Category: 2. World

France is on the brink of another political crisis, after Prime Minister François Bayrou’s shock decision to submit his government to a vote of confidence in parliament.

The chances of his winning the vote in a special session of the National Assembly on September 8 being extremely slim, the prime minister’s days in office look numbered.

If the vote is lost, Bayrou will be expected to resign, leaving France once again rudderless at a time of immense economic, social and geopolitical uncertainty.

For the second time inside a year, the disastrous effects of President Emmanuel Macron’s hasty parliamentary dissolution of July 2024 threaten institutional chaos and even civil unrest.

Far from offering the “clarity” that Macron wanted after his defeat in European polls in June 2024, the newly elected National Assembly was split three ways between centrists, the populist right, and the left – meaning that no government of any stripe could hope for a majority.

Macron himself was cut out of domestic politics and forced to focus on international affairs.

The first post-dissolution prime minister, Michel Barnier, struggled on until December, but then was brought down when the opposition parties combined against his budget.

And now exactly the same thing seems about to happen to his replacement.

The only difference is that Bayrou is refusing to go through the same agony of three months of ultimately fruitless debate in parliament. Like a desperate gambler, he is staking the house on an initial vote of confidence.

If he wins, it will be a spectacular vindication of his apocalyptic strategy, warning – like a lone prophetic voice – of the existential threat to France if it fails to take back control of its debt.

The trouble is no-one expects him to win the vote. Least of all, probably, he himself.

The numbers are easy to count.

The four pro-government groups in the Assembly have 210 deputies between them. The oppositions – of left and right – have between them 353.

For Bayrou to have any chance, he would need either the Socialist bloc (66 seats) or Marine Le Pen’s National Rally (123) to make a move. If National Rally abstained, it would make for a tight vote that might just be winnable if a few smaller groups did the same.

But if Bayrou is looking to the Socialists, they would have to vote for the government to make any difference. And that is not going to happen.

Indeed the whole question is looking increasingly academic as opposition leader after opposition leader has made it clear in the last 24 hours that they are not in any way minded to rescue the beleaguered PM.

Perhaps Bayrou has his eye rather on the country as a whole.

Maybe he wants to go down in history as the man who, Cassandra-like, foretold France’s death-by-debt but was never believed. Or perhaps he is pondering the 2027 presidential election, and hopes that by then voters will realise he was right all along.

Sadly for him, though, there is no sign of the French changing their mind on debt. In their vast majority, they simply do not think the issue is as urgent as Bayrou says it is. Or if they do, they can’t see why ordinary folks like them should suffer for it.

Even before this latest twist, the country was shaping up for a dramatic autumn – with a grassroots protest movement called Bloquons Tout (Let’s Block Everything) earning comparisons with the Gilets Jaunes (Yellow Vests) who so disrupted Macron’s first mandate as president.

Fired up by Bayrou’s plans to axe two public holidays and freeze public spending, the movement announced a day of action on 10 September, for which it now has the support of far-left leader Jean-Luc Melenchon. Unions are planning separate actions against government “austerity”.

Of course if the government has fallen on 8 September, then the need for such protest may have evaporated. And the country will have other, more pressing, problems on its mind.

What happens if the government does fall is hard to predict.

There will certainly be more calls for Macron to resign, which he will almost certainly resist. Presumably he will start by trying to find another prime minister, but after the loss of both Barnier and Bayrou who would take the plunge?

Marine Le Pen is leading calls for a new dissolution of the National Assembly, which under the constitution is now possible. No second dissolution was allowed within a year of the first which meant that until July there was no way out of the parliamentary impasse.

But it is highly unlikely new elections would improve the position of the centrist bloc which is loyal(-ish) to Macron. More probably it would reinforce the populist right, though the most likely scenario of all is yet another three-way blockage.

In such circumstances the country appears condemned to more domestic drift and deferred decisions.

It could hardly come at a worse time, as Europe and the West face big questions over security, immigration, debt and the rising costs of their post-World War Two welfare states.

President Macron’s final 18 months in office look like being a sad parody of the hopeful era he so proudly announced back in 2017.

Nigel Farage vowed to expel tens of thousands of asylum-seekers from the UK, tapping a policy deployed in the US by President Donald Trump as he seeks to guide his populist Reform party to power at the next general election.

Reform would carry out mass deportations of asylum-seekers, as well as removing Britain from the European Convention on Human Rights — “no ifs, no buts” — and scrapping the country’s Human Rights Act to remove legal routes of appeal, Farage said Tuesday in a speech. A Reform-led government would also disapply for five years the 1951 Refugee Convention, he said, dubbing his program “Operation Restoring Justice.”

The UN has demanded that Israel’s investigations into unlawful killings in Gaza, including its “double tap” bombing of Nasser hospital which killed 20 people, among them five journalists, yield results and ensure accountability.

