Boris Johnson’s chaotic COVID-19 response tied to higher death toll

November 21, 2025

Johnson's 'chaotic' Covid response led to more deaths — Former UK prime minister Boris Johnson pictured leaving after giving evidence to a public inquiry into his government's handling of the pandemic

When Delay Became Destiny: Britain’s Pandemic Reckoning

There are moments in history when a single week can tilt the arc of a nation. For the United Kingdom, the public inquiry into the government’s handling of Covid-19 has laid that week on the scale and found the balance wanting. The verdict—harsh, meticulous, and painfully human—says that hedging, dithering and a culture of chaos at the very centre of power turned a public-health emergency into a national trauma.

By the time the pandemic had run its first brutal course, the UK had recorded more than 230,000 deaths. That figure—staggering in itself—placed Britain alongside the United States and Italy in terms of mortality and above most of western Europe. Economies contracted, hospitals were stretched to the limit, and the public’s faith was dented. But numbers only tell part of the story. Behind them are families, shuttered businesses, and a country still grappling with loss and the aftershocks of policy choices made under stress.

The Inquiry’s Charge

Commissioned in May 2021, the public inquiry set out to sift through decisions, memos and meetings. Its chair, a former judge, delivered a verdict that will be quoted for years: there was, the report said, “a toxic and chaotic culture” inside Downing Street during the pandemic.

That phrase—cold and clinical on the page—becomes something else when you read the details. It is a portrait of leadership marked by optimism that sometimes bordered on denial, of senior advisers whose conduct poisoned working relationships, and of an administration that often treated the crisis as a policy problem rather than a people problem.

Key findings, in plain sight

The inquiry concluded that a delay in imposing a national lockdown—moving from 16 March to 23 March 2020—was a turning point. The report estimates that locking down a week earlier might have saved roughly 23,000 lives in the first wave, reducing deaths by about 48% to July.
Ministers and officials repeatedly changed course, failing to make decisive, timely choices even as evidence of the virus’s seriousness mounted.
The theory of “behavioural fatigue,” relied upon at times to postpone restrictions, was criticised as lacking a firm grounding in behavioural science.
Testing capacity was inadequate at the outset, leaving decision-makers with a poor sense of how widely the virus had spread.
The absence of a clear exit strategy after the first lockdown and insufficient attention to the risk of a second wave amplified the social and economic costs.

Scenes from the Ground

Walk through any British town and the traces of that spring in 2020 are still visible. In a bakery in Leeds, the mask-lined queue and the faded “We Are Open” sign recall a different kind of normal. In a Glasgow suburb, a retired teacher wipes away tears when she talks about her neighbour—one of the statistics that became painfully personal.

“We were scared,” she told me. “Not just of the virus. Of not knowing what was going to happen next. The constant flip-flopping—one day we were told stay home, the next day hints of reopening—it felt like we were on a ship without a captain.”

Across the country, frontline workers carry their own ledger of decisions. “We had to improvise,” recalled an ICU nurse, who asked not to be named. “Beds had to be found. Staff had to be redeployed. If there had been clearer leadership earlier, I believe the wards could have been less overwhelmed.”

Leadership, Culture, and the Language of Command

The inquiry’s critique of leadership was not merely about missed timings. It dug into culture—how power was wielded, how advisors influenced the tone of decision-making, and how behaviour in the corridors of power filtered down into national policy. The report singled out a senior adviser whose conduct was described as corrosive, and it warned that an environment where rules were bent and norms ignored made coherent crisis response much harder.

“You can have good science and good data,” said a governance expert I interviewed, “but if the centre of power is preoccupied with internal theatre, you lose precious hours. Pandemics don’t wait for scripted politics.”

Behavioural fatigue: a contested idea

One of the more controversial pillars of early pandemic policy was the concept of behavioural fatigue—the suggestion that people might not sustain strict measures if locked down too soon. The inquiry found that this theory had little empirical backing. Some public-health specialists argued at the time that such assumptions were speculative and that the precautionary principle should have prevailed.

“Underestimating how seriously people will take a clear, consistent message is a mistake,” said a behavioural scientist. “When authorities communicate clearly and transparently, people generally comply. The problem is when mixed signals erode trust.”

Testing, Tracking, and the Blinded State

Another central failing, according to the report, was Britain’s thin testing infrastructure at the pandemic’s onset. Without widespread testing, policymakers were flying blind. The consequence: they lacked a real-time map of the virus’s spread and had to rely on lagging indicators—hospitalisations and deaths—to gauge severity.

“Data are the lifelines of pandemic response,” a public-health official told me. “If you don’t know where the virus is moving, you can’t target interventions. Instead, you end up imposing blunt, nationwide measures that carry massive social and economic costs.”

Wider Lessons for a Connected World

This inquiry is not only Britain’s story. It is a cautionary tale for every democracy about leadership in crisis. In an era of instant information, political theatre can have real consequences. The pandemic revealed how governance lapses—slow decisions, weak testing, cultural toxicity—can translate into lives lost.

Globally, countries that moved early and decisively tended to fare better. New Zealand, South Korea, and Taiwan all used rapid testing, clear messaging, and decisive leadership to blunt the first waves. Their experiences suggest that preparation, transparency and humility are as vital as ventilators and vaccines.

How Do We Remember—and Move Forward?

There will be commissions, reviews and reforms. The inquiry hands down a catalogue of errors, but it also offers an opportunity: to rebuild trust, to shore up public-health infrastructure, to ensure that rule of law and good governance guide emergency response. The questions now are disruptive and necessary: How do you institutionalise speed without sacrificing scrutiny? How do you centre compassion in crisis communication?

