TikTok trials AI-driven content controls to personalize users’ feeds

November 19, 2025

TikTok testing AI content control tool for users in feed

Tuning the Algorithm: In Dublin, TikTok Offers a Dimmer Switch for AI — But Not an Off Button

On a gray Dublin morning, beneath the low hum of a busy office block and the scent of coffee, TikTok opened its doors to reporters, creators and safety experts from across Europe for what felt, at times, less like a corporate brief and more like a public conversation about the future of attention.

The company’s announcement was straightforward: a new control that lets users tell TikTok how much AI-generated content they want to see in their “For You” feeds. It’s as if the app handed millions an old-fashioned dimmer switch for the algorithm — except you can’t switch the light off completely.

A slider, not a shutdown

The feature, revealed at the European Trust and Safety Forum in TikTok’s Dublin office, offers a choice along a continuum from “see less” to “see more.” There is no option to block AI-generated content entirely.

“We want people to be able to shape their experience,” said a TikTok spokesperson at the event. “But we also believe AI can power creativity and discovery, so the approach is about moderation and transparency rather than elimination.”

A Dublin-based creator, Aoife Murphy, who makes short documentaries about urban life, told me, “It’s nice to have a choice. I’m worried about deepfakes and about kids thinking AI-made clips are real. But I also love the AI tools that help me edit faster. This lets me keep the good and dodge the weird.”

What the control does — and doesn’t — do

On paper the update sounds simple; in practice it raises messy questions about autonomy, curation and the invisible architecture of attention economy platforms. Here’s what TikTok says the new control will do:

Allow users to indicate a preference for more or less AI-generated content in their feeds;
Include continued investment in labelling AI content across the app;
Back an educational push — a $2 million (€1.73m) fund — for experts to produce AI literacy material.

“Giving people a lever is progress,” said Dr. Maren Vogel, a digital-safety researcher in Berlin. “But if the lever only nudges rather than empowers full choice, we need to look closely at how that nudging shapes what you see and who benefits.”

Wellbeing features: badges, missions and late-night scrolling

Alongside AI controls, TikTok rolled out what it calls a “Time and Wellbeing Space.” It’s designed as a digital alcove where users can attempt “wellbeing missions” — practical nudges like sticking to screen-time limits or avoiding nighttime scrolling — and earn badges for meeting those goals.

“It’s sort of gamified mindfulness,” said Zara O’Connor, a content creator focused on mental health education. “If earning a badge helps a teenager shut their phone an hour earlier, that’s a win. But badges are not therapy, and we shouldn’t let shiny rewards hide deeper structural problems.”

Concerns about TikTok and young people’s mental health are well-documented. Researchers and advocacy groups have repeatedly warned about the app’s power to amplify extreme content, encourage addictive patterns of use, and distort young users’ sense of reality.

Safety by numbers

TikTok has been trying to answer some of those criticisms with data. At the Dublin event it disclosed that more than 6.5 million videos were removed in the first half of this year for violating its rules, and that it had taken down “more than 920 accounts dedicated to spreading hate.” The platform also pledged more transparency around how it handles violent and hateful material.

“Removing content is necessary but not sufficient,” cautioned Dr. Vogel. “Scale matters. There are hundreds of millions — even more than a billion — of users globally on platforms like this, and content moderation is always a race between human intent and machine scale.”

The trust gap and the question of agency

For many users and regulators, the core tension is simple: platforms built on algorithmic curation increasingly rely on AI to create and surface content. People want autonomy, but companies have incentives to maximize engagement. The new TikTok control acknowledges that tension, but stops short of ceding full agency to users.

“A slider is a start, but it’s also symbolic,” said Isabelle Laurent, a policy expert who has advised European regulators. “Regulators want to know: can consumers truly opt out of machine-generated influencers, synthetic media, or content prioritized by economy-driven prompts? Sliders might feel like empowerment, but they are still company-controlled settings.”

Across the room in Dublin, a teenage creator named Luca summed it up more bluntly: “I don’t want the app deciding what’s real for me. But I also don’t want to switch platforms. This is trying to meet me halfway.”

Cultural texture: Dublin as backdrop

The choice of Dublin for the forum reflected more than geography: Ireland is home to many tech firms’ European headquarters, and its café-lined streets and late-night pubs provide a strange comfort for policy wonks and creators who fly in from across the continent. In conversation, people kept returning to local details — the cadence of Irish English, the ease of finding a quiet study corner in a hostel, the way a brisk walk along the Liffey clears the head.

“Technology conversations happen in abstract,” said Seán Ní Ríordáin, a community organiser who runs digital-literacy workshops in Dublin. “But when you bring them here, in a city that’s both global and intimate, you hear different worries: parents asking how to explain AI to a nine-year-old, teachers asking for lesson plans.”

What this means for the wider debate

TikTok’s moves are part of a broader pattern: platforms are under pressure to offer users greater transparency and control, while governments and civil-society groups push for stronger rules. The company’s $2m literacy fund signals a willingness to invest in education, but it also raises questions about who gets to define literacy and how much responsibility falls on private companies versus public institutions.

So where does that leave the rest of us — creators, parents, policymakers, casual scrollers who open the app with a cup of coffee and ten minutes to spare?

We are being invited to participate in a negotiated future where AI is baked into the media we consume. That’s both exhilarating and unnerving. It’s an opportunity to insist on better labelling, stronger opt-out mechanisms and more public investment in critical thinking. And it’s a moment to ask whether a slider is enough when what’s at stake is how an entire generation understands truth, creativity, and attention.

“We can’t outsource civic education to platforms,” Dr. Vogel said. “But we can push companies to be better partners in the work.”

