Israel Praises Trump’s Gaza Plan After U.N. Security Council Vote

November 18, 2025

Israel hails Trump Gaza plan after UNSC vote — Gaza has been largely reduced to rubble after two years of war

After the Vote: Gaza’s Quiet Hope and a World Holding Its Breath

The sun slides down over a landscape of concrete bones and dust. In Zeitun, a neighborhood of Gaza City that used to echo with children’s laughter and merchant calls, the silence now feels like an accusation. A line of people waits for water, their bags and coupons clutched as if they were talismans.

It was in that brittle quiet that the United Nations Security Council voted to back a U.S.-sponsored plan aimed at remaking the fragile order in Gaza. Thirteen countries voted in favour, while Russia and China abstained. The measure endorses an international stabilization presence, new Palestinian policing, and a transitional governing board — a framework that promises an end to open hostilities but raises questions about sovereignty, enforcement, and what justice looks like in a place that has seen so much loss.

On the ground: a fragile ceasefire and a cautious welcome

“We will take whatever stops the killing,” says Ayman, 39, who sleeps in a school converted into a shelter in central Gaza. He speaks softly, the kind of soft that comes after many sleepless nights. “If foreigners come and bring food, water, and a bit of safety, that is enough — for now.”

That “for now” is everything. Gaza’s population, roughly 2.3 million before the war, has been battered by two years of fighting since the Hamas-led attacks of 7 October 2023 and Israel’s subsequent military campaign. The ceasefire that took hold on 10 October has held like a fragile glass island amid a sea of rubble; aid convoys have resumed in limited fashion, but the needs remain vast.

Rawia Abbas, whose family occupies a partially destroyed home in Zeitun, sketches the daily grind: “My children stand for hours for a gallon of water. We queue for coupons for food. Winter is coming — the nights are cold, the roofs leak. We feel abandoned and hopeful in the same breath.”

What the resolution actually says

At its heart, the Security Council text does a few significant things. It:

Authorizes an International Stabilisation Force tasked with helping demilitarize Gaza and protecting civilians;
Calls for the training and deployment of a Palestinian police force to maintain order;
Envisions a transitional governing body — a “Board of Peace” — with a mandate into 2027; in the text, an unusual and symbolic role for the U.S. is proposed as chair;
Affirms the need for large-scale, unhindered humanitarian aid delivered through the UN system and neutral agencies like the Red Cross and Red Crescent;
Mentions, in conditional language, a possible future pathway to Palestinian self-determination if conditions on the ground — security, governance, reconstruction — are satisfactorily met.

The idea of an international force overseeing the gradual removal of weapons from armed groups is controversial. For many Gazans, the notion of foreign boots on the ground has echoes of trusteeships and long histories of external control. For Israel and some of its partners, the force is a necessary buffer — a way to ensure that any lull in fighting becomes a durable peace.

Voices from across the divide

In Jerusalem, the tone is triumphant. “This resolution is more than paper — it is a pathway,” an aide to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said. “It insists on full demilitarization and will lead to greater integration with our neighbours.” On X, Mr. Netanyahu’s office framed the vote as a building block for expanding ties first nurtured under the Abraham Accords.

From Washington, former President Donald Trump — whose administration proposed the framework — celebrated the vote as “a step toward wider peace” and urged world leaders to implement the measures quickly. “History will remember those who choose stability over chaos,” a spokesperson for his team wrote in a post.

But not everyone is buying into the optimism. Hamas denounced the resolution, calling it an imposition that ignores Palestinian rights to political self-determination. “We reject any international trusteeship over Gaza,” a movement spokesman declared, adding that the group would not accept measures that leave Palestinians without real agency.

The Palestinian foreign ministry, by contrast, hailed aspects of the decision while pressing for immediate implementation. “The vote affirms our rights and the urgent need for aid corridors and reconstruction,” a ministry official told reporters. “But resolutions are only as strong as the will to enforce them.”

“International forces sound good on paper,” says Dr. Leila Haddad, a conflict-resolution scholar who has worked with local NGOs in the region. “But the success of such missions depends on political clarity, rules of engagement, and the consent — explicit or de facto — of the key parties. Without credible enforcement mechanisms, you risk creating another layer of bureaucracy without security.”

Winter, reconstruction, and the “day after”

The immediate, human question is simple: who will fix the pipes, restore electricity, and keep children warm when the cold sets in?

Rebuilding Gaza will be an immense undertaking. Even before the latest rounds of destruction, people lived with strained infrastructure and high unemployment. Today, hospitals have been overwhelmed, water systems are fractured, and the housing deficit is immense. International aid can provide temporary relief, but reconstruction depends on predictable funding, access, and on-the-ground security.

“My sister lost her home, her shop,” says Fatima, a market vendor who used to weave embroidery for tourists. “We do not know who will rebuild or how we will pay rent. We just want a life where our children do not have to taste smoke and fear every morning.”

