau — ordered temporary school closures as a precaution. The Niger state government has shut down many schools, and the federal government temporarily postponed the president’s international travel plans, signaling the depth of alarm in Abuja.

The Broader Pattern: Not an Isolated Crime

This attack comes on the heels of another recent abduction in Kebbi state where 25 girls were taken. Across northwest and central Nigeria, kidnapping for ransom has evolved from episodic criminality into a profitable, organized industry. Analysts estimate hundreds — perhaps thousands — have been snatched in similar operations over the past several years.

Bandit gangs operating in a vast, porous forest that straddles several states — Zamfara, Katsina, Kaduna, Sokoto, Kebbi and Niger — have perfected hit-and-run tactics. A UN source told journalists that some of the children taken from Kebbi may have been moved toward the Birnin Gwari forest in Kaduna state, a known transit and hideout zone.

Voices from the Ground

“My son never came home,” said Fatima Bello, a mother whose youngest son had attended St Mary’s. Her voice wavered but she was clear-eyed. “We were told they are safe when they are found, but how many times have promises been broken?”

Security experts warn that the lines are blurring between financially motivated bandits and ideologically driven extremists. “Bandits began as criminals chasing ransom,” explained Dr. Aisha Kadir, a security analyst at the Abuja Centre for Conflict Studies. “Now there are documented cases of alliances with jihadist groups. That changes the game: it brings training, weaponry, and ideology into the mix.”

For students, the fear is immediate. “We used to recite poetry and sing him the national anthem,” said one teenage girl who escaped by hiding in a latrine and later made her way back to the village. “Now I don’t want to go back to school. Is a school no longer safe?”

Historical Wounds — From Chibok to the Present

The memory of Chibok — where Boko Haram in 2014 abducted nearly 276 schoolgirls — casts a long shadow over every subsequent school attack. Some of those girls are still missing, and the collective trauma has not healed. That abduction became a symbol for a wider failure to protect children and an emblem of how political attention can come and go.

Nigeria is Africa’s most populous country, home to over 200 million people. Education is one of its most fragile investments: UNESCO data shows significant regional disparities in school attendance and infrastructure. When schools close or become targets, entire communities are robbed of the chance to lift themselves out of poverty.

Why This Keeps Happening

Several factors converge: a thin state presence in rural areas; immense tracts of difficult terrain that provide sanctuary for armed groups; the economics of ransom — estimated in many cases at tens of thousands of dollars — and porous borders that allow weapons and people to move with relative ease. Climate stress and sectoral neglect compound the misery, pushing young men into criminality or into the arms of militant groups.

Approximately 315 people were reportedly abducted from St Mary’s school in Papiri.
Other recent incidents include 25 girls abducted in Kebbi state and a deadly church attack in western Nigeria.
Banditry and kidnapping have escalated in northwestern and central Nigeria over recent years.

Responses and the Human Cost

The government has said it will intensify security operations. Local authorities and security agencies often rely on a mix of military pressure and negotiated settlements to recover captives. But each rescue, each ransom paid, can create perverse incentives: success breeds imitation.

“There are no easy answers,” said Colonel Suleiman Ade, a retired military officer turned security consultant. “You can storm a camp and free some people, but unless you dismantle the logistics, the revenue streams, and the social drivers, the cycle will continue.”

Meanwhile, families bear the psychic and material toll. Parents sold livestock, borrowed money, and slept in the schoolyard waiting for news after earlier abductions. The loss of schooling, particularly for girls, has generational consequences.

Looking Outward: Why the World Should Care

When schools are not safe, development stalls. When teachers are targets, the profession becomes untenable. This is not only a local tragedy: the destabilization of parts of West Africa creates migration pressures, regional insecurity and humanitarian crises that spill across borders.

So this begs a question: how do we value education in a world where classrooms can be converted into prisoner pens overnight? And what responsibility do national governments and international partners have to ensure safe learning environments?

What Comes Next

The immediate priority is finding the abducted and ensuring their safety. Next comes the longer work: repairing trust, bolstering local security, and rebuilding the fragile ecosystem that keeps schools open. That means investment in local institutions, better intelligence, community policing partnerships, and aggressive prosecution of ransom networks.

As night falls in Papiri and lamps burn low across kitchen tables, people count names and light candles. They pray, they bargain with fate, and they hold to a hope that the stolen laughter will return to the schoolyard. For a world watching the headlines, the question is whether this will be a moment for sustained action or another headline soon eclipsed by the next crisis.

How long, the mothers ask, will children have to do their sums under the shadow of armed men? How long will education be a casualty of profit and violence? The answers will shape not only Nigeria’s future, but a global conversation about safety, schooling and the sanctity of childhood itself.

COP30 compromise avoids fossil-fuel commitments in final agreement

hanad

November 22, 2025

Compromise deal at COP30 sidesteps fossil fuels — Attendees listen to COP30 President André Aranha Corrêa do Lago during a plenary session of the climate change conference

Belem’s heat, a gavel and a compromise: What COP30 left on the table

Belem is a city that smells of river and açaí, where morning markets burst with voices and the humid air clings to your clothes. For two weeks, the same humidity seemed to hover in the halls of the COP30 conference—part steam, part apprehension—where negotiators from nearly 200 countries wrestled with questions that will determine whether millions of people can stay in their homes as the climate changes.

The summit ended in the small hours, with a deal that leans hard on finance for vulnerable countries but sidesteps an explicit, muscular plan to move away from fossil fuels—the very engines of planetary warming. The outcome feels, to many, like a truce rather than a breakthrough.

