China Confirms Xi and Trump Will Meet in South Korea Tomorrow

October 29, 2025

China says Xi, Trump to meet in South Korea tomorrow — The meeting will take place on the sidelines of a summit of Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation, which is taking place in the city of Gyeongju

A Meeting on the Edge of History: Xi and Trump Land in Gyeongju

The ancient stones of Gyeongju—pagodas, royal tomb mounds and the quiet reach of the Sea of Japan—never expected to play host to a 21st-century drama. Yet here they are: a warren of motorcades, bulletproof glass, translators’ booths and a choreography of handshakes that could reshape economies, alliances and a volatile peninsula.

On the sidelines of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit, China’s president and the United States’ president are scheduled to sit across a table tomorrow. It’s the kind of meeting that pundits live for and ordinary people watch with equal parts curiosity and suspicion. Will it produce a breakthrough or merely another line in the ledger of history?

What’s on the Table

The headlines will say “trade,” “tariffs” and “fentanyl,” and they won’t be wrong. Washington has long linked commercial tensions to broader geopolitical strain: tariffs imposed since 2018 still hang over hundreds of billions of dollars’ worth of goods, while American authorities press China to clamp down on precursors and supply chains that feed a deadly flow of synthetic opioids.

“This isn’t just about levies and lists,” said Hana Park, a Seoul-based analyst at an economic think tank, over a steaming bowl of juk in a nearby guesthouse. “It’s about trust. Trade is the visible scoreboard, but what both sides really test is whether they can rely on one another when it matters.”

Behind closed doors, officials say the agenda stretches beyond customs duties. Climate cooperation, technology restrictions, and maritime security are almost certainly part of the conversation. Outside the halls, ordinary Gyeongju residents are trying to read the tea leaves.

Numbers that Matter

The U.S. and China trade in goods and services amounts to hundreds of billions of dollars each year; their economic relationship is woven through global supply chains that touch everything from smartphones to ship engines. And on the human-cost side of the ledger: U.S. health authorities have reported more than 100,000 overdose deaths in a year in recent recent years, much of the surge driven by fentanyl and its analogues—facts that give weight to Washington’s urgency in raising the issue.

Voices from the Ground

Outside the summit compound, market vendors adjusted their tarpaulins, watched the flags go up and offered a kind of patient skepticism. “We see leaders come and go,” said Mr. Kim, who sells dried persimmons near the Bulguksa temple. “If a meeting gives people work, good. If it only makes news, not so good.”

A taxi driver in nearby Pohang, eyes bright with the blunt pragmatism of someone who makes his living by the hour, summed up what many feel: “I don’t care about the speeches. I want cheaper parts for my car,” he said, laughing. “But sure—less tension makes business easier.”

Even so, residents are not naïve. A young postgraduate student, Minji, paused between study sessions to say, “One handshake won’t undo years of mistrust. But maybe it starts a different kind of conversation.”

Diplomacy’s Complicated Neighbour: North Korea

Mountains and a heavily fortified demilitarised zone separate the joy of Gyeongju’s heritage sites from the raw geopolitical stakes of the peninsula. That tension made a cameo in the summit drama: President Trump had hoped to secure an ad hoc meeting with North Korea’s leader, a reprise of the theatrical encounters of the past. It didn’t materialize.

“We tried to arrange timing,” Trump told reporters, keeping his characteristic bluntness. “I know Kim Jong Un. I’d like to meet.”

Pyongyang, for its part, did not publicly respond to the invitation. Earlier, the regime tested cruise missiles off its western coast in a message to what state media called its “enemies,” a reminder that diplomacy and saber-rattling often run in parallel.

To many observers, the arms tests are less a surprise than a constant variable. “North Korea uses strategic signaling to keep leverage, domestically and internationally,” said Dr. Elena Marquez, a Korea specialist at a London university. “Their characterization of a nuclear program as ‘irreversible’ changed the stakes years ago.”

Echoes of Panmunjom

It isn’t a blank slate. The memory of three summit meetings between Trump and Kim—most famously the impromptu handshake at Panmunjom where an American president briefly set foot on North Korean soil—still lingers. Those meetings produced photo opportunities, high drama, and ultimately an impasse over denuclearisation and sanctions relief. The fault lines from that failed bargain are still visible today.

Why Gyeongju Matters Beyond the Handshake

The setting is no accident. Gyeongju is an understated reminder that geopolitics sits atop layers of history. The city was once the capital of the Silla kingdom, a place where diplomacy, culture and trade mingled to create an extraordinary civilization. There’s a poetic symmetry to world leaders arriving in a town whose identity was forged by centuries of exchange.

But the practical implications are immediate. A thaw—or a worsening—between Beijing and Washington affects supply chains, global markets and regional alliances. It shifts strategies in capitals from Canberra to Ankara, from Tokyo to Toronto. A modest concession in tariff policy might lower costs for manufacturers; conversely, a breakdown could raise prices and accelerate companies’ plans to diversify production away from China.

What to Watch for Tomorrow

Expect terse public statements about goodwill and “in-depth” discussions. Expect no immediate miracle. Expect signaling—photos, a planned walk, short handshakes—that media outlets will parse for hours. And for those who live in border towns, ports, and factory towns across the Pacific, the outcome will be less about images than about downstream decisions: pricing, hiring, investment.

So ask yourself: what do you want diplomacy to deliver? Is it fewer headlines and more predictability? Stronger enforcement against flows of lethal drugs? A framework that makes technology competition less chaotic? There’s no single answer, but how the Xi–Trump encounter unfolds will tell us something about the direction the world’s two biggest powers are headed.