What could go wrong?

There are several hazards to a plan that mixes diplomacy with on-the-ground enforcement:

Non-cooperation: If Israel or armed groups refuse to comply, the international force could be stuck in a stalemate;
Legitimacy gaps: If Palestinians feel excluded from governance decisions, resentment could fuel new tensions;
Funding and mandate drift: International missions often face resource shortfalls and competing priorities that weaken their impact;
Regional ripple effects: Neighboring states, with their own political calculations, may resist aspects of the plan or use it to advance other agendas.

Beyond Gaza: questions for a global audience

This is not just a local or regional test. It is a moment for the international community to ask what it means to deliver security while respecting peoples’ right to self-rule. When does stabilization become occupation? When does emergency governance become permanent? Those are the questions diplomats will pretend to dodge but which ordinary people in Gaza cannot. They wake up to cold, to hunger, to the smell of diesel and dust — and they want answers that translate into warm homes and safe streets.

So, reader: what do you imagine peace looks like for Gaza? Is it an international presence that gradually hands power back to local leaders with clear guarantees? Is it a rapid transfer to a reformed Palestinian Authority? Or something else entirely — a new regional compact that binds reconstruction to normalization across the Middle East?

For now, a pause — and a heavy responsibility

The vote has given people in Gaza something fragile but profound: the possibility that the guns will stay silent and that aid can flow more freely. It has also placed the burden of implementation on a cast of actors with deeply divergent aims. The resolution is a map with many missing roads.

“We’ve had promises before,” says Omar, an aid worker who has distributed food in Gaza for years. “What matters is not the ink on this page, but the boots on the ground, the trucks carrying bread, and the political will in capitals to make this more than a headline.”

As winter approaches and the world watches, the choice confronting international leaders is elemental: will this be the moment where compassion is turned into measured, accountable action — or will it become another chapter of deferred hope? The people standing in line for a jug of water already know the answer they need. The rest of us will have to decide whether we do more than watch.

Podcast: How the Kennedy family’s political legacy continues to shape American politics

hanad

November 18, 2025

Podcast: The Kennedy political dynasty lives on — Jack Schlossberg (second left) visiting Áras an Uachtaráin with his family in 2013

Manhattan’s Latest Political Page-Turner: A Kennedy Returns to the Spotlight

On an overcast morning in Midtown, a line of tourists snakes past the plaza at Grand Central while diplomats in neat coats hurry toward the United Nations. A group of construction workers pause for coffee outside a brownstone, eyeing a flier tacked to a lamppost: a tasteful photo, a familiar name — Schlossberg — and the same old promise that politics can still mean something more.

Jack Schlossberg, 32, steps into a long American story: the son of a mother who once sat across from emperors and prime ministers as the U.S. ambassador to Japan, and the only grandson of John F. Kennedy and Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis. Now he is not content to watch from the sidelines. He has launched a campaign for New York’s congressional seat that covers Midtown Manhattan — the stretch where the United Nations’ flags flutter, where the neon of Times Square never sleeps, and where Central Park offers a leafy counterpoint to glass and steel.

To many, the name carries weight. To others, it raises a simple question: what happens when a political inheritance meets a changing electorate?

More Than a Name: Legacy as a Launchpad

In politics, names can open doors. They can also put a candidate under a microscope. “A Kennedy name is a key that opens curiosity,” says Elena Morales, a campaign strategist who has worked Democratic races in New York for more than a decade. “But curiosity quickly turns to judgment. Voters want to know whether you’re here because of a last name, or because you have something to offer their lives.”

Schlossberg’s candidacy makes these questions urgent. He is young in a district that is young in parts — home to finance executives, international diplomats, artists, graduate students, retirees, and multigenerational immigrant families. His challenge is to stitch those threads into a campaign that feels both contemporary and consequential.

“If he’s going to win over this district, it will have to be about substance,” says Dr. Priya Anand, a political scientist at Columbia University. “Name recognition helps in introductions, not in delivering results. The real test will be whether his platform tackles housing affordability, public transit, the climate, and the global issues that play out every day when you’re representing a district that hosts the UN.”

What Voters Say on the Corner

On the corner of Lexington and 47th, outside a Jewish bakery that smells of sesame and challah, locals weigh in. “I liked what JFK stood for — hope, civic duty,” says Miriam Katz, 68, who has lived in the neighborhood since the 1970s. “But today I want someone who understands my rent is going up, my subway is delayed, and my doctor bills don’t make sense.”

Across the street, a 24-year-old barista named Jamal folds a paper cup and looks up. “I don’t care about the name. I care about the issues. If he can talk student debt and climate without sounding like a campaign ad, I’ll listen.”