After the forum: a call to action

If you use TikTok — or any service that filters content through AI — take a moment to look at the settings. Try the slider. Talk with your family about what it means when a video can be crafted by code as easily as by people. Ask your local schools whether they teach media literacy. Ask your representatives whether the rules keep pace with the tools.

Because at the end of the day, a platform can hand you a choice. It’s up to society to decide what choices are meaningful.

From Maldives atolls to Ireland’s coasts: protecting coral reefs

hanad

November 19, 2025

Protecting coral reefs from the Maldives to Ireland — Marine Biologist Katelyn Hegarty-Kelly working on coral frames in the Maldives (Credit: Reefscapers/ Ollie Clarke)

When Reefs Go Quiet: A Travel Diary from Bleached Gardens to Deep Atlantic Mounds

On a sun-baked morning in the Maldives, the water is a clear, photogenic blue — the kind that splinters light into a thousand tiny diamonds. Beneath that beauty, however, a quieter, grimmer story is unfolding. Coral that once teemed with neon fish and darting rays is paling, shedding the colors that make these places feel alive. Scientists at COP30 this week are calling it the world’s first climate “tipping point”: the mass die-off of warm-water coral reefs.

For decades researchers have warned: keep global warming close to the Paris Agreement’s aim of 1.5°C and you preserve not only vistas that fill travel brochures, but ecosystems that sustain a quarter of all marine life. That threshold, they say, is where the line is drawn between coral survival and utter collapse. Recent reports suggest we’ve already stepped past the safe zone for tropical corals.

A tipping point beneath the waves

The latest Global Tipping Points report — compiled by more than 160 scientists — places the thermal tipping point for tropical corals at roughly 1.2°C of global warming. That estimate is not academic; the ocean is proving it in real time. Delegates at COP30 are hearing that up to 84% of the world’s coral reefs have been affected by the current global bleaching event, which scientists describe as the most widespread and severe on record.

“We’re seeing bleaching across virtually every low-latitude reef system,” says Tim Lenton, director of the Global Systems Institute at the University of Exeter. “That pattern matches the idea that corals’ temperature threshold is well below 1.5°C. When the ocean heats for weeks or months, these organisms simply cannot cope.”

Bleaching events are not uniform. Some reefs recover; others don’t. But the scale of the current event — reported to have impacted around 80% of low-latitude reefs — makes recovery a far steeper climb for many regions. The implication is stark: coral ecosystems that took millennia to build can unravel in a season.

At the coalface: Maldives — tourism, restoration and ethical tension

Step onto the private island of Furanafushi in the North Malé Atoll and you encounter an old paradox: paradise that must be preserved by the very industry that helped put it at risk. The Maldives hinge economically on sun, sand and sea; they also sit some of the lowest in elevation on earth, making them vulnerable to sea-level rise. Host to the seventh-largest reef system globally, the stakes could not be higher.

At the Sheraton Full Moon Resort, guests can now sponsor a “frame” — a metal structure seeded with fragments of coral — and send photographs home of a living souvenir that grows under the surface. It’s intimate conservation, experienced as holiday-making. “People tell us they get to leave something of themselves behind,” says Katelyn Hegarty-Kelly, the managing marine biologist for Reefscapers in the Maldives. “For many, this is the first time they understand how fragile these systems are.”

Her tone is practical, but edged with fatigue. “Last year’s mass bleaching hit us hard. You learn fast that a single person on a snorkel cannot stop global heating. We can plant gardens, we can relocate frames, we can nudge nature — but the larger drivers remain.”

Restoration like this is part of a growing toolbox: coral gardening, relocations to cooler micro-sites, and technological interventions that sound like something out of a lab thriller — assisted evolution, “super corals” bred or engineered to tolerate higher temperatures. Some scientists hail these techniques as essential triage. Others warn of risks: unforeseen ecological consequences, ethical dilemmas, and the danger of letting innovation substitute for the hard work of cutting emissions.

Current recovery techniques: coral frames, fragmentation and out-planting
Innovative approaches: assisted evolution, selective breeding, microbiome manipulation
Policy fixes discussed at COP30: expanding marine protected areas, finance for adaptation, and global emissions reductions

“We need every tool in the kit,” says Aisha Rahman, a marine policy advisor attending COP30. “But if the temperature curve keeps rising, restoration becomes an act of mourning rather than repair.”

Local lives, global consequences

Tourists who clip a fragment onto a frame are rarely ignorant of the paradox. “I came thinking I’d add a little colour to the reef,” says James, an Irish tourist who recently planted a coral at Furanafushi. “But then you talk with the biologists and hear how quickly these places can vanish. It changes you.”

For Maldivian fishers and resort staff, the emotional and economic realities are tied together. “The reef feeds us, protects our shorelines, and brings people who pay our wages,” says Mohamed, a local dive guide. “Losing it is like losing a language.”

Cold-water corals: an overlooked chorus in the deep

Shift the scene 300 kilometres west of Ireland and you find another kind of reef: cold-water coral mounds at the Porcupine Bank Canyon. These structures, formed by corals that thrive in dark, frigid waters, have existed for 2.6 million years. They may lack the tropical palette tourists expect, but they are biodiversity hotspots, carpeting the continental slope in living architecture.

“Most people picture the Great Barrier Reef when I say ‘coral’,” says Dr Aaron Lim, senior lecturer at University College Cork. “But nearly half of the world’s corals live in deep waters, out of sight and then out of mind.” These Irish corals cannot be dived upon; remotely operated vehicles (ROVs) map and monitor them instead.