A Fragile Moment, A Global Ripple

When the leaders sit down, at least one thing will be clear: global affairs are rarely tidy. They are messy, human, full of trade-offs. But gestures matter—especially when the balance between conflict and cooperation can be narrowed by a conversation.

“Diplomacy is like pottery,” said an elder tour guide who paused beneath a ginkgo tree near the royal tumuli. “You cannot rush it; you must shape it gently. Sometimes it cracks. Sometimes it becomes something beautiful.”

Tomorrow’s meeting will not settle everything. But in a world of fast-moving crises and entrenched rivalries, even a small step can set a new rhythm. Watch closely. The ripples will be felt far beyond the ancient stones of Gyeongju.

Storm Melissa Strikes Cuba Just Hours After Ravaging Jamaica

hanad

October 29, 2025

Melissa hits Cuba hours after devastating Jamaica — The Rio Cobre bursts its banks near St Catherine in Jamaica

After the Eye: Jamaica, Cuba and the Wake of Hurricane Melissa

The morning after felt like a country holding its breath. In Kingston, the air was heavy with the scent of salt, soaked plywood and gasoline. Streets that yesterday thrummed with radio DJs and roadside markets were littered with corrugated tin and palm fronds. Mango trees lay broken like discarded umbrellas. Houses that had stood for generations now gaped, their insides exposed to a gray sky.

“It has been a very difficult early morning,” Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel wrote on social media as Melissa battered Cuba’s southern coast, urging people to stay sheltered while officials counted losses. The scene in Jamaica was no less stark. Prime Minister Andrew Holness warned of damaged hospitals, flooded parishes and a long road to recovery: “There will be a lot of work to do,” he told an international broadcaster, reflecting the grim reality on the ground.

The Facts: A Storm of Uncommon Ferocity

Meteorologists say Melissa was not an ordinary hurricane. At its fiercest over Jamaica, Melissa packed sustained winds estimated as high as 297 km/h, a velocity that places it among the most intense Atlantic storms on record. An analysis of NOAA data found that the storm matched the atmospheric pressure recorded in the notorious 1935 Labor Day Hurricane—about 892 millibars—making Melissa one of a tiny number of storms to reach such depths of pressure.

The Miami-based National Hurricane Center (NHC) reported Melissa weakened to a still-dangerous Category 3 as it moved into Cuban territory, but the imprint left in Jamaica—especially in parishes such as St Elizabeth—was immediate and devastating. Officials said more than 500,000 residents were without power and entire coastal districts were “underwater.”

AccuWeather ranked Melissa as the third most intense hurricane observed in the Caribbean in modern records, behind Wilma (2005) and Gilbert (1988). The World Meteorological Organization issued a stark warning of storm surges up to 4 meters, a reality that in low-lying coastal zones quickly becomes lethal.

Numbers that Matter

Estimated evacuations in eastern Cuba: ~735,000 people
People ordered to move to higher ground in Cuba: ~500,000
Jamaicans reported without power in some areas: >500,000
Tourists in Jamaica at the time: ~25,000
UN-organized airlift planned: 2,000 relief kits from Barbados
Initial storm-related deaths reported across the region before Jamaica hit: 7 (3 in Jamaica, 3 in Haiti, 1 in the Dominican Republic)

On the Ground: Stories from Streets and Shelters

“Parts of our roof were blown off and other parts caved in and the entire house was flooded,” said Lisa Sangster, a Kingston resident whose courtyard now served as a sort of informal receiving station for neighbors. “Outside structures like our outdoor kitchen, dog kennel and farm animal pens were also gone, destroyed.”

In St Elizabeth, often called Jamaica’s breadbasket, farms lay submerged, sugarcane bent like reeds. “We plant to feed the island,” said Desmond McKenzie, a local MP who described the parish as “underwater.” “The damage to Saint Elizabeth is extensive. It’s going to affect food supply and livelihoods for months if not years.”

At an emergency shelter in Santiago de Cuba, volunteers handed out roasted breadfruit, bottles of water and makeshift blankets. There, an elderly woman named Ana clutched a photograph of her grandchildren and said, “We have faced storms before, but the noise of this one felt like the sea wanted to come in and take us.” These are the small human details that don’t make the early, stark headlines: the way neighbors pull tarpaulins over a ruined roof, the hush at once-boisterous rum shops, the decision to leave a family cat behind because there wasn’t room in the evacuation truck.

Why This Storm Feels Different

Climate scientists are blunt: storms like Melissa are becoming more frequent, more intense and—crucially—slower moving. A hurricane that creeps, dumps more rain and prolongs battering winds over the same piece of land. The result is catastrophic flooding, landslides in the highlands and the collapse of fragile infrastructure.

“Human-caused climate change is making all the worst aspects of Hurricane Melissa even worse,” said climate scientist Daniel Gilford. “Warmer seas feed greater energy into these storms. They hold more moisture, travel slower, and strike with a violence our communities are increasingly ill-equipped to absorb.”

Caribbean leaders have, for years, implored wealthy, high-emitting nations for more than momentary aid: for climate finance, for debt relief, for the kind of long-term investment that helps islands rebuild stronger and adapt for the future. After Melissa, those calls will only grow louder.