“We must learn,” said a community activist in Manchester. “Not just to assign blame, but to fix systems so that people are not the victims of bureaucratic laziness or political theatre.”

Closing the Loop: What the Public Should Ask Next

As you read this, consider what accountability looks like in a democracy. Do we demand organisational change, clearer chains of command, and better scientific advisory integration? Or do we accept incremental tweaks and hope they hold? The inquiry’s figures—over 230,000 dead, tens of thousands possibly avoidable—ask for more than mourning. They demand reflection.

What would you prioritize if you had to design a pandemic response from scratch? Would it be testing? Clear messaging? Legal frameworks for emergency action? Each choice reflects values and trade-offs.

In the end, pandemics expose the seams in our societies. They reveal who we protect and who we leave behind. Britain’s report has pulled those seams taut; now the task is to stitch them back with care, humility and a commitment to do better next time. That is the enduring challenge—not just for the UK, but for every nation that must reckon with how governance, culture and compassion intersect when the stakes are life itself.

UN chief urges COP30 to commit to phasing out fossil fuels

hanad

November 20, 2025

UN chief pushes for COP30 deal way from fossil fuels — United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said limiting global warming to 1.5C of warming must be their only red line

Belém on the Brink: A River City Hosting the World’s Climate Reckoning

The morning air in Belém carries the smell of roasting manioc and the sharp sweetness of açaí bowls, while the mighty Amazon murmurs beyond the city’s bustling market. Tourists haggle over carved wooden bowls. Vendors shout over riverboats. And, tucked between stalls and shipping cranes, diplomats from nearly every nation on Earth are arguing about the future of coal, oil and gas.

It is a strange kind of theatre: a city whose streets pulse with local life, becoming for two weeks the nerve centre of a planet-wide debate. Here, under tropical sunlight and relentless humidity, negotiators from 194 countries plus the European Union have been asked to map a route away from the very fuels that built modern economies. The clock is ticking; the atmosphere is taut. “The world is watching Belém,” the United Nations secretary-general reminded delegates, a simple line that felt like both encouragement and challenge.

What’s at stake in Belém?

This summit — COP30 — is about something deceptively simple and terrifyingly complex: how to stop warming the planet by more than 1.5°C. That figure is more than an academic target; it marks a line between manageable climate shifts and a cascade of catastrophes — collapsing crops, rampant wildfire seasons, coastal cities under siege. Scientists have warned that staying below 1.5°C means rapid, coordinated cuts to carbon dioxide emissions and a swift decline in the use of fossil fuels.

Yet, we’re not on track. Delegates from Ireland and elsewhere have warned that current policies point toward warming of roughly 2.3°C–2.5°C this century — a swing that would spell far worse floods, heatwaves and ecosystem collapse than the world agreed to avoid in Paris. Global CO2 emissions remain stubbornly high; fossil fuels still supply roughly four-fifths of the world’s primary energy. Against that backdrop, the question in Belém is not whether the world needs to change, but how to do it fairly and fast.

The fight over fossil fuels

The single most volatile topic on the agenda has been a roadmap for phasing down fossil fuels. Dozens of countries, inspired in part by Brazil’s presidency of the talks, have pushed for a clear plan that lays out timelines and support for nations to move away from oil, gas and coal. Others — including major producers and some developing states whose economies still rely on hydrocarbon exports — have urged caution or resisted firm timetables.

“You can feel the tectonic plates shifting beneath the negotiating table,” said a veteran envoy from a small island state, speaking between sessions. “For us, it’s not an abstract. It’s about survival. We need an exit route from fossil fuels — not just language that sounds good.”

Antonio Guterres has urged leaders to treat 1.5°C as a non-negotiable red line. He pressed delegates to be bold, to follow the science, and to put people before profit. “I strongly appeal to all delegations to show willingness and flexibility,” he said, capturing the pressure that has narrowed the room for political manoeuvre.

Voices on the ground

Outside the conference halls, Belém’s residents see the stakes in a local light. Aída, a fish seller on the docks, wipes her hands on a faded apron and watches barges glide past. “The river changes every year,” she says. “Some species come less, the weather is mad. I don’t know much about ‘COP’ — but I know when my catch gets smaller, my children go hungry.”

Nearby, an indigenous organizer named Paulo explains why the Amazon matters beyond trees and tourist postcards. “This forest is a living bank for the world,” he says. “If we lose it, we lose water cycles, we lose rains for our farms, we lose medicines and languages. We must be at the table when decisions are made.”

Experts who advise negotiators warn that without a credible finance plan, any agreement will be hollow. Developing nations point to the decade-old pledge — $100 billion per year in climate finance — that rich countries still struggle to meet. The loss-and-damage fund established at previous COPs exists, but the demand outstrips commitments. “Money is the lubricant of implementation,” says Dr. Miriam Santos, a climate finance specialist. “You can have gorgeous language on paper, but without predictable finance and technology transfer, transition becomes an empty promise to those most affected.”

What could emerge from the summit?

At their best, climate conferences convert political will into clearer roadmaps and concrete resources. At their worst, they produce carefully worded compromises that postpone hard choices. In Belém, a handful of outcomes are most consequential:

A clear, time-bound roadmap for a just transition away from fossil fuels, including support for workers and communities;
Strengthened commitments on climate finance and a timetable to scale up loss-and-damage and adaptation funding;
Renewed or updated national pledges to cut emissions faster and align public finance with a low-carbon future.

Each of these requires consensus. COPs operate by unanimity; one holdout can dilute a collective signal. That’s why the last 48 hours of the summit often feel like a pressure cooker: ministers, advisors and civil society collide and compromise under immense scrutiny. “This will come down to the wire,” an EU delegate admitted, reflecting a sentiment echoed by others in Belém.

