U.S., Ukrainian Officials Resume Talks for Third Straight Day

December 6, 2025

US, Ukrainian officials to continue talks for third day — Firefighters worked on the site of a Russian airstrike in Sloviansk, Ukraine

The Long, Hot Days of Negotiation: Miami, Moscow, and a Country Under Fire

There is a peculiar hush that settles over Miami when diplomats and power-brokers decamp from the polished conference rooms to sit on stoops and smoke-ring their way through fragile agreements. It was this hush—part humidity, part anticipation—that framed two days of intensive talks between Steve Witkoff, the U.S. special envoy, Jared Kushner, the president’s son-in-law, and Ukraine’s chief negotiator, Rustem Umerov, along with General Andriy Hnatov, the head of Ukraine’s general staff.

“We came here to talk about a future you can build a life in,” a senior State Department official told me after a late-night briefing. “Not slogans, not press releases—concrete steps toward durable peace.” Whether those steps are within reach is the central question now echoing from Miami’s sun-drenched shorelines to the rubble-strewn suburbs of Kyiv.

Conversations with Echoes of Moscow

The Miami meetings followed a high-stakes Kremlin visit earlier this week in which Witkoff and Kushner sat across a long table from President Vladimir Putin. Kremlin adviser Yuri Ushakov later described those hours as “truly friendly,” and Mr. Putin called the exchange “very useful.” The Miami round was, by all accounts, a debriefing: a careful, sometimes tense cross-check of what Moscow is willing to consider and what Kyiv will never accept.

“No one here is pretending this is easy,” Rustem Umerov told the delegation in a short statement distributed after the meeting. “Ukraine’s red lines are clear—independence, territorial integrity, safety for our people. Any path to peace must ensure those foundations.”

The participants say they discussed a U.S.-backed framework for security arrangements, deterrence capabilities, and the contours of post-war reconstruction—topics that sound technocratic but are, in truth, about very human things: children’s schools, heating in winter, and whether families can return home without fear of being shelled.

The Shadow of War: Attacks While Diplomats Talk

And while the negotiators talked about deterrence and reconstruction, the war continued to make its most brutal and blunt argument. Overnight, Ukraine’s air force reported that Russia launched 653 drones and 51 missiles. Targets were strikingly ordinary: energy plants, railway networks, the arteries that keep homes warm and lights on.

Fastiv, a railway hub about 70km southwest of Kyiv, saw its main station building burn after what officials called a drone strike. “There were no casualties, but the platforms are a mess and people cannot get to work,” a local bus driver told me by phone as smoke still curled over the tracks. “Trains are how my wife gets to the hospital. Now she waits.”

In Odesa region, more than 9,500 households lost heat, and 34,000 went without water, according to Restoration Minister Oleksiy Kuleba. Prime Minister Yulia Svyrydenko convened emergency ministers to coordinate relief, and warned that rolling power outages would be needed while crews repaired damage. The rhythm of life—school schedules, oven timers, hospital wards—was rearranged yet again by a distant decision to strike infrastructure.

When Infrastructure Becomes a Weapon

“Energy systems are the soft underbelly of a nation,” said Darya Kovalenko, an analyst at the Kyiv Energy Institute. “When you cut heat and light, you attack the fabric of everyday living.” Blackouts ripple into hospitals, factories, and the tiny apartments where grandparents watch grandchildren while parents work shifts. They also reshape politics—domestic patience frays, and every outage becomes a political argument about response and resilience.

President Volodymyr Zelensky’s response was a mixture of anger and exhausted defiance. “The main targets of these strikes, once again, were energy facilities. Russia’s aim is to inflict suffering on millions of Ukrainians,” he wrote on social media—an appeal for attention, but also a plea for urgency.

Between Diplomacy and Destruction

The dissonance is jarring. In one room, negotiators draw out conceptual frameworks for a “durable and just peace.” In another, people in apartment blocks boil water on stoves because central heating has been cut; rail passengers stand on platforms watching their journeys evaporate into the smoke of a bombed-out waiting room.

“If you’re a negotiator, you have to think of the civilians,” said General Andriy Hnatov in a brief comment after the Miami meeting. “But if you’re a mother or an engineer in a small town with no power, you think of the next hour.”

For the U.S. side, the operation has an added complexity: domestic politics. President Donald Trump has made ending the war a public objective of his administration, and his envoys’ meetings with both Kyiv and Moscow are being watched—by allies, rivals, and a global audience trying to discern whether diplomacy can outpace violence. Mr. Trump has publicly scolded both Vladimir Putin and Volodymyr Zelensky at times, a reminder that the personal dynamics of leaders can undercut or accelerate fragile diplomatic turns.

Questions of Trust and Verification

Talks, officials say, are not just about grand gestures. They are about verification mechanisms—who watches the borders, how long forces will withdraw, what incentives will ensure compliance. “Trust has to be built on data as much as words,” a U.S. military analyst observed. “That means monitoring, international observers, and guarantees that are credible.”