Questions We Should Be Asking

How can small island states build resilient infrastructure when budgets are squeezed and storms become costlier?
Are tourism-dependent economies sufficiently protected when the very weather that brings visitors can also dismantle livelihoods overnight?
What does “reparations” look like in practical terms—grants, technology transfer, debt swaps for resilience projects?

Immediate Response and the Long Road Ahead

Relief efforts are mobilizing. The Jamaican Red Cross was distributing water and hygiene kits even as roads remained impassable in many places. The United Nations announced plans for an airlift of relief kits once flights could resume, and other international partners have promised aid to Cuba, Haiti and the Dominican Republic.

But aid is only the first step. Rebuilding will require coordinated planning, heavy investment in resilient housing, restoration of power grids and a transformation in how these nations manage land and coastal development. “We need resources not just to patch roofs, but to fundamentally rethink our infrastructure,” said Dr. Marisol Reyes, a Caribbean disaster risk expert. “Otherwise, storm after storm will simply wash away whatever we reconstruct.”

What You Can Do—And What This Means for the Planet

Watching images of Melissa’s aftermath, it’s natural to feel helpless. Yet there are concrete ways to respond. Donate to credible relief organizations operating locally. Support policy efforts aimed at climate justice. Remember that climate events in distant places are not isolated tragedies; they are signals of a warming planet that touches agriculture, migration and global supply chains everywhere.

How do you imagine your community holding up if a similar storm came? What would you prioritize—shelter, power, food security? The answers matter, because resilience isn’t just built by governments; it’s built by neighborhoods, families and the everyday decisions we make about preparedness and solidarity.

In the weeks to come, the true toll of Melissa will become clearer—how many roofs were lost, how many small businesses will never reopen, how many school terms will be disrupted. For now, the Caribbean mourns and starts the work of holding itself together: neighbors handing out hot food, volunteers clearing debris, governments tallying damage and the world watching—and, one hopes, learning.

Former Brazilian President Bolsonaro Files Appeal Against Prison Term

hanad

October 29, 2025

Brazil ex-leader Bolsonaro appeals prison sentence — Former Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro had been disqualified from seeking public office until 2030 over his unproven fraud allegations against the country's voting system

Bolsonaro’s Appeal: A Country on Edge, a Story of Power, Pain and Possibility

There’s a peculiar quiet in Brasília these days, the kind that sits heavy in the air between the marble colonnades and the pastel apartment blocks—an exhausted silence not of peace but of waiting. Outside the Supreme Court, vendors fold plastic chairs, and a woman sells strong, sweet coffee to passersby who keep their heads down. Inside, a legal drama that could shape Brazil for years to come is being rewound, appealed and relitigated, line by line.

The headline: an appeal filed

Yesterday, lawyers for former president Jair Bolsonaro submitted an appeal against a 27-year prison sentence handed down by Brazil’s Supreme Court for what judges deemed an attempted overthrow of the democratically elected government after the 2022 ballot. The appeal accuses the court’s ruling of “ambiguities, omissions, contradictions and obscurities”—legal phrases that can mean the difference between immediate incarceration and another round in the tribunal’s slow gears.

“We are asking for clarity and due process,” said one of Bolsonaro’s attorneys, who spoke on condition of anonymity. “The decision as written leaves too many questions for a man who has always maintained his innocence.” Whether that plea will soften the court’s resolve is uncertain—Supreme Court justices are not bound by a timetable to take up the appeal, which means this procedural move could sit on a judge’s desk for weeks or months.

What he was convicted of

The case presented by prosecutors paints a grim tableau: an alleged plot that went beyond street protests and online disinformation. The blueprint, according to the prosecutors, envisaged not only the forced removal of President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, but also assassination of key figures, including the president, his vice, and even one of the Supreme Court justices who would later help decide Bolsonaro’s fate.

Prosecutors say the conspiracy faltered not because of changing convictions among plotters but because it lacked the crucial support of senior military officers—the very people historically seen as the arbiters of Brazil’s political interventions. “It takes more than fervor to topple a constitutional order,” a senior prosecutor told me. “You need boots on the ground, command structure, and that never materialized.”

From campaign wounds to court proceedings

The man at the center of this storm is no stranger to spectacle. Bolsonaro, now 70, survived a near-fatal stabbing while campaigning in 2018—an event that left him with lasting medical complications. Recently diagnosed with skin cancer and hospitalized for severe bouts of hiccups and fainting, he remains under house arrest since August, shielded by Brazilian law from being jailed until all appeals are exhausted. His medical fragility adds another, very human layer to what otherwise reads like a political thriller.

“He is frail,” said Dr. Maria Souza, a physician familiar with his case. “And yet his presence, even from a hospital bed or a gated condo, fractures public life. People rally behind health narratives the way they rally behind ideological ones.”

Local color: life in the shadow of national convulsions

Walk through neighborhoods in Rio, São Paulo or the capital and you’ll see the domestic side of this national drama: small shops with Bolsonaro posters next to Lula stickers; barbers who refuse to speak about politics aloud; Sunday markets where arguments bloom like the local fruit. “It’s exhausting,” said Ana, a hairdresser in Brasília, clapping her hands as she scissored. “Everyone has an opinion and everyone is right, and we’re tired of choosing sides.”

For the vendors in the shadow of the government esplanade, the stakes are both political and economic. “If the country is unstable, business stops,” said João, who sells pastel and chimarrão by a busy intersection. “We need the tourists. We need the festivals. We need quiet.”