Bigger questions beyond numbered pledges

Belém is more than a diplomatic arena. It is a mirror reflecting deep global inequities. Wealthier nations have emitted most historical emissions; poorer countries face disproportionate impacts. A just transition must account for this imbalance — for stranded workers in coal towns as much as for subsistence farmers in floodplains. How do we balance urgency with fairness? How do we ensure that the rhetoric of “transition” doesn’t become another way to shift burdens onto communities least responsible for the crisis?

Those questions are not abstract. They’re asked in kitchens and riverside markets across the Amazon and in small atolls across the Pacific. They are asked by grandparents watching weather they cannot remember, and by young activists who want not just promises but timelines, tools and money.

So as negotiators in Belém bargain over language and deadlines, where should the rest of us look? Not just to plenary halls and plenary statements, but to the lived realities of those who will feel the decisions most keenly. Ask yourself: what kind of future do we want to invest in — one that shores up profit today at the expense of habitability tomorrow, or one that rebuilds economies around resilience, dignity and ecological balance?

Whatever comes from this COP, the urgency will not ebb with the closing gavel. The Amazon will keep breathing. Workers will still need livelihoods. Science will keep sending signals. The decision in Belém will matter because it will either accelerate the hard work of transition — or delay it further while the planet waits, and the costs mount.

Outrage after French army’s ‘prepare to lose your child’ warning

hanad

November 20, 2025

Anger after French army's 'prepare to lose child' warning — General Fabien Mandon arriving for a meeting with President Emmanuel Macron earlier this week

The General’s Warning: France, Sacrifice and a Country Uneasy About War

When the chief of France’s armed forces stood before a room of mayors in a provincial town and spoke bluntly about the cost of defending the nation, his words landed like a stone dropped into still water — sharp rings of debate, anger and unease spreading outwards.

“If our country falters because it is not prepared to accept — let’s be honest — to lose its children,” said General Fabien Mandon, the chief of the defence staff, in a speech that has since been replayed, dissected and denounced across radio studios and kitchen tables. He pressed beyond abstract strategy: he spoke of willingness to suffer, of priorities shifted to defence production, of a people steeled to endure hardship to protect what they are.

For some, that frankness is the duty of a soldier. For others, it read as a provocation — a warmongering line overstepping the fence between military counsel and political alarmism.

A nation split between memory and comfort

Walk through any French town and you will see the collision of two stories. In the square, an elderly man trims a geranium outside a mairie. In the café, a mother scrolls through her phone, the radio murmuring foreign correspondents’ dispatches from Ukraine. The country shows the scars of two world wars in war memorials and names engraved on bronze plaques. Yet there is a modern comfort, too: a sense that nuclear deterrence, alliances and economic power have kept the fires away from domestic soil for decades.

“We remember Verdun and the villages emptied,” said Bénédicte Chéron, a historian who has written on France’s wartime memory. “That memory makes the French reluctant to accept mass mobilization unless the threat is immediate and territorial. Sacrifice for abstract values is a harder sell.”

That tension — between historical memory and present-day security anxieties — frames the furious political debate. Left and right, municipal leaders and party heads, have all taken aim at General Mandon’s words. Fabien Roussel of the French Communist Party condemned what he called “unbearable warmongering rhetoric.” Louis Aliot of the National Rally asked rhetorically whether many French people would in fact be ready “to go and die for Ukraine.” Christian Estrosi, the mayor of Nice, called the tone “shocking,” asking whether the chief of staff’s role includes worrying the nation in such a way.

Defence Minister Catherine Vautrin pushed back. “This is military language rendered blunt by a man who every day knows that young soldiers risk their lives for the nation,” she told reporters — arguing the general’s realism was being politicized. Europe Minister Benjamin Haddad described the speech as “lucid and honest” about a threat many in Paris take seriously.

What the general said — and what it implies

Mandon did not couch his warning in metaphors. He argued that Russia, having launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, is preparing for a broader confrontation — he set a horizon, urging officials to brace for the possibility of a clash by 2030. “It is organising for this, preparing for this,” he said, warning of a Moscow convinced that NATO and Western nations are its existential adversary.

In his account, the coming decade is not one of gradual diplomacy but of preparation and potential confrontation. That prospect forces questions: how far should democracies go in readiness, and at what cost? If defence production becomes the economy’s priority, who pays — and how many children do we consider an acceptable loss?

These are brutal questions; they have always been brutal. But in a France that has spent recent years debating pensions, public services and the price of bread, they feel remote and, for many, apocalyptic.

Voices from the cafés, the barracks and the street

Not all reactions fit neatly into party lines. In a café in Amiens, a retired schoolteacher named Luc told me, “I support the troops, but speaking of losing our children — that’s for the politicians to clarify. Clarity is what we need, not fear.”

A young corporal stationed near Toulon, speaking on condition of anonymity, said, “We train for the worst. Hearing the chief of staff speak plainly is sobering. But the public must know what they’re asking of those who follow orders.”

In a mountain village near the Pyrenees, Mayor Solène Martín said the speech woke people up. “We’re not theologians of war here; we grow grapes and buy bread. But when the state tells us to prepare, we listen. The question is: will support for soldiers be sustained beyond headlines?”

Preparing citizens: a government manual and an emergency kit

The controversy is colliding with policy. The government quietly published a guide titled “Everyone Responsible,” a primer aimed at asking citizens to prepare for major crises — whether natural disasters or an external aggression. It’s the sort of practical, domestic step that avoids political grandstanding but signals seriousness.

