Authorities uncover over one million additional potential Jeffrey Epstein documents

December 25, 2025

Discovery of a million more potential Epstein documents — Jeffrey Epstein in one of the images released by the US Department of State on 20 December

A Million Papers, One Pause: Inside the New Pause in the Epstein File Releases

On a gray December morning in Manhattan, the courthouse steps felt unusually crowded with a different kind of foot traffic — not the usual lawyers and tourists, but reporters with steaming coffee, advocates clutching folders, and neighbours peering out from behind bus windows. News had broken overnight: federal prosecutors and the FBI had handed the Department of Justice more than a million additional documents that might touch the long, tangled web around financier Jeffrey Epstein. The result: a pause in a release the country had been promised, and a small national crisis about how much the public should know — and how much must remain private.

What happened — in plain terms

The Justice Department confirmed that the Southern District of New York and the FBI turned over what officials called “mass volumes” of material tied to investigations into Epstein, his associates, and the networks alleged to have enabled his crimes. The transfer came after Congress — Republicans and Democrats together — passed a law forcing the release of files by a set deadline. But the influx of more than a million pages of newly identified documents meant a deadline could not be met without sacrificing victims’ privacy, the DOJ said.

“We have lawyers working around the clock to review and make the legally required redactions to protect victims, and we will release the documents as soon as possible,” a Justice Department spokesperson told reporters. “Due to the mass volume of material, this process may take a few more weeks.”

A familiar but painful backdrop

For those following the Epstein story, this is not a new scene. Epstein was arrested in July 2019 on federal sex trafficking charges; he died in custody that August. His name is tied to a sidelong catalogue of wealth, power and alleged abuse. The public release of documents related to his case, ordered recently by federal lawmakers, was supposed to pull back the curtain on how investigations were handled and who was involved. Instead, much of what has been released so far has come with thick black bars — redactions that have infuriated both critics of the administration and those who feel the system should shield victims.

“People want answers. Victims want acknowledgement,” said a Manhattan-based victim advocate who asked not to be named. “But they don’t want their trauma paraded in public. That’s the grief here: transparency versus dignity.”

Redactions, deadlines and political pressure

The law fast-tracked by Congress required documents to be made public, with allowances to redact intimate or identifying details to protect victims. But lawmakers also put a hard date on the release — and political operatives on both sides of the aisle quickly turned the file dump into fodder for power politics. Republicans criticized the White House for protecting allies; Democrats accused the administration of delaying justice. The result was a national tug-of-war played out in courtrooms, congressional offices and on cable news.

“The American people have a right to know the truth,” said one Republican member of Congress on a morning broadcast. “But we also have a duty not to traumatize those who were harmed.”

Yet the most immediate, practical stumbling block is not politics alone: it’s sheer scale. Millions of pages of documents — emails, investigative notes, phone records, witness statements — must be combed, names checked, identities shielded where appropriate. That is painstaking, tedious, human work that doesn’t respond well to political deadlines.

Voices from the street: how the city is feeling

Outside the courthouse, the conversation ranged from weary cynicism to raw hope. On a side street near Foley Square, a café owner who has seen plenty of protests over the years described the scene in earthy terms.

“People keep coming in asking, ‘Did you see the new stuff?’” she said, wiping a counter. “Everyone wants the truth, but nobody wants to be the spectacle.”

A retired NYPD detective, sipping tea on a bench, added, “I’ve worked cases that were shorter than these files look. The problem is, when powerful people are involved, files get complicated. Not all of it is cover-up; some is just bureaucracy. But it feeds suspicion.”

Experts weigh in

Legal scholars and civil liberties advocates say this episode illustrates deeper tensions in how democracies handle mass disclosures: the public’s right to information versus the individual’s right to privacy. “We have to remember the legal standard,” said a law professor who studies criminal procedure. “Victim privacy is not optional. Federal statutes and court rules require it. The solution is not to steamroll protections in the name of expediency.”

At the same time, the professor warned of the political risk of repeated redactions. “When government repeatedly releases heavily redacted documents, it erodes trust. People assume there’s something to hide, whether there is or not.”

Numbers that matter

Some context to ground the debate: the newly reported trove amounts to more than one million documents. The release law demanded an initial public accounting by December 19, but the DOJ now says the review will take weeks longer. Earlier batches of released files — those processed before the newly found documents surfaced — contained extensive redactions that many observers described as obstructive rather than protective.

Meanwhile, the broader implications are stark. Epstein’s case touched international jurisdictions, private islands, jet logs, and sprawling networks of alleged abuse; investigators had pursued leads in multiple countries. What is finally revealed — and what remains shielded — will shape public perception of both past investigative choices and of institutional accountability for years to come.

Victims and advocates: the emotional ledger

For survivors and their allies, the stakes are not abstract. “This is about names that were erased from their lives by fear and coercion,” said a survivor who has spoken publicly about abuse. “We don’t want our pain turned into political theater, but we want the true scale of what happened acknowledged. Redactions can protect privacy. But they’ve also been used to protect reputation.”

Advocates have called for an independent review — not merely by the agencies that handled the investigations — arguing that only a transparent, third-party audit can restore faith in the system.

Why this matters beyond Manhattan

Ask yourself: why should someone in Lagos, in Lisbon, in Lagos, or in Lima care about a new mountain of documents filed in New York? Because the Epstein story is not just a local scandal. It is an indictment of global inequality — where wealth buys access, and secrecy can become a form of immunity. It raises uncomfortable questions about power, accountability and how transnational networks exploit gaps in law enforcement cooperation. As governments around the world reckon with their own scandals, the way the U.S. handles these files will become a model — for good or ill.

“This isn’t just about one man,” said a human rights lawyer who has worked on transnational trafficking cases. “It’s about systems that allowed abuse to persist. Governments must make victims central, but they must also communicate clearly with the public. A rush to secrecy erodes trust everywhere.”