Politics, law and the long game

The legal path ahead is labyrinthine. Brazilian law protects convicted defendants from incarceration while appeals are pending—meaning Bolsonaro’s destiny will hinge on paperwork, procedural appeals and possibly the strategic art of delay. Law scholars, including Thiago Bottino of the Getulio Vargas Foundation, point out that while it is rare for the Supreme Court to reverse its own rulings wholesale, the court has adjusted sentences in the past. “We should not mistake rarity for impossibility,” Bottino told reporters. “Judges are human; they correct, refine and sometimes recalibrate.”

If the appeal fails, Bolsonaro could request home detention on health grounds—a precedent that has been used in recent cases. Former president Fernando Collor de Mello, for instance, was permitted to serve nearly nine years of sentence at home on similar health claims.

Political ripple effects

Beyond the courtrooms, the political chessboard is rearranging. Bolsonaro has been barred from running for public office until 2030 because of prior rulings about his conduct around the 2022 elections. Yet his political machine and a core of fervent supporters remain potent, and there is feverish speculation about who might inherit that mantle in the 2026 contest. Names being bandied about include São Paulo’s governor and even former first lady Michelle Bolsonaro.

Tarcísio de Freitas — a possible conservative heir among regional power brokers.
Michelle Bolsonaro — a name that carries personal loyalty for parts of the electorate.

Meanwhile, President Lula, who turned 80 this week, has announced he will run for a fourth term in 2026. The former metalworker and union leader who once looked politically spent has staged a steady recovery in public esteem, buoyed in part by recent foreign policy maneuvers that cast him as a defender of Brazilian sovereignty in the face of international pressure.

Global eyes and geopolitical friction

This is not merely a domestic story. International reactions have been vocal and, occasionally, raw. Former US President Donald Trump criticized the proceedings, elevating the dispute into a flashpoint of transatlantic political theater. Trade tensions and diplomatic saber-rattling—tariffs and sanctions—have been floated in the background, turning a domestic legal fight into an international tug-of-war over norms and influence.

“Brazil’s stability matters to the world,” said Lucia Gomez, a Latin America analyst. “It’s a top-10 economy by GDP, a primary food exporter, and a key player in climate diplomacy. What happens here reverberates from commodity markets to foreign capitals.”

What to watch next

So where does this leave the country and its citizens? The appeals process will be the hinge point: if the court stands firm, a new chapter of punishment and long-term disqualification from office opens. If the court revisits the sentence, a political recalibration could follow. Either way, the human toll—the polarization, the anxiety, the daily weariness of ordinary Brazilians—will not be erased by legal prose.

Ask yourself: what does accountability look like in a democracy hurt by its own wounds? Can a country both heal and hold leaders to account without sliding into deeper factionalism? And for those who have watched the January 2023 storming of government buildings from the sidelines—how will they reconcile civic duty with political passion?

These are not rhetorical questions for the court alone. They are questions for every citizen who wakes up to the news and wonders what kind of country they want to hand to the next generation. For now, Brazil waits—cup in hand, crowded around radios and smartphones, listening for the next chapter to be read aloud.

Climate change drives surge in heat-related deaths, new report finds

hanad

October 29, 2025

Heat-related deaths rise due to climate change - report — Between 2010 and 2022, an estimated 160,000 premature deaths yearly were prevented by shifting away from fossil fuels

When Heat Becomes a Chapter in Someone’s Life

The heat rolls in like a familiar, unwanted guest—the kind that settles into the bones of a city and doesn’t leave until something gives. In 2024, that guest arrived with a global invitation: mean annual temperatures exceeded 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels for the first time. For families in coastal towns, for market vendors in African capitals, for the elderly living alone in European apartment blocks, that number is not an abstract milestone. It is the reason ambulances are busier, crops fail earlier, and a generation of children are spending more time with insect repellent than with textbooks.

“On our hottest days, I see more grandparents coming into the clinic with dizziness and chest pains,” says Dr. Amina Sissoko, a nurse in Bamako. “Heat changes how people breathe, how they sleep, how they feed their children. It’s like the weather rewrites our health overnight.”

The Human Cost: More Than Statistics

The new Lancet Countdown report — the ninth of its kind — reads like an urgent medical file for the planet. Heat-related deaths have surged 23% since the 1990s, now tallying more than 546,000 lives lost every year. Wildfire smoke, itself a child of hotter, drier seasons, was linked to a record 154,000 deaths in 2024. And while dengue might sound like a problem for a single region, the global potential for its transmission has climbed 49% since the 1950s as mosquitoes find new territories warmed to their liking.

“These numbers are not just data points for academics,” says Dr. Elena Rodrigues, a public health researcher who studies climate-driven disease. “They are hospital beds, grieving families, and health systems stretched beyond capacity.” She pauses, thinking of small towns where clinics have no air conditioning. “Adaptation is health care. It’s emergency planning. It’s investing in cooling centers and mosquito control before the crisis arrives.”

Breath and Smoke: How Air Pollution Steals Years

Air pollution looms as a second, quieter killer in this story. The report estimates 2.5 million deaths a year are linked specifically to pollution from burning fossil fuels. To put that in human terms: entire cities’ worth of lives erased every year by the smoke and particles we produce for energy and transport.

“When you can taste the smoke, you already have a problem,” says João Silva, a riverboat pilot in Pará, Brazil, whose family has watched the Amazon’s fire season grow longer over the last decade. “We cough on the riverbanks. Children miss school. The elders are the first to go sick.”

And yet, there is a stubborn contradiction: between 2010 and 2022, an estimated 160,000 premature deaths were averted annually through shifts away from fossil fuels. That is proof that the arc can bend—if policy and practice move faster than profit-driven inertia.