The guide advises every household to maintain an emergency bag — checked twice a year — containing essentials. Among the recommended items:

non-perishable food and water for several days
basic medicines and personal prescriptions
a battery-powered radio and spare batteries
copies of identity documents and emergency contact information
small comforts for children — books or games

“It sounds banal, but preparedness builds psychological resilience,” said Claire Fontaine, a civil security expert in Lyon. “People who feel equipped to manage short-term crises are less likely to panic and more able to support collective action.”

Beyond France: a European and global dilemma

This debate is not purely French. Across Europe, leaderships balance support for Ukraine with fears of escalation. NATO members have increased defense cooperation and material aid, but most underscore that they are not direct belligerents. Public opinion has been mixed: many Europeans express solidarity with Ukraine while also wary of being pulled into an open-ended contest with a nuclear-armed Russia.

What this means for global politics is profound. Democracies now face an old question in a new context: how do you maintain freedom and security without eroding the civil liberties, economic stability and social trust that make open societies desirable in the first place?

Questions we must ask together

How much discomfort will citizens accept to keep distant wars from becoming domestic crises? What is the role of military leaders in shaping public debate? Should generals speak bluntly about potential sacrifices, or should political leaders absorb that messaging and frame it in democratic terms?

These are not rhetorical tricks; they are governance questions. And they deserve more than soundbites. They require national conversations — about budgets and conscription and industry, about who bears the burdens and who benefits.

For a France that still carries battlefields in its memory, the balancing act will be especially fraught. The nation must find a language that neither infantilizes citizens nor incites needless panic. It must also reckon with whether its alliances and deterrents are enough, or whether a new posture of readiness is required.

As you read this from a terrace in Toulouse, an apartment in Lagos, or a hostel in Kraków — what would you pack in your emergency bag? What price would your society pay to protect not only its borders, but its way of life? The questions are intimate and enormous. And as the conversation unfolds, one thing is clear: the debate about readiness, sacrifice and national character has only just begun.

Robinson: Global renewable energy transition gaining unstoppable momentum

hanad

November 20, 2025

'Unstoppable momentum' toward renewables, says Robinson — Mary Robinson said states have binding legal obligations to reduce greenhouse gas emissions

Belém in the heat of decision: a river city holding the world to account

The air in Belém hangs heavy with humidity and expectation. Boats ply the creeks that feed the Amazon, market stalls spill mango and manioc onto cracked sidewalks, and a distant drumbeat — a sound that is both protest and prayer — ripples through crowds gathered outside the glass-and-steel pavilions where diplomats argue about the fate of the planet.

Inside, the COP30 negotiations move at a clip both feverish and fragile. Outside, Indigenous leaders, students and activists chant and sing, demanding that the world finally match words with action. It’s the kind of scene that makes you feel the stakes: not abstract numbers, but the lifeblood of a region that global warming threatens in very concrete ways.

From law to lungs: Mary Robinson’s insistence that climate is a legal duty

Mary Robinson, the former president of Ireland and a member of the Elders, has been in Belém since last weekend. She speaks with the cadence of someone who has spent decades reading treaties, arguing in courtrooms and holding leaders to account.

“This is not only political theatre,” she told me in a hallway interview, pausing to take in a tableau of negotiators clustered around a whiteboard. “The International Court of Justice has made it explicit: nations have legal obligations under the Paris Agreement and under international law to align with the 1.5°C limit. That changes the terms of this debate. It’s no longer optional.”

Robinson points to a concrete demand driving momentum here: roughly 85 countries — from small island states to Ireland — have joined what she calls an Oil and Gas Alliance, pressing for a clear roadmap to phase out fossil fuels. “People imagine diplomacy as slow and staid,” she said. “But there is an unstoppable momentum toward renewables and away from fossil dependency. The question is whether we will have the political courage to write that into the agreement.”

Law, money and the moral ledger

What makes Robinson’s position striking is how she frames climate action as an issue of legal obligation rather than mere aspiration. “You must, by law, align with 1.5°C. You must, by law, start cutting emissions. You must, by law, stop subsidising the fossil fuels that harm us,” she said, citing the near-$2 trillion a year in global fossil fuel subsidies that policymakers and economists have long criticized as perverse incentives.

“When you put legal language on the table, the room changes,” she added. “People start thinking about liabilities, about human rights, about the future claims of young people and communities on the frontline.”

Negotiations tightening — and fraying — at the edges

Minister Darragh O’Brien, Ireland’s climate minister, described the scene inside the negotiating rooms as “intense.” His team has been working on adaptation finance, and he says Ireland increased its adaptation commitment to €11.6 million — a figure he emphasized as larger than several peers. “We’ve stepped up,” he said. “But the challenge now is collective.”

Finance is precisely where the fissures run deepest. Delegations from developing nations insist that any credible climate deal must include substantial, predictable support for adaptation: money to fortify coastlines, to shift agriculture, to build early-warning systems and to help communities relocate when necessary. Richer nations, burdened by recessionary pressures and rising debt, have been reluctant to pledge large new sums.

“We say the money has to be there,” said Ana Lucía Ñamandu, an Indigenous leader from the Xipaya community, resting after a long march through Belém’s avenues. “In our villages, the rivers rise earlier, the fish disappear, and women are the ones who gather what remains. It is not charity. It is justice.”

The road to a roadmap

At the heart of the debate is language about a “roadmap” to phase out oil and gas. For some, the word is symbolic — a sign that the diplomacy is finally naming the problem. For many oil-producing states, it is existential. “Whether you call it a roadmap or another term, the essence is the same: we need a plan,” said EU climate commissioner Wopke Hoekstra at a press briefing. “The wording matters, but the commitment matters more.”