Which brings us to reconstruction: if and when shooting stops, who rebuilds? Ukraine and the U.S. discussed joint economic initiatives and long-term recovery projects, but money and machinery require calmer skies. Donors can pledge; transport corridors can be planned—but rubble must be cleared, and that takes time and security.

People in the Crossfire

Sometimes the statistics hide the human stories. In a small bakery near Fastiv, the owner swept glass off the counter and offered a cup of tea. “We will fix the oven,” she said, more as reassurance than a plan. “We always do. People are stubborn here.”

Across town, a retired teacher scrolls through news feeds and shakes her head. “They talk about frameworks and deterrence. My concern is simpler: will my daughter be able to warm the baby next winter?”

These are the questions diplomats must answer to claim any real victory: not an abstract peace, but a peace that ensures children’s sleep, hospital electricity, and trains running again.

What Comes Next—and What It Means for the World

So where do we go from here? More talks are planned. Officials spoke of “progress,” a polite but often elastic word in diplomacy. The next steps hinge on whether Russia shows what negotiators repeatedly described as “serious commitment”: meaningful de-escalation, concrete steps to stop the killings, and verifiable mechanisms that prevent a return to hostilities.

For readers watching from distant capitals, the story speaks to larger themes: the weaponization of infrastructure, the fragility of civilian life under modern war, and the limits of diplomacy in the face of raw force. It also raises a practical question: can a peace be stitched together while the guns still go off? Can trust be brokered between parties who may still view negotiation as another front in which to advance advantage?

We have seen fragile truces and abrupt breakdowns across the globe in recent decades. The calculus is never purely military—it is economic, social, and psychological. It asks us, as global citizens: what price are we willing to pay for security, and what is the true cost of delay?

As the sun set over Miami—turning glass towers to liquid gold—negotiators huddled over maps and proposals. Far away, families in Ukraine measured the sunset by whether the radiators would come on tomorrow. You can feel the distance between those two scenes like a chord stretched taut. Whether it will hold is the work of the weeks to come.

Brazil’s Bolsonaro Pledges Support for Son’s Expected Presidential Run

hanad

December 6, 2025

Brazil's Bolsonaro to back son's expected presidency bid — Senator Flavio Bolsonaro, son of former Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro has received his father's backing for a presidency bid next year (file image)

Father, Son, and the Specter of 2026: Brazil’s Political Tempest Reignited

There are moments in politics when a single phrase can act like a flare in the night — a bright, sudden signal that redirects attention and shifts calculations. This week, that flare came from inside the Liberal Party: Jair Bolsonaro, the polarizing former president of Brazil, has signaled support for his eldest son, Senator Flavio Bolsonaro, as a 2026 presidential hopeful. The confirmation — relayed by party leader Valdemar Costa Neto, who said he had “heard from the senator that the former president had ‘ratified his candidacy'” — landed like a stone thrown into still water. Ripples raced across markets and into living rooms from Rio to Brasília.

Markets, Mood and Momentum

The reaction was immediate and measurable. Brazil’s real slipped roughly 2% against the U.S. dollar, while the Bovespa benchmark fell near 3% as traders reassessed political risk. For a country still finding its economic footing after years of upheaval, a perceived change in the race’s dynamics translates fast into money flow and investor confidence.

Why? Because some investors had been banking on the idea that Jair Bolsonaro — barred from running by the Superior Electoral Court (TSE) in June 2023 — might throw his weight behind a candidate with executive experience and a reputation for market-friendly governance. Names like São Paulo Governor Tarcisio de Freitas, a former transport minister, were discussed in financial circles as plausible challengers to President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva.

“The market sees Flavio as a weaker candidate than Tarcisio in a race against Lula,” said Laís Costa, an analyst at Empiricus Research, reflecting a widely held view on institutional risk and electability that helped set the tone for traders.

From Brasília’s Corridors to the Streets

The theatre of this development is itself telling. CNN Brasil reported that Bolsonaro — currently serving a prison sentence following a conviction linked to efforts to overturn the 2022 election — offered public backing for his son during a visit to federal police offices in Brasília. Whether inside a courtroom corridor or outside a polling booth, politics in Brazil often happens in public spaces where symbolism is as potent as policy.

Walk through Brasília’s Esplanada, and the city’s modernist avenues feel like a stage built for national drama. Statues and ministries cast long shadows; plazas that once hosted celebratory rallies now double as platforms for protest. For Brazilians who remember the 2018 insurgent ascendancy of Jair Bolsonaro, the idea of a Bolsonaro scion seeking the presidency again resurrects questions about the durability of Brazil’s democratic norms and institutions.

Legal Limits, Long Shadows

It is important to remember the legal context framing this story: Jair Bolsonaro was disqualified from running in 2023 after the TSE found his conduct during the 2022 election to be incompatible with the rules that govern Brazil’s electoral process. Later that year, he was sentenced to 27 years and three months in prison related to attempts to subvert the election outcome. Those courtroom outcomes are not mere footnotes; they are constraints that reshape how supporters organize, how rivals strategize, and how the electorate perceives legitimacy.