Looking forward: what to watch

Expect the coming weeks to be dominated by three tensions: the pace of the DOJ’s redaction work; political attempts to shape public interpretation of whatever gets released; and legal challenges from parties seeking to block or broaden disclosure. Watch also for independent journalists and nonprofit organizations to sift through what becomes available — they will play a crucial role in translating thousands of pages into narratives the wider world can understand.

For now, on a chilly New York afternoon, the courthouse felt suspended between two kinds of time: the slow, meticulous time of investigators and the impatient, relentless time of public demand. Which clock will win out? That is a question not just for Washington but for anyone who believes a democracy must be accountable to the people it serves.

When the files finally emerge, will they bring closure, more questions, or both? Stay curious. Stay critical. And remember: the pursuit of truth can be messy, but silence is seldom the cure.

Pope Dies During Jubilee Year; Cardinals Elect New Pontiff

hanad

December 25, 2025

Jubilee year sees death of pope, election of successor — Newly-elected Pope Leo XIV addresses the crowd overlooking St Peter's Square on 8 May 2025

A Year That Began with Hope and Ended with an Empty Chair

On a cold, star-scraped Christmas Eve in 2024, a hush fell over St Peter’s Square as Pope Francis pushed open the Holy Door of St Peter’s Basilica. Lanterns shook in the wind. Pilgrims craned their necks. The act was meant to be an invitation — a year of renewal, a Jubilee of Hope, a collective exhale for a Church hungry for mercy, repair and service.

There is an old Roman saying that faith looks best in the street: in the faces of people clustered on cobbled alleys, clutching candles, trading the busyness of life for a moment of intersection with the sacred. That night, a young volunteer from Lima, her scarf knotted to ward off the cold, told me, “We came for hope. Not as a poster, but as something we can hold.”

When the Shepherd Fell Ill

Hope, it turned out, would be tested early in the Jubilee year. In February, Pope Francis — who had become, for many, the image of a softer papacy — was admitted to Rome’s Gemelli Hospital with pneumonia. The medical bulletins were clinical. The chatter in cafés and sacristies was not.

Five weeks later, he came back to a Vatican that seemed both relieved and fragile. Hospital staff described at times how “touch and go” his condition had been. Doctors urged a long convalescence; an 88‑year‑old pontiff was advised to rest for months. He rested briefly, but never for long.

His last public engagement was emblematic: Easter Sunday, 25 April, St Peter’s Square heavy with pilgrims. Frail but steady, he mounted the popemobile and delivered the Urbi et Orbi blessing. He made a slow loop among the crowd — a final, intimate gesture to people who had followed his emphasis on outreach to the poor and the marginalised.

That evening, he clasped the hand of his nurse, Massimiliano Strappetti, and thanked him for seeing him to the square. At dawn the next day, a sudden illness came like a winter storm. Vatican officials later said he did not suffer long. “It was quick,” a nurse told local reporters; “he had a moment to say goodbye.”

The World Paused

When the Holy Father died on Easter Monday, the symbolism was impossible to ignore. A Jubilee intended to celebrate life and renewal had, in its early months, been bookended by mourning.

Condolences poured in from capitals and parish houses alike. Religious leaders praised a pope who had made the poor and the planet central themes of his pontificate. In Dublin, President Michael D. Higgins — a frequent interlocutor on issues from global hunger to climate justice — described the late pontiff’s “warmth and humility,” words echoed by hundreds who filed past the modest wooden casket placed in St Peter’s Basilica.

Among the sea of mourners were pilgrims from Ireland, Philippines, Brazil, and parts beyond. A Dublin grandmother, pushing a pram, said simply, “He made us feel small mistakes were still forgiven.” Around 250,000 people paid respects, many leaving handwritten notes between the slats of the coffin — a raw, communal liturgy of grief.

Diplomacy in a Basilica

Even funerals are sites of geopolitics. Photos of two world leaders — the U.S. president and the Ukrainian president — deep in conversation inside the Basilica split the news cycle. For a moment, beneath mosaics that have watched centuries, the world’s aches converged: war, asylum, hunger, power. “It was a meeting of two histories,” said a veteran Vatican diplomat. “Places of mourning often become stages for the living to make new claims.”

From Mourning to the Sistine Ceiling: The Conclave

The College of Cardinals retired behind conclave doors against a backdrop of turbulent expectations. Under Francis, cardinals from the Global South and pastoral shepherds had won prominence, and many expected that the next leader would extend that embrace.

Still, few predicted the outcome when, after a swift and unexpectedly decisive two-day ballot, an Augustinian American cardinal emerged as Pope Leo XIV. The election of Cardinal Robert Prevost — a man who had worked extensively in pastoral and diplomatic posts — was a surprise that also felt like a bridge: continuity in spirit, fresh leadership in style.

“The cardinals were looking for calm,” said Fr Paul Finnerty, rector of the Irish College in Rome, who had known the new pope for years. “Someone who could walk gently but speak clearly.”

The Voice of Pope Leo XIV

Pope Leo XIV’s first words, offered from the balcony to St Peter’s Square, were plain: “Peace be with you all.” The phrase landed like a benediction in a world that seems hungrier for concord than ever.

He has been described as measured, diplomatic and pastoral — a man who prefers conversation to confrontation. Early in his tenure he authorised the publication of a Vatican commission report on women deacons that concluded historical and theological grounds did not yet support ordination. That decision drew both weary sighs and calls for renewed study. “Not a flat refusal,” one cleric said; “more a challenge to keep looking.”

On hot-button social questions, he has been cautious. Asked about inclusion of LGBTQ+ people in the Church, he signalled fidelity to existing teaching while urging pastoral sensitivity. On migration — a topic that animated one of his earliest public statements as pope — he acknowledged states’ rights to control borders but urged humane treatment for people in detention, calling for systems that uphold dignity.