France’s ecological transition minister, Monique Barbut, was less sanguine: “No, there will not be a COP decision today,” she told reporters, cautioning that countries were still far apart. Yet she admitted that movement was visible — a faint arc of compromise forming in the room.

Lula’s late arrival and the weight of hosting

Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva’s arrival in Belém felt like more than ceremonial gravitas. He has staked political capital on this COP, promising a “COP of truth” and urging negotiators to reach agreement sooner rather than later.

“The Amazon is not a backdrop,” a Brazilian civil society organizer told me as we watched delegates hurry by. “It is the beating heart of why this negotiation must succeed. There’s theatre in Lula’s presence, yes, but also pressure. He knows how much is riding on this.”

André Corrêa do Lago, the COP30 president, has urged round-the-clock talks to bridge the gaps between wealthy nations, developing countries and oil-rich states. The clock is unforgiving: COP30 was slated to end on Friday, but as anyone who has covered UN summits knows, deadlines are often porous.

Gender, justice and the invisible spoilers

Another thread woven into the negotiations is the Gender Action Plan — a UN framework designed to ensure that climate policies account for gendered impacts. Robinson accused some parties of “spoiling” the plan, warning that without meaningful gender integration the response will be weaker and less just.

“Women and children bear disproportionate burdens from climate disasters,” she said. “If we ignore gender in climate solutions, we will miss the human element that makes those solutions work.”

Key demands on the floor: a roadmap to phase out fossil fuels; increased adaptation finance; meaningful gender integration into climate policy.
Momentum players: ~85 countries in the Oil and Gas Alliance; the EU and island states pushing for stronger language.
Sticking points: trade implications of climate measures, funding commitments, and how to phrase fossil fuel phase-out.

Why this matters — and what it asks of all of us

We are watching a global conversation about who pays for yesterday’s emissions and who pays for tomorrow’s resilience. The debate is legal and moral as much as it is financial and technical. If current national pledges are not tightened, the world could be headed toward a 2.3–2.5°C rise — a range that climatologists warn would bring catastrophes far beyond the kind of slow adjustments societies can absorb.

So what should worry you, sitting thousands of miles away from Belém? Consider this: coastal communities in the Pacific already plan for permanent relocation. Farmers in the Sahel must change crops mid-season. Arctic ice loss is accelerating feedback loops that no negotiation can directly stop once set in motion. These aren’t distant problems; they’re interconnected with our supply chains, food prices and migration patterns.

“This conference will be judged not on speeches but on whether it produces a credible plan to get off fossil fuels and properly funds adaptation,” said Dr. Maya Patel, an environmental economist who studies climate finance. “Lawyers like Mary Robinson are right to stress the legal angle — it strengthens accountability. But money, technology transfer, and political will are the levers that must move in tandem.”

Belém’s lesson

Negotiators will huddle into the night. Indigenous drummers will continue to beat rhythm into the dense Amazonian air. Leaders will flirt with compromise and retreat into the safety of old positions. Yet the moral arithmetic is simpler than the diplomatic choreography: communities already suffering demand help, young people want a livable future, and scientists warn that time is short.

Will the world choose a roadmap with teeth — or a compromise that kicks the hardest parts down the road? That is the question Belém is asking on behalf of the Amazon, the islands, the farmers and the city-dwellers whose summers are growing longer and harsher.

As you read this, I invite you to pause and imagine the river that bisects Belém. Imagine the chants of protestors, the faces of negotiators, the weight of a document yet unsigned. What role will your country, your community or you play in ensuring the final text reflects urgency, fairness and justice? The answer, after all, is not only in Belém’s halls — it’s in the choices we make every day, at the ballot box, the bank, and the dinner table.

Human Rights Watch alleges Israel responsible for crimes in the West Bank

hanad

November 20, 2025

Human Rights Watch accuses Israel of crimes in West Bank — A Palestinian boy flees a tear gas shot by Israeli soldiers during clashes at the Balata refugee camp in Nablus in January

The Quiet That Followed the Bulldozers

There are places where silence weighs like dust. Walk the alleys of Nur Shams, Jenin or Tulkarm today and you will feel it: an echo of footsteps that once filled alleyways, the ghost of laughter from a schoolyard now a heap of rubble, the faint scent of za’atar and strong coffee that clings to charred doorways.

In January and February of this year, Israeli forces swept into three West Bank refugee camps with an operation they called “Iron Wall.” What followed was not only the thunder of armored vehicles and the roar of bulldozers; it was the uprooting of whole communities. Human Rights Watch—after months of interviews, satellite analysis and the verification of demolition orders—says roughly 32,000 people were forcibly displaced from their homes. Their 105-page report, titled All My Dreams Have Been Erased, describes scenes that strain easy categorization: a catalogue of loss that HRW argues amounts to war crimes and crimes against humanity.

Figures that feel like faces

Numbers are blunt instruments, but they matter. HRW documented interviews with 31 displaced residents and verified more than 850 structures destroyed or heavily damaged. A separate UN assessment tallied an even higher figure: 1,460 buildings affected.

“Ten months after their displacement, none of the family residents have been able to go back to their homes,” says Melina Ansari, a researcher who worked on the HRW report. The statement stops being abstract the moment you meet someone who has lost everything.

Hisham Abu Tabeekh is one such person. He fled the Jenin camp when soldiers arrived, he tells you with a calm that trembles at the edges. “We are talking about having no food, no drink, no medicine, no expenses… we are living a very hard life,” he says. He and his family left with nothing but the clothes on their backs.