But law and politics, while intertwined, do not always move in lockstep. A banned political figure can remain a galvanizing force; their endorsements can carry symbolic weight and organizational muscle. The rise of family dynasties in politics is a global phenomenon — from the Kennedys in the United States to the Gandhis in India — and Brazil’s moment now prompts the same question many democracies face: how do institutions respond when political passion outlives legal restrictions?

What This Means for 2026

The Brazilian political map for 2026 is now being redrawn, stroke by delicate stroke. Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, who reclaimed the presidency in 2022, remains the headline figure of the left. Across the aisle, names on the center-right and right have been circulated by pundits and investors — each carrying different policy platforms, governing pedigrees, and levels of electoral appeal.

Flavio Bolsonaro would bring to a campaign the family brand that propelled his father to office: muscular rhetoric, strong law-and-order messaging, and the loyalty of a specific slice of the electorate. But brand does not always equal breadth. Analysts worry about his ability to sway undecided voters or to attract moderate conservatives who prioritize economic stability and governance competence.

Voices and Vibes: More Than Headlines

On a humid afternoon in a neighborhood market in São Paulo, vendors barked out prices beneath the flapping tarps. Their conversations ranged from the purely practical — the price of beans, the uncertain season for coffee — to the political. “Politics decides whether I can expand my stall or if inflation eats my margins,” one small-business owner told a local reporter. While not a direct quote from the campaign, it captures the practical stakes many Brazilians consider when they weigh their votes.

Meanwhile, in Brasília, a civil servant expressed weariness: the relentless cycle of crisis and counter-crisis has frayed patience. “People are exhausted by spectacle. They want solutions,” she said, asking to remain unnamed for fear of professional repercussions.

Culture, Memory and the Long View

Brazil is more than its political theater. Samba halls, church pews, coastal fishing communities and Indigenous territories all register the country’s turbulence in different gauges. The political debate about 2026 will be filtered through these lenses — economic concerns for the urban middle class, security worries that dominate outskirts and favelas, and the rights of Indigenous peoples and environmental activists scrutinizing every stance on the Amazon.

Consider the Atlantic coast towns where fishing is livelihood and identity. A policy that promises infrastructure might win praise in one bay; an environmental rollback could provoke lasting opprobrium in another. These are the local textures that national campaigns must navigate, or risk being dismissed as tone-deaf.

Questions to Carry Forward

What does it mean for a democracy when a political family seeks renewal despite legal vignettes that should constrain its leaders? How do investors and ordinary citizens reconcile short-term market jitters with the deeper pulse of civic life? And perhaps most pointedly: what kind of country do Brazilians want to build for themselves in the next decade?

As the 2026 horizon approaches, Brazil’s story will not be written in spreadsheets alone. It will be written in conversations at kitchen tables, on buses, in town halls and in the courtroom corridors where law and politics collide. The coming months will test not only the strategic acumen of political operators but the resilience of institutions and the patience of a public that has seen drama become almost routine.

For now, a father’s blessing for his son has reignited debate, volatility and hope — sometimes in equal measure. Keep an eye on the headlines, yes. But also listen to the marketplaces, the neighborhoods, the cafés. That’s where we will find the real contours of Brazil’s next political act.

Returning Nigerians reverse brain drain, rebuild skills and boost economy

hanad

December 6, 2025

Returning Nigerians countering emigration brain drain — Dr Chinyere Almona (L) with Juliette Gash of RTÉ News

Japa, Japada and the Long Return: Stories of Leaving, Living and Coming Home to Nigeria

There is a word that keeps surfacing in conversations from Dublin to Lagos: Japa. In Yoruba slang it means to run away, to leave — a shorthand for a tidal wave of young Nigerians seeking greener pastures abroad. Its counterpart, Japada, whispers of the other movement: those who come back, bringing new skills, new networks, and the possibility of change. In this second part of a series, I followed a handful of returnees to understand what “coming home” actually looks like in a country of music, markets and maddening traffic; a place where the stakes for leaving and returning are intensely personal.

A small girl in Tipperary

When Adenike Adekunle was seven she landed in Ireland with her mother. “I remember the quiet, the rain and being probably the only black child in class,” she told me, voice soft as she folded her memories. “We lived in direct provision at first – long lines, the same grey corridor, but people were kind in their way.”

Now 31, Adenike’s life reads like a modern migration fable. School in Tipperary. University at what was then NUI Galway. A stint in the UK where she ran a small but beloved London restaurant. And finally, a return to Lagos, where she has swapped damp green hills for humidity, traffic and noise — and launched Forti Foods, a start-up rolling out contemporary Nigerian flavours to a market hungry for both nostalgia and innovation.

“Education changed my language — not just English, but the way I see and describe the world,” she said. “There was confidence that came with studying abroad. That has been huge for me as an entrepreneur here.”