Appointments, a New Tone

Pope Leo’s episcopal appointments have been telling. In the United States, he named Bishop Aldon Ronald Hicks — a Latin America‑seasoned American — as Archbishop of New York, signalling pastoral credentials for a traditionally influential seat. In England and Wales, Bishop Richard Moth’s appointment to Westminster suggested a focus on stability and outreach.

Back in August, the beatification of Carlo Acutis, a 15‑year‑old who died of leukemia in 2006, drew surprising numbers of young people to the Vatican — a visible reminder that the Church’s future may well be shaped by a new generation. A late‑2024 Bible Society/YouGov poll of 13,146 adults even reported that among churchgoers aged 18–34, Catholics now outnumber Anglicans — a demographic shift that should give bishops and parishes much to consider.

Bridges East and West

Pope Leo’s first international journey to Turkey and Lebanon emphasized reunion and dialogue. Visiting sites linked to the Council of Nicaea and sitting at tables with Orthodox counterparts, he cast his pontificate as an effort to mend ancient rifts — East and West, altar and table.

Closer to home, a historic shared prayer with Anglican leaders and King Charles and Queen Camilla signalled a willingness to lean into ecumenism. In the press, it was easy to read these gestures as diplomatic theatre — but for many on the ground they felt like small, steady acts of reconciliation.

What Comes Next?

Pope Leo XIV has published his first apostolic exhortation, Dilexi te — a document started by his predecessor and finished under his hand. It asks the Church to keep its eyes on the poor and the marginalised; it was received warmly by charities such as the St Vincent de Paul Society. Yet the road ahead is long.

Important anniversaries loom: Catholic Emancipation’s bicentenary in 2029, a global commemoration of two millennia since the death and resurrection of Christ in 2033, and in Ireland, a 1,500‑year mark of Christianity’s arrival in 2032. Could the new pope come to Ireland then? Archbishop Eamon Martin’s office says an invitation remains open.

So here is my question to you: in an era of climate anxiety, migration crises and deep cultural divides, what do you want from a global Church? Do you want a steady bureaucrat, a prophetic voice, or a pastor who sits on the street and listens? Pope Leo XIV’s early months suggest he aspires to be a bridge-builder. Time will tell whether bridges hold when storms come.

For now, in the cafés of Rome and in parish halls from Buenos Aires to Belfast, people are still trading stories about that last blessing, that wooden coffin, that balcony blessing. They are still asking how a worldwide community of 1.3 billion Catholics — diverse, disputed, devout — will find pathways to mercy in a fractious world. The Jubilee of Hope began as a door thrown open. The real work, as always, is walking through it.

EU, France and Germany Denounce US Visa Bans as Censorship

hanad

December 25, 2025

When Diplomacy Meets the Moderators: A Transatlantic Row Over Speech, Safety and Sovereignty

It was a chilly morning in Brussels when the first alerts began pinging across journalists’ phones: the United States had quietly added five European citizens to a visa-ban list, accusing them of curbing free expression and unfairly pressuring American tech platforms. The move landed like a stone tossed into an already choppy ocean of US–Europe relations, sending ripples through capitals from Berlin to Paris and into the buzzing co‑working spaces of London.

The targeted individuals are an eclectic group of regulators, activists and analysts: Thierry Breton, the former French finance minister and ex‑European commissioner who helped shepherd the EU’s Digital Services Act; Imran Ahmed, who runs the Center for Countering Digital Hate and is based in Britain; two German activists, Anna‑Lena von Hodenberg and Josephine Ballon of the NGO HateAid; and Clare Melford, co‑founder of the Global Disinformation Index. All five, according to the US, have crossed a line—either constraining speech or imposing undue burdens on American tech firms.

Why This Feels Bigger Than Five Visas

At first glance, a visa ban is a technical, bureaucratic gesture. In practice, it is a diplomatic rebuke hard to miss. “This is a symbol — a sharp, deliberate signal that Washington is willing to weaponize access,” said Lucie Moreau, a Paris‑based digital rights lawyer. “It’s not just about travel. It’s about pressure.”

For European officials, the insult stings because it targets people who were central to crafting the Digital Services Act (DSA), a sweeping EU law intended to make the online world safer. The DSA, among other things, compels very large online platforms—those with roughly 45 million or more EU users—to take concrete steps against illegal content, from hate speech to child sexual abuse material. To supporters, it is a rules‑based attempt to align online spaces with offline norms. To critics in some corners of Washington, it is regulatory overreach that may muzzle American tech firms.

“Freedom of expression is a fundamental right in Europe and a shared core value with the United States across the democratic world,” a European Commission spokesperson said, adding that Brussels would seek answers and, if necessary, respond “swiftly and decisively” to defend its regulatory autonomy.

Voices From the Street

At a café a stone’s throw from the Commission’s glass tower on Rue de la Loi, telephone conversations and heated debates mix with the smell of espresso. “We don’t think the DSA is censorship,” said Jörg Keller, who volunteers at a Berlin civic tech hub. “We think it’s risk management. If platforms ignore clear harms, why should regulators look the other way?”

Across the Seine, in a narrow Paris lane where Breton once cut his teeth, retired schoolteacher Anne‑Sophie Dupont shook her head. “People worry about speech being restricted,” she said. “But they worry more about the children they see on the news, about the threats to minorities. There has to be some balance.”

Politics, Personalities and the Musk Factor

The dispute is not only institutional; it is personal. Elon Musk’s X (formerly Twitter) was fined €120 million by Brussels recently for breaching EU content rules—an action that drew ire in Washington and added petrol to a transatlantic fire. Musk and Thierry Breton have traded barbs online for months. Musk has called Breton the “tyrant of Europe”; Breton responded by defending the democratic process that produced the DSA.

“Is McCarthy’s witch hunt back?” Breton asked on his social feed, pointing out that the DSA received broad political support across the European Parliament and from all 27 member states. Whether you call it regulation or protection, the debate now sits at the intersection of tech policy and geopolitics.