How the expulsion unfolded

The report pieces together a harrowing choreography: soldiers storming into homes, ransacking personal effects, shouting through loudspeakers mounted on drones, ordering people out. Families say bulldozers began leveling buildings while residents fled. No temporary shelters were provided by the forces that carried out the expulsions; people packed into relatives’ homes if they were lucky, or into mosques, schools and the sparse charity centers that are already strained to breaking point.

In a terse statement, the Israeli military framed the demolitions as a necessity: “We needed to demolish civilian infrastructure so that it could not be exploited by militants.” The military did not provide a timeline for when, if ever, residents might return.

From 1948 to now: camps that kept memory alive

These camps were not recent creations. Born in the wake of the 1948 Arab-Israeli war, the tents that became Nur Shams, Jenin and Tulkarm grew into tightly knit neighborhoods across generations—refugee camps that became villages, then towns, then living archives of dispossession and resilience.

Walk through one and you still see the markers of that history: faded family photos tacked to balcony walls, elders who know exactly where each fruit tree was planted decades ago, the mosquito-net covers over windows because building materials were never plentiful. “You cannot just erase a life like that,” says Fatima, a woman who asked that we not use her full name. “My grandmother told stories of 1948. I told stories to my children. Now there is nowhere to tell them.”

Legal lines and moral alarms

International law draws clear lines around forced displacement in occupied territories. The Fourth Geneva Convention prohibits the transfer or displacement of protected persons from occupied territory except where absolutely necessary for their security or for imperative military reasons, and only temporarily. HRW concludes that the mass expulsions—carried out without provision for return and accompanied by sweeping demolitions—contravened these protections.

The group does not stop at legal labels. It argues these acts sit within a broader pattern—displacement, demolition, detention without trial and increased settler violence—that together amount to crimes against humanity, invoking the harsh terms “apartheid” and “persecution” in its analysis. HRW urges international action: prosecutions of responsible officials, referral to the International Criminal Court where applicable, targeted sanctions, suspension of arms sales and trade privileges, and bans on settlement goods.

Numbers and trends that widen the lens

Approximately 32,000 people displaced from three West Bank refugee camps during Operation Iron Wall.
HRW documented over 850 structures destroyed or heavily damaged; UN assessments put the figure at about 1,460.
Since 7 October 2023, Palestinian fatalities in the West Bank have climbed to nearly 1,000, per HRW’s report.
Settler attacks surged in October 2023, with at least 264 assaults reported that month—the highest monthly total since the United Nations began tracking such incidents in 2006.

Voices from the rubble

What numbers miss is the texture: the child who no longer has a gentle slope of roof to practise soccer, the woman who spent an entire night clutching a small box of family photographs as neighbors slept on mattresses in a mosque. “We are treated like numbers,” says Ahmad, a volunteer aid worker. “But each number is a person with history, with wounds.”

Across the camps, people describe an erosion of dignity. A teacher, still unsure whether she will return to her classroom, told me she keeps thinking about the children who had never seen the sea; “now some children don’t even know where they sleep tonight,” she said. Such accounts echo across the interviews HRW conducted and the verified footage that shows homes reduced to skeletons of concrete.

Why this matters beyond the camps

Forced displacement is not only a local crisis; it is a global signal. Around the world, whether through climate stresses, war or deliberate policy, communities are being uprooted. The Jenin, Tulkarm and Nur Shams expulsions force us to ask: when occupation and displacement are normalized as political tactics, what remains of law, of accountability, of the idea that people have the right to a home?

And there is a second, sharper question: how does the international community respond when attention is focused elsewhere? HRW’s report argues that these expulsions occurred in part while global attention was riveted on Gaza—an indication, they say, of the dangers of uneven scrutiny.

What people are asking—and what comes next

Locals and rights groups want three things: the right of return, reparations or meaningful compensation, and legal accountability for those who ordered and executed the expulsions. HRW calls for international measures designed to prevent further abuses—targeted sanctions, suspension of arms support, enforcement of ICC processes and stringent controls on settlement commerce.

“Justice will not be measured in reports alone,” says an international law expert who reviewed HRW’s findings. “It will depend on whether states dare to enforce the rules they signed up to.”

If history teaches anything, it is that displacement is easier to cause than to reverse. Rebuilding homes is practical; rebuilding trust is not. The camps’ elders, the children, the mothers who tie bandages with hands that have known other sieges—these are the people whose lives are in the balance.

Final reflection

When you read the headlines, the rubble becomes a statistic and the names vanish. But stand at the edge of a demolished courtyard and you will hear something else: the persistent human question that has always underpinned conflicts large and small—who gets to belong, and who is permitted to leave? As you think about that, consider this: in a world of competing crises, what moral duties do distant nations and distant citizens have to ensure that those questions are answered with law, not with silence?

We can close our eyes to faraway suffering, or we can allow it to expand our moral imagination. The people of Jenin, Tulkarm and Nur Shams deserve more than memories of what once was. They deserve a future that is spoken for, defended and, when necessary, fought for in courtrooms and diplomatic halls alike.

Trump signs bill to unseal Jeffrey Epstein documents

hanad

November 20, 2025

Epstein alleged Trump 'knew about the girls' - Democrats — Donald Trump and Jeffrey Epstein reportedly fell out in 2004 over a property deal

When a Stack of Papers Becomes a Mirror: What the Epstein File Release Means — and What It Won’t

The Justice Department’s file cabinets, usually closed to curious eyes, are about to cough up secrets. President Donald Trump signed a bill this week that orders the Justice Department to release documents from its long-running probe into Jeffrey Epstein — a man whose life intersected with money, power and scandal in ways that still reverberate around the globe.