Her restaurant in London gave her a taste of both success and frustration. “You can do well abroad,” Adenike reflected, “but sometimes the space to make a really visible impact is limited — you’re one of many. Back here, a small idea can ripple.”

Why leave? Why return?

People leave for a tangle of reasons. For some it’s economic: jobs, stability, the allure of social services and visa pathways. For others it’s protection — escaping violence, family pressures or traditional obligations. “You can’t reduce migration to one motive,” one social researcher told me. “It’s an emotional, economic and social calculus.”

Nigeria, with a population of more than 200 million and a median age that barely scratches 18, produces vast amounts of ambition. Young people talk openly about opportunities and ceilings. “There are many parts of my diaspora circle who say, ‘I could do more back home,’” Adenike said. “But they also need security, predictable power, access to health and schools. It’s not just a feeling — it’s infrastructure.”

Brains on the move — and the cost

There is a shorthand that economists and policymakers use: brain drain. The most mobile — and often the most educated — are the ones who can afford to leave. Hospitals, universities and tech hubs notice the hollowing out. “When nurses, engineers and lecturers leave, you feel it,” said a Lagos-based health policy expert. “Short-term gaps form in critical services.”

Yet the story is not only of loss. Remittances sent home by expatriates bolster household budgets, pay for education and stabilize economies. Last year, Nigerians abroad sent an estimated $19 billion back home — a lifeline for many families and a major entry on Nigeria’s economic ledger.

Dr. Chinyere Almona, CEO of the Lagos Chamber of Commerce, describes Japa as a challenge and an opportunity. “We do lose people with skills we need,” she told me. “But our diaspora is a global network. They are investors, mentors and clients if we can connect with them.”

She wants better conditions so fewer people feel forced to leave. “Policy matters. Infrastructure matters. When you make it possible to live a dignified life, people will choose to stay or return.”

Stories of Japada

Not all departures are permanent. The billionaire banker Jim Ovia, founder of Zenith Bank, is among those who have long spoken publicly about returning home after studying in the United States. “The first time I came back after my studies I saw an opening — opportunity was everywhere,” he said at a public forum some years ago. “Younger Nigerians can find a playground to build if they come home with ideas and capital.”

Back in Lagos I met Olufemi, a software developer who returned from Manchester last year. “In the UK I could have had stability,” he said, pulling a wrapper off a suya stick bought at a roadside stall. “But here I’m building a fintech product aimed at people who can’t access banks. The customer is in Nigeria. The impact is visible in the day-to-day.”

For people like Adenike and Olufemi the calculation is simple: the glass ceiling abroad can be lower in some ways, but the ceiling here is more porous — you can grow into jobs that simply don’t exist in saturated Western markets.

What returning actually takes

Return isn’t a single event; it’s a negotiation. It involves transferring skills, adjusting to bureaucracy, and often a humility that comes from realising that systems back home can be maddeningly opaque.

“You don’t just bring money and degrees.” says a Lagos entrepreneur who mentors returnee start-ups. “You bring networks. You bring processes. But you also have to relearn how to operate here — to navigate logistics, power outages, customs and the informal economy.”

Remittances and investment: Money sent home keeps families afloat and can seed businesses.
Networks: Diaspora Nigerians bring global clients, ideas and standards back with them.
Policy and infrastructure: The government’s response can either welcome returnees or push them away.

Culture and home

There is also culture — the pulse of Lagos: yellow danfos, dense markets, the smell of smokey peppers and freshly roasted plantain. Returnees speak of the sensory shock and the comforts. “I missed the food more than I expected,” Adenike laughed. “You can get good jollof in London, but not the one your aunt makes at 3am.”

And there is social expectation. Parents invite grandchildren, siblings expect help, community networks open doors and close them. Navigating all of that requires emotional labor as much as paperwork.

Where does this leave Nigeria — and the reader?

So what does a country do when its most restless citizens keep leaving, yet some keep coming back with tools to rebuild? The answer is neither simple nor singular. It is a mix of policy, private sector leadership and, crucially, civic imagination.

Dr. Almona suggests a practical route: “We must build partnerships with our diaspora: easier investment channels, mentorship programmes, recognition of foreign qualifications.” She points to remittances as a start — but says the bigger prize is converting that flow into sustainable investment.

And here’s a question for you, wherever you sit: what does home mean in an age of rapid mobility? For migrants and for nations, home is no longer a single point on a map. It is a set of relationships—economic, emotional, digital—that criss-cross continents. The choices people make to leave, to return, or to live in both places at once, reflect changing ideas about belonging and opportunity.

Adenike’s last thought lingered with me as we parted: “Don’t just leave forever. If you go, take the security you need, learn what you can. And when you can, bring some of that back. That’s where development begins — with people willing to come home and try.”

In the end, Japada is not merely the inverse of Japa. It is a hope — fragile, stubborn and full of friction — that people and nations can remake each other when movement is paired with intention.

