Nov 21(Jowhar)-Waxaa maanta si rasmi ah u bilaabatay dhageysiga kiiska go’aanka ay Maxkamadda Arusha ka qaadaneyso eedeymaha ku saabsan gal dacwadeedka ka dhashay habraacii lagu soo xulay 9-kii xubnood ee Soomaaliya ku mateli lahaa Baarlamaanka Urur Goboleedka Bariga Afrika (EAC).
Ukrainian leader Zelensky prepared for ‘genuine’ work on US-backed peace plan
In Kyiv, a delicate hush after a storm
The first snow of the season dusted the cracked pavement outside the presidential administration when President Volodymyr Zelensky emerged from a meeting that, for a few hours, felt like the hinge of history.
He had just met Daniel Driscoll, the US Army Secretary, and a small delegation whose arrival in Kyiv was greeted by a mixture of exhaustion and cautious curiosity. Inside, officials spoke in clipped tones. Outside, a baker wiped his hands on a flour-dusted apron, looking up from his oven, and remarked, “We are tired, but we are not finished.”
The atmosphere was not the fevered triumph of victory nor the measured calm of surrender. It was the uneasy quiet between gunfire: a city trying to catch its breath, wondering whether the draft laid on the table is a path to peace or a new kind of compromise that could reshape the map—and the meaning—of national sovereignty.
What’s in the draft: a 28-point fork in the road
What leaked in recent days is being described as a US-backed, 28-point proposal to end the war. At its core, the plan asks Ukraine to make hard concessions that many see as tantamount to ceding ground: recognition, in practice, of Crimea, Luhansk and Donetsk as effectively under Russian control, and the withdrawal of Ukrainian forces from parts of the Donetsk region.
Other elements are equally consequential. The blueprint reportedly limits Ukraine’s armed forces to 600,000 troops, promises “robust security guarantees” without spelling out concrete mechanisms, and envisions a non‑aggression agreement between Russia, Ukraine and Europe. NATO would not expand further and would not station troops in Ukrainian territory. Meanwhile, Russia would be progressively reintegrated into the global economy, with sanctions lifted in phases.
Some of the plan’s more eyebrow‑raising clauses involve a return to institutions and markets: Russia invited back into a reconstituted G8, and proposed US‑Russia cooperation on energy, rare earths, Arctic extraction, artificial intelligence and data centers—areas that reach into both geopolitics and the wallets of private industry.
- Limit Ukrainian forces to 600,000
- Recognize Crimean, Luhansk, Donetsk territories as de facto Russian
- Non‑aggression pact among Russia, Ukraine and Europe
- NATO to halt expansion and no troop deployments to Ukraine
- Phased lifting of sanctions, reintegration of Russia into global institutions
Voices: the human weather of a geopolitical storm
People in Kyiv and front-line towns respond with a bewildering mix of pragmatism, grief and defiance.
“If my son comes home and we have to live under a map drawn by someone else, how do we explain that to him?” asked Olena, a primary school teacher whose husband serves near the east. Her voice was flat, as if practicing for a future in which shock will sound ordinary.
A soldier in winter camouflage, speaking from a staging area where wood-smoke hung in the air, said bluntly, “We were told to hold. Now someone says we should give up our ground. Who negotiates the courage of people?”
A European diplomat, off the record, framed it in technocratic terms: “You can design guarantees on paper, but the devil is always in the verification—and in the willingness to enforce them.”
A Ukrainian shopkeeper summed up the practical dread: “There are families here who lost everything after the first wave. A just peace must be more than lines on maps. It needs electricity, schools, security. Otherwise it’s just a paper peace.”
Allies push back; backchannels hum
Not everyone welcomed the idea of territorial concessions as the currency of peace. European foreign ministers gathered in Brussels signaled they would not accept what they called “punishing concessions.” France’s foreign minister was terse: “Ukrainians deserve a just peace that respects sovereignty. Peace must not be capitulation.”
Inside Washington, the White House press office described the proposal as an attempt to reflect the grim arithmetic of a long conflict and to find a “win‑win scenario.” A senior administration official framed it like this: “This plan was crafted to reflect the realities on the ground and to create incentives for both sides to step back from open warfare.”
Still, questions swirl about process and provenance. Multiple sources suggest parts of the document grew from backchannel conversations involving US envoys and intermediaries close to the Kremlin. Such channels are familiar to diplomats and spies: effective, murky and often politically combustible.
On the ground, the conflict grinds on
Winter is approaching in the fourth year of war. Russian forces now occupy roughly one‑fifth of Ukrainian territory, and they continue bombardments that target energy and civilian infrastructure, undermining civilians’ ability to survive cold months. Cities like Kupiansk and Pokrovsk have become names that conjure images of smoldering buildings and emptied streets—the visual ledger of a war that has already taken too much.
Russian officials played down the new US initiative publicly, with Kremlin spokespeople saying consultations were not in a formal process and pointing back to the positions Moscow has insisted on for years. In turn, Kyiv’s leadership is balancing strategic survival against political fragility at home—an unfolding corruption scandal, and the firing of two cabinet ministers in parliament, have battered the government’s credibility at a delicate moment.
Numbers that matter
Consider these sobering figures and facts to set context:
- Nearly four years of conflict have reshaped communities and economies across eastern and southern Ukraine.
- Roughly 20% of Ukraine’s land is under Russian control according to recent battlefield maps and statements.
- The draft plan proposes an upper limit of 600,000 soldiers for Ukraine’s military—an explicit cap carrying both strategic and symbolic weight.
- Sanctions relief would be phased and conditional, potentially altering global markets for energy and rare minerals over years, not months.
What would peace cost—and who pays?
This is the moral calculus that will occupy capitals for the weeks to come. Is peace worth the permanent loss of territory? Can a security guarantee—if only words—replace boots, shells and the sight of children in basements? History offers no clean answer.
Remember: maps are not just ink and coordinates. They are classrooms, cemeteries, supermarket queues. They hold the names of people who go to work, who fall in love, who bury their dead. Any negotiated peace that writes over those names will carry consequences for generations.
So ask yourself: would you trade less bloodshed now for the loss of land and the precedent it sets for powerful neighbors? Or do you accept continued conflict in the hope of eventually recovering what was taken? These are not hypothetical questions; they are the decisions being debated in meeting rooms and backchannels as you read this.
What comes next
The immediate steps are painfully banal: more talks, more leaks, more spin. Zelensky has said he is ready for “constructive, honest” work with US counterparts to refine the draft. European leaders have warned they will not accept a peace that looks like surrender. Russia remains publicly skeptical and strategically aloof.