Scenes from the Amazon city that hosted the world

Outside the convention center, the Ver-o-Peso market hummed as usual: boats sliding up to docks, sellers shouting their prices, and a string of hammocks under the shade. “We’ve been watching these talks for years,” said Ana Pereira, açaí vendor and Belem native. “We want trees and rivers to survive so our children can fish and sell fruit. But promises come and go like the tide.”

It’s the same tide that negotiators tried to capture—a current of urgency about flooding coasts, retreating glaciers, baked agricultural lands and hotter cities. Scientific assessments say the global average temperature is now about 1.1°C above pre-industrial levels, and every fraction of a degree matters. Yet the language in the final political text was circumspect where many delegates expected bluntness.

The deal: finance first, fossil fuels put on a side table

What COP30 did secure was a stronger push on money. The headline commitment calls on wealthy nations to at least triple the funds they send to developing countries for adaptation by 2035, and launches voluntary initiatives to accelerate pledged emission cuts.

For low-lying island states, sub-Saharan farmers, and river communities in the Amazon, finance for adaptation is not abstract. It buys seawalls, drought-resistant seeds, early-warning systems, and hospital capacity. “When the rains stop, we die,” said Jiwoh Emmanuel Abdulai, Sierra Leone’s climate minister. “Adaptation finance is the difference between survival and despair.”

Yet many negotiators and civil-society groups felt money alone cannot replace clear commitments to transition away from fossil fuels. The conference presidency placed mentions of coal, oil and gas into a separate “side text”—a procedural compromise designed to avoid a full breakdown, but one that left a bitter aftertaste for those who had pushed for stronger language.

Why fossil fuels mattered at COP30

Fossil fuels—coal, oil and gas—are the main source of the greenhouse gases warming our planet. Roughly three-quarters of carbon dioxide emissions from energy and industry come from burning these fuels. Many countries, particularly vulnerable ones, argued that without an honest reckoning and a roadmap for phase-down, finance will only be a bandage on a wound that will continue to deepen.

“We cannot agree to a document that ignores the simple physics of our climate,” said a negotiator from Colombia during one late-night session. “Talking about adaptation without confronting fossil fuels is like treating fevers without diagnosing the infection.”

Lines in the sand: who pushed, who resisted

The fissures were regional and economic. A coalition of more than 80 countries and ideological allies had earlier called for a clear commitment to phase out fossil fuels; wealthy blocs like the European Union pushed for stronger wording. But some oil-producing countries, backed by a swath of allies, insisted that any explicit mention would be unacceptable.

That impasse forced a procedural workaround: the main political agreement omits direct fossil-fuel language; instead, negotiators produced separate side texts on fossil fuels and on forests. These documents now sit in the archive of COP outcomes—important, but not front and center.

For countries like Panama and Uruguay, the omission was egregious. “A climate decision that cannot even say ‘fossil fuels’ is not neutrality; it is complicity,” a Panamanian negotiator told the closing plenary.

What the money pledge really means—and why it may not be enough

Calls to triple adaptation finance by 2035 are historic in rhetoric, but the devil is in delivery. Global climate finance flows are estimated to be in the low hundreds of billions each year; adaptation consistently receives a minority share of public finance. Meanwhile, economists and development banks warn that adaptation needs run into the trillions when you account for infrastructure, health systems, and agricultural transformation across the Global South.

“The finance anchor is good news, but it’s a down payment, not the mortgage,” said Avinash Persaud, special adviser to the Inter‑American Development Bank president. “We’ve had promises before. The priority now is faster releases, predictable grants, and mechanisms that reach the people at risk tomorrow.”

Loss and damage—compensation for irreversible harms like land loss to sea-level rise—remains another sore spot. Countries where coastlines recede or entire communities vanish have been calling for funds and fast payouts since the Glasgow and Sharm el-Sheikh agreements. COP30’s text nudged the conversation forward on finance but fell short of delivering a fully operational, well-funded mechanism.

Local voices and global questions

Back at the market, a fisherman who gave his name as José watched with quiet skepticism. “They make big promises in glass buildings,” he said. “My nets come up empty. The river changes. I don’t care about each committee—do the work that helps us.” His impatience is a sentiment echoed from coastal Bangladesh to the Sahel and the Pacific Islands.

So what does COP30 really leave us with? It leaves a partial victory: recognition that adaptation must be funded at scale. It leaves a fracture: deep disagreements over how to address the source of the problem. And it leaves an open question: will the separate texts and new initiatives become springboards for action, or will they gather dust as political realities reassert themselves?

Why this matters to readers everywhere

Whether you live inland in Europe, on a flood-prone Mississippi bend, or under the shadow of a glacier, the decisions at COP30 ripple outward. Trade rules that the agreement asks to examine—how tech and tariffs influence the clean-energy transition—will shape supply chains and consumer prices. Money pledged for adaptation could be the difference between displacement and resilience for millions.

But beyond technicalities lies the moral frame: who pays for a crisis they did less to cause? The conference exposed the deep inequities embedded in climate politics. It also underscored a simple truth: money plus half-measures on fossil fuels may slow some impacts, but it won’t spare us from the harder, costlier choices ahead.

What to watch next—and how you can stay engaged

If you want to follow how COP30’s promises turn into policies, watch three things closely over the next 12–24 months:

Whether wealthy nations provide predictable, multi-year adaptation grants and expand access to rapid-disbursement funds for loss and damage.
How the so-called side texts are moved into concrete national plans, and whether major emitters set clearer pathways for reducing fossil-fuel reliance.
Efforts to align trade policies with climate goals so clean technologies can spread without punitive barriers.