Imagine a courtroom as a theater, and these documents as stage directions: they won’t tell the whole play, but they might change how we read the script. The department has 30 days to hand over material, Attorney General Pam Bondi said at a news conference — a deadline that, on paper, promises quick clarity. In practice, though, the law itself allows for redactions meant to protect victims and active investigations. So expect glare and shadow, revelation and restraint, in equal measure.

How we got here

Epstein’s name has been a political hot potato for years. Convicted in Florida in 2008 of soliciting a minor for prostitution, he was arrested again in 2019 on federal sex-trafficking charges. He died in a Manhattan jail that same year; authorities ruled his death a suicide. His longtime associate, Ghislaine Maxwell, was later convicted and is serving a 20-year sentence for helping to procure and groom underage girls.

That history is the backdrop for the latest chapter — a bipartisan push in Congress to force disclosure, and a reluctant presidential signature. Sources inside the White House say Mr. Trump originally encouraged Republicans to oppose the measure, arguing it could establish a dangerous precedent of opening up internal investigative records. When momentum for the bill proved unstoppable, he reversed course and signed, then framed the move publicly as a way to “expose the truth about certain Democrats and their associations with Jeffrey Epstein.”

Promises, limits, and politics

“We will continue to follow the law and encourage maximum transparency,” Attorney General Bondi told reporters. Her words ring with the kind of measured cadence common to prosecutors: a promise of openness wrapped in legal caveats. The statute explicitly permits withholding anything that could identify victims or endanger active probes, which legal experts say is standard but also opens room for significant withholding.

“Disclosure is not a panacea,” said Eleanor Martinez, a former federal prosecutor who now teaches criminal justice at NYU. “A lot of the documents people want are protected by grand jury secrecy rules, privacy interests, and ongoing prosecution concerns. What we’ll see is curated transparency — selected pages that can inform but not necessarily settle the broader public narrative.”

The context is overtly political. A Reuters/Ipsos poll released in conjunction with this news found only 20% of Americans approve of how Mr. Trump has handled the Epstein matter — including just 44% of Republicans. Seventy percent of respondents believe the government is hiding information about Epstein’s network; that breaks down to 87% of Democrats and 60% of Republicans who suspect concealment. Those numbers explain why both opponents and allies pressed for disclosure.

Voices from the perimeter

On the streets of Palm Beach, where Epstein maintained a property for years, the reaction is a mix of weary resignation and guarded curiosity. “We’ve been hearing rumors for a decade,” said Sylvia Kravitz, who runs a diner near the oceanfront. “Some things you don’t want to know. Some you need to. These files might make people face why things were allowed to happen.”

A Trump supporter in his 50s, speaking outside a rally, offered a different take: “If there’s dirt on Democrats, let it come out. Transparency is for everyone, right?”

A survivor advocate, who asked to remain anonymous, struck a sharper note. “Documents that center victims, not reputations, are what justice looks like,” they said. “We’ve seen how public curiosity can be a second assault. My fear is that redactions will sanitize the story and the human toll will be lost.”

What could be revealed — and what probably won’t

When the files arrive, expect a patchwork rather than a portrait. The law allows the department to withhold:

Identifying information about victims
Material that could jeopardize ongoing investigations
Grand jury transcripts and other protected testimony

That means we may get memos, footnotes, meeting logs and redacted witness statements — but not a complete list of names or the full context in which accounts were taken. “People often underestimate how many legitimate legal reasons there are to keep portions secret,” Martinez said. “But that can fuel suspicion as easily as it preserves privacy.”

Beyond the documents: power, secrecy, and public trust

Why does this matter to a global audience? Because the Epstein affair sits at the intersection of several seismic trends: the rise of billionaire influence in politics, the corrosive effect of secrecy on democratic institutions, and the battle over who controls narratives in a post-truth media environment.

For decades, wealthy actors have moved through private clubs, island retreats and glossy foundations, creating networks that blur philanthropy, politics and personal indulgence. When allegations of abuse appear at those intersections, institutions — from law enforcement to party machinery — are tested. The way we handle the fallout tells us whether systems prioritize victims, institutional reputation, or partisan advantage.

“This is a test of civic muscle,” said Dr. Nikhil Rao, a sociologist at the University of Chicago who studies elites and accountability. “Do we demand evidence-based transparency — carefully balancing privacy and investigatory needs — or do we use disclosure as a political cudgel? Both paths have costs.”

What to watch for in the next 30 days

The initial tranche of documents the DOJ releases — will they be heavily redacted or substantive?
Whether any material pertains to public figures and if the department cites active probes to withhold that material.
How media organizations and civil-society groups respond — will they litigate for more disclosure?
Whether victims’ groups are given a say in how material that concerns them is handled publicly.

Ask yourself: when institutions promise transparency, how much do you trust the filtering process? When revelations arrive, will they clarify or inflame? The answers will shape not just one scandal’s legacy, but our broader expectations of accountability in a world where power often moves behind closed doors.

Thirty days, a folder of papers, and the patient work of parsing redactions. What we’ll get is part history, part legal strategy, part political theater. And amid the headlines, the people most affected — the survivors — deserve to be remembered as more than a footnote. That’s the test beyond the ink: whether disclosure leads to understanding, restitution, and safeguards to prevent another chapter like this from ever opening again.

Video shows fully operational solid-gold toilet sold for $12 million

hanad

November 20, 2025

Watch: Fully functional gold toilet sells for $12m

A Throne of Irony: The Day a Golden Toilet Flushed Into Art History

They say art should make you look twice. Maurizio Cattelan’s 18-karat gold toilet did more than that — it made a room full of collectors and commentators look in the mirror.