For people living along the frontlines, what matters is whether a deal makes the winter warmer, the lights stay on and children stop counting artillery flashes before sleep. For the wider world, what matters is whether global norms—about sovereignty, territorial integrity and the duty to protect civilians—have been bent beyond repair.
In the end, any settlement will be judged not only by the lines it draws but by the lives it allows to be rebuilt. Until then, Kyiv waits. The baker still opens early. The schoolteacher still counts heads. The soldier still checks his gear. And the question hangs, large and raw: who will be brave enough to build a peace that is just, durable and believable for the people who must live with it?
Ireland vows steadfast support for Ukraine, McEntee declares
At the Brussels Table: When Diplomacy Meets the Drumbeat of War
Brussels in late autumn has a particular smell — diesel from delivery vans, hot coffee from tiny kiosks, and the damp, resilient breath of a city that carries the weight of Europe’s decisions on its narrow streets. Ministers arrived, briefcases in hand, their faces set like maps of places they could not afford to forget. Among them was Ireland’s new foreign minister, Helen McEntee, stepping into her first Foreign Affairs Council with a message that was at once simple and thunderous: any peace that settles over Ukraine must be chosen by Ukrainians, and backed by a united Europe.
“You cannot sign peace for someone who is still fighting for their future,” she told aides as she walked into the meeting. “If it isn’t Kyiv’s choice, it isn’t peace.” That sentiment — uncomplicated in its human logic — became the lodestar for a day of fraught conversations about compromise, coercion, and the limits of outside power.
Why Consent Matters
The subject that hung over the council was a speculative, explosive one: reports that a peace framework under discussion would demand large territorial concessions from Ukraine, limits on its armed forces and restrictions on long-range missiles. Who drafts such blueprints? Who signs them? And what does “peace” mean when it chips away at a nation’s sovereignty?
“True settlements don’t pass like decrees,” said a seasoned European diplomat in the corridors. “They are negotiated by the parties who pay the cost and reap the benefit.” Behind that aphorism is a hard calculus. For millions of Ukrainians — soldiers in trenches, parents in bomb shelters, children who have known nothing but sirens — peace that feels like defeat will be no peace at all.
Since Russia’s full-scale invasion in 2022, Ukraine has been transformed: cities scarred, infrastructure shattered, communities scattered. Millions have been displaced internally or forced to flee abroad, and the human toll remains immense. International institutions and experts repeatedly warn against solutions imposed from afar, because history proves that settlements without popular legitimacy rarely last.
“We will not have our map redrawn while we sleep,”
said Yulia, a volunteer medic from Kharkiv who now lives in a small apartment outside Warsaw. “I want peace, sure — but not at the price of our dignity.” Her voice, tired but steady, captures the dilemma at the center of the EU’s debate: solidarity with Ukraine is not just symbolic; it must be political and practical.
Sanctions, Shadow Fleets, and the Price of Oil
The ministers also wrestled with the mechanics of pressure. One target on the agenda was Russia’s so-called “shadow fleet” — tankers moving crude across oceans in ways that critics say undermine the G7’s price-cap regime. The cap, introduced in late 2022, sought to keep European and allied energy markets insulated from funding Moscow’s war machine while ensuring global oil supply stability. But enforcement is messy and maritime networks are vast.
“Where you have incentives, you will find workarounds,” said an EU sanctions official. “That’s why we’re talking about a package of financial and shipping measures, not just punitive rhetoric.” The conversation is technical, but it matters: every shipment that evades the cap is money that can be diverted to sustain military operations.
Gaza, the Donors’ Group, and the Human Cost of Withheld Funds
As if one theatre of humanitarian emergency weren’t enough, the ministers turned their attention to the Middle East. A fragile ceasefire in Gaza had not cured decades of pain, and Brussels hosted a meeting of the Palestinian Donors’ Group aimed at coordinating reconstruction aid. McEntee — whose government has been vocal about human rights and humanitarian relief — hammered on a point that echoed through the room: financial flows matter.
“Tax and customs revenues owed to the Palestinian Authority must be released,” she said, pressing for accountability. “When governments withhold funds, they don’t just punish administrations; they punish families who rely on schools, clinics, and social services.”
The statistics here are stark: months of blockade and fighting have inflicted damage on civilian infrastructure in Gaza that will take years and billions to repair. Humanitarian agencies have repeatedly warned of acute food insecurity and the risk of famine conditions if supplies don’t increase and stabilize.
“We’re seeing a crisis that isn’t simply driven by bullets,” said Rana, a humanitarian coordinator who has worked in Gaza and Amman. “It’s a crisis of access, of funds, of sustained solidarity.”
Ireland’s Domestic Struggle: The Occupied Territories Bill
Back home in Dublin, and echoed in Brussels, Ireland continues to grapple with a law that seeks to regulate trade with goods from occupied territories. The Occupied Territories Bill — a domestic legislative effort — has been described by McEntee as complex but necessary. It speaks to a broader European impulse to align commerce with human rights, yet its implementation raises thorny questions about services, legal definitions, and the diplomatic fallout.
“We’re not writing the law for show,” she said. “We want to get this right, so that it’s effective and defensible.”
For Irish voters who watched their country’s historic neutrality evolve into a voice in international law and human rights, the bill is a test of values. For trade officials, it is a labyrinth.
Voices from the Ground: People, Not Pawns
Conversations in Brussels were technical; conversations outside — in cafes, on refugee center benches, in volunteer hub kitchens — were human. An elderly Ukrainian man in Lviv who fixes bicycles for a living shook his head when asked about “peace plans.” “You can draw lines on a map,” he said, “but my son’s life isn’t a line.”
A dockworker in Rotterdam, who loads tankers, shrugged and said, “We follow paperwork. If the rules get tighter, we’ll have to change. But someone has to enforce them.”
And in a small office in Dublin, a student activist said, “Ireland cannot just posture. If we speak about solidarity, we must show it — financially, politically, and through laws that protect human dignity.”
What Does This Moment Mean for the World?
Europe faces a test of coherence. Can 27 nations — with different histories, different energy needs, different political pressures — move in tandem on matters that will define security for decades? The stakes are global: the precedent set in resolving (or failing to resolve) the Ukraine conflict will ripple through other contested territories, from frozen conflicts to new hot spots.
Ask yourself: would you accept peace that requires your neighbor to vanish from the map? Would you accept stability if it meant erasing someone’s claim to home? These are moral questions disguised as geopolitical equations.