U.S. set to drop newborn hepatitis B vaccine recommendation

hanad

December 6, 2025

US to end recommending Hepatitis B vaccine for newborns — US health authorities previously recommended all babies receive the first of three Hepatitis B shots just after birth (stock image)

When a Routine Shot Became a Reckoning

On a gray morning that felt ordinary in hospital nurseries from Ohio to Oregon, something quietly seismic moved through the world of American pediatrics: an expert panel voted to abandon a three-decade-old, birth‑in‑the‑maternity‑ward recommendation that every newborn be offered the first dose of the Hepatitis B vaccine.

It was not just a clinical tweak. It was a pivot that carries the texture of policy and the weight of lives—of infants who, if infected at birth, face a heartless statistical fate: roughly nine out of ten newborns exposed to hepatitis B will develop chronic infection, with higher lifetime risks of cirrhosis and liver cancer.

What Changed — And Why It Matters

For more than 30 years, the United States followed a simple, blunt public‑health logic: vaccinate early, vaccinate broadly. The first dose of the three-shot Hepatitis B series has typically been administered within hours of birth, then again around one to two months, and a final dose before toddlerhood. That protocol, widely embraced by the World Health Organization and used in countries from China to Australia, helped drive infections in children to vanishingly low levels here.

On the committee that oversees vaccine guidance—the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP)—a new majority voted to shift from universal newborn vaccination to “individual‑based decision‑making” for babies whose mothers screen negative for hepatitis B. The panel said clinicians should weigh vaccine benefits, risks and infection probabilities—and recommended that if parents opt out at birth, the first shot be delayed until at least two months of age.

The vote was 8‑3. Public health observers note that the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) typically follows ACIP guidance, and that insurance coverage often tracks those recommendations. In plain terms: what the ACIP says carries power—financial and practical—for whether families actually receive vaccines without cost or friction.

Quick facts to keep in mind

Hepatitis B can be transmitted during childbirth and is much more likely to become chronic when infection occurs in infancy.
Since universal infant vaccination began in 1991, the U.S. has seen steep declines—by more than 90%—in acute hepatitis B cases among children and young people.
Globally, an estimated 296 million people were living with chronic hepatitis B in 2019 and roughly 820,000 people died that year from HBV-related complications, according to WHO figures.
Typical vaccine schedule: birth dose, 1–2 months, and a third dose at 6–18 months.

Voices from the Ward, the Clinic, and the Capitol

“This irresponsible and purposely misleading guidance will lead to more Hepatitis B infections in infants and children,” said Susan J. Kressly, president of the American Academy of Pediatrics, in a statement that echoed across pediatric wards. For clinicians who have watched a generation of children largely spared from hepatitis B, the decision felt like a regression.

Not everyone agreed. Some committee members argued that the change merely aligns U.S. practice with other wealthy nations that do not routinely give the birth dose when maternal tests are negative. “We’re trying to let families make informed choices at the bedside,” one ACIP member told reporters, defending the shift.

Back in the political sphere, Senator Bill Cassidy—who has a medical background and who helped tip the scales in a previous confirmation vote—urged caution. “This was never a mandate. CDC officials should not sign these new recommendations and instead retain the current, evidence‑based approach,” he wrote on social media.

A pediatric infectious‑disease specialist who dissented on the committee, Dr. Cody Meissner, delivered a moral plea before the vote: “Do no harm is a moral imperative. We are doing harm by changing this wording,” he warned.

And in the quiet corridors of a city hospital, a new mother wrapped her infant in a blue blanket and summed up a common, private anxiety: “I trusted that the first shot at birth meant she was safe from something I didn’t even know how to pronounce,” she said. “Now I’m supposed to decide something I never thought would be my call.”

Why this is more than a medical debate

Policy shifts like this do not land evenly. In the United States, health access is uneven—many families rely on public clinics where missed opportunities are common, and maternal screening for hepatitis B is sometimes incomplete. A policy that assumes reliable, timely screening and easy access to follow‑up care risks widening existing disparities.

Consider the chain of events that made the birth dose attractive to public‑health officials in the first place: maternal tests can be delayed, misread, or even falsified; women in labor may lack prenatal care; and hospitalization is a narrow window to intercept a life‑altering infection. A universal birth dose reduces reliance on perfect systems.

There is also a broader institutional story. The committee itself has been reshaped in recent months, and some members of the scientific and medical community have criticized the changes as politically driven and not grounded in the weight of prior evidence. Several states—led by public health officials in more progressive jurisdictions—have already signaled they may not follow the new guidance.

Where the ripple might spread

If federal insurance coverage follows the new guidance, the practical cost of vaccination could rise for families. Vaccines are expensive when not covered—often hundreds of dollars for a full childhood series—which could put them out of reach for uninsured or underinsured households.

And there is the signal it sends: when a long‑standing public‑health default becomes optional, faith in routine prevention can fray. What happens when a recommendation becomes a negotiation? If the answer depends on who walks into the hospital that day—on language barriers, on staffing, on whether a fatigued nurse has time for counseling—then risk becomes unevenly distributed.