ROV footage reveals a different set of pressures. Nets and lines become entangled in coral branches. Plastic and microfibres adhere to or are ingested by animal tissues. Warming and changing currents mean food streams shift — corals that filter tiny particles may starve if currents accelerate.

“We’re only beginning to understand how microplastics and altered ocean dynamics affect growth rates,” Dr Lim says. “But the early data are worrying — these reefs support fisheries and a €1.3 billion seafood sector in Ireland. Their loss would ripple through communities across the Atlantic.”

So what now? Why should you care?

Maybe you live inland, never dip a toe into coral-blue waters. Maybe you fly to tropical islands for a week of rest. But coral reefs are the scaffolding for ocean life that filters carbon, supports fisheries and buffers coasts. The loss of reefs is not just about aesthetics; it is about food security, livelihoods and the resilience of coastal nations.

At COP30 delegates are debating familiar fixes — expand marine protected areas (the 30×30 target remains central), redirect subsidies away from harmful practices, invest in blue carbon and nature-based solutions. Still, the most consequential action will always be outside conference rooms: emissions reductions that bend the global temperature curve back toward safety.

So ask yourself: when paradise becomes an exhibit, will you remember it as it was — or as it could still be if we choose differently? Planting a single coral frame feels humane and hopeful. It’s also a reminder that local actions must be matched by global responsibility. Otherwise, in a few decades, those frames may stand as relics of a sea once full of colour.

Final note

The world’s corals are sending us a message, in bleaching and in silence. It is urgent, clear, and not easily ignored: ecosystems built over millennia can unravel in the space of a human lifetime. The question now is collective — and moral: how much will we do to keep the sea’s colors from fading entirely?

Tusk alleges Ukrainian collaborators working for Russia behind rail sabotage

hanad

November 19, 2025

Tusk: Ukrainians working for Russia behind rail sabotage — Donald Tusk said, those involved were Ukrainians who collaborated with Russian intelligence and that they had fled to Belarus

On the Tracks: Sabotage, Suspicion and a Nation on Edge

There is a certain sound that marks the borderlands of eastern Poland — a long, low rumble of freight trains, the metallic sigh of rails stretching toward Ukraine, and the distant bark of border guards. It is a sound that, for three years, has been a promise: that supplies, ammunition and relief will hum across the frontier to a neighbour at war.

Last weekend, that hum was interrupted not by artillery from afar but by deliberate acts on the tracks themselves. In a stark address to parliament, Prime Minister Donald Tusk named two suspects — both Ukrainian nationals whom Polish authorities say cooperated with Russian services — in a pair of sabotage incidents that damaged a crucial rail line used to supply Ukraine.

“Perhaps the most serious national security situation in Poland since the outbreak of the full‑scale war in Ukraine,” Tusk told lawmakers, his voice measured but tight. He said investigators had identified the two men but would not yet publish names while inquiries continue.

What happened on the line

The first incident, authorities say, involved a steel clamp fastened to the rails — a crude but potentially catastrophic device “likely intended to derail a train,” according to prosecutors. The second attack involved a military‑grade explosive that went off as a freight train passed, mangling sleepers and bending rails but, narrowly, not costing lives.

No passengers were harmed; the freights affected were conveying material central to Kyiv’s war effort. Officials say one suspect was convicted in Lviv earlier this year for “acts of sabotage”; the other is reported to be from Donbas, the Russian‑occupied region of Ukraine. Both are said to have crossed into Poland from Belarus in the autumn and left Polish territory for Belarus soon after the attacks.

Polish police now say 55 people have been detained and 23 arrested in connection with various sabotage cases — a sweeping net that stretches across several regions and leaves communities asking whom they can trust.

Voices from the border

At the small cafe near the station in Przemyśl, steam from coffee cups competes with the cold. Anna, who has run the place for a decade and watches the trains like a weather vane, folded her hands at the table and said, “We can smell when trouble is near. Trains carry hope and freight; when they stop, people stop breathing easy. We thought the worst was far away. Now it feels close.”

Jan, a 58‑year‑old track supervisor who has spent his life fixing wayside signals and replacing ties, spoke with a mixture of anger and resignation. “Someone put a clamp on a rail,” he said. “That is not an accident. That is someone saying: I can stop you. I can end what this line carries — life‑saving deliveries, food, not just guns. It is an attack on what many of us are doing to help.”

For those who have fled from Ukraine, the acts of sabotage are wrenching. “We sleep lighter when trains run,” said Marta, who took shelter in a church shelter near the crossing. “When they announced the explosions, my knees went weak. The war finds you in places you thought were safe.”

Signals of a larger campaign

Security analysts in Warsaw point to a chilling pattern: infrastructure — rail, energy, logistics hubs — has become a target in what experts call hybrid warfare. “Sabotage like this does three things at once,” explained Dr. Piotr Małecki, a lecturer in security studies. “It disrupts the material flow to the front, it spreads fear among the civilian populations that help Ukraine, and it seeks to inflame social tensions and political divisions in countries that host aid operations.”

Another analyst described the strikes as “tests” — probing how quickly authorities respond, how well cross‑border intelligence sharing works, and whether public sentiment can be nudged against Ukrainian refugees and volunteers who have been integrated into Polish communities since 2022.

Those concerns are not abstract. Poland has been a major logistical hub for military and humanitarian aid to Ukraine. As of 2024, more than a million Ukrainians had sought refuge in Poland since the war intensified in 2022, and hundreds of thousands of military shipments have traversed Polish territory — a lifeline that has drawn both praise and, now, hostile attention.