As ministers filed out of the council chamber, the headlines would eventually put the meeting onto a single line of text. But the conversations, the phone calls, the tiny human testimonies — they lingered in the air like the smell of coffee. They remind us that diplomacy is not an abstract chess game; it is the art of reconciling competing urgencies with the stubborn fact of human life.
Final Thought
There are no easy answers. But there can be principles: consent, transparency, sustained humanitarian support, and the political will to back them up. If Europe and its partners keep those principles at heart — and if they listen as much to volunteers and refugees as to generals and strategists — then perhaps the next time a peace plan is drafted, it will be built not on decrees but on consent. Wouldn’t that be worth fighting for?
Blaze forces emergency evacuation of delegates at COP30 climate summit
Smoke Over the Amazon: When a Flame Interrupted the World’s Climate Conversation
They came to Belém with maps, marching orders, and a brittle hope—that somehow, in the hushed bustle of negotiation rooms and country pavilions, the world might find a way to slow the fever of the planet.
Instead, for an hour that felt like a lifetime, they smelled burning. A blaze tore through a pavilion under the tented fabric of the COP30 compound on the edge of the Amazon, sending delegates, press and volunteers scrambling into the heavy humid air outside. The scene was vivid: acrid smoke curling through corridors, hands over mouths, flashes of torchlight as security and UN crews fought to get the inferno under control.
Orderly chaos, then relief
“We were evacuated quickly. There was no panic,” said Ireland’s Minister for Climate, recounting the moment he and fellow negotiators were shepherded out. “You could smell the burning, see the smoke. People were moved out very efficiently.” He added what many hoped—”Hopefully everyone is fine and there are no injuries.”
Brazilian authorities later confirmed there were no reported injuries. Tourism Minister Celso Sabino said the fire was extinguished and speculated that a short circuit or electrical malfunction might have sparked it. Joao Paulo Capobianco, executive secretary at Brazil’s environment ministry, downplayed wider damage: “No negotiation room was affected. No area used by delegations was affected,” he told a local television station.
A small fire with big consequences
The word “limited” appeared in official statements—”limited damage,” “no serious consequences.” But the timing was anything but small. The blaze began inside a country pavilion in the UN-controlled “blue zone,” near the site’s entrance, at a moment when ministers were negotiating the summit’s most sensitive items: fossil fuels, climate finance and cross-border trade measures. With one day left in a two-week conference attended by nearly 200 countries and roughly 50,000 delegates a day, every hour matters.
“This was the crucial time,” an Indonesian delegate told AFP. “Some of us were still negotiating inside the room but due to the fire I think the process will stop for a while.” He spoke for many: when the world’s diplomats are counting down to final texts, interruptions can cascade into missed compromises.
Scenes from the sidelines: faces of Belém
The compound where the talks are staged is a hybrid of permanence and improvisation—a mixture of solid conference halls and large white tents pitched beside the Amazon’s breathing edge. Vendors selling açai and grilled fish lined the outer walks. Indigenous activists had already made their presence felt earlier in the meeting, reminding negotiators that the Amazon is not just a backdrop but a living stakeholder. And now, as rain—light and sudden—fell and washed the smoke from the air, the local community watched from beyond the security fences, breath held.
“You could taste the smoke even blocks away,” said a street vendor who has watched COPs come and go. “It felt like the conference itself was coughing.”
Inside, volunteers moved with a calm that belied the fear. Brazilian volunteers and security teams performed organized evacuations even as fire crews rushed in with extinguishers. Delegates reported that alarms and sprinklers did not activate, and several people spoke of exposed wiring and temporary electrical setups in some pavilions.
“We reported wires and water dripping onto electrical panels,” said a woman who worked in one pavilion, speaking on condition of anonymity. “They were makeshift, and we felt uneasy, but nothing was fixed in time.”
Doctors, distress and disbelief
Medical volunteers treated several people for smoke inhalation and others for emotional distress at an on-site clinic. “It’s not what you expect to happen when you are at a conference,” Dr. Kimberly Humphrey, an emergency medicine specialist attending with Doctors for the Environment, said after volunteering at the clinic. “Initially there’s a sense of disbelief… The first thing I thought was, ‘oh, this isn’t real.’”
“For some, the fear was more psychological than physical,” she added. “People who had been negotiating for days suddenly faced a different kind of threat—confusion over exits, questions about who to call, who to help.”
Why this moment matters
Beyond the immediate drama, the fire exposed deeper vulnerabilities: the patchwork nature of large summits that mix permanent infrastructure with temporary installations, the strain on event safety when tens of thousands converge, and the tension between haste and thoroughness when dozens of nations set up pavilions on short notice.
It also highlighted the stakes of COP30 itself. Nearly 200 nations have spent the past fortnight hashing out a roadmap for a transition away from fossil fuels proposed by host Brazil, while also negotiating finance for poorer countries and safeguards for trade measures. The UN secretary-general had urged negotiators to find “an ambitious compromise.” “The world is watching Belém,” he said earlier in the day—a line that felt truer after the smoke cleared.
What happens in these final hours matters far beyond the conference center. Decisions struck here will influence billions of people as climate impacts intensify—especially those living near the Amazon, who contend daily with deforestation, flood risk, and the erosion of traditional livelihoods.
Questions linger
Who reports safety concerns, and who listens? How do we ensure that the makeshift elements of global summits don’t undercut the gravitas of their mission? And perhaps most pressing: can the human choreography of negotiation withstand unexpected shocks?
An African delegate put it plainly: “It’s a COP of strange events. We have protests, we have fires—this is not the predictable diplomacy we train for.” He shrugged; diplomats are young in the mornings and old by the end of negotiations. “But we come here because the world needs action.”
After the smoke: resilience and a race against the clock
By evening, Brazil’s organizers said the site would remain closed until at least 8:00 pm local time (11:00 pm GMT), disrupting a calendar already stretched thin. Negotiators scrambled to reassemble, to find new rooms, to salvage text and momentum. In the margins, cleaners and technicians repaired the damaged wiring and patched the fabric roof where it had been torn.
Whether this interruption will tilt outcomes is unknowable. What is clear is that the moment was a metaphor: the climate crisis is not a distant threat that can be politely debated in air-conditioned rooms. It bursts in—literal flames in a pavilion—and forces everyone to reckon with vulnerability, adaptation and the human costs of delayed action.
So, as you read this, consider: if conferences meant to save the planet are themselves fragile, what does that say about the systems we rely on to protect ourselves? Can the same urgency we summon for evacuation drills be summoned for phasing out fossil fuels or financing resilience in the places that need it most?