Questions worth asking

Who is the system designed to protect? Are we optimistically assuming perfect prenatal care in a country where many people still struggle to find a family doctor? Do we want a patchwork approach to prevention for a disease that is inexpensive to prevent and costly in human suffering?

When policy shifts, it is also worth asking how we judge evidence in an era when expertise and authority are contested. Are we moving toward more individualized care, or are we eroding a public‑health consensus built from decades of data and lived experience?

Looking ahead: not just a policy choice but a civic one

No single vote ends a story—but it can change its arc. The ACIP’s decision has set off a cascade of debates among clinicians, parents, insurers, and lawmakers. Some states will likely keep the birth dose in place; others may follow the new guidance. Clinicians will have to navigate new scripts in the delivery room, and parents will be asked to take on decisions that radiate with long‑term consequences.

The winter light in a neonatal unit reveals the small, fierce vulnerability of new life. Policies that touch that vulnerability deserve careful stewardship. In the coming months, watch for how hospitals translate guidance into practice, how insurers respond, and how communities—especially those most at risk—are heard in the conversation.

Will the nation choose prevention as default? Or will it make prevention a matter of negotiation, with all the inequities that invites? That is the question now standing at the crib-side.

World-renowned architect Frank Gehry passes away at 96

hanad

December 6, 2025

Renowned architect Frank Gehry dies aged 96 — Frank Gehry was awarded every major prize architecture has to offer, including the field's top honour, the Pritzker Prize

The Man Who Made Cities Bend: Remembering Frank Gehry

Frank Gehry’s buildings did something rare in an era of glass boxes and corporate sameness: they surprised us. They tilted, fluttered, buckled like paper, and somehow invited people to circle, to stare, to argue. On the day news came that Gehry had died aged 96 at his home in Santa Monica after a brief respiratory illness, the world felt a little more rectangular — and, for a moment, quieter.

“He loved the unexpected,” Meaghan Lloyd, chief of staff at Gehry Partners, said when announcing his passing. “He lived and worked with a sense of wonder that never dimmed.” That sense of wonder is what turned titanium plates into a new language for cities, what made a concert hall into a shimmering instrument, and what convinced mayors and museum directors to gamble millions on a single daring vision.

A Life Curved Around Curiosity

Gehry’s path didn’t follow blueprints. Born into modest circumstances, by the time he was a global name he had earned the architecture world’s highest accolades. The Pritzker Prize — architecture’s Nobel — recognized him as “refreshingly original,” a phrase that stuck because it captured his appetite for risk. He also received honors from institutions that span the globe, acknowledging a career that blurred the lines between building and sculpture.

Walk through any of Gehry’s great works and you see the elements that defined him: reclaimed materials, playful assemblages, façades that behave like costumes for the city. The Walt Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles folds like a sheet of metal lifted by wind; the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao turned an industrial port into a pilgrimage site for art lovers and tourists alike. In Paris, the Fondation Louis Vuitton nestles like a fleet of translucent sails, while in New York his residential tower reshaped the skyline into rippled stainless steel and glass.

Local Voices, Global Echoes

“When the Guggenheim opened, we could feel Bilbao breathing again,” said Ana Marquez, a café owner two blocks from the museum. “People came, and stayed. My niece found a job; my neighborhood got a roof over the market. It changed everything for us.” Her sentiment is shorthand for the so-called “Bilbao effect” — the phenomenon in which a single striking cultural investment triggered economic and social ripple effects across a city.

In Los Angeles, orchestra members often talk about Disney Hall as if it were another instrument. “The sound here alive,” a violinist for the Los Angeles Philharmonic told me. “The building doesn’t just hold music; it helps make it.” That marriage of acoustic science and sculptural bravado became a template for how architecture could serve both function and spectacle.

Triumphs, Tension, and the Cost of Being Iconic

Gehry’s work was not a universal love affair. Some critics dismissed select later pieces as ego-driven attractions, designed more to fill postcards than to age with dignity. “They’re built for the tourist eye,” one art critic wrote, arguing that flourishes sometimes outpaced human scale. Others took aim at practicalities: maintenance of curved metal, complexities of construction, and the way dramatic forms could overshadow the urban fabric around them.

Not all projects moved forward smoothly. Gehry’s proposal for a memorial to President Dwight D. Eisenhower met resistance from the Eisenhower family, who preferred restraint to bravado. Gehry held to his artistic convictions; the clash illustrated a perennial tension between an architect’s imagination and the public’s desire for familiar reverence.

Even when projects were courted by tech giants, negotiations could change designs. A planned expansion at a northern California campus was softened at the request of the company’s leadership, a rare moment where the architect relented to anonymity over spectacle. “Sometimes you have to give a little to get the bigger piece,” an associate at his firm once explained.