Last week in New York, Sotheby’s rang down the hammer on a work that looks, at first glance, like the punchline to an extravagant joke. Titled America, the fully functional, gleaming toilet drew a final bid of $12.1 million including fees. It is by turns a ceremonial object, a satire, a scandal waiting to be retold at dinner parties for years to come.

The facts that refuse to stay simple

Cattelan’s piece weighs roughly 101.2 kilograms and is cast in 18-karat gold — a material that, depending on the market, can swing wildly in dollar terms. Sotheby’s framed the starting bid to move with the global price of gold, a reminder that the work is itself a commodity as well as a critique.

“The buyer is a famous American brand,” a Sotheby’s spokesperson told reporters, declining to provide more details. The announcement folded into the narrative: a golden toilet purchased by a corporate name, itself a sort of punchline about capital and spectacle.

For those who followed Cattelan’s career, this sale reads like a particularly apt coda. The artist, renowned for his razor-sharp satire, first startled the art world with pieces that balanced on the knife-edge between jest and provocation. In 2019 he made headlines again with Comedian, a banana duct-taped to a wall, which became a lightning rod for debates over value, taste and the limits of art after it fetched millions at auction.

From the Guggenheim to Blenheim: The odyssey of a bathroom fixture

America first took the public’s breath at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in 2016–2017, where visitors queued to sit — literally — on a gleaming throne. Photographs proliferated: hands on porcelain, selfie sticks raised like flags. The absurdity was delicious and deliberate.

In 2019 the object’s story turned cinematic when a version was stolen from Blenheim Palace in Oxfordshire, an audacious nighttime raid that left the public gawking. The stolen toilet has never been recovered. The example sold at Sotheby’s is, according to the auction house, the only surviving version currently available — which, for collectors and curators, elevates it from novelty to artefact.

What does this say about value?

“Art has always been an alchemist,” said Dr. Lila Moretti, an art historian who has taught at Columbia and written widely on contemporary installations. “Cattelan is explicit about the conversion of material into meaning, and then back into capital. America is about consumption and refusal at the same time.”

It’s a paradox laid bare: an object that mocks excess is itself a monument to excess. Is it cynicism? Performance? A mirror held up to our gilded age?

Voices from the crowd: reaction, bemusement, outrage

On the sidewalk outside Sotheby’s, passersby struggled to pick a single reaction.

“It’s funny and grotesque. I think that’s the point,” said Maya Johnson, a museum educator who had rushed over after learning of the sale. “A toilet is intimate, humble, ugly — and then someone coats it in gold and sells it to a brand. It’s theatre.”

Across the street, a retiree named Victor Alvarez shook his head. “It’s obscene,” he said. “When some people can’t afford basic healthcare and we pay millions for toilets — well, that’s a picture of a moment in history.”

Meanwhile, a young art student, clutching a notepad, laughed. “Cattelan always knew how to get a conversation started,” she said. “It’s brilliant marketing and a serious provocation at once.”

Experts weigh in

“This auction tells us as much about today’s market as the artwork itself,” said Thomas Reed, an auction analyst. “Major houses have leaned into spectacle as a way to generate headlines — that drives bidders, which in turn drives prices. When you combine scarcity, provenance and provocation, you have a powerful mix.”

His numbers are instructive: the contemporary art market has repeatedly proven resilient. Auction houses reported strong returns for headline-grabbing lots in recent years, and star artists have seen collectors willing to go beyond traditional metrics of rarity or historical significance.

Why a brand matters: the buyer becomes part of the story

That a “famous American brand” emerged as the purchaser adds another layer. When corporations collect in public ways, they aren’t simply acquiring art — they are buying narratives, prestige and cultural capital. The brand’s name attached to America will be whispered in boardrooms, press releases, and marketing campaigns.

“Brands are increasingly playing the role of patrons, but with a twist,” said corporate curator Anna Liang. “They treat acquisitions as statements — about identity, about values, sometimes about power. This is soft diplomacy through aesthetics.”

Beyond the gilding: what America asks of us

Cattelan’s toilet forces questions we often dodge: What is worth what we say it is? How do objects mediate our relationship to wealth and public life? When does satire become spectacle — and does that matter?

Think of the image: a visitor, coat collar up against a cold New York wind, standing in front of a case where a toilet glints like a relic. Someone snaps a photo, posts it, tags a friend. The internet transforms a private joke into a global event. The absurd becomes a headline, then a meme, then an asset.

Is that cynical? Perhaps. Or maybe it’s honest. In an era of growing economic inequality, where luxury condos share skylines with encampments and cost-of-living crises, gestures like America cut close to the bone. They shame and fascinate in equal measure.

Where do we go from here?

There are practical questions, too. How will the buyer display the piece? Is it destined for a corporate lobby, a private bathroom, a museum loan? Will it ever again be plumbed into public use? The irony, after all, is most potent if it remains more than image — if people can still sit, flush, feel the cold bite of gold between their fingertips and the seat.

And for those who track provenance and restitution after art thefts, the unanswered theft at Blenheim still stings. “The theft speaks to a broader problem of cultural heritage protection,” Dr. Moretti said. “When an object confounds value systems, it becomes both target and talisman.”

So what do you think, reader? Is the sale of America an elaborate joke, a masterstroke of modern commentary, or an empty exercise in conspicuous consumption? Does buying a golden toilet make a brand braver — or merely louder?

One thing is certain: the piece will not stop asking questions. And whether you find it hilarious, offensive, or tragically fitting, Cattelan has once again turned the world’s attention toward the altar of value — and forced us to consider who kneels before it, and why.

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