These voices matter: a single U.S. House district is home to roughly 700,000 people — roughly the population every congressional seat represents after reapportionment. In cities like New York, the electorate is diverse, heavily mobile, and increasingly issue-driven. For Democrats, energizing young voters remains critical; for Republicans, flipping such a dense urban seat has always been steeper terrain. The contest will likely test the potency of generational appeal versus ground-level organizing.

Campaign Realities: Strategy, Substance, and the Media

Campaign insiders note the advantages and pitfalls. “He begins with a few built-in assets,” says Aaron Weiss, a former press director for a mayoral campaign. “Name recognition, wealth of access, and media interest. The flip side: heightened expectations, a spotlight on missteps, and opponents who will cast him as a legacy candidate in an era suspicious of dynasties.”

That suspicion cuts both ways. Across the country, voters have oscillated between welcoming political families — seeing in them stewardship and continuity — and rejecting them as symbols of entrenched power. This is not an abstract debate. It intersects with larger global conversations about meritocracy, representation, and political renewal. Can inheritance coexist with a politics that prizes novelty and grassroots authenticity?

Some Democrats see opportunity in Schlossberg’s youth. “Getting younger voters engaged is not just a nice-to-have, it’s survival,” says Anika Patel, a youth organizer in Manhattan. “If he can mobilize students and young professionals, that could reshape turnout patterns. But he has to meet us where we are — online, in our neighborhoods, on the issues that keep us up at night.”

Policy Priorities — What Might Define the Race

Housing affordability and tenant protections — an existential issue in Manhattan.
Public transit investments and MTA reform — commuters’ daily reality.
Climate resilience for a low-lying borough with coastal risks.
Global diplomacy and international engagement — a district with diplomatic corridors.

The district’s proximity to the United Nations makes international affairs more than a talking point; it’s part of everyday life. “You get foreign policy on your doorstep here,” says Dr. Anand. “That can be an asset for a candidate who wants to bridge local and global agendas.”

Beyond the Campaign Trail: What This Race Signals

We’re watching more than a single primary or election. We’re watching how a political system absorbs legacy while inviting new voices. We’re watching how a generation raised on instant information reconciles reverence for historical figures with impatience for old solutions.

“Names open doors, but ideas move people,” says Morales. “If Jack Schlossberg wants to be more than a footnote in a storied saga, he’ll need to translate nostalgia into policy that people feel in their lives.”

So what do you think? Does a familiar name inspire confidence, or does it feel like yesterday’s politics trying to stage a comeback? As New Yorkers and watchers around the world tune in, this race will be a test not just of one candidate’s ambitions, but of how modern democracy negotiates legacy, youth, and a fiercely local set of demands.

Walk past the United Nations and listen: flags snap, food carts sell halal and hot dogs in the same breath, and conversations about a future that is global and immediate are happening right now. Whatever happens next in this race, it will speak to how we imagine leadership in the decades to come — and whether history’s echoes can be made to sing in a new key.

Following Trump’s U-turn, U.S. House to proceed with Epstein vote

hanad

November 18, 2025

After Trump reversal, US House to proceed on Epstein vote — Jeffrey Epstein died in prison in 2019

When the Capitol’s hum turned toward a long-buried set of files

There is a certain hush that falls over the House floor when the ordinary rhythm of bills and budget rows collides with something darker — with papers that smell of secrecy and grievance. On a crisp morning in Washington, the Republican-majority House prepared to vote on an unusual, politically combustible resolution: force the Justice Department to hand over investigative files connected to Jeffrey Epstein, the disgraced financier whose crimes sent shockwaves through the global elite.

The vote, by all accounts, was suddenly no longer in doubt. What made it stranger than usual was not just the subject — a case that has spawned lawsuits, conspiracy theories, and a raw public anger — but the fact that a president who had resisted the effort for weeks reversed himself at the eleventh hour. Donald Trump, who once called the push a partisan “hoax,” signed off on letting Congress proceed. For lawmakers and onlookers alike, the switch felt like watching a weather front change direction: quick, decisive, and with consequences swirling in its wake.

Why these files matter

Jeffrey Epstein’s name is shorthand for a network of power, predation, and institutional failure. Convicted in Florida in 2008 on state charges related to the sexual abuse of underage girls, Epstein was later arrested on federal sex-trafficking charges in July 2019. He died in a Manhattan federal jail cell on 10 August 2019; the ruling was suicide. The case left hundreds of questions in its wake — some about who enabled him, others about why earlier opportunities for accountability were missed.

For survivors and advocates, the files are not mere documents; they are traces of lives disrupted, names that could confirm patterns, and, potentially, evidence about whether people with power escaped scrutiny. “We are not here for salacious gossip,” said a survivor advocate I spoke with. “We’re here for truth. We need to know why systems failed the way they did, and who profited from that silence.”