Politics, Profits, and the Pressure to Backslide

Behind the health statistics lies a political drama. The report warns of “political backsliding”—a retreat from commitments, a fragmentation of will—that threatens to condemn millions to a future of preventable illness and early death. Oil and gas companies, emboldened by rising profits and uneven global commitments, have continued to expand production plans to levels three times what a livable planet could sustain.

“When governments hesitate and corporations expand, the price is paid in hospitals and in harvests,” says Priya Menon, a policy analyst with an environmental health NGO. “This is also a story of inequality: wealthier countries and actors are better positioned to protect themselves, while poorer communities face the brunt of exposure.”

Local Action: Where Hope Takes Root

Despite the grim headlines, the report also highlights where momentum exists. Cities, hospitals, and community groups are often the laboratories of pragmatic adaptation. From heat-health early warning systems in Mediterranean towns to community-driven reforestation in Indonesia, some initiatives already demonstrate how public health and climate policy can join hands.

Cooling centers and public awareness campaigns reduce heat-related hospital admissions.
Targeted reductions in fossil fuel use have already prevented thousands of premature deaths annually.
Local mosquito-control programs and urban planning can slow the spread of dengue and other vector-borne diseases.

“We acted when people started fainting in the marketplace,” recalls Fatima Rodríguez, a city planner in a midsize Latin American city. “We painted roofs white, planted trees, opened daytime public spaces with shade and water. It saved lives. Change can be local and immediate.”

A Snapshot from Ireland: Heat, Hospitals, and Children

The link between temperature and health is not a problem limited to the tropics. Research published in 2024 by Ireland’s Economic and Social Research Institute, funded on behalf of the Climate and Health Alliance, provides a clear mirror. From 2015 to 2019, emergency hospital admissions for temperature-affected diseases were 8.5% higher on hot days (22–25°C) compared to moderate days. The largest increases were for circulatory, respiratory and infectious diseases—and notably among children aged 0–14.

“People assume temperate countries are insulated from climate health risks,” says Prof. Ciarán O’Donnell of the ESRI team. “But heat stresses bodies and systems everywhere. Health systems must be ready, whether in Dublin, Dakar or Delhi.”

Looking Toward Belem: COP30 and the Moment of Truth

As global leaders prepare to assemble in Belém for COP30, the Lancet Countdown report is a clear call to action: reduce emissions, support adaptation, and anchor health at the core of climate policy. The upcoming talks on adaptation are a critical opportunity to translate promises into programs that protect the most vulnerable.

What would meaningful progress look like? It would mean richer nations honoring finance pledges, fossil-fuel producing companies halting expansion plans, and health ministries integrating climate risks into national care strategies. It would mean aligning public health with climate justice.

“If there is one thing the past year has shown, it’s that health is the lens through which climate policy should be judged,” says Dr. Rodrigues. “Longevity, quality of life, and the ability to thrive hinge on whether we act now.”

A Question for the Reader

When was the last time you thought of climate change as a public health emergency rather than an environmental one? If you live in a cool climate, how will your city adapt when heatwaves arrive more often? If you live where mosquitoes were once seasonal, will your neighborhood be ready for what comes next?

We can treat these questions as curiosities—or as a checklist for the next election, community meeting, or school assembly. The choices we make—about energy, urban design, and public health investment—will write the next chapter.

At stake are millions of lives, counted now in heat-stressed beds and smoky mornings, but felt forever in the quiet of those who survive and the rooms of those who do not. The science is in. The solutions are partly known. The rest requires courage, money, and a willingness to treat health as a compass for policy. Will we follow it?

Trump says Gaza ceasefire holds despite ongoing Israeli strikes

hanad

October 29, 2025

Trump says Gaza ceasefire holds despite Israel's attacks — A man carries a child, who was injured in an Israeli airstrike, into a hospital in Gaza City

When a Ceasefire Stumbles: Smoke, Silence and a Fragile Promise in Gaza

The sky over Gaza is a peculiar kind of bruise — sometimes the blue is there, stubborn and ordinary, and sometimes it’s streaked with the grey smoke of a strike. Walk through the narrow lanes of a refugee camp like Bureij and you hear a different rhythm: children calling to each other, the distant hum of a generator, and the low, stunned hum of conversation about who survived the night.

Three weeks after an American-brokered ceasefire was supposed to draw a line under two years of a conflict that has reshaped lives and landscapes, that line flexed and frayed. Local health authorities reported at least 26 people killed in new Israeli strikes — bodies pulled from a house in Bureij, a car in Khan Younis, and a building in Gaza City. Israeli officials said those strikes were in response to an attack they attribute to Hamas. The air was thick with accusation: each side calling the other the breaker of the truce, the other the provocateur.

The day the truce was tested

“They hit back because they had to,” US President Donald Trump told reporters aboard Air Force One, speaking plainly about an episode he described as retribution for an attack that may have killed an Israeli soldier. “Nothing is going to jeopardise” the ceasefire, he added, even as new strikes unfolded.

From the ground, the picture is messier and human. “We were sleeping,” said Amal, a mother of four who lives in Bureij and asked that only her first name be used. “A plane came, a big noise, then screaming. My neighbor’s daughter was taken to the hospital — she has burns. We had hope when the ceasefire began. Every new strike takes that hope away.”