The diplomatic echo

European capitals reacted swiftly. EU leaders publicly offered solidarity; the European Commission president called for calm and unity. NATO echoed concerns about protecting supply lines and allied infrastructure. Kyiv’s diplomats, meanwhile, noted that attempts like these could be “to test responses,” a troubling phrase that suggests this could be one episode in a longer campaign.

In Moscow, officials responded with outrage at being implicated, and the Kremlin accused Poland of “Russophobia” — a charge that read like both a political reflex and a deflection. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told state media it would be “strange” not to blame Russia, but stopped short of a clear denial of involvement. The exchange of charges only deepened an atmosphere thick with suspicion.

Why the tracks matter

Railways are more than steel and sleeper; they are the arteries of modern war and humanitarian response. Disrupt them, and hospitals run short, soldiers wait, and supply chains stutter. They are, therefore, irresistible targets for those who want to leverage fear and randomness against an opponent.

Yet attacks like this also create social risks at home. Prime Minister Tusk warned that the perpetrators sought, in part, to stoke anti‑Ukrainian sentiment — a particularly dangerous gambit in Poland, where civil society and local governments have done much of the heavy lifting to shelter refugees.

“We must not allow a handful of criminals to poison our communities,” said one opposition MP. “The response must be thorough, transparent, and it must avoid scapegoating.”

Questions left on the rails

The investigation continues. Names may be disclosed as prosecutors build cases; cross‑border cooperation will be central if suspects did indeed move through Belarus. For now, the tracks are being repaired and the trains are scheduled to run again, but the quiet between stations feels fragile.

What does this incident tell us about the changing face of conflict — the way wars extend outward, into marketplaces, cafés, and rail sidings far from the front lines? How should democracies balance the need for security with the need to protect civil liberties, and how can communities resist the pull toward blame when fear runs high?

These are not questions with easy answers. But if there is one clear takeaway, it is that the war in Ukraine has no tidy borders. The rails that connect nations also connect their vulnerabilities — and the safety of those lines now depends as much on careful policing and intelligence as on the steady hands of cooks, drivers and clerks who keep the trains running.

As investigators work to unspool what happened, towns along the tracks return to routine: steam rises from kettles, track crews measure gauges, and trains, once fixed, begin to roll again. For people like Anna and Jan, that hum is more than a sound. It is a barometer of peace, and a promise they want to keep.

EU climate chief: COP30 draft agreement brings progress and setbacks

hanad

November 19, 2025

Draft COP30 agreement a 'mixed bag' - EU climate chief — The nine-page "Global Mutirão" document came after Brazil urged delegates to work day and night to produce an agreement by midweek

Under the Amazon Sky: COP30, Compromise and the Politics of Tomorrow

Belém sits where the Amazon unfurls into the Atlantic — a city built on waterways, markets and the pulsing, humid breath of the rainforest. I arrived at dawn to find diplomats in dark suits navigating the same wooden sidewalks where vendors hawk steaming bowls of tacacá and carts sell glistening açaí. The air here seems to demand another kind of conversation: one that remembers trees and tides, not just emissions statistics and bullet points.

And yet, amid the color and clamour, the two-week COP30 summit has become a tightly wound theatre of international bargaining. Brazil, the host, has moved with surprising boldness. Its negotiators announced a two-stage negotiating gambit — an early package on items previously thought too contentious for the agenda, and a second sweep to tidy up remaining disputes by the end of the week. It is a daring approach, and it has set the whole summit buzzing.

What’s on the table

At the heart of the talks are the things that have been thorny for years: how rich countries will finance the global energy transition, whether and how the world will phase out fossil fuels, and how to close the yawning gap between pledges and what scientists say is needed to avoid catastrophic warming.

“We are not here to reopen deals that only muddle progress,” said one senior European negotiator, leaning on a balcony above the port. “But we are also realistic: timelines and trust matter. People on the front lines of climate change don’t have the luxury of patience.”

The draft text released by the presidency reads like an anatomy of compromise. It offers three divergent tracks on fossil fuels: an optional workshop on low-carbon solutions; a ministerial roundtable to chart pathways out of dependency on oil and gas; or, in another corner, the choice to leave the text blank. The very presence of those options shows how far the parties remain from consensus — and how much symbolic weight the term “phaseout” still carries.

Money, promises, and the politics of finance

Finance is the Gordian knot. Wealthy nations still hover around a long-broken promise to mobilise $100 billion a year for climate action in developing countries — a benchmark first set in 2009. That shortfall has become a litmus test of trust, especially for small island states and low-lying nations that face existential threats from sea-level rise.

“You cannot ask us to stop burning fossil fuels when you have not yet fulfilled the financial commitments that make that possible,” said Ana Tutu, a negotiator from a Pacific island state, with an urgency that made the room hush. “This is survival, not charity.”

From the European side, Wopke Hoekstra, the bloc’s climate chief, has been firm. “We are not reopening last year’s hard-won compromises on finance,” he said in an exchange on the margins. “And we will not be lured into a phony conversation about trade measures that distracts from delivering real money and real projects on the ground.”

As the world faces a warming pathway that, under current policies, still trends well above 1.5C, the politics of finance is more than accounting. It’s a question of capability, credibility and moral authority.

Voices from the riverbank

Outside the conference halls, Belém’s markets and riverfront tell stories that echo the negotiations — and often contradict them. A mango seller with sun-creased hands scoffed when I asked whether the summit felt relevant to everyday life. “They talk about ‘loss and damage.’ We already live that,” she said, pointing toward the waterline where newer houses stand on stilts. “We need promises that help us rebuild before the next tide.”

At the Ver-o-Peso market, an elderly fisher named João spoke of changes he’s observed over decades: “Rain comes wrong now. The river doesn’t behave like before.” His voice carried the precise, unquantifiable knowledge that rarely makes it into negotiating rooms but that scientists increasingly corroborate.