From a petition to a partisan pivot

A group of House Republicans, led by a small but determined contingent, used a procedural tool — a petition to force consideration of the files — to bring the issue to the floor. Such moves are rare and carry the unmistakable air of rebelliousness: a chorus of lawmakers effectively saying, “We will make you address this.” That chorus became louder when it collected enough signatures to require a vote.

The intervention that surprised everyone, however, was the White House. Until recently, the president and his aides had actively opposed releasing the files, concerned about privacy for victims and, perhaps more pointedly, about political fallout. Then on Sunday night the tone shifted. In curt social-media language he once favored, the president called on House Republicans to proceed, framing the matter as something Democrats would weaponize — a line that did not calm critics.

A senior White House aide, speaking off the record, said the reversal sprang as much from political calculation as from principle. “He wanted the floor to talk about cost of living and jobs, not the files,” the aide said. “But the pressure on the rank-and-file to be seen as transparent — and the rare public pushback — made him relent.” Whether the calculation was prudent or not depends on whom you ask.

Voices on the ground and in the halls

In the narrow restaurants and town squares of Palm Beach, where Epstein kept homes and a pattern of elite socializing has been etched into local memory, people reacted with a mix of fatigue and vindication. “We’ve heard the rumors for decades,” said Ana Delgado, who runs a pastry shop in the shadow of a gated estate. “If these papers finally show how people used their money and status to hurt others, then maybe my niece finally gets to see the truth.” Her voice carried a weary hope: the kind of hope that has been sharpened by repeated disappointments.

Inside the Capitol, the debate folded into larger partisan rhythms. A senior Democrat on the oversight committee told me he believed the president had “misread the political weather” and was trying to blunt a rebellion before it cost him support. “This isn’t about headlines,” he said. “It’s about accountability.” A conservative backbencher, meanwhile, argued the files might reveal political bias in earlier investigations. “If the DOJ is protecting allies or hiding facts out of fear, we have to know,” she said.

What the vote could — and won’t — do

The resolution on the floor was crafted with what lawmakers called a careful balance: it demands disclosure while carving out protections for victims. The Justice Department, according to the measure, would be allowed to redact personally identifying information to safeguard those who suffered. Yet that safeguard has not quieted all concerns that the review could drag on or be narrowed in scope through exemptions like “ongoing investigations” or claims of national security.

A constitutional law scholar I spoke to warned against expecting a cinematic flood of revelations. “Document dumps rarely look like courtroom drama,” she said. “They are dusty, bureaucratic, and take time to parse. But they are also where accountability sometimes starts. We should be prepared for partial releases, appeals, and a long slog.” The legal scholar added that if the resolution reaches the Senate and the president’s desk, the political calculation will only grow more complex.

Beyond the files: a reflection on power and secrecy

Why does the release of a stack of documents matter so much beyond Washington and Palm Beach? Because it tests a larger idea: whether democratic institutions are mechanisms that allow people to know what their leaders and the powerful are doing, or whether they protect a privileged few behind layers of confidentiality.

Consider the international angle. Across democracies, there is a growing impatience with opacity. From corporate boardrooms to political campaigns, citizens increasingly demand transparency — not because they crave scandal, but because secrecy corrodes trust. The Epstein files, in this context, are a lens. They ask: when institutions fail, who bears the cost? Victims, most immediately. Then society, in the form of eroded faith.

And so I ask you, reader: what do you think justice looks like here? Is it the unvarnished release of every paper and email, or is it a careful, victim-centered disclosure that protects privacy while revealing patterns? Can transparency and compassion coexist without being turned into a partisan club?

Where we go from here

The House vote is only a step in a longer journey. If the resolution passes, it heads to the Senate, where timing and political math will determine whether it becomes law. The Justice Department will have its own judgments and legal obligations. Victims’ advocates will watch every redaction. Meanwhile, the political fallout — from rhetoric on talk shows to campaign trail soundbites — will keep the story alive.

Accounts like Epstein’s are ugly reminders that the architecture of power can shelter wrongdoing for years. They are also reminders that public institutions, imperfect though they may be, remain a venue where citizens can demand answers. The papers in question are not an end; they are a chance — perhaps one of the last — to illuminate the shadows, to reckon with the past, and to ask how we build systems that protect the vulnerable rather than the well-connected.

UK tightens asylum rules in sweeping immigration overhaul

hanad

November 18, 2025

UK toughens asylum policy in major overhaul — Interior minister Shabana Mahmood outlined changes to how the European Convention on Human Rights should be interpreted by UK courts

On the pebbled shores of Britain’s debate: a country remaking who can stay

On an overcast morning along the Kent coast, seagulls wheel like punctuation marks over a shoreline that has, in recent years, come to mean something far larger than its cliffs and cafés. Small rubber boats — faint, resilient, anonymous — have become the most visible motif in a story that reaches from the North Sea to Westminster, and from living rooms in working-class towns to the boardrooms of political strategists.