For now, Belém breathes a little easier. No one was hurt. The talks will resume. But the smell of smoke lingers, and with it, a reminder that the climate conversation is not only about diplomacy—it is about safety, about infrastructure, and about the fragile, combustible intersection of people and politics on our warming planet.
Boris Johnson’s chaotic COVID-19 response tied to higher death toll
When Delay Became Destiny: Britain’s Pandemic Reckoning
There are moments in history when a single week can tilt the arc of a nation. For the United Kingdom, the public inquiry into the government’s handling of Covid-19 has laid that week on the scale and found the balance wanting. The verdict—harsh, meticulous, and painfully human—says that hedging, dithering and a culture of chaos at the very centre of power turned a public-health emergency into a national trauma.
By the time the pandemic had run its first brutal course, the UK had recorded more than 230,000 deaths. That figure—staggering in itself—placed Britain alongside the United States and Italy in terms of mortality and above most of western Europe. Economies contracted, hospitals were stretched to the limit, and the public’s faith was dented. But numbers only tell part of the story. Behind them are families, shuttered businesses, and a country still grappling with loss and the aftershocks of policy choices made under stress.
The Inquiry’s Charge
Commissioned in May 2021, the public inquiry set out to sift through decisions, memos and meetings. Its chair, a former judge, delivered a verdict that will be quoted for years: there was, the report said, “a toxic and chaotic culture” inside Downing Street during the pandemic.
That phrase—cold and clinical on the page—becomes something else when you read the details. It is a portrait of leadership marked by optimism that sometimes bordered on denial, of senior advisers whose conduct poisoned working relationships, and of an administration that often treated the crisis as a policy problem rather than a people problem.
Key findings, in plain sight
- The inquiry concluded that a delay in imposing a national lockdown—moving from 16 March to 23 March 2020—was a turning point. The report estimates that locking down a week earlier might have saved roughly 23,000 lives in the first wave, reducing deaths by about 48% to July.
- Ministers and officials repeatedly changed course, failing to make decisive, timely choices even as evidence of the virus’s seriousness mounted.
- The theory of “behavioural fatigue,” relied upon at times to postpone restrictions, was criticised as lacking a firm grounding in behavioural science.
- Testing capacity was inadequate at the outset, leaving decision-makers with a poor sense of how widely the virus had spread.
- The absence of a clear exit strategy after the first lockdown and insufficient attention to the risk of a second wave amplified the social and economic costs.
Scenes from the Ground
Walk through any British town and the traces of that spring in 2020 are still visible. In a bakery in Leeds, the mask-lined queue and the faded “We Are Open” sign recall a different kind of normal. In a Glasgow suburb, a retired teacher wipes away tears when she talks about her neighbour—one of the statistics that became painfully personal.
“We were scared,” she told me. “Not just of the virus. Of not knowing what was going to happen next. The constant flip-flopping—one day we were told stay home, the next day hints of reopening—it felt like we were on a ship without a captain.”
Across the country, frontline workers carry their own ledger of decisions. “We had to improvise,” recalled an ICU nurse, who asked not to be named. “Beds had to be found. Staff had to be redeployed. If there had been clearer leadership earlier, I believe the wards could have been less overwhelmed.”
Leadership, Culture, and the Language of Command
The inquiry’s critique of leadership was not merely about missed timings. It dug into culture—how power was wielded, how advisors influenced the tone of decision-making, and how behaviour in the corridors of power filtered down into national policy. The report singled out a senior adviser whose conduct was described as corrosive, and it warned that an environment where rules were bent and norms ignored made coherent crisis response much harder.
“You can have good science and good data,” said a governance expert I interviewed, “but if the centre of power is preoccupied with internal theatre, you lose precious hours. Pandemics don’t wait for scripted politics.”
Behavioural fatigue: a contested idea
One of the more controversial pillars of early pandemic policy was the concept of behavioural fatigue—the suggestion that people might not sustain strict measures if locked down too soon. The inquiry found that this theory had little empirical backing. Some public-health specialists argued at the time that such assumptions were speculative and that the precautionary principle should have prevailed.
“Underestimating how seriously people will take a clear, consistent message is a mistake,” said a behavioural scientist. “When authorities communicate clearly and transparently, people generally comply. The problem is when mixed signals erode trust.”
Testing, Tracking, and the Blinded State
Another central failing, according to the report, was Britain’s thin testing infrastructure at the pandemic’s onset. Without widespread testing, policymakers were flying blind. The consequence: they lacked a real-time map of the virus’s spread and had to rely on lagging indicators—hospitalisations and deaths—to gauge severity.
“Data are the lifelines of pandemic response,” a public-health official told me. “If you don’t know where the virus is moving, you can’t target interventions. Instead, you end up imposing blunt, nationwide measures that carry massive social and economic costs.”
Wider Lessons for a Connected World
This inquiry is not only Britain’s story. It is a cautionary tale for every democracy about leadership in crisis. In an era of instant information, political theatre can have real consequences. The pandemic revealed how governance lapses—slow decisions, weak testing, cultural toxicity—can translate into lives lost.
Globally, countries that moved early and decisively tended to fare better. New Zealand, South Korea, and Taiwan all used rapid testing, clear messaging, and decisive leadership to blunt the first waves. Their experiences suggest that preparation, transparency and humility are as vital as ventilators and vaccines.
How Do We Remember—and Move Forward?
There will be commissions, reviews and reforms. The inquiry hands down a catalogue of errors, but it also offers an opportunity: to rebuild trust, to shore up public-health infrastructure, to ensure that rule of law and good governance guide emergency response. The questions now are disruptive and necessary: How do you institutionalise speed without sacrificing scrutiny? How do you centre compassion in crisis communication?
“We must learn,” said a community activist in Manchester. “Not just to assign blame, but to fix systems so that people are not the victims of bureaucratic laziness or political theatre.”
Closing the Loop: What the Public Should Ask Next
As you read this, consider what accountability looks like in a democracy. Do we demand organisational change, clearer chains of command, and better scientific advisory integration? Or do we accept incremental tweaks and hope they hold? The inquiry’s figures—over 230,000 dead, tens of thousands possibly avoidable—ask for more than mourning. They demand reflection.
What would you prioritize if you had to design a pandemic response from scratch? Would it be testing? Clear messaging? Legal frameworks for emergency action? Each choice reflects values and trade-offs.
In the end, pandemics expose the seams in our societies. They reveal who we protect and who we leave behind. Britain’s report has pulled those seams taut; now the task is to stitch them back with care, humility and a commitment to do better next time. That is the enduring challenge—not just for the UK, but for every nation that must reckon with how governance, culture and compassion intersect when the stakes are life itself.