Reaction From Governments: A Rarely Harmonious Chorus

Paris reacted swiftly and angrily. President Emmanuel Macron denounced the US measures as “intimidation and coercion aimed at undermining European digital sovereignty,” reminding followers that the DSA emerged from democratic processes. Berlin, too, voiced alarm; Germany’s justice ministry called the visa restrictions “unacceptable” and pledged support to the activists affected.

“The rules by which we want to live in the digital space in Germany and in Europe are not decided in Washington,” the ministry said in a statement that read like a declaration of independence for online governance.

For Washington, the calculus is different. US officials have argued that some elements of the DSA amount to undue restrictions on free expression and place an unfair burden on American companies and citizens. The visa bans, they say, are a response to what they perceive as targeted campaigns to silence dissent or to manipulate platform policies.

What This Means for the Global Conversation on Speech

At stake are deeper questions: who gets to set the rules for a global internet, and how do you reconcile commitments to free expression with the need to prevent harm? These questions are not academic. They matter to journalists threatened by mobs online, to parents worried about radicalization, to platforms deciding what content to moderate, and to citizens wondering whether a handful of companies or a patchwork of national laws will govern the spaces where public life now unfolds.

“This isn’t just a tussle between governments,” observed Dr. Maya Singh, a professor of internet governance. “It’s a contest over models: libertarian, platform‑led moderation versus rules‑based, state‑driven oversight. Both models have trade‑offs.”

Five Europeans were added to a US visa‑ban list in the latest move.
The EU’s Digital Services Act applies to platforms with tens of millions of users and aims to limit illegal content online.
X was fined €120 million by Brussels for failing to comply with content rules.

Where Do We Go From Here?

Expect more fireworks. The visa bans are likely to widen rifts between Washington and like‑minded European capitals already diverging on defence, trade and the approach to authoritarian powers. A recent US National Security Strategy warned Europe of “civilisational erasure” if it did not change course—a phrase that landed like an accusation and has only deepened diplomatic unease.

But there is also an opening: a global conversation about shared norms. Could the US and EU create a common framework for platform accountability that preserves free speech while protecting vulnerable communities? Could multinational forums produce interoperability principles so that users worldwide do not face a fragmented internet? The answers aren’t obvious, and they won’t be quick.

Back at the café, Moreau lowered her voice and posed a question that lingers: “Do you believe an unrestricted internet serves democracy, or do you think democracies should shape the internet in the public interest?”

It is a question that will define politics, tech policy, and everyday life for years to come. For now, five people stand at the eye of a transatlantic storm. Around them, institutions posture. Citizens watch. And the internet—messy, vital and global—waits for rules that match its scale and its risks. What kind of internet do you want? And who should decide?

US and Ukraine unveil 20-point plan to stop Russian invasion

hanad

December 25, 2025

New 20-point US-Ukraine plan to end Russian invasion — Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky outlined the plan's contents point-by-point in a briefing with journalists in Kyiv (file image)

A blueprint on a Kyiv table: hope, scepticism and the heavy arithmetic of peace

It was a pale winter light that fell across the table where President Volodymyr Zelensky outlined what he called a “comprehensive pathway” to end a war that has scarred a generation. Outside, Kiev’s streets hummed with the ordinary — tram bells, a woman sweeping snow from a bakery doorway, a boy with a bright red scarf racing a friend to the metro — and yet inside the room, the map on the wall seemed to hold the world’s attention.

Zelensky did not produce a polished treaty to hand over to waiting cameras. Instead, he spoke in deliberate, granular terms about a 20-point plan crafted with U.S. negotiators and sent to Moscow for reaction. What he offered was as much a political architecture as it was a peace proposal: security guarantees backed by Western powers, rules for the new lines on the ground, sweeping reconstruction promises, and oddly specific governance and cultural commitments. “We put everything on the table,” he told reporters. “This is not the end of bargaining — it is the start of deciding if we can finally stop the killing and start rebuilding lives.”

What’s in the package — the bones of a bargain

At the core are three pillars: security, territory and reconstruction. On security, Zelensky said the United States, NATO and European signatory states would provide guarantees resembling NATO’s Article 5 — a promise that an attack on Ukraine would trigger coordinated military and economic responses. The plan envisions a peacetime Ukrainian armed forces of 800,000 personnel and contingencies to reinstate global sanctions against Russia should it breach the deal.

Territorial arrangements are blunt and pragmatic. The current line of deployment in Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhzhia and Kherson would be recognized as the de facto contact line, with international monitors — including space-based unmanned systems — watching for violations. A working group would map out troop redeployments and consider special economic zones; crucially, Russia would be required to withdraw forces from a list of regions (including Sumy, Kharkiv, Mykolaiv and Dnipropetrovsk) for the agreement to take effect.

Economic rebuilding is perhaps the most unapologetically ambitious effort. Zelensky said the United States and European partners would spearhead a development package, and that an initial capital-and-grants fund would target $200 billion to jump-start reconstruction, attract investment, and fund modernisation in energy, data centres, AI, and civic infrastructure. He spoke of a “Ukraine Development Fund” and a global financial coordinator — a “prosperity administrator” — to marshal international capital and ensure transparent disbursal.

Points likely to draw heat

There are items in the plan that will please some and alarm others. One clause foresees the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant being jointly operated by Ukraine, the United States and Russia — an arrangement that, if enacted, would mark an unprecedented multinational stewardship of a nuclear facility in a post-conflict setting. Another surprises by name: Zelensky said the oversight mechanism would be a Peace Council chaired by President Donald Trump, a detail that will provoke immediate geopolitical debate.