Ask yourself: are we treating this as a moment that demands structural change, or as another cycle of commitments and delay? The answer will shape not just policymaking rooms in capitals and conference halls, but daily life in places like Belem, where the Amazon breathes and communities feel the first blows of a warming world.

The COP30 gavel may have dropped, but the work of translation—turning words into budgets, laws and lives saved—has only begun. If you care about the future, now is the time to press for speed, fairness and clarity. The river will keep rising; our response must not continue to lap at the shore.

What’s Included in Donald Trump’s 28-Point Plan for Ukraine?

hanad

November 22, 2025

Explained: What is Trump's 28-point Ukraine plan? — The size of the Ukrainian Armed Forces will be limited to 600,000 personnel under the draft plan

Paper Peace, Real Lives: Inside the Controversial 28-Point Plan That Could Redraw Ukraine

On a late spring morning that felt ordinary in Kyiv — vendors selling hot varenyky on a street corner, children in bright backpacks weaving between trams — the world quietly received a document that could upend everything people here have fought to protect.

The 28-point framework, circulated in draft form and reportedly backed by former US President Donald Trump, reads like a legal roadmap and a geopolitical Rorschach test at once. It promises reconstruction funds, diplomatic thawing with Moscow and a ceasefire enforced by an American-led “Peace Council.” It also requires Ukraine to codify limits on its own sovereignty — constitutional language forbidding NATO membership, lines on maps that leave Crimea, Donetsk and Luhansk effectively under Russian control, and freezes on contested territories such as Kherson and Zaporizhzhia.

The contours of the offer

At its core the plan is transactional: security guarantees for Kyiv in exchange for territorial accommodation. It proposes a comprehensive non-aggression pact between Russia, Ukraine and European states, mediated talks between NATO and Moscow, and an American-Russian working group to police compliance.

There are also promises of money. The draft suggests deploying $100 billion of frozen Russian assets into a US-led reconstruction effort in Ukraine, with the United States taking half the profits; European partners are asked to add another $100 billion. It proposes reintegrating Russia into global institutions — rejoining the G8 and lifting sanctions contingent on compliance.

And there are details that strike at the daily lives of Ukrainians: obligations to keep the Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant under IAEA supervision with power shared between the two countries, a commitment to discharge prisoners and reunite families, and a 100-day clock to elections in Kyiv.

What this would mean on the ground

“It sounds like a tidy contract on a laptop,” said Olena, 42, a schoolteacher in a suburb of Dnipro whose brother returned home last year after being wounded. “But you can’t trade a city for a promise.” Her voice tightened. “People live in these places. They loved them. They planted trees there. You can’t simply write them off.”

For millions of Ukrainians, the war has been a catalogue of dislocations. UN agencies estimate that well over 8 million people fled the country since 2022 while several million more remain internally displaced. Cities have been shredded in places; WHO and humanitarian groups report thousands of civilian deaths, with infrastructure and industry damaged on a scale that development institutions have warned will cost hundreds of billions to restore.

Imagine, then, a line on a map where whole neighborhoods, schools and hospitals fall on one side or another. For families in towns like Beryslav or parts of Kherson, the proposal to “freeze” front lines is a reminder that frozen conflicts seldom stay frozen for long.

Money, reconstruction and the heavy ledger

“Rebuilding Ukraine will require sustained international finance and technical support,” said Dr. Amal Hassan, a reconstruction economist who has worked with the World Bank on post-conflict planning. “Estimates vary, but comprehensive recovery will run into the low hundreds of billions, and not all of that can be shouldered by one nation.”

The draft’s notion of using $100 billion in frozen Russian assets feels at once tempting and legally thorny. Western countries froze hundreds of billions in Russian reserves and private assets in the early phase of the war; converting those holdings to finance reconstruction would involve delicate legal pathways, claims by victims, and questions about precedent. The plan’s stipulation that the US would receive 50% of profits from such investment will raise eyebrows in capitals already wary of perceived inequity.

Red lines, nuclear risk, and NATO’s shadow

Arguably the most combustible elements are the security provisions: Ukraine would be required to constitutionally renounce NATO membership and limit its armed forces — a cap cited in the draft at 600,000 personnel. NATO would agree not to station troops on Ukrainian soil, and European fighter jets would be redistributed to neighboring Poland.

“Security guarantees on paper are only as credible as the institutions that enforce them,” said Marin Petrovic, a former NATO staffer now at a Brussels think-tank. “If enforcement comes from a council chaired by a party with inconsistent relations with Russia, you have to ask whether guarantees would withstand pressure.”

The plan also touches a nerve with the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, the largest in Europe, proposing IAEA-supervised operation and a division of its electricity. The plant has been at the center of international safety concerns since 2022; any arrangement that ties energy to political concessions will be scrutinized by nuclear experts and international monitors.

Voices from Kyiv, Kherson and beyond

“I want peace,” said Ivan, a market vendor outside Kyiv who remembers blackouts and air raids. “But peace that comes from letting someone take my town? That’s not peace.”

From Moscow, the narrative is different. An unnamed Kremlin adviser told a Russian outlet that diplomatic reintegration would be a “necessary step to stabilise European security,” reflecting a view that sanctions are a lever for negotiations rather than permanent punishment.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has signalled willingness to discuss proposals, saying he would consider any plan that guarantees his people’s safety and sovereignty — though he has also repeatedly said that no decisions that “compromise the nation” will be taken without broad public consent. “We do not bargain with the land our ancestors bled for,” a senior Ukrainian official told me on condition of anonymity.