UN chief urges COP30 to commit to phasing out fossil fuels
Belém on the Brink: A River City Hosting the World’s Climate Reckoning
The morning air in Belém carries the smell of roasting manioc and the sharp sweetness of açaí bowls, while the mighty Amazon murmurs beyond the city’s bustling market. Tourists haggle over carved wooden bowls. Vendors shout over riverboats. And, tucked between stalls and shipping cranes, diplomats from nearly every nation on Earth are arguing about the future of coal, oil and gas.
It is a strange kind of theatre: a city whose streets pulse with local life, becoming for two weeks the nerve centre of a planet-wide debate. Here, under tropical sunlight and relentless humidity, negotiators from 194 countries plus the European Union have been asked to map a route away from the very fuels that built modern economies. The clock is ticking; the atmosphere is taut. “The world is watching Belém,” the United Nations secretary-general reminded delegates, a simple line that felt like both encouragement and challenge.
What’s at stake in Belém?
This summit — COP30 — is about something deceptively simple and terrifyingly complex: how to stop warming the planet by more than 1.5°C. That figure is more than an academic target; it marks a line between manageable climate shifts and a cascade of catastrophes — collapsing crops, rampant wildfire seasons, coastal cities under siege. Scientists have warned that staying below 1.5°C means rapid, coordinated cuts to carbon dioxide emissions and a swift decline in the use of fossil fuels.
Yet, we’re not on track. Delegates from Ireland and elsewhere have warned that current policies point toward warming of roughly 2.3°C–2.5°C this century — a swing that would spell far worse floods, heatwaves and ecosystem collapse than the world agreed to avoid in Paris. Global CO2 emissions remain stubbornly high; fossil fuels still supply roughly four-fifths of the world’s primary energy. Against that backdrop, the question in Belém is not whether the world needs to change, but how to do it fairly and fast.
The fight over fossil fuels
The single most volatile topic on the agenda has been a roadmap for phasing down fossil fuels. Dozens of countries, inspired in part by Brazil’s presidency of the talks, have pushed for a clear plan that lays out timelines and support for nations to move away from oil, gas and coal. Others — including major producers and some developing states whose economies still rely on hydrocarbon exports — have urged caution or resisted firm timetables.
“You can feel the tectonic plates shifting beneath the negotiating table,” said a veteran envoy from a small island state, speaking between sessions. “For us, it’s not an abstract. It’s about survival. We need an exit route from fossil fuels — not just language that sounds good.”
Antonio Guterres has urged leaders to treat 1.5°C as a non-negotiable red line. He pressed delegates to be bold, to follow the science, and to put people before profit. “I strongly appeal to all delegations to show willingness and flexibility,” he said, capturing the pressure that has narrowed the room for political manoeuvre.
Voices on the ground
Outside the conference halls, Belém’s residents see the stakes in a local light. Aída, a fish seller on the docks, wipes her hands on a faded apron and watches barges glide past. “The river changes every year,” she says. “Some species come less, the weather is mad. I don’t know much about ‘COP’ — but I know when my catch gets smaller, my children go hungry.”
Nearby, an indigenous organizer named Paulo explains why the Amazon matters beyond trees and tourist postcards. “This forest is a living bank for the world,” he says. “If we lose it, we lose water cycles, we lose rains for our farms, we lose medicines and languages. We must be at the table when decisions are made.”
Experts who advise negotiators warn that without a credible finance plan, any agreement will be hollow. Developing nations point to the decade-old pledge — $100 billion per year in climate finance — that rich countries still struggle to meet. The loss-and-damage fund established at previous COPs exists, but the demand outstrips commitments. “Money is the lubricant of implementation,” says Dr. Miriam Santos, a climate finance specialist. “You can have gorgeous language on paper, but without predictable finance and technology transfer, transition becomes an empty promise to those most affected.”
What could emerge from the summit?
At their best, climate conferences convert political will into clearer roadmaps and concrete resources. At their worst, they produce carefully worded compromises that postpone hard choices. In Belém, a handful of outcomes are most consequential:
- A clear, time-bound roadmap for a just transition away from fossil fuels, including support for workers and communities;
- Strengthened commitments on climate finance and a timetable to scale up loss-and-damage and adaptation funding;
- Renewed or updated national pledges to cut emissions faster and align public finance with a low-carbon future.
Each of these requires consensus. COPs operate by unanimity; one holdout can dilute a collective signal. That’s why the last 48 hours of the summit often feel like a pressure cooker: ministers, advisors and civil society collide and compromise under immense scrutiny. “This will come down to the wire,” an EU delegate admitted, reflecting a sentiment echoed by others in Belém.
Bigger questions beyond numbered pledges
Belém is more than a diplomatic arena. It is a mirror reflecting deep global inequities. Wealthier nations have emitted most historical emissions; poorer countries face disproportionate impacts. A just transition must account for this imbalance — for stranded workers in coal towns as much as for subsistence farmers in floodplains. How do we balance urgency with fairness? How do we ensure that the rhetoric of “transition” doesn’t become another way to shift burdens onto communities least responsible for the crisis?
Those questions are not abstract. They’re asked in kitchens and riverside markets across the Amazon and in small atolls across the Pacific. They are asked by grandparents watching weather they cannot remember, and by young activists who want not just promises but timelines, tools and money.
So as negotiators in Belém bargain over language and deadlines, where should the rest of us look? Not just to plenary halls and plenary statements, but to the lived realities of those who will feel the decisions most keenly. Ask yourself: what kind of future do we want to invest in — one that shores up profit today at the expense of habitability tomorrow, or one that rebuilds economies around resilience, dignity and ecological balance?
Whatever comes from this COP, the urgency will not ebb with the closing gavel. The Amazon will keep breathing. Workers will still need livelihoods. Science will keep sending signals. The decision in Belém will matter because it will either accelerate the hard work of transition — or delay it further while the planet waits, and the costs mount.
Outrage after French army’s ‘prepare to lose your child’ warning
The General’s Warning: France, Sacrifice and a Country Uneasy About War
When the chief of France’s armed forces stood before a room of mayors in a provincial town and spoke bluntly about the cost of defending the nation, his words landed like a stone dropped into still water — sharp rings of debate, anger and unease spreading outwards.
“If our country falters because it is not prepared to accept — let’s be honest — to lose its children,” said General Fabien Mandon, the chief of the defence staff, in a speech that has since been replayed, dissected and denounced across radio studios and kitchen tables. He pressed beyond abstract strategy: he spoke of willingness to suffer, of priorities shifted to defence production, of a people steeled to endure hardship to protect what they are.