Then there are social and legal stipulations: Ukraine would accelerate EU membership within a specified timetable, adopt EU rules guaranteeing religious tolerance and minority-language protections, and commit to remaining a non-nuclear state under the NPT. The plan calls for all remaining prisoners of war to be exchanged, the release of hostages, and an immediate, legally binding ceasefire once all parties agree — but those are promises that have failed before without ironclad enforcement.

Voices from the streets of Kyiv

“I want my son to go back to school without sirens,” said Olena, a kindergarten teacher who helped pour tea in a canteen near Independence Square. Her husband fought in the early months of the war; she watches the news with a habit of flinching. “If guarantees are real and not just words on a page, then we take them. But we have learned to be careful with promises.”

At a corner café, Mikhail, a veteran who lost a leg in 2022, thumbed a scar and said bluntly: “Security guarantees need teeth. Paper won’t stop tanks.” He wants to see international troops on the ground and an unequivocal mechanism that triggers sanctions automatically if the deal is violated.

“Rebuilding will take more than money — it will take trust,” said Dr. Marta Hrytsenko, an urban planner who has been working on postwar reconstruction models. “Estimates from multilateral institutions suggest hundreds of billions will be needed. The World Bank and IMF have said public and private money must combine. The proposal for a $200bn target is a starting signal; implementation will be the real test.”

Levers, red lines and the international stage

Why does the plan matter beyond Kyiv? Because it exposes the central dilemmas of modern peace-making: how to balance sovereignty and security, how to de-escalate without rewarding aggression, and how to finance recovery while keeping corruption at bay. It also shows the limits of diplomacy in a moment when rival great powers still pursue very different objectives.

“We see in this document an attempt to thread the needle between territorial realities on the ground and the political demands of Ukrainian sovereignty and European integration,” said Ilan Berger, a European security expert. “But any agreement depends on trust — and trust is the one currency this war has spent most recklessly.”

What could go wrong — and where the deal might yet be strong

There are several failure points. Moscow’s reaction will be decisive: will it accept the de facto contact lines and the withdrawal demands? Will it agree to an international role at Zaporizhzhia and to a binding non-aggression policy toward Europe? Within Ukraine, calls for justice and criminal accountability for wartime acts could clash with quick-for-peace compromises on territory.

On the flip side, the proposal’s explicit economic levers — investment funds, a transparency framework, and linkage to EU access — could offer a viable pathway to transform the country’s economy. The inclusion of AI, data centres, and energy modernization in the recovery plan points to a future-focused recovery that seeks to make Ukraine a competitive, high-tech economy rather than a basket-case of war ruins.

Questions to sit with

As readers, ask yourselves: can peace be engineered from the outside without the consent of the communities most affected? Is it possible to guarantee security without keeping foreign troops indefinitely, and who will enforce those guarantees if they are breached? How much sovereignty can a nation cede — in the form of international oversight or security assurances — in order to achieve a lasting ceasefire?

These are not hypothetical queries for Ukrainians alone. They touch on global themes: the fragility of international law, the role of alliances in deterring aggression, and the moral calculus of reconstruction. A successful pact here could set precedents for post-conflict reconstruction elsewhere; a failed one would echo as a cautionary tale.

Back in Kyiv, as evening settled and the city lights stitched new constellations onto streets still pocked by war, people returned to their routines. “We are ready to negotiate,” said Olena, the teacher. “But we will not trade our language, our schools, or our children’s future for a piece of paper unless it truly keeps us safe.”

Whether the 20-point plan becomes a live roadmap or another chapter in a painful, interrupted story depends on responses that are not yet public. For now, the document has performed a crucial work: it has given citizens and leaders a concrete frame to argue over — and in politics, articulation can be a precondition to action.

Where do you stand? Would you accept compromises for security now, or hold out for a fuller restoration of territory later? The answers will shape not just Ukraine’s future, but perhaps how the world thinks about peace in an era of uneasy power balances.

Pope Leo to Urge Peace in His First Christmas Blessing

hanad

December 25, 2025

Pope Leo to call for peace in first Christmas blessing — Pope Leo presided over his first Christmas Eve mass at St Peter's Basilica last night

Under the Wet Marble: A Pope’s Blessing and a World of Uneasy Joy

Rain tapped a slow tempo on the travertine steps of St Peter’s Basilica as people huddled under umbrellas and plastic ponchos, their breath visible in the cold Roman evening air. The lights on the façade blurred into halos. The pope — his white cassock a bright, small flame against the stone — stepped forward and spoke of peace, of charity, of hope in a year that has been stubbornly stubborn in its pain.

“We come tonight to light the candles that the world has tried to snuff out,” a Vatican aide later told me, trying to translate the hush into something I could carry home. The crowd, estimated at about 5,000, applauded not because they had faith in easy answers, but because ritual offers a place to stand when the ground is shaking.

The Urbi et Orbi and a Call for Truce

On Christmas morning the pontiff prepared to deliver his traditional Urbi et Orbi blessing — the “to the city and the world” address that has for centuries been a forum for moral appeals aimed at the globe’s troubles. This year’s refrain was familiar: urgent pleas for ceasefires, for corridors of aid, for the protection of civilians in zones of conflict. He renewed a call, earlier this week, for a one‑day global truce, a symbolic pause meant to honor the very notion of peace.

It is a humane request, if at times aspirational. Conflict persisted elsewhere even as Rome prayed: in eastern Europe, gunfire continued despite appeals to lay down arms; humanitarian workers in the Middle East warned that a fragile pause in fighting could crumble as quickly as it was negotiated. The pontiff’s words landed like a seed, small and vulnerable, on soil that has been trampled by years of political and military upheaval.

Bethlehem: The Nativity’s Fragile Resilience

Travel east and you find a different but no less potent scene. In Bethlehem — the town whose very name has been invoked across religions for millennia — light returned to Manger Square in the way a breath returns to lungs after a fever breaks. For the first time in more than two years, the streets filled with the music of festivals, with parades and the bright, impudent cheer of vendors selling toffee apples and toy Santas.