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said he had ordered “powerful attacks” in response; Israeli military spokespeople described the latest moves as targeted responses to alleged violations. Hamas denied responsibility for several reported incidents and insisted it remained committed to the ceasefire. The bedrock problem — trust — remains missing.

Bodies, hostages and the politics of proof

One of the most wrenching threads in the truce negotiations has been the handling of hostages and the return of bodies. Under the deal, Hamas handed over 20 living hostages; yet the handover of bodies has been contentious. Israeli officials accuse Hamas of stalling or manipulating partial remains, saying forensic checks revealed duplicates and staged discoveries. Hamas’s armed wing, meanwhile, says relentless bombardment and ruined neighborhoods make it difficult to locate remains.

“We are dealing with rubble where buildings have been levelled,” Hazem Qassem, a Hamas spokesman, said in a statement that echoed through social media channels. “The movement is determined to hand over the bodies once they are located.”

The Hostages and Missing Families Forum in Israel has pressed the government to be firm, calling for decisive action when agreements are flouted. “For families waiting for answers, every delay is a wound,” said Miriam Levi, who co-ordinates a support group for relatives of the missing. “They want closure, not political theatre.”

Numbers that don’t tell the whole story

Numbers are blunt instruments. They give scale but not shape. According to an AFP tally based on official Israeli figures, 1,221 people were killed in the October 2023 attack by Hamas. Gaza’s health ministry — which is run by the territory’s authorities and whose figures are considered reliable by the UN — reports at least 68,531 deaths during Israel’s subsequent assault. Those figures are harrowing; what they don’t capture is the daily arithmetic of survival — the lost incomes, the classrooms turned to shelters, the children who have forgotten the sound of a school bell.

“Statisticians count. We count rations, not just deaths,” said Omar Khalil, an aid worker who coordinates food distribution for a small NGO in Gaza City. “But counting deaths is necessary: you must know the scale to respond. Still, the numbers should push us beyond statistics to action.”

Local color and the human geography of grief

In Gaza, ordinary cultural rhythms persist even under the shadow of devastation. You see it in the small, stubborn comforts: the tea poured from a metal pot, the rhythm of a mother sweeping a threshold, the halting jokes shared over a shared loaf of bread. At a makeshift clinic, an elderly man hums a religious hymn as nurses tend to shrapnel wounds. In Bureij’s alleys, children scrawl chalk drawings on broken walls and play with a deflated soccer ball — a small defiance.

“We want to rest,” said Youssef, a 28-year-old who lost his home in Khan Younis. He speaks for many. “We want a day without sirens. Not much to ask for.”

Who mediates a broken conversation?

The ceasefire was brokered by the United States and other international intermediaries—an effort to halt immediate bloodshed and open the door to longer-term negotiations. Yet ceasefires are often fragile because they attempt to freeze a conflict without resolving the underlying political drivers: displacement, governance, security guarantees, and questions of accountability.

“Ceasefires are windows, not doors,” said Dr. Lina Haddad, a political scientist focused on conflict mediation. “They offer an opportunity to build trust, to open humanitarian corridors, to begin reconstruction. But if they’re not followed by a serious political track, they become temporary pauses between storms.”

What does the world do now?

When ceasefires wobble, the consequences ripple outward. Humanitarian agencies struggle to plan deliveries; displaced families put down temporary roots in UN shelters; and regional actors watch nervously as local incidents become international flashpoints. The challenge is not just to stop the next bomb, but to provide a credible roadmap for rebuilding and reconciliation.

So what would shape a lasting peace? Greater transparency in monitoring violations, safe and dignified avenues for returning hostages and remains, sustained humanitarian access, and an inclusive political dialogue that addresses displacement and security. Simple? Not at all. Necessary? Yes.

As you read this, ask yourself: how do we weigh immediate security needs against long-term justice? How do humanitarian impulses square with political realities? And how can people across the world, far from Gaza’s narrow streets, meaningfully support a ceasefire that becomes a foundation rather than a pause?

A final image

Imagine a child in Gaza releasing a paper boat into a puddle. It drifts, clumsy and bright, and for a few seconds it is free. That single, small freedom — the ability to imagine a future without fear — is what a true ceasefire should offer. The recent strikes tested that possibility. The work now is to turn testing into building, and building into something that keeps children’s paper boats afloat.

Brigitte Macron’s daughter says harassment took a toll on her health

hanad

October 29, 2025

Harassment affected Brigette Macron's health - daughter — Tiphaine Auziere, Brigitte Macron's daugther, arrives to take the stand in Paris

When Rumour Turns Personal: Inside the Trial Over the First Lady’s Online Harassment

On a damp morning in Paris, the stone façade of the Palais de Justice looked every bit the backdrop for a drama that is only possible in the age of the internet: a trial that pits shredded reputations and recycled lies against the fragile dignity of a family.

Tiphaine Auziere, the 41-year-old daughter of France’s first lady, Brigitte Macron, sat in a courtroom and spoke in a voice that was at once careful and fierce. “She’s constantly having to pay attention to what she wears, how she holds herself because she knows that her image can be distorted,” she told the judge. “This isn’t vanity — it’s survival.”

The survival she described is daily and intimate: grandchildren apparently told that their grandmother was a man; a public figure forced to count every gesture, every photo, as if any moment might be turned into ammunition for an online mob. Those are the human consequences at the heart of a Paris case that has seen ten defendants — eight men and two women, ages ranging from 41 to 65 — accused of cyberbullying the 72-year-old first lady. If convicted, they face up to two years in prison.