And yet there is cautious optimism. “If we leave Belem with a clear process — not platitudes — then this summit will have served its purpose,” said Dr. Laila Mendes, an environmental economist. “What matters is that finance aligns with technical support and technology transfer. Money without capacity building is like a net with holes.”

The broader context

Globally, the science is not patient. Atmospheric CO2 concentrations have now passed 420 parts per million, and the most recent UN assessments have warned that current policies are on track for warming well above 2C by the end of the century unless action deepens quickly. Fossil fuel combustion still accounts for roughly 80–85% of global CO2 emissions, and the 15 largest emitters together contribute the majority of greenhouse gases — with China, the United States, India and the EU alone responsible for a sizable share.

Those numbers land in a geopolitical arena where some oil-producing states push back against language that could be read as a binding commitment to reduce fossil fuel production. Their resistance illustrates a deeper truth: climate policy is not just about science or morality, it’s also about livelihoods, geopolitics and national budgets.

Can Belem produce a deal? And should it?

There is a peculiar alchemy to hosting a climate summit on Amazonian soil. The symbolism is potent — the world’s lungs watching the world’s powers negotiate. Brazil’s president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, and UN Secretary-General António Guterres have signalled they want to use the platform to “strengthen climate governance and multilateralism.” But summits follow the messy logic of politics: midnight sessions, last-minute brackets, and negotiators who get better at compromise the longer they stay awake.

“They’ve boxed all the lightning rod issues in one room,” one observer told me, describing the scene backstage. “And every time a discussion gains momentum, someone else steers it away by bringing up something else. It’s a choreography as much as it is diplomacy.”

That choreography raises a pointed question for readers far from the Amazon: what do you expect from global summits? Is the symbolic value of bringing leaders to a place like Belém enough if the text that leaves is a careful, watered-down mosaic of options? Or do you want bold, legally binding commitments even if they risk pushing some parties away?

Where we go from here

By design, COP30 must translate high drama into practical outcomes: clearer roadmaps for fossil-fuel transition, transparent finance commitments that rebuild trust, and mechanisms to close the emissions gap. Whether Belem will produce that translation remains to be seen. What is already apparent is that the summit is forcing a conversation where words like “phaseout” and “finance” are not abstract—they are livelihoods, budgets, and futures.

And if nothing else, the meeting shows the human texture of climate politics: the vendor who needs resilient housing, the negotiator balancing domestic pressure, the scientist pointing at a chart, the young activist chanting outside. All of them are a reminder that the climate crisis is at once a global problem and an intimate story of place.

So when the delegates reconvene tonight under the same low sky that muffles the sound of cargo boats and market calls, listen for the river. It may remind them — as it reminded me — that the path forward must be anchored in reality, and that delaying action has a cost we are already starting to pay.

13 killed in Israeli strike on Palestinian refugee camp in Lebanon

hanad

November 19, 2025

13 dead in Israeli strike on Palestinian camp - Lebanon — Civil defence members gather at the entrance of Ain al-Hilweh Palestinian refugee camp following the strike

Nightfall over Ain al-Helweh: smoke, sirens and a question that will not leave the air

When the sky over Sidon went dark, the sounds that broke the night were not the usual call to prayer or the rhythmic lapping of Mediterranean waves. They were the siren wails of ambulances, the staccato commands of men trying to clear a path, the dull boom of a strike, and then, a silence so heavy you could hear the shuffle of feet through the dust.

That silence was broken by the news: Lebanon’s health ministry said at least 13 people were killed when an Israeli strike hit Ain al-Helweh, the largest Palestinian refugee camp in the country, on a crowded evening. More were wounded, the ministry added, as ambulances ferried the injured to nearby hospitals and firefighters wrestled with flames licking the lower floors of a damaged building.

“We ran out into the street. We saw smoke, we heard the shots to clear the ambulances,” said a woman who has lived in the camp for decades. “My neighbor’s son—he was in the field, with the young boys—now he’s gone. We are hundreds of families like this.” Her voice trembled; the sound carried the weary resignation of a community that has known displacement as a constant companion.

The competing narratives: claims, denials, and a video

Within hours, familiar lines of assertion and rebuttal were drawn. The Israeli military announced it had struck what it called a Hamas training compound in Ain al-Helweh, saying it had “struck terrorists who operated in a Hamas training compound in the Ain al-Helweh area in southern Lebanon” and that it was “operating against Hamas’s establishment in Lebanon.”

Hamas pushed back forcefully. “There are no military installations in the Palestinian camps in Lebanon,” the movement said, calling Israel’s account “pure fabrications and lies.” In its own claim, Hamas said those hit were “a group of young boys” on an open sports field frequented by camp youth.

The Israeli military released footage it said showed the strike; observers in the area reported a building on fire and firefighters working to control the blaze. But an AFP correspondent who reached the scene said they did not immediately see damage to the Khalid bin al-Walid mosque reportedly near the strike, even as state-run media said a car in a parking lot near the mosque was hit and the mosque and a centre bearing the same name were also struck.

“When the rockets fall, we do not have time to decide who is who,” an aid worker in Sidon told me. “We only have time to pull people out and get them to the hospital.” Her voice was pragmatic, tired. “We are triage, but we need protection to do our work.”

Inside Ain al-Helweh: a densely woven life

Ain al-Helweh is not a stat on a map. It is a dense tapestry of narrow lanes, market stalls, and homes that have folded generations into a handful of streets. It is also a place where youth play football on concrete lots, where mosques mark the rhythm of the day, where neighbors share bread and burdens.