Inside the Church of the Nativity, built atop a grotto revered as the birthplace of Jesus, pews were full long before midnight. Some stood. Some sat on the cold stone floor. A procession of clergymen made its way past the altar to the sound of a single organ, the notes swelling like an answer to all that had been lost. The Latin Patriarch addressed the congregation, speaking not in platitudes but in blunt compassion: suffering remained raw in Gaza, he said, yet he had encountered in refugee shelters and ruined neighborhoods a stubborn hunger for life’s ordinary future.

“They still sing,” said a volunteer nurse from a Gaza aid group who had come to Bethlehem for Mass. “They still sing even when their hands are freezing.”

That singing matters. Aid agencies estimate that hundreds of thousands of people remain displaced across Gaza and neighboring territories, living in makeshift tents or crowded shelters, attempting to withstand winter without sufficient heat, clean water, or predictable medical care. A fragile truce has eased the immediate threat of daily bombardment in some areas, but the structural wounds — collapsed homes, severed supply chains, grief that gathers like snowfall — will take years to heal.

Star Street and the Everyday

Walk down Bethlehem’s Star Street and you catch the small, telling things: an old man arranging a nativity scene under a giant paper star, teenagers posing for photos in front of a glittering tree, the aroma of roasted chestnuts mixing with the smoke from a nearby bakery. “Today is full of joy because we haven’t been able to celebrate because of the war,” said a 17‑year‑old girl, her voice both bright and brittle. “We came to shout that we are still here.”

Damascus, Sydney, and the Uneven Glow of Celebration

Elsewhere, fragile rejoicing threaded through fear. In Damascus’s Old City, strings of lights draped the alleys; shopkeepers placed red baubles in windows, and vendors sold roasted chestnuts beneath the shadow of Roman-era arches. For Syrians, who have endured a decade of war and displacement, these lights were an act of defiance, a claim that joy could coexist alongside grief.

In Australia, the mood was more solemn. Following a deadly attack at a Hanukkah celebration on Bondi Beach in mid‑December, national leaders urged calm and unity rather than triumphalism. “We hold the wounded in our thoughts,” a community organizer in Sydney told me, “and we light candles because it’s our way of refusing to let terror define us.”

Weather, Politics, and the Sharp Edges of a Global Holiday

Christmas this year illustrated a familiar truth: the season offers no single story. In California, severe weather forced officials to declare a state of emergency in parts of Los Angeles, ordering evacuations as rivers swelled and roads transformed into currents. Climate‑driven extremes have become an unwelcome holiday tradition in many places, complicating what should be peaceful domestic rhythms — a reminder that political instability is not the only global emergency demanding our attention.

At a very different register, political rhetoric in some countries turned the holiday into a stage for division rather than consolation. Across newsfeeds, voices amplified grievance as though the holiday provided licence for provocation. For many, the familiar rituals of peace and goodwill now contend with the reality that public discourse is deeply polarized; Christmas gatherings sometimes become arenas for clashing worldviews rather than shelters from them.

Voices from the Ground

“We needed this — not for show, but to remind ourselves we exist,” said George, a shop owner from nearby Beit Jala, watching families mill about Manger Square.
“Syria deserves joy,” said Loris, a university student in Damascus, who spoke of the quiet resilience of neighbors sharing small pleasures.
“Aid is not a headline. It’s a lifeline,” offered a U.N. field officer who has worked in the region for years, cautioning that temporary ceasefires must be paired with long-term planning if they are to mean anything beyond a breath.

Why This Christmas Feels Different

Perhaps the most striking thing about this year’s celebrations is their humility. The pageant of faith has been stripped of some ceremonial sureties; it is suddenly rawer, more human. People who came to St Peter’s or to Bethlehem were not just spectators of history — they were participants in a fragile experiment: can ritual, memory, and public witness still help repair a world that seems to be tearing at the seams?

Ask yourself: what would a truce mean in your life? Not a pause in headlines, but a quiet hour when grievances are set aside. Would we recognize it or would old wounds pull us right back into business as usual? If religion and civic ritual can be a scaffold for reconciliation, then the images of thousands standing together under rain or lights are not merely picturesque — they are practice.

Looking Ahead: From Symbol to Substance

The pope’s blessing, the Nativity procession, the strings of lights in Damascus — these are part of a larger, global conversation about how communities live with tragedy and how they try, imperfectly, to heal. Symbols are not solutions. Yet neither are they frivolous: they can lift morale, marshal aid, and keep the pressure on those with power to act.

In the coming months the questions remain urgent. Will temporary pauses in violence become the scaffolding for negotiations? Will aid flows be protected and expanded? Will communities forged in crisis receive the resources they need to rebuild?

None of this is simple. But on nights like this, when voices join across borders in a plea for peace, we glimpse the stubborn possibility that people — not just politicians — can shape the arc of the year to come. That is the modest miracle these gatherings offer: a renewal of attention, a return to shared life, a candle lit against the dark.

Ireland adds voice to global condemnation of Israeli settlements

hanad

December 25, 2025

Ireland joins countries condemning Israeli settlements — A truck near an abandoned Jewish settlement in the West Bank, in preparation for the return of Jewish settlers following the Israeli government's approval of their return

A Line Drawn in the Olive Grove: How 19 New Settlements Reopened an Age‑Old Wound

On a cold December morning, the world received a terse but seismic announcement: Israel’s security cabinet had moved to back the creation of 19 new settlements in the occupied West Bank. For diplomats, activists and families living within sight of dusty hills and twisted olive trees, the decision was not a bureaucratic footnote — it was a provocation with human consequences.

Ireland was among 14 nations to publicly condemn the move. In a joint statement chaired by the Irish foreign ministry and affirmed by counterparts in Western capitals, the governments warned that the step “violates international law” and risks inflaming an already tense region. Signatories included the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Belgium, Canada, Denmark, Iceland, Italy, Japan, Malta, the Netherlands, Norway and Spain.