For some, that frankness is the duty of a soldier. For others, it read as a provocation — a warmongering line overstepping the fence between military counsel and political alarmism.
A nation split between memory and comfort
Walk through any French town and you will see the collision of two stories. In the square, an elderly man trims a geranium outside a mairie. In the café, a mother scrolls through her phone, the radio murmuring foreign correspondents’ dispatches from Ukraine. The country shows the scars of two world wars in war memorials and names engraved on bronze plaques. Yet there is a modern comfort, too: a sense that nuclear deterrence, alliances and economic power have kept the fires away from domestic soil for decades.
“We remember Verdun and the villages emptied,” said Bénédicte Chéron, a historian who has written on France’s wartime memory. “That memory makes the French reluctant to accept mass mobilization unless the threat is immediate and territorial. Sacrifice for abstract values is a harder sell.”
That tension — between historical memory and present-day security anxieties — frames the furious political debate. Left and right, municipal leaders and party heads, have all taken aim at General Mandon’s words. Fabien Roussel of the French Communist Party condemned what he called “unbearable warmongering rhetoric.” Louis Aliot of the National Rally asked rhetorically whether many French people would in fact be ready “to go and die for Ukraine.” Christian Estrosi, the mayor of Nice, called the tone “shocking,” asking whether the chief of staff’s role includes worrying the nation in such a way.
Defence Minister Catherine Vautrin pushed back. “This is military language rendered blunt by a man who every day knows that young soldiers risk their lives for the nation,” she told reporters — arguing the general’s realism was being politicized. Europe Minister Benjamin Haddad described the speech as “lucid and honest” about a threat many in Paris take seriously.
What the general said — and what it implies
Mandon did not couch his warning in metaphors. He argued that Russia, having launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, is preparing for a broader confrontation — he set a horizon, urging officials to brace for the possibility of a clash by 2030. “It is organising for this, preparing for this,” he said, warning of a Moscow convinced that NATO and Western nations are its existential adversary.
In his account, the coming decade is not one of gradual diplomacy but of preparation and potential confrontation. That prospect forces questions: how far should democracies go in readiness, and at what cost? If defence production becomes the economy’s priority, who pays — and how many children do we consider an acceptable loss?
These are brutal questions; they have always been brutal. But in a France that has spent recent years debating pensions, public services and the price of bread, they feel remote and, for many, apocalyptic.
Voices from the cafés, the barracks and the street
Not all reactions fit neatly into party lines. In a café in Amiens, a retired schoolteacher named Luc told me, “I support the troops, but speaking of losing our children — that’s for the politicians to clarify. Clarity is what we need, not fear.”
A young corporal stationed near Toulon, speaking on condition of anonymity, said, “We train for the worst. Hearing the chief of staff speak plainly is sobering. But the public must know what they’re asking of those who follow orders.”
In a mountain village near the Pyrenees, Mayor Solène Martín said the speech woke people up. “We’re not theologians of war here; we grow grapes and buy bread. But when the state tells us to prepare, we listen. The question is: will support for soldiers be sustained beyond headlines?”
Preparing citizens: a government manual and an emergency kit
The controversy is colliding with policy. The government quietly published a guide titled “Everyone Responsible,” a primer aimed at asking citizens to prepare for major crises — whether natural disasters or an external aggression. It’s the sort of practical, domestic step that avoids political grandstanding but signals seriousness.
The guide advises every household to maintain an emergency bag — checked twice a year — containing essentials. Among the recommended items:
- non-perishable food and water for several days
- basic medicines and personal prescriptions
- a battery-powered radio and spare batteries
- copies of identity documents and emergency contact information
- small comforts for children — books or games
“It sounds banal, but preparedness builds psychological resilience,” said Claire Fontaine, a civil security expert in Lyon. “People who feel equipped to manage short-term crises are less likely to panic and more able to support collective action.”
Beyond France: a European and global dilemma
This debate is not purely French. Across Europe, leaderships balance support for Ukraine with fears of escalation. NATO members have increased defense cooperation and material aid, but most underscore that they are not direct belligerents. Public opinion has been mixed: many Europeans express solidarity with Ukraine while also wary of being pulled into an open-ended contest with a nuclear-armed Russia.
What this means for global politics is profound. Democracies now face an old question in a new context: how do you maintain freedom and security without eroding the civil liberties, economic stability and social trust that make open societies desirable in the first place?
Questions we must ask together
How much discomfort will citizens accept to keep distant wars from becoming domestic crises? What is the role of military leaders in shaping public debate? Should generals speak bluntly about potential sacrifices, or should political leaders absorb that messaging and frame it in democratic terms?
These are not rhetorical tricks; they are governance questions. And they deserve more than soundbites. They require national conversations — about budgets and conscription and industry, about who bears the burdens and who benefits.
For a France that still carries battlefields in its memory, the balancing act will be especially fraught. The nation must find a language that neither infantilizes citizens nor incites needless panic. It must also reckon with whether its alliances and deterrents are enough, or whether a new posture of readiness is required.
As you read this from a terrace in Toulouse, an apartment in Lagos, or a hostel in Kraków — what would you pack in your emergency bag? What price would your society pay to protect not only its borders, but its way of life? The questions are intimate and enormous. And as the conversation unfolds, one thing is clear: the debate about readiness, sacrifice and national character has only just begun.
Soomaaliya oo dalka dib ugu soo celisay 165 muwaadin oo ku dhibbanaa Liibiya
Nov 20(Jowhar)-Dowladda Federaalka Soomaaliya ayaa ku guulaysatay in ay dalka dib ugu soo celiso maanta 165 muwaadin oo Soomaaliyeed oo xaalado iyo duruufo adag ku haystay dalka Liibiya.
Robinson: Global renewable energy transition gaining unstoppable momentum
Belém in the heat of decision: a river city holding the world to account
The air in Belém hangs heavy with humidity and expectation. Boats ply the creeks that feed the Amazon, market stalls spill mango and manioc onto cracked sidewalks, and a distant drumbeat — a sound that is both protest and prayer — ripples through crowds gathered outside the glass-and-steel pavilions where diplomats argue about the fate of the planet.
Inside, the COP30 negotiations move at a clip both feverish and fragile. Outside, Indigenous leaders, students and activists chant and sing, demanding that the world finally match words with action. It’s the kind of scene that makes you feel the stakes: not abstract numbers, but the lifeblood of a region that global warming threatens in very concrete ways.