Last week, in what ministers called the most radical rewrite of asylum policy in modern British history, the Labour government proposed sweeping changes that would make refugee status temporary, speed up deportations, and reframe how British courts interpret the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR).

The announcements landed like pebbles dropped into a shallow pond: concentric ripples. For some, they are a long-overdue tightening of borders and a reset of an immigration system described by the prime minister as a “significant pull factor.” For others, they are a moral and legal U-turn that risks punishing people who have already lost everything.

The policy in plain terms

Interior Minister Shabana Mahmood — who has spoken openly about her family’s Pakistani roots — outlined the measures in blunt prose: lengthen the wait for settlement to 20 years, reinterpret Article 8 of the ECHR so “family life” covers only immediate relatives, and take a harder line on removals, including from families whose asylum claims have been rejected.

The government also threatened visa bans for Angola, Namibia and the Democratic Republic of Congo if those countries refused to take back nationals deported from the UK. And ministers signalled they would urge partner states to narrow interpretations of Article 3 of the ECHR, the provision that forbids torture or “inhuman or degrading treatment,” arguing that in recent years the scope of that protection has expanded beyond what the government thinks was intended.

“We want a system that is generous to those who genuinely need sanctuary, and robust against those who exploit legal loopholes,” Mahmood wrote in a newspaper column. “Unless we act, we risk losing popular consent for having an asylum system at all.”

Numbers that explain a noisy debate

Numbers help explain why the issue has become political dynamite. In the year to the end of March, 109,343 people applied for asylum in the UK — a 17% increase on the previous 12 months. Net migration, which crept up through 2022 and 2023, hit a record 906,000 in the year to June 2023 before falling to 431,000 in 2024, partly as a result of tighter rules and enforcement.

Still, Britain accepts fewer asylum claims annually than several of its European neighbours: France, Germany, Italy and Spain all register higher numbers of people claiming sanctuary. Most migration to the UK happens through legal channels — work visas, family reunification, study — not in small boats.

Voices from the shore

At a fish-and-chip shop near Dungeness, 62-year-old owner Sheila Harris shakes her head. “It’s not about being cruel,” she says, tea cooling in her hands. “It’s about order. We used to know what to expect — jobs, council houses. Now it feels like someone kicked the rulebook out the window.”

Opposite the promenade, a volunteer at a local refugee centre, who asked to be called Amina, offers a different view. “People don’t leave their homes unless they’re desperate — fleeing war, persecution, fear. When you meet them, you see mothers who are terrified, and children who have crossed the sea on the promise of safety. Making status temporary is a terrifying idea for families trying to rebuild.”

Politics, protest and a populist tide

The political stakes are high. Migration has surged to the top of voters’ concerns, and Reform UK — led by Nigel Farage — has ridden that concern to the top of opinion polls. Zia Yusuf, a senior figure in Reform, told reporters he felt the public are “sick of being told there is no way to stop people landing on our beaches.” But Yusuf added a dose of realism: “Legal constraints and political resistance mean many of these proposals may never be fully realised.”

Tony Vaughan, a Labour politician and legal expert, was quick to criticise the rhetoric. “Language like this fans the flames of division,” he said. “It gives licence to the dark murmurings of racism and abuse we’ve seen outside migrant hotels.”

Local protests, national fractures

In towns across England, debates have spilled from town halls into the streets. Protesters decrying migrant arrivals have clashed with locals who donate clothes and tutor children in English. The mood is often contradictory and raw: hospitality mingles with hostility, charity with fear.

Legal fault lines: the ECHR in the spotlight

At the heart of the government’s legal rethink is Article 8 of the ECHR, the right to respect for private and family life. Under current British case law, a wide interpretation of “family life” can, in some cases, prevent deportation. The government proposes narrowing that definition to immediate family — parents, children, spouses — to prevent what it calls “dubious connections” being used to stay in the UK.

Similarly, ministers argue Article 3 protections have been stretched too far. Human rights advocates warn that narrowing such protections risks sending people back to danger, and could contravene other international legal obligations.

What experts and charities fear

Sile Reynolds, head of asylum advocacy at Freedom from Torture, said the proposals would “punish people who’ve already lost everything,” and warned of a chilling effect on victims of trafficking and torture seeking help.

“Temporary protection sounds neat on paper,” said Professor Martin Elwood, an immigration law scholar. “But legal uncertainty creates long-term social and psychological damage. If you tell someone they can be here for 20 years with no route to settlement, you don’t just delay integration — you institutionalise precariousness.”

How this fits the global picture

This is not a debate confined to Britain. Across the world, countries are wrestling with the twin pressures of rising displacement — driven by conflict, climate change and economic upheaval — and political backlashes fuelled by populist movements. Europe, North America, Australia: each has recalibrated asylum rules in recent years, sometimes tightening, sometimes reshaping legal interpretations.