Not just lines on a map

Maps and legal briefs make the settlements look like neat shapes on a screen. Walk the roads around Ramallah or Hebron and the reality is rougher: a world of checkpoints, private fields divided by rock walls, and families adapting to a geography that changes according to political decisions far from their villages.

“When they put up another outpost, it doesn’t just change the map,” said Sami, a middle‑aged olive farmer from a West Bank village who asked that his full name not be used for safety reasons. “It changes where my children can roam, where we can harvest. It changes the color of the sky — there are more watchtowers, more cars, more tension.”

Nearby, Miriam — a teacher and mother of three from a small Israeli town — framed the issue differently. “We want to feel safe and to build a life,” she said. “People are frightened by the headlines. But for many of us, this land is where our grandparents lived.” Her voice had the weary cadence of someone who has learned to hold both conviction and sorrow in the same breath.

What the diplomats said — and what it means

The joint statement signed by the 14 nations stressed support for Palestinian self‑determination and reaffirmed commitment to a two‑state solution. “Unilateral steps that intensify settlement activity undermine prospects for long‑term peace and security,” the statement warned, adding that such moves complicate efforts to negotiate an end to the broader conflict.

Ambassador Claire DuPont, who has served in the region for more than a decade, described the settlement expansion as “a geopolitical accelerant.” “It’s not only a legal issue,” she told me. “It is about the coherence of a future Palestinian state and about belief in a negotiated path forward. Each new settlement chips away at that belief.”

Those words echo broader concerns from international bodies: United Nations agencies and many foreign governments have long regarded Israeli settlements in territories captured in 1967 as illegal under international law. At the same time, more than half a million Israeli settlers live in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, making any policy changes intensely consequential and politically fraught.

Voices on the ground: fear, resolve, fatigue

To understand how these policies land in ordinary lives, you must listen to the everyday stories — the teacher upending her curriculum because of security measures, the grocer who lost business when checkpoints became stricter, the group of teenagers who meet at dusk to play football in a courtyard that once felt open and safe.

“Settlements change everything from our water access to the routes our children take to school,” said Dr. Lina Haddad, a sociologist at a Palestinian university. “They create fragmented communities that are easier to control politically. The long‑term effect is a population that grows up with normalized occupation, which reduces the space for political imagination on both sides.”

Local anecdotes can be sharp and precise. An elderly woman in a West Bank village told me how her family had harvested olives from the same grove for generations. “Last year, we were stopped at a new checkpoint,” she said. “They told us we must have a permit. We are the ones who planted the trees.” Her laugh — thin and incredulous — held decades of grievance.

Security, law and competing narratives

Israeli officials defending the decision frame settlements as a matter of security, historical connection and national identity. “Every nation has a right to secure its people and to preserve its heritage,” a senior Israeli security official told a private briefing. “Our policy seeks to reconcile those needs with an evolving threat environment.”

But for many international observers, security arguments do not erase the legal complications. United Nations resolutions, as well as opinions from international jurists, have found the settlements to be inconsistent with the Fourth Geneva Convention. For Palestinians and many of their international supporters, settlement expansion is the chief obstacle to a viable, contiguous state.

Numbers that matter

Context helps to clarify stakes. International estimates suggest that well over half a million Israeli settlers now live in the West Bank and occupied East Jerusalem. The cumulative footprint of settlements has grown over decades, creating a patchwork of jurisdictional control that complicates travel, commerce and governance.

In practical terms, adding 19 new settlements may mean the reclassification of land, new infrastructure projects, and the arrival of new state funding for housing and roads — all of which can accelerate demographic and geographic shifts. For communities already under strain, such changes are not abstract; they affect livelihoods and futures.

What comes next — fragile diplomacy and the long view

After the joint statement, several signatories signaled they would intensify diplomatic engagement. Ireland’s foreign minister, who co‑authored the declaration, told reporters she believed international pressure could still nudge parties back to negotiations. “We are not spectators,” she said. “We will use every diplomatic tool available to protect the possibility of a two‑state solution.”

But the political realities on the ground complicate quick fixes. Israeli domestic politics often reward leaders who take a hard line on settlement policy; Palestinian politics are fragmented and deeply skeptical of divided land. For neutral observers, the task can look Sisyphean: rolling a boulder of diplomacy up a hill that keeps re‑forming beneath it.

What can readers do — and what should they feel?

As you read about another chapter in this long conflict, you might ask: where do empathy and justice meet? How can one honor the deep narratives of security and belonging while affirming the rights of another people to land and self‑determination?

There are no tidy answers, but there are small steps. Support for humanitarian efforts, attention to independent journalism, and pressure on elected representatives to pursue balanced, law‑based diplomacy can all matter. “Silence is complicity,” said Fatima, a student activist in Ramallah. “But so is cynicism. If you care, learn. If you learn, speak with facts.”

A shared horizon — or more fractured ground?

The approval of 19 settlements is both a discrete policy choice and a symbol: proof that old habits of territorial expansion persist, and a reminder that the two‑state vision remains precarious. That fragility should make us impatient and humble at once. Impatient enough to demand better policies; humble enough to remember the human faces behind every headline.

Walking past an olive grove at dusk, I watched a child swing from a low branch and a woman sweep the dust from her doorstep. Each gesture held a story of endurance. The question for the world is whether those stories will be allowed to grow into futures worth defending — together — or whether the ground will continue to crack beneath them.

Russia sets sights on establishing a lunar nuclear power plant within a decade

hanad

December 25, 2025

Russia plans nuclear power plant on moon within decade — Russia's state space corporation, Roscosmos, said in a statement that it planned to build a lunar power plant by 2036 (stock image)

How a Quiet Power Struggle Is Turning the Moon Into an Energy Frontier

Imagine standing on a windswept steppe outside Moscow at dawn, the air thin and metallic, and hearing a retired engineer laugh as she stirs her tea. “They used to say the sky was Russia’s backyard,” she muses. “Now the backyard has a fence and everyone wants the moon key.”