Ask anyone who has lived there and they’ll tell you the same thing: camps are cramped and porous. Tents and low-rise concrete blocks press into each other. Water lines and power cables snake along, often patched together by the residents themselves. The social networks are tight; news travels faster than any headline.

“We hear everything. We see everything,” said a teacher whose classroom sits above a small shop that sells mint tea and cigarettes. “When a strike happens you feel it in your bones. You think: is this the beginning of something worse? Will the children sleep tonight?”

Ceasefires and the fragility of calm

This strike occurred against the backdrop of a fragile regional calm. A ceasefire agreed last November sought to stem more than a year of hostilities between Israel and Hezbollah—an escalation that at one point included two months of open war. But despite that truce, strikes attributed to Israel have continued inside Lebanon, targeting what Tel Aviv describes as Hezbollah or, at times, Hamas operatives.

For many residents, these periodic strikes underscore a simple truth: ceasefires can pause large-scale warfare, but they do not erase the flashpoints that can ignite violence. “A day without shells is not peace,” an older man in the camp said, folding himself around a cigarette. “It is a postponement.”

What the numbers tell—and what they don’t

The immediate tally is stark: at least 13 dead and “a number of others wounded,” according to the Lebanese health ministry. Ambulances were still transporting wounded to hospitals as reports came in. Numbers tell part of the story but give no sense of the depth of loss—of a father who will not come home, of a classroom with fewer voices, of parents who must explain the unexplainable to small children.

Beyond the night’s toll, there are other figures to keep in mind: camps like Ain al-Helweh shelter tens of thousands of Palestinians who have lived in Lebanon for generations, often without full citizenship and with limited access to services. Humanitarian agencies have long warned that a blow to such densely populated areas can produce outsized humanitarian consequences.

Voices from the margins—what people said

“We hear claims from every side,” said a local doctor, rubbing her eyes after hours in a crowded emergency room. “We don’t ask the names when they come through the door. We patch them up. But every time the rhetoric grows louder, the line between a military target and a schoolyard gets blurred.”

A municipal official in Sidon, speaking on condition of anonymity for safety, said: “Nobody in the city wants to see escalation. But the strikes here are reminders of how precarious the whole situation is. When you have non-state actors and refugees packed into camps, even a single strike can send shockwaves.”

Wider ripples: what this means for the region

Beyond the immediate tragedy is a larger, gnawing question: how do protracted conflicts and the presence of armed groups within or near civilian areas change the calculus of safety? The debate over whether militant groups use refugee camps as bases has been a long-standing and bitter one; for residents, the cost is borne by families and neighborhoods, not by strategic analysts.

And what of international law and humanitarian protections? The targeting of crowded civilian spaces raises questions about proportionality and precautions—questions that, in the aftermath of strikes, find their way to statements and inquiries, but too rarely to swift, preventative action.

What can readers take away?

What do these nightly headlines ask of us, as afar citizens of a connected world? They ask for attention beyond outrage cycles. They ask us to notice how displacement compounds vulnerability, how ceasefires can paper over simmering conflicts, and how fragmentation—political as much as physical—makes finding long-term solutions harder.

They also ask us to imagine the human scale: a child who will remember the night not for the politics but for the smell of smoke and the ache of loss. Would you want your city to be a place where children can play without fear? Do you believe there’s a political path that secures both safety and dignity for people who have spent generations in limbo?

A familiar night, an uncertain morning

By dawn, the ash had settled into the cracked alleys of Ain al-Helweh. People swept soot from doorways. The mosque’s prayer schedule continued, because ritual is a kind of defiance against shock. The injured were listed, transferred, counted; the bereaved began their slow, private reckonings.

And the questions remained, lingering like the smoke: who was targeted, who was hit, and what will be the next flashpoint? For the people of Ain al-Helweh, and for the wider region that watches and waits, answers matter. But so does another truth: beyond claims and counterclaims are lives that demand protection—not as collateral in a geopolitical argument, but as human beings whose nights and mornings are worth more than headlines.

U.S. delegation visits Kyiv to revive stalled peace talks

hanad

November 19, 2025

US officials visit Kyiv to revive peace talks - reports — People taking shelter in the underground during a Russian drone attach Kyiv last week

A Quiet Arrival, A Loud War: Two U.S. Army Leaders Touch Down in Kyiv

The dawn was still soft over Kyiv, the city stitched together by trams and fountains and a stubborn sense of routine, when two figures stepped off a plane and into a story that will not leave them: Army Secretary Dan Driscoll and Army Chief of Staff General Randy George. Their arrival — unannounced, low-key, purposeful — felt like a secret chapter dropped into a public book.

“We heard helicopters before we saw the convoy,” said Olena Mykolaivna, who runs a small bakery near the presidential quarter. “People here have been waiting for signposts — any sign that something might change, one way or another.” Her voice carried that mixture of hope and weariness you hear in Kyiv now: a city that keeps making soup even as air-raid sirens sometimes intrude on the rhythm.

Why They Came: Military Channels, Diplomatic Hopes

The two senior U.S. Army officers are reported to have met President Volodymyr Zelensky, top commanders and lawmakers, according to people familiar with the planning. The purpose — as much a practical military check as a diplomatic probe — was to map battlefield needs and, quietly, to explore ways to breathe life back into stalled negotiations with Moscow.

Sources close to planning told several media outlets that the visit is part of a broader push by the Trump administration to test ceasefire concepts and diplomatic ideas directly with both Kyiv and, later, Moscow. The Wall Street Journal has reported that Secretary Driscoll may later meet Russian officials — an unusual pivot that underscores a willingness to use military actors as interlocutors where traditional diplomacy has faltered.