Why the world should care

This is not just a regional contest over borders and oil. It is a test of how the international system balances principles — territorial integrity, the norm against conquest — against the pragmatic need to halt violence. The draft taps into broader currents: great-power realignment, debates over the utility of sanctions, and rising concerns about nuclear safety in conflict zones.

Ask yourself: would you accept stability if it required accepting the loss of another people’s homeland? What price do we place on a ceasefire? On justice? These are not abstract queries. They are the decisions that will shape reconstruction budgets, refugee returns, and whether Europe’s security architecture will hold or be refashioned.

Questions left in the draft’s wake

Who decides the lines on the map? Who is held accountable for violations? How do you balance resettlement rights, property claims, and the legal and moral imperative to seek accountability for war crimes amid an amnesty clause? The draft answers some of these with firm language — and leaves others open to interpretation.

The document on the table is a beginning, perhaps; a tantalizing chance to stop the guns, perhaps; a surrender disguised as diplomacy, perhaps. It depends, as with all treaties, on who signs it, how it is enforced, and the lived realities of the people whose lives it would reconfigure.

In the end, the people in the markets, the hospitals, the shattered suburbs will bear the consequences. As debates ricochet through capitals and committee rooms, remember: peace negotiated without the voices of the vulnerable is unlikely to last. Whose voices will be heard when the ink dries?

Wild bear attacks schoolchildren in Canada, leaving 11 students injured

hanad

November 22, 2025

Bear attack on school children in Canada injures 11 — The grizzly bear remained at large yesterday evening according to the Nuxalk Nation in British Columbia (file image)

When the forest stepped into the classroom: a grizzly attack that rattled a remote valley

There are places where the forest feels like an extension of the town: trails that thread behind schoolyards, salmon runs that mark seasons, elders who still read the weather off the tide. Bella Coola, a narrow inlet tucked into the coastal spine of British Columbia, is one of those places. It is beautiful enough to hush you into paying attention — and wild enough to remind you, sometimes brutally, of an old truth: on this land, humans are guests.

Yesterday afternoon, that old truth arrived in a way no one who lives in that valley will soon forget.

A day trip turned emergency

Eleven people were injured when a grizzly bear charged a school group on a well-known route locals call the “Old Trail”, regional Royal Canadian Mounted Police officials reported. The injured ranged from children as young as nine to adults; two were described as critically injured and two more as seriously hurt. The remaining seven did not require hospital admission, according to the British Columbia Emergency Health Service.

“Several people were injured by the bear. Injuries are described as serious,” an RCMP spokesperson said. Beyond the numbers, the scene that followed looked, by all accounts, like something from a nightmare stitched into an ordinary afternoon: backpacks strewn across moss, small handprints stained with blood, a community in shock.

“He ran so close to my son,” said a local mother, who asked that her full name not be used. “He said the bear was going after somebody else. I can’t stop replaying the sound of him telling me that.”

How a valley that teaches respect met a sudden threat

Bella Coola is the traditional territory of the Nuxalk Nation, a community whose relationship with the land stretches back generations. The Nuxalk administrative office confirmed the incident affected local residents and that Acwsalcta school—where many children of the community attend—remained closed the following day.

“This is our home. We go out on these trails with our children because we want them to know the river, the forest, the berry patches,” said an elder from the Nuxalk Nation. “But yesterday the forest answered back in a way we did not expect.”

Local lives here are threaded with practical rituals: tying food in bear-resistant containers before long hikes, teaching kids to make noise on trails, timing berry-picking to avoid dawn and dusk. Those rituals are not born of paranoia but of respect, of a hard-earned humility about the animals that share this land.

What we know — and what we don’t

At the time of reporting, the bear had not been confirmed as apprehended and the BC Conservation Officer Service had taken over the investigation. Authorities urged residents to stay indoors while search efforts and assessments continued. The Nuxalk Nation posted warnings on community channels about an “aggressive bear in the area.”

Questions multiply in the space between the facts: Was the bear defending a food source or cubs? Was the group making typical school outing noise or was there an unusual provocation? Officials have said they do not yet have enough information to say what prompted the attack.

Wildlife biologists emphasize that motivations are rarely simple. “Grizzly behavior can change with seasons, food shortages, and increasing human presence on their foraging grounds,” explained a regional wildlife scientist who asked not to be named. “A bear that’s otherwise shy can become bold when it’s hungry or stressed.”

Numbers that put the incident in context

Grizzly attacks in Canada are statistically rare but devastating when they occur. British Columbia holds one of the largest concentrations of grizzlies in the country, especially along the coast where salmon and lush vegetation provide rich food webs. While annual attack numbers vary, experts note that serious encounters have trended upward in areas where human access to wild spaces has increased.

That increase is not just a local anecdote. Across North America, expanding human recreation in remote areas, habitat loss, and shifting food patterns associated with climate change are altering the rhythms of wildlife. Those shifts mean more unpredictable crossings of human and animal paths.

The human ripple effects

After the attack, the valley’s usual soundtrack changed. The ferry boat’s horn across the inlet sounded higher and lonelier. Schoolchildren who the day before had been practicing for a winter play now walked home with adults, checking behind them as if the trees might answer. Local restaurants saw fewer patrons; trails that were popular with hikers and Indigenous families alike sat quiet.

“We teach our kids the names of the berries, the stars, the rivers,” said a teacher who volunteered at the school. “But we didn’t have a lesson for this. How do you teach a child why the world is both beautiful and terrifying?”