A rumour that refuses to die

The allegation at the centre of the case sounds absurd and cruel in equal measure: a recycled claim, amplified and repurposed by conspiracy channels at home and abroad, that Brigitte Macron was assigned male at birth. It’s a tidy little hoax for the internet to chew on — it ties into the couple’s highly visible 25-year age gap and a global culture war over gender that has proved fertile ground for misinformation.

“We’re not just talking about an insult,” Tiphaine said. “This is an effort to erase who she is, to rewrite her history in the most intimate way.”

The story has roots in earlier claims, one of which involved a four-hour YouTube interview in 2021 and led to a civil libel case. That ruling was later overturned on appeal, and the matter has continued to swirl in French and international online echo chambers. In late July the presidential couple took the extraordinary step of filing a defamation lawsuit in the United States, targeting content — including a series called “Becoming Brigitte” produced by a conservative podcaster — that has found an audience across the Atlantic in the fraught environment of American gender debates.

Faces in the dock, voices in the wind

Not everyone on trial accepted responsibility in the courtroom. Aurelien Poirson-Atlan, a publicist often associated with conspiracy circles and better known online under the name “Zoe Sagan,” insisted he was the one being harassed. “I am being targeted,” he told reporters outside the court, his voice raw with indignation.

Another defendant, identified as Jérôme C., defended his posts as “freedom of speech” and “satire,” words that have become a reflexive shield for provocative online behaviour. “We’re here because someone wants to police thoughts,” complained Bertrand S., one of the defendants, describing the trial as an attack on his “freedom to think” in the face of what he called the “media deep state.”

There are also more familiar characters — a self-proclaimed spiritual medium who spread the claim on YouTube, and other figures who recycled the same falsehood across networks. Some of the posts that found their way into evidence in Paris were direct echoes of content originating in the United States.

Beyond a single case: what this tells us about the internet age

Look carefully at this courtroom and you see a catalogue of modern dangers: the ease with which falsehoods cross borders, the speed at which online mobs assemble, and the way personal life becomes public spectacle. It’s an example of how defamation and cyber-harassment have turned private pain into a kind of public theatre.

Consider the broader picture. Studies over the last decade have repeatedly warned us that online harassment is widespread and that women, public figures and marginalized groups are often the targets. A Pew Research Center study, for instance, documented that a large share of internet users in the United States had experienced some form of harassment online. In Europe, policymakers and regulators have grappled with how to curb disinformation and protect individuals without stifling free expression — a balancing act Thomas Paine might not recognize, but one modern democracies continually perform.

“We’re looking at a collision between personality politics and weaponized storytelling,” said Dr. Marie Dupont, a media scholar in Paris who has followed the case. “Rumours metastasize when they align with pre-existing anxieties — in this case, about gender, about power, about authenticity.”

Across borders and platforms

There’s another striking element to this case: its international reach. Material circulating in the United States — including podcasts and social-media series — was reposted and amplified in France. The couple’s decision to file a defamation lawsuit in the U.S. underscores how national legal systems are being dragged into global information wars.

“Platforms create constellations where a lie can be recycled by a hundred people and appear newly factual a hundred times over,” said a Paris lawyer specialising in media law, who asked not to be named. “Legal remedies exist, but the damage is done in the milliseconds before law catches up.”

At the local level: small scenes with big meaning

Outside the courthouse, life continued in small, revealing ways. A man in a corner bistro near the Seine shook his head and said, “I don’t care about politics — but this is nasty. It’s one thing to criticise, another to destroy.” A café owner spoke of customers who used the trial as a topic for anxious conversation, as if the whole country were collectively figuring out the rules for a new social era.

For the Macron family, the trial is about more than reputation. Tiphaine’s testimony put a human face on abstract legalese; she spoke of grandchildren who had been confused, and an elderly mother whose health, she said, had deteriorated under the weight of persistent lies. “It’s about children asking questions I never imagined they’d ask,” she said quietly. “That’s the wound.”

Questions worth asking

What do we owe each other in a public square that is global and name-less? How do we balance protection from harm with a cherished, messy freedom to speak? And perhaps most urgently: what responsibility do platforms, influencers and audiences bear when a rumour crosses an ocean and lands in someone’s home?

There are no easy answers. This trial — noisy, emotional and emblematic — is one of many fronts where democratic societies are testing whether their laws, norms and institutions can protect individuals from a kind of cruelty that looks new but is, at its heart, very old: the urge to stigmatize and humiliate the other.

As the case continues, it offers a small but important lesson. In an era of rapid amplification, the dignity of a single human life can hinge on how quickly falsehoods are corrected — and on whether the public decides, in the end, to care. Will we be bystanders, or will we insist on a standard of decency in digital life? The answer may shape more than one courtroom in years to come.

Russian prosecution of teenage street musician sparks public outrage

hanad

October 29, 2025

Russia's case against teen busker stirs anger — Diana Loginova, known by the stage name Naoko pictured in court

She Sang, They Arrested Her: A Saint Petersburg Busker and the Weight of a Song

On a grey morning in Saint Petersburg, where the Neva hums like a memory and the metro spits out tired commuters, a group of young people gathered outside a station to watch a simple thing: an 18-year-old with a guitar singing a banned song.

She is Diana Loginova to the registry, but on the pavement she is Naoko — a stage name stitched from teenage rebellion and a love of Japanese pop culture. Her band, Stoptime, has a modest lineup and a loud heart. They have been filling pocket-sized squares of the city with music that, until last year, might have been shrugged off as juvenile dissent. Now it is dangerous.