“Sometimes the language of generals lands differently,” said Dr. Hana Korolenko, a Kyiv-based analyst who has watched the conflict since 2022. “There’s a certain bluntness in military-to-military talks, and in a conflict that now approaches its fourth year, activists of every stripe are trying new grammar to end the bloodshed.”

Politics at Home, Consequences Abroad

Since Mr. Trump took office in January, trips by senior U.S. figures to Kyiv have become rarer, with many contacts shifted to third countries or held by video. That makes this in-person visit all the more striking — a signal that, at least for now, Washington is willing to mix its diplomatic formula.

“We need to explore every channel,” a U.S. official, speaking on condition of anonymity, told reporters. “The President has tasked his team to think creatively and to test ideas with Kyiv and Moscow. Military officials can sometimes move in spaces of credibility that civilian envoys cannot.”

But those explorations carry risks. Trust is frayed. Many in Europe and in Kyiv worry that any speedy settlement could cement Russian control over territory seized since 2014. “You cannot build lasting peace by freezing injustice,” warned Professor Marta Sosnovska, an international law scholar. “Any ceasefire that leaves occupation in place will sow future wars.”

On the Ground in Kharkiv: Nightfall and Aftermath

While generals discussed strategy in Kyiv, in Kharkiv — Ukraine’s second-largest city and an industrial heartland close to the Russian border — the war’s human toll was less abstract. Overnight missile strikes wounded at least 32 people, including children, officials said. Eleven drones struck urban districts, sparking fires in a nine-storey residential building, damaging cars, garages and a supermarket.

“We were asleep. The ceiling shook,” recounted 34-year-old Viktor, whose apartment window was shattered by blast waves. “My daughter woke up screaming. We ran downstairs with a blanket. That’s what people do now — run, check, help.”

Emergency services reported evacuating 48 people from smoke-filled entrances — three of them children. Regional authorities named two of the wounded girls as 9 and 13 years old. Images from the scene showed neighbors forming human chains to carry mattresses, and volunteers at makeshift stations handing out hot tea and bandages.

Moscow’s intensified missile and drone campaign has been particularly focused on energy infrastructure this autumn; in October, analysts and Ukrainian officials described the heaviest bombardment of gas facilities since the February 2022 invasion. The aim is clear and chilling: to complicate life through winter, when heating and electricity become existential concerns.

Poland Scrambles Jets — and Nearby Worries Rise

The strikes also reverberated beyond Ukraine’s borders. Polish and allied aircraft were deployed early in the morning to safeguard Polish airspace after Russian strikes came close to the border near Poland. For a NATO nation that shares both a long border and a history with Ukraine, such incidents revive old anxieties about how a regional war can draw in neighbors.

“We are watching with deep concern,” said an Eastern European diplomat in Warsaw. “A war that keeps spreading missiles and drones near NATO territory cannot be contained by silence.”

Between Hope and Unease: What Will a ‘Ceasefire’ Mean?

President Trump has repeatedly promised to bring the war to a rapid close and has instructed advisers to test ceasefire ideas with Kyiv and Moscow. That determination to seek a quick settlement appeals to those exhausted by years of attrition and to global markets uneasy about sustained disruption.

Yet there are tensions: Ukrainian leaders have repeatedly signaled they will not accept deals that leave Russian forces in control of occupied land. Western capitals worry that a hurried deal could enshrine a new status quo that hardens into permanent loss.

“Can a ceasefire be negotiated without asking the people who live under occupation what they want?” asked Lina Petrenko, a volunteer coordinator in a small town near the front. “Peace cannot be a tidy paragraph if it means someone stays in your home.”

What This Moment Tells Us — And What We Must Ask

There is an old saying in journalism: report the event; tell the story. The Driscoll-George visit is both: a discrete action in a wider diplomatic push, and a narrative knot that ties frontline suffering to high-stakes decision-making. It asks us to consider uncomfortable questions about how wars end, who gets to negotiate, and how communities survive the wait.

Will military intermediaries unlock compromise where diplomats failed? Or will secrecy breed suspicion, making any deal harder to implement? As Kyiv prepares for a presidential trip to Turkey to revive talks with Russia, those questions will only sharpen.

One thing seems certain: the human ledger continues to increase. The war that began in February 2022 has stretched into its fourth year; every raid on infrastructure chills more homes, every attack on cities like Kharkiv adds names to lists of the wounded. Behind the headlines are bakeries, tram lines, volunteer kitchens, and children whose lives will be shaped by decisions taken in rooms far from the rubble.

“We are tired, but not finished,” said a frontline medic in a voice that folded anger and resolve into one. “We want peace. We want it to be fair.”

What would you want to see in that peace? Justice? A ceasefire that limits bloodshed now? Or a longer road toward a settlement that restores territory and rights? As the diplomats, soldiers and leaders plot their next moves, the rest of the world must ask: what kind of peace are we willing to pay for — and what are we willing to accept?

Trump backs Saudi crown prince amid Khashoggi murder controversy

hanad

November 19, 2025

Trump defends Saudi prince over Khashoggi murder — President Donald Trump and Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman held a meeting in the White House

A Red Carpet, a Flyover — and a Ghost at the Banquet

On a crisp Washington afternoon, the South Lawn of the White House looked like a scene from statecraft: mounted cavalry, a cannon salute, fighter jets carving white lines across a pale sky. Photographers clicked, flags snapped, and for a few choreographed moments the world was invited to admire the pageantry.