How Gehry Changed the Conversation About Cities

Gehry’s buildings did more than win prizes — they changed expectations. They asked the public to accept curvature in a world that defaults to right angles. They let architecture be theatrical without losing seriousness. And they taught clients and cities that a bold cultural investment can be a form of civic underwriting: a single building can lift tourism numbers, spawn new development, and alter a city’s self-image.

There is a practical lesson in his legacy, too. Complex forms demanded new engineering, new materials, and novel construction processes. Gehry’s offices collaborated deeply with fabricators, software designers, and engineers to turn sketches into structures. In doing so, he pushed the building industry into new territories of digital design and precision fabrication — changes that now ripple through architecture schools and studios worldwide.

Teaching, Mentoring, and the Next Generation

Gehry’s influence extended into classrooms. He taught at Yale, Columbia, and later returned to his alma mater, the University of Southern California, helping to shape young minds who now helm firms around the globe. “He taught permission,” a former student recalled. “Permission to try, to fail, to build something that felt alive.”

Through mentorship and example, he moved architecture away from strict orthodoxy and toward a pluralistic practice where individual expression could coexist with civic responsibility.

What Remains After the Applause

When the scaffolding comes down and the headlines fade, Gehry’s buildings will remain stubborn, useful, beloved, and controversial. They will still challenge us at street level — to walk around, to gather, to decide whether beauty is merely spectacle or an integral part of how we live together.

As we look at the cities he reshaped, questions linger: What does it mean to invest in culture? Who gets to decide the face of a city? And how do we weigh daring form against everyday life? Gehry’s work forces those questions into the open.

“Frank made people look up,” said Lucille Ramos, an urban planner who has worked on waterfront redevelopment projects in multiple countries. “That gaze is important. Architecture should make you imagine the possible. He did that more boldly than most.”

Final Measures: A Career in Numbers and Memory

By most measures, Gehry’s career was extraordinary: dozens of major public commissions across Europe and the Americas, top international awards, and a cultural imprint that produced both devoted fans and vocal skeptics. More tangibly, his buildings drew millions of visitors, catalyzed redevelopment, and inspired a generation of architects to embrace risk.

Today, as cities and citizens debate the right balance between utility and drama, Gehry’s work will be cited on both sides. For some, his curves are daring proofs that architecture can be art. For others, they’re reminders of the fragility of public taste. Either way, his legacy is unmistakable: he dared to bend skylines and public expectation in the same breath.

Walking past a Gehry building, you feel the world tilt just slightly. You ask yourself: What would happen if more of our public spaces were built to surprise? If architecture was less about comfort and more about prompting conversation? Gehry’s answer was literal and loud — build it different, and people will come.

As we mark his passing, the question left to us is not only how we remember Frank Gehry, but how we continue the conversation he started about daring, delight, and the architecture of possibility.

Israel Carries Out New Cross-Border Strikes on Lebanon After Warnings

hanad

December 6, 2025

Israel launches fresh strikes on Lebanon after warnings — A man examines a building destroyed in an Israeli strike in Lebanon

Smoke Over the Olive Groves: A Day When a Fragile Truce Frayed

Early this morning the sky over southern Lebanon turned the color of old ash. Plumes rose from the hills above towns with names most maps skip — Mahrouna, Jbaa, Majdal, Baraasheet — places of terraced olive groves, cinderblock homes, mosque minarets and children who still play among pitted concrete walls that carry the memory of past fights.

“We were eating breakfast when the first blast shook the house,” said Ahmad, a shopkeeper in Jbaa, his voice low and steady. “Windows shattered across the street. My neighbor’s daughter was crying for her doll; her face looked like she’d seen the world end.” His hands picked at the hem of his shirt as if trying to undo the moment.

Hours later, Israel’s military said it had struck what it described as “Hezbollah weapons storage facilities” tucked within civilian neighborhoods. Lebanese authorities reported raids on a string of southern towns. Photographers and residents shared images of smoke curling above streets, of shattered glass glinting like a constellation on the sidewalks.

Between a Ceasefire and a Cold War

The attacks came only a day after a small diplomatic opening: for the first time in decades, civilian representatives from Lebanon and Israel sat down — brokered under the watchful umbrella of the UN peacekeeping presence in Naqura — to discuss the terms of last November’s ceasefire and the practical mechanics meant to keep it in place.

The mechanism that convened in Naqura is the same one that has become a weird, on-again, off-again lifeline along the border: an assemblage of military officers and diplomats from the United States, France, Lebanon, Israel and the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL). The intent is practical — to prevent sparks from becoming infernos — but the symbolism is larger. When former enemies sit at the same table, even to argue about how to measure a buffer zone, it signals a weariness in both capitals.

“Don’t mistake this for peace,” warned Lebanese Prime Minister Nawaf Salam at a press briefing. “These conversations are limited: they aim to stop the gunfire, to secure the release of hostages, to ensure full withdrawal from Lebanese territory. They are not peace talks.” His words landed like a careful, necessary reminder that diplomatic contact does not instantly erase seven decades of hostility.

How Thin Is the Truce?