So here’s a question for you, the reader: what kind of society do we want to be when the next wave of displacement comes? How much should compassion cost in political capital and public money? And what do we owe people whose lives have been fractured by forces beyond their control?

Possible outcomes and the road ahead

Practically, a number of things could happen. The government could press ahead and face legal challenges that go to the Supreme Court. It could seek bilateral agreements with origin countries to accept returns — with visa bans as leverage. Or political pressure, both from within Labour and from human rights groups, could soften the proposals.

Potential legal challenges: the courts may be asked to interpret Article 8 and Article 3 under the proposed framing.
International diplomacy: threatened visa bans could spark reciprocal moves from affected countries.
Local impact: increased enforcement may alter the patchwork of hotel accommodations, community services and charities that currently support asylum seekers.

Final miles of the journey

On the beach, a group of schoolchildren scatter to chase a crab. Their laughter is small and indifferent to the legal arguments unfolding in London. Yet they will grow up in the country shaped by these decisions — a country that must reconcile the desire for border control with a claim, ancient and moral, to be a refuge.

Policy talk often reduces people to numbers and categories. But behind the 109,343 asylum claims and the headline-grabbing small boats are human lives — stubborn, messy, resilient. If the government’s goal is to restore public confidence in the asylum system, it will need more than legal tightening; it will need a clearer moral compass, humane processes, and public conversations that don’t pit compassion against order as if they were mutually exclusive.

Whatever happens next, the pebbles on Britain’s beaches will continue to remind us: migration is not an abstract policy problem. It’s a story of movement, of families, of hope and fear. How we answer it tells us who we are.

Pope Condemns Global Political Inaction on Climate Change

hanad

November 18, 2025

Pope decries lack of political will on climate change — Since being made pope in May, the Chicago-born pontiff has urged more pressure on governments to stop climate change

Belém at the Crossroads: A Pope, the Amazon, and a World Running Out of Time

The air in Belém is thick with river mist and the sweet, peppery smoke of street kitchens as COP30 unfurls along the banks of the Amazon. Boats drift like slow thoughts, and the city’s market—Ver-o-Peso—sings with the clatter of produce, fish, and a thousand human stories. It is here, in the humid, green cradle of the world’s largest rainforest, that a sharply moral voice rose above negotiations, exhortation and the hum of diesel generators: Pope Leo XIV, urging concrete action and calling out the absence of political will.

“Creation is crying out in floods, droughts, storms and relentless heat,” he told a gathering of southern-hemisphere church leaders during a sideline address. His words landed like rain and like warning—familiar to communities who have watched river levels swell and seasonality warp over the past decade.

A living symbol with an urgent need for care

For many in Belém the Amazon is not an abstract carbon sink or a line item in a negotiating text. It is family, livelihood and the reason daily life tastes the way it does—tacacá at dawn, carimbó beats late into the night, the fishmongers who can name by sight where each species was hauled from the river. “We feel the heat before the papers print a story,” said Maria dos Santos, a community organizer from a riverside neighborhood, her hands stained with açai as she gestured toward the mangrove flats. “When the floods come earlier, when the dry season burns the land—this is our emergency.”

Pope Leo XIV—an American-born pontiff who spent decades as a missionary in Peru—has made climate justice a theme of his early papacy. His speech in Belém became more than pastoral reflection; it was a diplomatic nudge, a moral ledger called to account. “One in three people live in great vulnerability because of these climate changes,” he said, reminding delegates that climate change is not a distant worry for boardrooms and think tanks. It is immediate, human, urgent.

The climate talks: fragile consensus, looming decisions

Inside the glass-and-steel convention halls, government ministers began trickling in to take the baton for final negotiations. The mood was a mix of determination and exhaustion. For weeks negotiators have haggled over language and timelines—how quickly to ramp up ambition, how to finance loss and damage, whether rich and poor countries can agree on a common roadmap to phase out fossil fuels. The Paris Agreement—signed in 2015 to hold warming “well below” 2°C and pursue 1.5°C—became the baseline the pope defended. “True leadership means service,” he said, “and support on a scale that will truly make a difference.”

“There is still time to keep the rise in global temperature below 1.5°C, but the window is closing,” he warned—a line that echoed the sober calculations of scientists. As of 2023, the planet has warmed about 1.1°C above pre-industrial levels, and experts say drastic cuts are needed this decade to avoid dangerous warming. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change estimates that global CO2 emissions must fall roughly 43% by 2030 from 2019 levels to give a reasonable chance of limiting warming to 1.5°C.

Where politics meets livelihood

“What is failing is the political will of some,” the pope added, and it’s a sentiment echoed in negotiation rooms. Delegates differ not only on ambition but on the economics of the transition, on trade measures, and on who pays for the inevitable losses occurring today—eroding coastlines, failing crops, flooded homes. For small island states, for the countries bordering the Amazon, these are not hypothetical debates. They are questions of survival.