But next to that spectacle sat a darker story that refuses to be dressed in ceremonial regalia: the unresolved killing of Jamal Khashoggi in Istanbul in October 2018. It cast long, stern shadows across the manicured grass.

“They rolled out the red carpet for a man haunted by questions that have never truly been answered,” said Michael O’Connor, a former State Department human-rights officer who watched the arrival from the sidewalk. “Power has a way of rewriting the margins of accountability.”

One Man’s Defense, Another’s Verdict

Inside the Oval Office, the scene grew even more surreal. President Donald Trump sat side-by-side with Mohammed bin Salman, the Saudi crown prince who has been central to the Khashoggi scandal. In a blunt departure from previously public U.S. intelligence assessments, the president declared the crown prince “didn’t know” about the killing — a line delivered with the finality of a closing bracket.

“Things happened, but he knew nothing about it, and we can leave it at that,” Mr. Trump told reporters, while the crown prince, his expression measured, called Khashoggi’s death “painful” and insisted the kingdom had conducted the right investigations.

That exchange stitched together two competing stories: a presidential defense spoken with decisive immediacy, and a more complicated institutional record. U.S. intelligence agencies concluded after the 2018 killing that Saudi operatives acted on orders that could be traced back to the highest levels of the Saudi government. The CIA’s 2018 assessment — and subsequent reporting by multiple outlets — attributed the operation to Saudi command structures, findings that have been seized on by human-rights groups and foreign governments alike.

Voices on the Lawn

Outside the gates, reactions were as varied as the crowd. “I’m not surprised,” said Laila Ahmed, a Saudi student who’s been studying in Washington for three years. “There’s a sense that money and strategic partnerships make everything negotiable. But that doesn’t make injustice any less visible.”

At the edge of the demonstration a veteran who served in the Middle East, Dale Winters, shook his head. “We can’t ignore strategic alliances. But we also can’t pretend to be a moral beacon if accountability becomes optional,” he said.

The Price of Power: Deals, Defense, and Diplomacy

What played out in public was more than ceremony and cross-purposes. Economic and security threads ran through the encounter: the crown prince pledged — once again — to increase Saudi investment in the United States, raising a figure that President Trump touted as reaching $1 trillion, up from earlier promises. Concrete timetables and verifiable pipelines were absent, as they often are with headline-grabbing commitments.

The two leaders also discussed a defense agreement and the possibility of Saudi acquisition of advanced U.S. fighter jets — including references to the F-35 — though no sale was finalized in the room and Congress often scrutinizes such transfers with deep skepticism.

“These conversations are never just about planes or purchase orders,” explained Dr. Sara Mahmoud, a Middle East analyst at an international policy institute. “They’re about influence: energy markets, counterterrorism cooperation, regional balances of power, and the optics of partnerships. When leaders choose to move past a human-rights crisis toward commerce, that choice has reverberations.”

Numbers Behind the Headlines

Jamal Khashoggi was killed at the Saudi consulate in Istanbul on 2 October 2018.
In 2018, U.S. intelligence agencies produced assessments linking the killing to Saudi operatives and raising questions about senior-level knowledge.
Saudi Arabia remains one of the world’s top oil exporters and a central player in global energy markets — the geopolitics of oil still shape diplomatic relations.
Saudi government pledges to invest in international projects have periodically featured headline figures—$600 billion, $1 trillion—though exact accounts and delivery schedules are often opaque.

Public Relations, Reformation, and the Reality of Reform

Mohammed bin Salman has sold himself abroad as a reformer. On the home front he has championed an economic blueprint known as Vision 2030, aimed at diversifying Saudi Arabia’s oil-dependent economy, lifting restrictions on women’s social freedoms, and attracting investment. Those changes have been real in many respects, reshaping cinemas, concerts, and the social calendar.

Yet alongside those welcome reforms, critics point to an expanded crackdown on dissent — arrests of activists, journalists, and perceived dissidents — that calls into question the extent and cost of the crown prince’s modernization project. Human-rights organizations have described the Khashoggi case as emblematic of a broader pattern of repression.

“There’s an inherent contradiction in packaging social liberalization with political repression,” said Noor Al-Harith, a human-rights lawyer who has represented Saudi activists in exile. “If you lift the social curtain but seal the mouths of those who would critique your policies, what you’ve built is not reform: it’s a façade.”

What Are We Willing to Trade for Stability?

As the last of the formalities wound down — a lunch in the Cabinet Room, a black-tie dinner under chandeliers — the questions the day posed remained stubbornly unanswered. Are economic promises sufficient recompense for unresolved questions about a journalist’s death? Will strategic alignments outweigh calls for accountability when national interests collide with moral imperatives?

Readers might ask themselves: when a government that exports oil and buys arms is also accused of silencing critics, how should democracies respond? Is isolation a useful tool, or does engagement offer a better path to change?

“No country is a single story,” Dr. Mahmoud told me. “Saudi Arabia is both a partner and a state under scrutiny. The dilemma for democracies is balancing pragmatic interests with the values they purport to champion.”

Looking Ahead

Whether this visit marks a new normal — where strategic and economic ties trump public censure — or a temporary pause in the long arc of scrutiny, depends on forthcoming actions: investigations that satisfy international standards, transparent accounting of commitments, and an earnest reckoning with how dissent is treated.

In Washington, beneath the jet roar and the polite clinking of cutlery, the question hung in the air: can a state truly reform while its critics are silenced? Can partnerships survive the tension between realpolitik and accountability?

Maybe you have an answer. Maybe you don’t. But as the presidential portraits in the hallway watched, the world was reminded that democracy and diplomacy are messy, human endeavors — full of ceremonies, compromises, and ghosts that will not, and should not, be politely escorted away.

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