The delicate thread connecting safety, education, and cultural practice is now frayed. The immediate concern is medical and logistical: the injured need care, families need information, and the community needs to know whether the threat remains. The longer conversation — about coexistence, resource management, and who decides land use — is already under way.

What safety looks like from here

If there is an argument to be made for practical steps, it is one grounded in respect and local knowledge. Experts suggest a few measures that communities and visitors can embrace to reduce the likelihood of encounters turning violent:

Make noise on trails and travel in groups when possible; bears usually avoid humans if warned early.
Store food and scented items in bear-resistant containers or hang them away from campsites.
Be trained in first aid and have a clear emergency plan for remote outings.
Work with Indigenous knowledge holders and local conservation officers to identify high-risk areas and times.

“Prevention is a partnership,” said a conservation officer in a phone interview. “We can’t do it alone. Communities know their land best. Officials can offer resources, but listening to local practice is vital.”

Wider questions: who pays for living in a landscape that wants to be wild?

Reading the headlines, you might ask: why are children on a trail so close to large predators? The answer is layered. For many communities in British Columbia—especially Indigenous ones—outdoor education is cultural education. It is how children learn food sovereignty, language of place, and the rhythms of salmon runs and berry seasons. To retreat wholly indoors is to lose an irreplaceable form of learning.

Yet the choices we make about access, infrastructure, and land management shape risk. Are trails designed with wildlife corridors in mind? Are resources available to teach safe practices? Who funds bear-proof bins and local conservation officers? The attack in Bella Coola forces those logistical and ethical questions into the open.

What to hold in mind

Bear attacks are profoundly traumatic for communities. They leave scars that last beyond the physical injuries: a parent who refuses to let a child walk alone, an elder who avoids a favorite berry patch, a teacher whose classroom feels colder. But they also reveal something else—resilience. Within hours of the incident, neighbors were checking on one another, volunteers were organizing supplies, and local leaders were coordinating with authorities.

“We will learn from this,” said an elder quietly, as the sun slid behind the mountains. “We will change how we teach our children, yes. But we will also keep teaching them the land. We cannot live without it.”

As the investigation continues and the valley waits for the bear to be located or to move on, Bella Coola’s story presses a question to all of us: how can we honor wildness without inviting harm? How do we teach our children to love the land and still keep them safe? These are not easy questions. They are, however, questions worth sitting with—out loud, in community, and with the humility the forest demands.

Peace proposal: Surrender to Moscow or start of a negotiation process?

hanad

November 22, 2025

Peace plan: Capitulation to Moscow or start of a process? — A draft 28-point plan backed by US President Donald Trump would require Ukraine to offer territorial and security concessions to Russia

A Deal or a Betrayal? Inside the Secret 28-Point Blueprint That Has Europe Holding Its Breath

Imagine wandering through Kyiv at dusk: the glow of streetlamps, the smell of frying onions from a corner kiosk, shell-pocked facades stitched with fresh plaster. Now imagine the tremor of a single headline rolling through those streets — a privately drafted peace plan that would recognize the very territories Ukrainians have bled to defend. For many here, it didn’t read like diplomacy. It read like surrender.

That was the scene this week, as a document quietly circulated in diplomatic backchannels — a 28-point blueprint, reportedly crafted with U.S. involvement and closely discussed with Moscow — that proposes to freeze, formalize and in some cases legalize Russia’s wartime gains. The revelation landed like a cold slap in Brussels and Kyiv, and sent shivers through towns along the front line where people have learned the vocabulary of loss and endurance.

What the Draft Would Change — In Plain Language

At its core, the reported framework would do several seismic things: formally accept Crimea — annexed by Russia in 2014 — as part of Russia’s sphere; recognize the Russian-held regions of Donetsk and Luhansk; freeze lines in Kherson and Zaporizhzhia; cap Ukrainian armed forces at roughly 600,000 personnel; bar Ukraine from ever joining NATO; and prohibit Kiev from pursuing war reparations or international prosecutions against Russia.

In return, the document sketched out a decade-long U.S. security guarantee of unspecified shape — largely intelligence, logistics and “appropriate” measures following consultation with allies rather than an automatic military response — and very public incentives for Moscow: a route back into international institutions, staged lifting of sanctions, and cooperation on commercially lucrative projects from Arctic rare-earth mining to joint data centres.

Pieces that Make People Uneasy

There were other, quieter proposals that carry cultural weight: Russian elevated to official status inside Ukraine, and greater formal recognition of the local branch of the Russian Orthodox Church. For a nation whose very identity has been contested along language and faith lines for decades, these are not administrative footnotes; they are identity politics writ large.

Voices on the Ground: Fear, Fury, and Practical Worries

“It feels like we’re being asked to barter our children’s future,” said Olena, 37, who runs a small bakery near the Dnipro river. “My husband fought last year. We live on the edge of the fortress belt — those trenches and towns you read about. Are we supposed to just hand them over and hope for the best?”

In Kharkiv, a teacher named Anatoly who lost family belongings in a 2022 strike, frowned over tea and said, “Peace that begins with giving my home away isn’t peace. It’s an amputation.”

Brussels sounded the alarm. “Any settlement must be acceptable to Ukraine and to Europe,” said one EU foreign policy official speaking on condition of anonymity. “Rewarding aggression — that’s the peril here. It’s not merely geopolitics; it’s precedent.”