“We see families pushed to the city after rivers swallow their farms,” said Dr. Ana Pereira, a climate scientist at the Federal University of Pará. “We see biodiversity drop. We see livelihoods destabilized. Scientific models match social reality: delayed action multiplies the suffering.”

Voices from the ground

Outside the negotiating halls, voices layered the city—a chorus of urgency and skepticism. Jonas Rivera, 22, a youth activist from Manaus, carried a hand-painted sign that read: “Ambition Now.” “We grew up watching promises,” he said. “We need more than words from leaders who fly in for a photo-op and fly out with commitments half-kept.”

A local fisherwoman, Lúcia Ribeiro, told me she had seen fish stocks shift with changing river temperatures. “My grandfather taught me the seasons. Now the seasons don’t teach. We fish where we can and pray there is enough tomorrow.” Her voice, like the river, carried steadiness and exhaustion.

Not every reaction was despair. “The pope brings a different language to this table—the moral language of stewardship,” said Ambassador Rafael Costa, a Latin American diplomat. “It reframes climate policy as a responsibility not merely to future generations but to those already harmed. That matters in these negotiations.”

Concrete actions demanded—and missing

The pope’s appeal for “concrete actions” is not ambiguous. Civil society groups have been asking for the same: clear finance commitments to pay for adaptation and loss-and-damage; faster, legally-binding timelines to phase out fossil fuels; technology transfers that don’t keep developing nations on the back foot. The pledge by rich nations to mobilize $100 billion per year for developing countries, established nearly a decade ago, has repeatedly been criticized as insufficient and slow to materialize.

Major demands on the table at COP30 include: accelerated emissions cuts aligned with 1.5°C, an operational loss-and-damage fund, and a roadmap for phased fossil fuel reductions.
Countries remain split on unilateral trade measures and the balance between mitigation and adaptation finance.
Observers note the absence or ambivalent posture of some major emitters complicates consensus.

UN climate chief Simon Stiell welcomed the pope’s injection of moral clarity. “His words urge us to continue to choose hope and action,” Stiell said—an encouragement, and a challenge, to negotiators watching the clock tick down.

The larger story: morality, power, and the future of our common home

What happens in Belém matters far beyond Brazil’s riverine horizons. The Amazon stores carbon, shelters species and cultures, and sustains local and global weather patterns. Losing it—through deforestation, fires or hydrological change—would be a blow to planetary stability. Yet the decisions here also reveal broader truths: that climate solutions require political courage, equitable finance, and transformation of economies that have long benefited some while exposing others to harm.

Are we ready to accept the scale of change required? Can global systems be rewired to prioritize long-term resilience over short-term gain? These are not technical questions alone; they are moral ones. Pope Leo XIV’s message is not only to leaders in suits and flags: it is for each of us, to consider what solidarity looks like in practice.

Invitation to reflection

As the sun sets and the Amazon hums with night insects, consider what kind of leadership you want to see—locally and globally. Will it be measured by the words leaders utter on podiums, or by the policies they implement, the money they mobilize, and the protection they provide to the most vulnerable? The window for a safer climate is narrowing. In Belém, where water and life interweave, the choice is strikingly obvious.

“We cannot treat the Amazon as a backdrop,” Maria dos Santos said softly. “It’s the heartbeat of many lives. If it fails, we all feel the pulse slow.”

COP30 negotiators work overnight seeking breakthrough climate agreement

hanad

November 18, 2025

Negotiators work through the night at COP30 — Oil being pumped in a production field (file image)

Nightfall in Belém: A City of Rivers, Rain, and Relentless Negotiation

They told us the Amazon would be the backdrop for drama, but standing under the damp, humming canopy of Belém’s evening sky you sense the negotiations are as much a human story as a political one.

Delegates shuffle in and out of conference halls, their faces lit by the glow of laptops and the hum of air conditioning. Outside, vendors pack up from the Ver-o-Peso market — a riot of açaí, dried fish, and carved wooden bowls — while the river slips black and inexorable a few blocks away. This is not a postcard of the climate crisis; it is one of its front lines, and the tension is almost tactile: a sense that what happens in the rooms tonight could change lives across the planet.

Stretching the Hours: A Deadline Looms

COP30’s presidency has asked negotiators to keep going through the night. “We can’t pretend these are easy conversations,” said the summit chair at dusk, voice steady, eyes rimmed with fatigue. “But if we don’t try now, we risk losing the chance to agree on something meaningful before the clock runs out.”

After a bruising first week of talks, the hosts set a near-term deadline — finish a “significant part” of the text tonight for a formal sign-off tomorrow — a move designed to force clarity where ambiguity has thrived. The mood is urgent; not elegant, and not guaranteed.