The ceasefire agreed in November was meant to halt more than a year of escalating exchanges between Israel and the Iran-backed Hezbollah. It has reduced full-scale operations, but not the episodic violence that keeps the families of the south living on edge. Israeli forces have kept units in a handful of strategic areas near the border; Hezbollah remains an armed and politically entrenched movement inside Lebanon. The result is a tense détente, an uneasy quiet filled with the sound of scanners, warnings and the occasional flare of violence.

“This isn’t peace. It’s managed tension,” said Marie Dupont, a former French diplomat now tracking the ceasefire implementation. “You can build monitoring committees, you can erect confidence-building measures, but without addressing the root political questions — disarmament, sovereignty, and a political horizon — these windows of calm will keep closing and opening.” Dupont pointed out that UNIFIL, the peacekeeping mission, deploys roughly 10,000 troops and monitors an area scarred by displacement, poverty and political fractures.

On the Ground: Civilians in the Crossfire

For residents, the diplomatic choreography feels distant. What matters is whether their children can get to school, whether the generator will keep the fridge running, whether a warning siren will send them scurrying into basements and stairwells.

“We are used to threats,” said a local official in Mahrouna, speaking near a shattered storefront. “But the damage this time was strange — every window within 300 metres was broken. People are in shock. We live here, we farm here; our lives are woven into these hills.”

Humanitarian actors warn that repeated strikes in populated areas can have cumulative, long-term effects. Trauma, interrupted education, and economic dislocation are slow-burning consequences. In communities already suffering from a failing economy and high unemployment, another round of strikes risks pushing more people toward desperation.

Lebanon and Israel have been technically at war since 1948, a fact that underpins much of the mistrust along the border.
The November truce curbed large-scale fighting but did not resolve the presence of armed groups or the strategic deployments near the frontier.
UNIFIL continues to monitor the cessation of hostilities, but its mandates are limited to observation and reporting rather than enforcement.

Politics and Blame: Who Decides When a Neighborhood Is a Target?

<p”The presence of weapons in civilian areas is a grim reality,” said an Israeli military spokesperson in a statement. “Hezbollah’s embedding of military infrastructure within towns is a cynical tactic that endangers Lebanese civilians and constrains our options.” The message is clear: Israel frames its strikes as targeted responses to military threats emanating from within populated areas.

Hezbollah and its supporters offer a different narrative, casting such strikes as collective punishment that violates the sanctity of civilian life. Lebanese officials have repeatedly said they favor the disarmament of all militias, but they also warn about the political impossibility of disarming a group that is integrated into social networks and local power structures.

“People here don’t want to be human shields,” said Sami, an elderly farmer in Majdal, watching his goats in a field dotted with olive trees. “But what are our alternatives? Who will protect us from the other side if they take our guns? There are no easy answers.” His question echoes a central dilemma for Lebanon: how do you reconcile state sovereignty with armed groups that function as both militia and social provider?

A Wider Theatre: Regional and Global Stakes

This is not a local spat with only local consequences. The tug-of-war between Israel and Hezbollah is part of a larger regional rivalry. Iran’s support for Hezbollah, American backing for Israel, and the diplomatic gestures from European capitals create an arena where local skirmishes can have outsized geopolitical effects.

“The ceasefire’s durability matters beyond the border,” said Leila Haddad, a Beirut-based analyst. “If the truce collapses, the risk is not only renewed tit-for-tat shelling. A broader conflagration could redraw alliances, increase displacement, and destabilize an already fragile Lebanon.” Haddad highlighted how economic ties — from gas exploration in the eastern Mediterranean to trade corridors — are often dangled as incentives for de-escalation.

Indeed, participants at the Naqura talks reportedly discussed potential economic cooperation ideas. Israeli officials described the atmosphere as “positive,” but insisted any progress on economics would be contingent on Hezbollah’s disarmament. The United States has been active behind the scenes, pressing for modalities that would reduce the group’s ability to carry out cross-border attacks.

Faces Not Figures: A Final Thought

Numbers and statements matter — they help diplomats and analysts model scenarios. But when the dust settles, it is faces and routines that reveal the cost of this long conflict: the baker who closes shop early because of curfew, the teacher who counts students desk by desk to make sure they’re all present, the mother who tapes up broken windows because she can’t afford new ones.

What do we owe communities wedged between armies and militias? How do global powers reconcile strategic interests with the immediate human cost on the ground? As the sun set today and families in the south swept glass into plastic bags, those questions felt less like abstract policy debates and more like urgent, local dilemmas.

“We want to sleep at night without sirens waking our children,” said Ahmad. “Is that too much to ask?”

Perhaps the late, small talks in Naqura can grow into something more substantial. Or perhaps, as history warns, another flare will once again remind everyone why peace that is only a pause is a precarious thing. Will the international community push harder for a lasting solution — or will we circle back to accepting a managed, fragile quiet? The answer will shape not only the map of the region but the lives in these olive-scented hills for years to come.

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