Security Analysts and What the Plan Would Mean in Hard Numbers

Security experts caution that the military changes would be profound. Ukraine’s armed forces — estimated at around one million soldiers, including mobilized reserves in recent years — would be reduced dramatically under the proposal. Neutralizing long-range strike capabilities and limiting troop strength would not only alter deterrence but also reshape the balance of power across eastern Europe.

Natia Seskuria, a military analyst, explained it simply: “If Ukraine surrenders the so-called ‘Fortress Belt’ — fortified towns and defensive lines painstakingly constructed over the last decade — it loses not just territory, but the ability to project defense effectively into the open terrain west of the line. That’s not just a military setback; it’s a long-term strategic vulnerability.”

And the human price is already vast: the war since February 2022 has displaced millions and caused tens of thousands of deaths — civilians and soldiers alike. Asking those communities to accept a deal that cements occupation would be akin to asking survivors to forgive a crime before justice has been served.

Money on the Table: Who Wins, Who Loses?

One of the plan’s more controversial elements involved frozen Russian sovereign assets. Reportedly, some $100 billion in immobilized funds would be directed toward Ukraine’s reconstruction — but with half of the returns allegedly channelled into U.S.-led investment projects that would also carry Russian participation.

“It’s extraordinary,” said a financial adviser who follows sanctions regimes. “You’re talking about turning assets seized in response to aggression into a revenue stream that partly benefits the aggressor. That strikes people across Europe as morally and politically fraught.”

For Eastern Europeans who remember the raw geopolitics of the 1990s, the optics are terrible: rebuilding financed in part by frozen assets, but administered in a way that gives Russia a financial stake in future cooperation. Critics call it a perverse incentive — a reward for bad-faith behavior.

Transatlantic Tension: A New Test for Old Alliances

Perhaps the most destabilizing element is the signal the plan sends about U.S. policy. Across European capitals, there is a growing sense that Washington’s commitment — once the axis around which European security revolved — might be shifting from hard military backing to managed, transactional guarantees.

“This isn’t just a negotiation over land,” said a former NATO official. “It’s a test of whether the transatlantic relationship can still be relied upon to uphold the rules that have kept Europe relatively stable for decades.”

That anxiety is compounded by the proposed ten-year guarantee, which on paper sounds comforting but is ambiguous in practice. If the U.S. promises intelligence support rather than forceful military intervention, what stops Russia from probing limits again in year seven?

What Comes Next? Options and Uncertainties

Ukrainian leaders have pushed back, publicly and privately, while European capitals scramble to craft counter-offers that keep Ukraine whole and safe without rewarding aggression. Alternative frameworks are reportedly under discussion that would anchor any ceasefire to current contact lines rather than pre-emptive land cessions.

But the clock is political: rumors of an expedited timeline, public calls to sign by a symbolic holiday, and reports of threatened cuts to arms deliveries and intelligence support have only increased the pressure on Kyiv.

“We can trade rhetoric,” reflected Gabrielius Landsbergis, Lithuania’s former foreign minister, in a social-media post that resonated across the Baltic capitals: “Or we can finally step up and pay the price to defend the values and security that belong to Europe.”

Questions for the Reader

Where do you stand when peace comes at the cost of justice? Would you prefer a ceasefire that freezes lives in a frozen injustice, or continued struggle with the hope of future restoration? These are not hypothetical abstractions for people in Ukraine — they are choices with lifetimes attached.

As diplomats trade drafts in dimly lit rooms and towns along the front line brace for winter, the world watches. The stakes are not only territorial. They are moral, strategic, and generational. And the answer will shape the map — and the norms — for years to come.

Trump hails productive exchange after meeting with Mamdani

hanad

November 22, 2025

Trump says he had a 'productive meeting' with Mamdani — US President Donald Trump met with New York City mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani in the Oval Office of the White House

When the Oval Office Meets City Hall: An Unlikely Handshake Over the Future of New York

There are moments in politics that feel like a photograph: two faces, two histories, stacked against the backdrop of a place that matters to millions. One such image unfolded recently in the Oval Office — a meeting between US President Donald Trump and New York City’s mayor-elect, Zohran Mamdani. On paper, it was an odd pairing: a 79-year-old former New Yorker who has made the city both a springboard and a punching bag, and a 34-year-old democratic socialist, Uganda-born, the son of immigrants, and a newcomer to national politics. In practice, it was a collision of narratives about who New York is and who it should become.

“We’ve just had a great… very productive meeting,” the president said afterward, in his unmistakable cadence. “We have one thing in common. We want this city of ours that we love to do very well.” Whether that sentence signals camaraderie or calculation depends on where you stand on the city’s political map.

A Mayor-Elect Who Sings a Different Tune

Zohran Mamdani’s rise was swift and, to many, surprising. He will be sworn in on 1 January as the first Muslim and first South Asian mayor of a city that is home to Wall Street and to a million stories. At 34, he ran a campaign that leaned into social media savvy, grassroots organization, and an unvarnished focus on affordability: housing, groceries, childcare, transit fares. New Yorkers, after decades of watching their paychecks stretch thinner against rising costs, voted for a candidate who spoke plainly about the calculation that keeps people up at night.

“We’re worried about putting dinner on the table,” said Sofia Alvarez, who has run a small bodega in Jackson Heights for 18 years. “My niece lives with three roommates and still can’t afford rent. I’m hopeful someone who grew up with this city will actually fix it, not just talk about it.”

If New Yorkers are stretched — the city’s population hovers around 8.5 million residents — they are also staggeringly diverse. Roughly four in ten residents were born abroad, and those immigrant neighborhoods are the arteries of the city’s economy and culture. They’re also the frontline in debates about sanctuary policies and federal enforcement, a point of friction between the mayor-elect’s platform and the president’s hardline rhetoric.