The Map of Disagreement

In practical terms, the summit has become a mosaic of clashing priorities: trade rules that some countries call protectionist, financial pledges that many developing nations call miserly, and fossil fuel language that divides those whose economies still depend on oil and gas from those for whom the science leaves no room for delay.

Carbon tariffs and commerce

One of the sharpest skirmishes centers on the EU’s Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism (CBAM) — a policy meant to level the playing field by pricing embedded carbon in imports. It’s a policy scheduled to become fully operational in 2026 and has been piloted since 2023.

“We urge everyone to avoid measures that shelter domestic industries under the guise of climate action,” said a senior negotiator speaking for a bloc of manufacturing-heavy countries. “If you erect new barriers, you risk turning climate policy into geopolitical football.”

Responding from across the table, an EU delegate defended the approach: “Pricing carbon — whether at home or at the border — is about aligning economies with the reality of the climate crisis. We’re not seeking trade wars; we’re trying to stop runaway warming.”

Money, always money

Finance has returned as the beating heart of the talks, the familiar sore point in global climate diplomacy.

For decades, developing countries have pressed wealthy governments to deliver predictable funding for both emissions cuts and adaptation. There remains an unresolved promise — the long-discussed $100 billion per year target from developed to developing countries — and many in the Global South say it has never materialized in full. That enduring shortfall, more than any technical detail, fuels distrust.

“We are not asking for charity,” said an African climate minister at a small press gathering, voice low but fierce. “This is compensation for a crisis we did not create. Without reliable finance for adaptation, millions will be uprooted.”

Small Islands, Big Voices

Among the most vocal are representatives of small island states and low-lying nations. To them, the debate is not academic. For many communities, a half-degree of warming is the difference between survival and displacement.

“For our people, 1.5°C is not a line in a report. It is a threshold between life and death,” said a minister from a Pacific island coalition. “We know the science. We live the consequences.”

Those pleas collide with a more defensive posture from some major emerging economies and fossil fuel exporters. Any language that feels like finger-pointing is met with caution; nobody wants a text that could be read as singling out their national development model.

The Fossil Fuel Question

One of the most emotionally charged debates is whether the summit will call explicitly for a phase-out of fossil fuels. Supporters argue that science — and the latest climate models — leave little room for compromise: to have a decent chance of limiting warming to 1.5°C, global greenhouse gas emissions need to fall roughly 40–50% by 2030 relative to recent levels, according to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) assessments.

“Phasing out fossil fuels isn’t ideology; it’s arithmetic,” said a European delegate between meetings. “We can have a just transition or mass displacement, but we cannot have both.”

Brazil, the host, has signaled it wants a strong signal on fossil fuels. Walk the streets of Belém and you’ll hear mixed sentiments: a vendor who depends on diesel for his refrigerated truck, an indigenous leader whose forest is threatened by illegal clearing, a young researcher who speaks with optimism about renewables. “You cannot eat a slogan,” said one local fisherman. “But I also don’t want my home drowned by a tide in twenty years.”

At the Edge of the Forest, a Larger Story

Belém itself gives the summit a texture that’s hard to ignore. This is a city where riverboats carry both goods and stories; where the scent of grilled fish competes with diesel; where indigenous leaders have come with carved ceremonial objects and scientists with satellite data. The Amazon looms not only as a backdrop, but as a moral accumulator — a place where promises will be checked against real land and real livelihoods.

“The forest is not a prop for a photo-op,” said an indigenous activist during a late-night panel. “It is our home, our pharmacy, and our climate buffer. We are tired of being spoken for.”

What’s Really at Stake — For Everyone

These talks may seem arcane — paragraphs and brackets, clauses and footnotes — but the implications are visceral. Here are some of the stakes negotiators are wrestling with:

How money moves from rich countries to vulnerable ones to fund adaptation, mitigation, and loss and damage.
Whether international trade rules will become a tool to accelerate decarbonization or a way to shield incumbents.
Whether the global community will acknowledge the scale of change needed to keep 1.5°C within reach, and who bears responsibility for easing the transition.

Night Work, Morning Consequences

As midnight runs toward dawn in Belém, the mood is a strange mix of hope and exhaustion. Deals are possible; so are stalemates. “If we wait to solve the hardest issues, everyone loses,” said a representative of a UN climate body earlier in the day. “But solving them requires trust, and trust is built on money, fairness, and willingness to make hard choices.”

So, reader: what do you think? Should trade tools like CBAM be embraced as necessary instruments to cut emissions, even if they ruffle commerce? Or do they risk deepening divides and slowing cooperation? And when powerful economies balk at stronger language on fossil fuels, who should make the first move?

Tonight, negotiators will keep at it beneath fluorescent lights and the low forest sounds beyond the city. They will argue, cajole, and compromise. And somewhere between the Ver-o-Peso stalls and the polished halls, the fate of communities — and perhaps the planet’s — will be decided in language as delicate as any ecological balance.

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