From law to lungs: Mary Robinson’s insistence that climate is a legal duty
Mary Robinson, the former president of Ireland and a member of the Elders, has been in Belém since last weekend. She speaks with the cadence of someone who has spent decades reading treaties, arguing in courtrooms and holding leaders to account.
“This is not only political theatre,” she told me in a hallway interview, pausing to take in a tableau of negotiators clustered around a whiteboard. “The International Court of Justice has made it explicit: nations have legal obligations under the Paris Agreement and under international law to align with the 1.5°C limit. That changes the terms of this debate. It’s no longer optional.”
Robinson points to a concrete demand driving momentum here: roughly 85 countries — from small island states to Ireland — have joined what she calls an Oil and Gas Alliance, pressing for a clear roadmap to phase out fossil fuels. “People imagine diplomacy as slow and staid,” she said. “But there is an unstoppable momentum toward renewables and away from fossil dependency. The question is whether we will have the political courage to write that into the agreement.”
Law, money and the moral ledger
What makes Robinson’s position striking is how she frames climate action as an issue of legal obligation rather than mere aspiration. “You must, by law, align with 1.5°C. You must, by law, start cutting emissions. You must, by law, stop subsidising the fossil fuels that harm us,” she said, citing the near-$2 trillion a year in global fossil fuel subsidies that policymakers and economists have long criticized as perverse incentives.
“When you put legal language on the table, the room changes,” she added. “People start thinking about liabilities, about human rights, about the future claims of young people and communities on the frontline.”
Negotiations tightening — and fraying — at the edges
Minister Darragh O’Brien, Ireland’s climate minister, described the scene inside the negotiating rooms as “intense.” His team has been working on adaptation finance, and he says Ireland increased its adaptation commitment to €11.6 million — a figure he emphasized as larger than several peers. “We’ve stepped up,” he said. “But the challenge now is collective.”
Finance is precisely where the fissures run deepest. Delegations from developing nations insist that any credible climate deal must include substantial, predictable support for adaptation: money to fortify coastlines, to shift agriculture, to build early-warning systems and to help communities relocate when necessary. Richer nations, burdened by recessionary pressures and rising debt, have been reluctant to pledge large new sums.
“We say the money has to be there,” said Ana Lucía Ñamandu, an Indigenous leader from the Xipaya community, resting after a long march through Belém’s avenues. “In our villages, the rivers rise earlier, the fish disappear, and women are the ones who gather what remains. It is not charity. It is justice.”
The road to a roadmap
At the heart of the debate is language about a “roadmap” to phase out oil and gas. For some, the word is symbolic — a sign that the diplomacy is finally naming the problem. For many oil-producing states, it is existential. “Whether you call it a roadmap or another term, the essence is the same: we need a plan,” said EU climate commissioner Wopke Hoekstra at a press briefing. “The wording matters, but the commitment matters more.”
France’s ecological transition minister, Monique Barbut, was less sanguine: “No, there will not be a COP decision today,” she told reporters, cautioning that countries were still far apart. Yet she admitted that movement was visible — a faint arc of compromise forming in the room.
Lula’s late arrival and the weight of hosting
Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva’s arrival in Belém felt like more than ceremonial gravitas. He has staked political capital on this COP, promising a “COP of truth” and urging negotiators to reach agreement sooner rather than later.
“The Amazon is not a backdrop,” a Brazilian civil society organizer told me as we watched delegates hurry by. “It is the beating heart of why this negotiation must succeed. There’s theatre in Lula’s presence, yes, but also pressure. He knows how much is riding on this.”
André Corrêa do Lago, the COP30 president, has urged round-the-clock talks to bridge the gaps between wealthy nations, developing countries and oil-rich states. The clock is unforgiving: COP30 was slated to end on Friday, but as anyone who has covered UN summits knows, deadlines are often porous.
Gender, justice and the invisible spoilers
Another thread woven into the negotiations is the Gender Action Plan — a UN framework designed to ensure that climate policies account for gendered impacts. Robinson accused some parties of “spoiling” the plan, warning that without meaningful gender integration the response will be weaker and less just.
“Women and children bear disproportionate burdens from climate disasters,” she said. “If we ignore gender in climate solutions, we will miss the human element that makes those solutions work.”
- Key demands on the floor: a roadmap to phase out fossil fuels; increased adaptation finance; meaningful gender integration into climate policy.
- Momentum players: ~85 countries in the Oil and Gas Alliance; the EU and island states pushing for stronger language.
- Sticking points: trade implications of climate measures, funding commitments, and how to phrase fossil fuel phase-out.
Why this matters — and what it asks of all of us
We are watching a global conversation about who pays for yesterday’s emissions and who pays for tomorrow’s resilience. The debate is legal and moral as much as it is financial and technical. If current national pledges are not tightened, the world could be headed toward a 2.3–2.5°C rise — a range that climatologists warn would bring catastrophes far beyond the kind of slow adjustments societies can absorb.
So what should worry you, sitting thousands of miles away from Belém? Consider this: coastal communities in the Pacific already plan for permanent relocation. Farmers in the Sahel must change crops mid-season. Arctic ice loss is accelerating feedback loops that no negotiation can directly stop once set in motion. These aren’t distant problems; they’re interconnected with our supply chains, food prices and migration patterns.
“This conference will be judged not on speeches but on whether it produces a credible plan to get off fossil fuels and properly funds adaptation,” said Dr. Maya Patel, an environmental economist who studies climate finance. “Lawyers like Mary Robinson are right to stress the legal angle — it strengthens accountability. But money, technology transfer, and political will are the levers that must move in tandem.”
Belém’s lesson
Negotiators will huddle into the night. Indigenous drummers will continue to beat rhythm into the dense Amazonian air. Leaders will flirt with compromise and retreat into the safety of old positions. Yet the moral arithmetic is simpler than the diplomatic choreography: communities already suffering demand help, young people want a livable future, and scientists warn that time is short.
Will the world choose a roadmap with teeth — or a compromise that kicks the hardest parts down the road? That is the question Belém is asking on behalf of the Amazon, the islands, the farmers and the city-dwellers whose summers are growing longer and harsher.
As you read this, I invite you to pause and imagine the river that bisects Belém. Imagine the chants of protestors, the faces of negotiators, the weight of a document yet unsigned. What role will your country, your community or you play in ensuring the final text reflects urgency, fairness and justice? The answer, after all, is not only in Belém’s halls — it’s in the choices we make every day, at the ballot box, the bank, and the dinner table.