Old Grudges, New Prelude

The lead-up to this meeting was a string of barbs. Mr. Trump has called Mr. Mamdani names — “radical left lunatic,” “communist,” and worse — and has threatened to withhold federal funds from the nation’s largest city. Mr. Mamdani countered in election rallies, urging activists to “turn the volume up,” and promising he would speak out when federal policies harm New Yorkers.

And yet, on the day they met in Washington, the tenor shifted. “The better he does, the happier I am,” Mr. Trump said, adding that he expected to “get along fine” with the mayor-elect. Mamdani, for his part, posed for a grinning selfie on a plane bound for the capital and told reporters he would work with any agenda that benefits his constituents — but would not hesitate to oppose what he sees as harmful policy.

How Much Power Does the President Have?

The exchange raises a thorny question: how far can the federal executive go in withdrawing funds from a city? New York City is slated to receive roughly $7.4 billion from the federal government in fiscal year 2026, about 6.4% of the city’s total spending, according to a report from the New York State Comptroller. Much of that money is mandated by Congress for specific programs. Legal scholars warn that using the purse strings as political leverage against a city’s elected leaders is fraught and would invite litigation.

“There are legal guardrails,” said Dr. Maya Kapoor, an urban policy expert at Columbia University. “The president can direct executive departments, but outright rescinding funds appropriated by Congress would trigger constitutional review. Politically, it also has a cost — cities like New York power the national economy. If services are disrupted, the economic fallout would be widely felt.”

On the Ground: Daily Life, Rising Costs, and the Politics of Practicality

To understand what’s at stake, you have to walk the city. Take the No. 7 train in Queens on an early Tuesday morning: a sea of grocery bags, strollers, and weary students. Or the Upper West Side where a rent-stabilized apartment can still cost close to twice the national average. New Yorkers speak not in abstractions but in dollars and minutes.

“I pay almost double what my cousin pays in Ohio for the same two-bedroom,” said Tyler Ramos, a public-school teacher in the Bronx. “Inflation is not just a number — it’s real. People are making impossible choices.”

And numbers back that up. A recent Reuters/Ipsos poll found just 26% of Americans thought President Trump was doing a good job managing the cost of living — a figure that stacks onto the political pressure the city and national leaders face. Inflation, housing shortages, and a frayed transit system that affects millions daily make the mayoral office less a ceremonial perch and more a frontline command post.

Bridging Polarization: Is Compromise Possible?

There’s an almost cinematic contrast here: a president who built his brand on combative celebrity and a mayor-elect whose appeal came from grassroots zeal. Yet both claim the same objective — a stronger New York. That single sentence — “we want this city to do very well” — suggests a rare overlap in political purpose, even if the means are fiercely disputed.

So how do you govern a city that is the country’s ledger and its conscience? It requires navigation across jurisdictional lines, from the neighborhood block association to federal agencies. It demands a kind of messy diplomacy rarely taught in political science classes: the art of bargaining for buses and bonding for bridges while holding an electorate together.

“If you’re a mayor, you become a professional compromiser,” said Lena Park, a community organizer in Sunset Park. “You have to listen to Dona Rosa across the street and to the transit union down the block. You can’t be ideological forever. People need heat in winter and job training in spring.”

What This Meeting Means Globally

New York is not just America’s most populous city — it is a global node. Decisions made here ripple outwards: for markets, for immigration policy, for international investors watching how a major metropolis handles affordability and public safety. A civil meeting between two political adversaries may seem small, but it can set the tone for cooperation in crises — natural disasters, economic shocks, or public health threats — that transcend municipal borders.

Ask yourself: do we prefer our leaders to posture or to produce? When the immediate headlines fade, citizens will measure success by whether the subways run reliably, whether a child’s family can find an affordable apartment, whether neighborhoods feel safe without becoming militarized. Those are the things that define the health of a city, and by extension, the country’s resilience.

What Comes Next?

The next months will be a test. Will rhetoric give way to working-level arrangements? Will threats to federal funding materialize into legal skirmishes, or will both sides find pragmatic accommodations? For residents of New York, the answers are urgent; for observers worldwide, they’re a lesson in how democratic governments manage friction without fragmenting.

“I don’t want to see us locked in a permanent fight,” Mamdani told reporters. “I will collaborate where it helps New Yorkers, and I will stand up where it doesn’t.”

That’s as close to a road map as anyone has right now: a promise of partnership, a pledge of pushback, and the slow, inevitable work of running a city where millions share the same streets but lead dramatically different lives. Will that be enough? Only time — and turnout, policy, and hard negotiations over the little things that matter most to ordinary people — will tell.

What do you think a city like New York needs from its leaders? Tell me — and let’s keep watching how this unlikely handshake shapes the city and perhaps, in time, the nation.

Trump presses Ukraine to accept plan before looming deadline

hanad

November 22, 2025

Trump pushes Ukraine to accept plan ahead of deadline — The aftermath of a Russian drone strike on Odesa, Ukraine

An Oval Office Deadline: A Peace Proposal That Demands Territory

There was a hush in the Oval Office the day the deadline was set—part theater, part ultimatum. President Donald Trump, glancing up from a pile of briefing papers, told reporters that he had crafted a plan to end the war in Ukraine and that time was running out. He put a date on it: November 27, the American Thanksgiving holiday. “At some point, he’s going to have to accept something,” the president said, in language that left no room for subtlety.