That fence is invisible, but its posts are being driven deeper every year. In recent months, Moscow’s space agency—Roscosmos—announced plans to place a nuclear power plant on the lunar surface by the mid-2030s to fuel a permanent research station. The project, according to the agency, will involve Rosatom, the Kurchatov Institute and the Lavochkin design bureau—names that conjure an old guard of Soviet-era pride remixed with a 21st-century scramble for influence beyond Earth.

The idea of building a power plant on the moon reads like science fiction, but its logic is stark and pragmatic. The moon is 384,400 kilometres away; sunlight lasts barely half the lunar day, and nights stretch for two solid Earth weeks. To sustain habitats, scientific labs and heavy-duty rovers—and potentially mine rare resources—you need reliable, continuous energy.

The New Lunar Map: Bases, Reactors and Rivalries

We are not witnessing a single nation’s dream. Washington has signalled parallel ambitions: NASA has stated its intent to demonstrate a fission reactor on the lunar surface by the first quarter of fiscal year 2030, part of a broader push to make the moon a staging ground for human missions to Mars and beyond.

“Energy is the currency of permanence,” says Dr. Amrita Singh, an international space policy fellow based in London. “If you want a base, you need power that doesn’t sleep. Solar is great, but it is intermittent on the moon. That gap is precisely where compact nuclear systems show up.”

This competition is not only about flags and prestige. It intersects with science, commerce and geopolitics. Lunar regolith hides elements that are scarce or strategically important on Earth: estimates suggest there could be up to a million tonnes of helium-3, a potential fuel for future fusion reactors, scattered on the maria. Boeing and other researchers have pointed to traces of rare earths—scandium, yttrium and the 15 lanthanides—that underpin everything from smartphones to fighter jets.

Helium-3: often cited in popular accounts as abundant on the moon—estimates run into the hundreds of thousands to millions of tonnes.
Rare earth elements: present in lunar soil in varying concentrations; valuable for modern electronics and defense industries.

Whether those deposits are economically exploitable, and under what legal or environmental constraints, remains hotly debated. But the mere presence of such materials has added another dimension to the geopolitical tug-of-war.

From Gagarin to a Crash Landing: Russia’s Long, Bumpy Ride

For Russians the story is particularly bittersweet. The nation that sent Yuri Gagarin into orbit in 1961 wants to reclaim a narrative of technological glory, yet reality has been humbling. The failed Luna-25 landing in August 2023—when an unmanned probe was lost during descent—was a painful reminder of the risks and complexity of lunar work. Meanwhile, private companies like SpaceX have redefined launch economics, taking business once dominated by Russian rockets.

“We’re rebuilding confidence,” a senior engineer at Lavochkin told me over carrot cake and strong coffee in a cramped cafeteria. “We made mistakes—big ones. But humility is not defeat. It’s the starting point for better design.”

Power, Law and the Ethics of Putting Reactors in Space

Nuclear power in space is not unlawful. International treaties ban nuclear weapons in orbit and on celestial bodies, but they do not outlaw energy-generating nuclear systems. There are strict safety protocols and oversight mechanisms intended to protect Earth and space from contamination. Still, the prospect of fission reactors on a foreign body raises fresh concerns.

“There’s a difference between an ICBM and a power plant, but optics matter,” says Professor Luis Mendéz, an expert in space law. “Countries will need to demonstrate transparency, emergency response plans, and long-term stewardship. Otherwise, strategic suspicion will grow faster than any reactor’s coolant.”

And then there is the practical calculus: transporting modular reactors, shielding them, establishing cooling systems in the lunar vacuum—all of this requires technology, funding and a tolerance for risk. Russia’s timeline—building by 2036—is ambitious but not impossible if budgets are maintained and partnerships hold.

Local Voices: Why People Care, Far From the Launch Pads

Out beyond the labs and launch complexes, ordinary people feel the ripple effects. In the port city of Kaliningrad, a former flight controller now running a bakery worries about what the new space push means for her pension and community. “When the country spends on big dreams, my bus route gets delayed,” she says gently. “But I also wake up proud. My son studies engineering because of the rockets. That is something.”

On the other side of the world, a university student in Beijing scrolls through photos of lunar simulations and says, “Whether we mine it or just study it, the moon will tell us who we are. It’s exciting and scary at once.”

Bigger Questions: What Kind of Future Are We Building?

Beyond the hardware and headlines, deploying power stations on the moon forces us to confront larger ethical and practical questions. Who governs a lunar economy? How do we protect a pristine environment that has witnessed four billion years of solar system history? What happens when commercial incentives collide with scientific conservation?

“We need international frameworks as robust as the physics we hope to harness,” Dr. Singh says. “Otherwise we risk turning the moon into a mirror of terrestrial conflicts—a place where scarcity births competition instead of cooperation.”

So ask yourself: do you see these lunar ambitions as an inspiring chapter in human exploration, or a replay of old rivalries under new stars? Perhaps it will be both. Perhaps the moon, like any frontier, will reflect our better angels and our worst instincts in equal measure.

What Comes Next

Expect more announcements, more partnerships and, inevitably, more setbacks. The next decade will tell whether lunar reactors become the backbone of sustained presence or a costly experiment in national prestige. Meanwhile, the moon will keep doing what it has always done—tugging at our tides and at the untidy human heart.

“We are small players on a big stage,” the Lavochkin engineer says as our conversation winds down. “But the rules are new, and so are the players. If we do this right, maybe we can show the world how to build without burning the very thing that lets us look up in wonder.”

That sentence hangs between us like lunar dust—soft, persistent, impossible to sweep away. What would you put on the moon if you had the choice: a telescope, a lab, a reactor—or something else entirely?

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