Human Rights Watch alleges Israel responsible for crimes in the West Bank
The Quiet That Followed the Bulldozers
There are places where silence weighs like dust. Walk the alleys of Nur Shams, Jenin or Tulkarm today and you will feel it: an echo of footsteps that once filled alleyways, the ghost of laughter from a schoolyard now a heap of rubble, the faint scent of za’atar and strong coffee that clings to charred doorways.
In January and February of this year, Israeli forces swept into three West Bank refugee camps with an operation they called “Iron Wall.” What followed was not only the thunder of armored vehicles and the roar of bulldozers; it was the uprooting of whole communities. Human Rights Watch—after months of interviews, satellite analysis and the verification of demolition orders—says roughly 32,000 people were forcibly displaced from their homes. Their 105-page report, titled All My Dreams Have Been Erased, describes scenes that strain easy categorization: a catalogue of loss that HRW argues amounts to war crimes and crimes against humanity.
Figures that feel like faces
Numbers are blunt instruments, but they matter. HRW documented interviews with 31 displaced residents and verified more than 850 structures destroyed or heavily damaged. A separate UN assessment tallied an even higher figure: 1,460 buildings affected.
“Ten months after their displacement, none of the family residents have been able to go back to their homes,” says Melina Ansari, a researcher who worked on the HRW report. The statement stops being abstract the moment you meet someone who has lost everything.
Hisham Abu Tabeekh is one such person. He fled the Jenin camp when soldiers arrived, he tells you with a calm that trembles at the edges. “We are talking about having no food, no drink, no medicine, no expenses… we are living a very hard life,” he says. He and his family left with nothing but the clothes on their backs.
How the expulsion unfolded
The report pieces together a harrowing choreography: soldiers storming into homes, ransacking personal effects, shouting through loudspeakers mounted on drones, ordering people out. Families say bulldozers began leveling buildings while residents fled. No temporary shelters were provided by the forces that carried out the expulsions; people packed into relatives’ homes if they were lucky, or into mosques, schools and the sparse charity centers that are already strained to breaking point.
In a terse statement, the Israeli military framed the demolitions as a necessity: “We needed to demolish civilian infrastructure so that it could not be exploited by militants.” The military did not provide a timeline for when, if ever, residents might return.
From 1948 to now: camps that kept memory alive
These camps were not recent creations. Born in the wake of the 1948 Arab-Israeli war, the tents that became Nur Shams, Jenin and Tulkarm grew into tightly knit neighborhoods across generations—refugee camps that became villages, then towns, then living archives of dispossession and resilience.
Walk through one and you still see the markers of that history: faded family photos tacked to balcony walls, elders who know exactly where each fruit tree was planted decades ago, the mosquito-net covers over windows because building materials were never plentiful. “You cannot just erase a life like that,” says Fatima, a woman who asked that we not use her full name. “My grandmother told stories of 1948. I told stories to my children. Now there is nowhere to tell them.”
Legal lines and moral alarms
International law draws clear lines around forced displacement in occupied territories. The Fourth Geneva Convention prohibits the transfer or displacement of protected persons from occupied territory except where absolutely necessary for their security or for imperative military reasons, and only temporarily. HRW concludes that the mass expulsions—carried out without provision for return and accompanied by sweeping demolitions—contravened these protections.
The group does not stop at legal labels. It argues these acts sit within a broader pattern—displacement, demolition, detention without trial and increased settler violence—that together amount to crimes against humanity, invoking the harsh terms “apartheid” and “persecution” in its analysis. HRW urges international action: prosecutions of responsible officials, referral to the International Criminal Court where applicable, targeted sanctions, suspension of arms sales and trade privileges, and bans on settlement goods.
Numbers and trends that widen the lens
- Approximately 32,000 people displaced from three West Bank refugee camps during Operation Iron Wall.
- HRW documented over 850 structures destroyed or heavily damaged; UN assessments put the figure at about 1,460.
- Since 7 October 2023, Palestinian fatalities in the West Bank have climbed to nearly 1,000, per HRW’s report.
- Settler attacks surged in October 2023, with at least 264 assaults reported that month—the highest monthly total since the United Nations began tracking such incidents in 2006.
Voices from the rubble
What numbers miss is the texture: the child who no longer has a gentle slope of roof to practise soccer, the woman who spent an entire night clutching a small box of family photographs as neighbors slept on mattresses in a mosque. “We are treated like numbers,” says Ahmad, a volunteer aid worker. “But each number is a person with history, with wounds.”
Across the camps, people describe an erosion of dignity. A teacher, still unsure whether she will return to her classroom, told me she keeps thinking about the children who had never seen the sea; “now some children don’t even know where they sleep tonight,” she said. Such accounts echo across the interviews HRW conducted and the verified footage that shows homes reduced to skeletons of concrete.
Why this matters beyond the camps
Forced displacement is not only a local crisis; it is a global signal. Around the world, whether through climate stresses, war or deliberate policy, communities are being uprooted. The Jenin, Tulkarm and Nur Shams expulsions force us to ask: when occupation and displacement are normalized as political tactics, what remains of law, of accountability, of the idea that people have the right to a home?
And there is a second, sharper question: how does the international community respond when attention is focused elsewhere? HRW’s report argues that these expulsions occurred in part while global attention was riveted on Gaza—an indication, they say, of the dangers of uneven scrutiny.
What people are asking—and what comes next
Locals and rights groups want three things: the right of return, reparations or meaningful compensation, and legal accountability for those who ordered and executed the expulsions. HRW calls for international measures designed to prevent further abuses—targeted sanctions, suspension of arms support, enforcement of ICC processes and stringent controls on settlement commerce.
“Justice will not be measured in reports alone,” says an international law expert who reviewed HRW’s findings. “It will depend on whether states dare to enforce the rules they signed up to.”
If history teaches anything, it is that displacement is easier to cause than to reverse. Rebuilding homes is practical; rebuilding trust is not. The camps’ elders, the children, the mothers who tie bandages with hands that have known other sieges—these are the people whose lives are in the balance.
Final reflection
When you read the headlines, the rubble becomes a statistic and the names vanish. But stand at the edge of a demolished courtyard and you will hear something else: the persistent human question that has always underpinned conflicts large and small—who gets to belong, and who is permitted to leave? As you think about that, consider this: in a world of competing crises, what moral duties do distant nations and distant citizens have to ensure that those questions are answered with law, not with silence?
We can close our eyes to faraway suffering, or we can allow it to expand our moral imagination. The people of Jenin, Tulkarm and Nur Shams deserve more than memories of what once was. They deserve a future that is spoken for, defended and, when necessary, fought for in courtrooms and diplomatic halls alike.
Nine killed in bar shooting on Johannesburg’s outskirts
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