It was not a gentle invitation. The 28-point document that has circulated in diplomatic circles asks Ukraine to surrender large tracts of eastern territory, to shrink its military, to renounce any future bid to join NATO, and—critically—to forgo Western peacekeepers on its soil. In return, European fighter jets would be based in Poland and a fragile architecture of guarantees would be proposed. To many in Kyiv and across Europe, that architecture looks tilted toward Moscow.

Kyiv’s Response: “We Will Not Betray Our Land”

President Volodymyr Zelensky publicly pushed back. “We cannot and will not betray our people, our soldiers, or the soil that we have defended,” he told a press briefing, according to officials familiar with his remarks. Behind that sentence is more than rhetoric: it is a lived history of towns and fields scarred by conflict since Russia’s full-scale invasion on 24 February 2022.

“They are asking us to surrender the memory of those who fell defending their homes,” said Olena Mykhailenko, a teacher in a Kyiv suburb whose neighbourhood was shelled in the early days of the war. “This is not a map issue. It is our children’s future.”

A Map on the Table — and a Choice

Imagine a map spread across the cabinet table: blue and yellow shrinking; a large red swathe creeping into the east. Negotiators have always known that maps carry moral weight. One senior diplomat watching the exchanges grumbled that peace as proposed would be “a subtraction, not an agreement.” For Ukrainians on the frontlines, the idea that ceding territory could bring peace feels like a pyrrhic bargain.

President Trump argues that if Ukraine refuses, the fighting will continue and the ground they would have lost under the plan would be lost anyway. “They are very brave,” he said, nodding to Ukrainian forces. “But if they don’t accept, then you know, they should just keep fighting.” There is a grim logic in his words—one that treats war as a ledger you can balance with land—but it is a cold calculus for couples who will never return home.

What the Plan Demands

Large-scale territorial concessions in the east of Ukraine
A significant reduction in the size of Ukraine’s armed forces
No NATO membership for Ukraine now or in the foreseeable future
No Western peacekeeping force deployed on Ukrainian soil; European air forces based in Poland instead

These points, drawn from a draft document circulating among diplomats, have set off alarm bells in capitals across Europe and a chorus of resistance from Kyiv.

Voices from the Ground: Anger, Fear and Iron Will

Take a walk through the streets of Kyiv on a market day and you can feel the unnerving mixture of resilience and loss. Vendors hawk sun-ripened tomatoes beside piles of donated winter coats; a group of young men play chess outside a bomb-scarred building. “We are exhausted from fighting, but we are not exhausted from loving our country,” says Dmytro, a 32-year-old volunteer who supplies front-line units with rations. “Peace is not something you pay for in bits of land.”

In the Donetsk region, where the memory of lost villages is still fresh, older residents speak in quieter tones. “We have seen war promised and war broken into our lives for years,” says Mariana, 67, whose family farm sits near territory claimed by separatist forces and now by Russia. “I want my grandson to pick cherries from our trees, not shells.”

International Repercussions: Johannesburg and the G20 Rift

While negotiators and leaders sparred over a map, another stage opened half a world away. The G20 summit in Johannesburg drew presidents and prime ministers from across the globe—Emmanuel Macron, Narendra Modi, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, Xi Jinping—yet conspicuously absent was the U.S. president. The administration explained the boycott by saying Johannesburg’s emphasis on multilateral trade and climate cooperation clashed with U.S. priorities; others read the absence as a diplomatic rebuke.

European leaders—watchful and uneasy—planned a side meeting with a clear message: “There should be nothing about Ukraine without Ukraine,” Europe’s bench of officials insisted. The insistence reflects a deeper seam of transatlantic friction: how to secure peace without selling sovereignty, and whether deadlines set by one capital should bind a nation under fire.

Beyond the Headlines: What Is Really at Stake?

This conflict—and the peace proposals now on the table—raises larger questions about how the world settles wars in the 21st century. Do we prioritize an immediate cessation of hostilities that may involve unacceptable compromises? Or do we insist on the restoration of borders and risk prolonged fighting, more death, and further destabilization across Europe?

Analysts note that peace plans that demand territorial concessions rarely settle the deeper grievances that ignite conflict. “Forced settlements without local buy-in are recipes for future tension,” says Anna Petrova, a conflict-resolution scholar. “Sustainable peace demands political reconciliation, security guarantees, and economic rebuilding that involve the affected communities themselves.”

Choices, Costs and Compromises

For Ukrainians, the choice is visceral and immediate. For global leaders, the choice is strategic and long-term. And for the rest of the world, there is a moral question: how do you balance the desire to end bloodshed with the duty to stand with a nation’s right to self-determination?

As you read these words, imagine those deadlines, maps, and summit rooms a little less abstractly. Imagine an elderly woman in the Donetsk countryside picking through the ruins of her orchard. Imagine a young father in Kyiv, checking the horizon for drones, dreaming of a future where his children can grow up without fear.

Where Do We Go From Here?

Diplomacy will grind on. Meetings will be scheduled and postponed. Back channels will hum with proposals, conditionalities, and red lines. And yet, the human imperatives remain straightforward: protect civilians, secure a durable settlement, and ensure any peace does not institutionalize injustice.

What would you accept to end a war? A deadline? A map? A guarantee? It is a question that coercive diplomacy cannot answer alone. It requires the messy, painful work of listening—to soldiers, survivors, and the small voices from towns that barely make the evening news.

In the coming days, as world leaders measure phrases and plot strategies in conference rooms, the real story will be written in markets, on front lines, around kitchen tables. That is where the bargain—if there is one—will live or die.

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