Shortly after a performance in which Naoko sang a song by Monetochka — a songwriter whose name has become a shorthand for cultural resistance — she was led from public space into police custody. A court in Saint Petersburg fined her 30,000 rubles (about €343) for “discrediting the army,” a charge that has become a blunt instrument in Russia’s tightened political climate since the full-scale offensive into Ukraine began in 2022.

Their Songs, Her Sentence

The number carved into the court record feels small compared to what it signifies. “It’s not the fine,” said Seraph, an 18-year-old who had come to the courthouse to show support. “This sets a precedent: someone being arrested for singing. It makes you think — can one voice cost you your freedom?”

Seraph was not alone. On that cold patch of sidewalk, 20-year-old Rimma adjusted her beanie and said simply, “Creative freedom was violated. I attended her concerts. The atmosphere was wonderful. You feel like you’re among like-minded people.” Nearby, Ivan, 20, shook his head. “I came to support someone who was detained for nothing,” he said. “Just for singing.”

These are not theatrical acts of defiance staged for dramatic effect. Videos circulated on TikTok show Naoko playing in front of crowds who clap, sing along, and tape their phones. The footage — raw, pixelated, immediate — has become a small rebellion in itself. Thousands of short-form clips, hundreds of comments, and a flurry of solidarity from other young street performers have followed her arrest. The internet, for these artists, supplies both amplification and risk.

A Troubling Pattern

This was not Naoko’s first run-in with the police. Earlier she and two bandmates spent roughly two weeks each behind bars after being accused of organizing an “unauthorized mass gathering” during a performance near a metro entrance. Such accusations have become a common tack: a criminal label applied to spontaneous gatherings in public squares or subway exits, where music and youthful congregation are treated as threats.

Human rights monitors and independent media outlets have reported thousands of detentions related to anti-war sentiment since 2022. The law criminalizing “discrediting” the armed forces has been interpreted widely — a song, a placard, a social media post — and penalties range from steep fines to potential prison sentences. “This kind of legislation is designed to chill voices,” said a human rights lawyer who asked to remain unnamed. “It’s about deterrence as much as punishment.”

Why a Song Scares an Authority

Music moves in ways that speeches do not. It slips past reason into feeling. In listening, communities form — fleeting, electric, and perilous under a regime that fears the contagiousness of dissent.

“Music does what pamphlets used to do in the old days,” said a cultural critic in Saint Petersburg whose work studies youth culture and resistance. “It creates emotional solidarity. That is precisely why authorities clamp down. If enough people share the same melody and the same indignation, the mood in a city shifts.”

For many of Naoko’s supporters, the issue is plainly about everyday human rights. “When creativity becomes criminal, what are we left with?” asked Marina, 34, a teacher who watched a rooftop concert in summer and streamed it to colleagues. “We teach children to question, to listen, to feel. Punishing that is a kind of cultural impoverishment.”

Local Color and the Price of Everyday Dissent

Saint Petersburg lends a melancholic backdrop to these events. The city’s wide boulevards and baroque facades, its coffee shops full of students rehearsing for exams and poets swapping loose verses, make the crackdown feel all the more intimate. Buskers have long been part of the city’s soundscape — accordion strains on Nevsky Prospect, an unlikely duet in a metro tunnel — but these performers now carry a political freight strangers could once ignore.

“You come out to sing because it’s warm, not because you want to be a headline,” said Katya, a fellow street musician. “We trade a few rubles from passersby, sometimes we play for tea money. But what’s changed is that every chord now risks a fine or worse. You wonder if you should mute your heart.”

Yet mollified fear hasn’t silenced everyone. Street performers continue to show up to their usual spots, sometimes singing the very songs that brought Naoko into the legal system. It’s a gesture of defiance, yes, but also of communal protection: if enough voices are present, the act of one becomes the act of many.

Ripples Beyond a City Block

What happens to Naoko is not just a local story. It is a chapter in a global conversation about art, authority, and the shrinking spaces where dissent can breathe. Around the world, artists from poets in Myanmar to musicians in Belarus have faced the same calculus: create, or conform. The stakes are personal and universal.

“When a government constricts expression, it’s not merely suppressing speech,” the human rights lawyer said. “It’s erasing the possibility of a different future voiced through culture. That has implications for society’s resilience.”

Facts to Keep in Mind

Since 2022, Russia has adopted laws that broadly criminalize “discrediting” the armed forces and punish critical speech linked to the conflict in Ukraine.
Thousands have been detained for anti-war protests and expressions of dissent, according to human rights monitors and independent media reports.
Naoko was fined 30,000 rubles (≈€343) and previously jailed for roughly two weeks in connection with public performances.

Questions That Stay With You

What do we owe young artists who sing unpopular truths? Are small acts of public creativity — a song in a subway entrance, a sketch shared on a street corner — merely cultural byproducts, or do they form the scaffolding of civic life?

In the little courtroom moments and the hurried videos posted at midnight, we see both a symptom and a stubbornness: a generation that won’t be entirely muzzled by decree. As Naoko was led away to an unclear destination after her hearing, the chorus of support did not dim. If anything, it grew louder online and on the city’s pavements.

“She inspired hope,” Seraph said, wiping his hands in his pockets. “I was there and I sang along.”

And maybe that is the point. In a world where permission is sometimes required to be seen, to be heard, and to be human, the smallest songs can feel like revolution. Will you listen the next time someone sings in public? Would you stand and clap, or would you turn away?

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