“There needs to be justice,” Thameen Al-Kheetan, the spokesperson for the UN’s human rights office, told reporters on Tuesday in Geneva. He added that the number of journalists killed in Gaza raised many questions about the targeting of media workers.

On Monday, Israel struck Nasser hospital, the last functioning public hospital in southern Gaza, twice. Witnesses said the second strike came just as rescue crews and journalists arrived to evacuate the wounded 15 minutes after the first bombing, killing first responders and media workers.

The “double tap” strike killed journalists working for Reuters, Associated Press and Al Jazeera, as well as independent journalists. It drew global condemnation. All three publications issued statements mourning the journalists, and urged Israel to look into the killings.

The office of the Israeli prime minister said it “deeply regrets the tragic mishap” that happened at the hospital and that the Israeli military was conducting an investigation.

The UN spokesperson urged Israel to ensure its investigation led to results, referring to recent Israeli military investigations that were closed without resolution.

“The Israeli authorities have, in the past, announced investigations in such killings … We haven’t seen results or accountability measures yet. We have yet to see the results of these investigations and we call for accountability and justice,” said Kheetan.

A report published by Action on Armed Violence (AOAV) this month showed that 88% of Israel’s investigations into war crime allegations in Gaza were shut down or left unresolved. Among the unresolved inquiries are investigations into the killing of at least 112 Palestinians waiting for flour in Gaza City in February 2024 and an airstrike that killed 45 Palestinians in a tent encampment in southern Gaza in May 2024.

Researchers at AOAV said the statistics suggested that Israel was trying to create a “pattern of impunity” in the overwhelming majority of cases where severe wrongdoing by Israeli soldiers was alleged.

The Israeli military maintains that it has robust internal processes for when there is a suspicion of a violation of the law.

Israel has frequently conducted strikes on hospitals throughout the 22-month war in Gaza, with the World Health Organization reporting in April that 33 out of Gaza’s 36 hospitals had been damaged. Israel has in the past claimed that Hamas is embedded within Gaza’s medical infrastructure, without presenting credible evidence for its claims.

Israel has also regularly killed journalists in Gaza, now the deadliest place in the world to be a journalist. Israel has banned international media from entering Gaza, leaving Palestinian journalists as the only source of news on the territory.

According to the UN spokesperson, at least 247 Palestinian journalists have been killed in Gaza over the last 22 months.

It is the deadliest conflict for journalists ever recorded, killing more media workers than both world wars, the Vietnam war, the Yugoslavia wars and the US war in Afghanistan combined.

Israel’s double tap bombing of the hospital on Monday provoked outrage and added to the pressure on Israel from rights groups and foreign ministries worldwide.

The French president, Emmanuel Macron, called the strikes “intolerable”, in a statement on Monday.

“This is intolerable: civilians and journalists must be protected in all circumstances. The media must be able to carry out their mission freely and independently to cover the reality of the conflict,” said Macron.

On Tuesday, 209 former EU ambassadors and senior diplomatic staff published a public letter calling for urgent action over Israel’s war in Gaza and unlawful conduct in the occupied West Bank. They called on EU member states to take unilateral action “in pursuit of protecting and enforcing international law”.

Recommended actions included suspending arms export licences to Israel, halting funding of projects with Israeli organisations complicit in illegal actions and prosecuting indicted Israeli and Palestinian war criminals if they enter their territories.

Despite international and domestic pressure for a ceasefire, Israel is pushing ahead with its plans to take over and occupy Gaza City, a military campaign it expects could take up to five months.

At least 34 people were killed in Israeli strikes on Tuesday overnight, health authorities said. Thousands of residents have already fled Gaza City as Israeli bombardment has intensified.

Humanitarians have warned that going forward with the Gaza City campaign could have disastrous consequences for the wellbeing of the around a million residents there, already in the throes of famine.

Hamas has delivered its latest ceasefire proposal to mediators, but Israel has yet to respond. Israeli media reported that the Israeli government was unlikely to accept the ceasefire proposal, seeking instead a comprehensive deal that would see hostages returned and Hamas exiled from the strip.

Protesters gathered across Israel on Tuesday holding up pictures of hostages and demanding an end to the war. Demonstrators said that the continued fighting put the lives of the remaining hostages held in Gaza in danger.

More than 62,000 people have been killed in Gaza – more than half of whom are civilians according to the Gaza health ministry – during Israel’s war over the last 22 months. Israel launched the war after Hamas-led militants attacked Israel, killing around 1,200 people and taking 251 hostages.

US President Donald Trump, “displeased” with the attack on Al Nasser Hospital, signaled the Gaza conflict will end within two to three weeks.

“I think within the next two to three weeks, you’re going to have [a] pretty good, conclusive ending,” Trump told reporters at the White House. “It’s got to get over with because between the hunger and all of the other problems – worse than hunger, death, pure death — people [are] being killed. I’m not happy about it. I don’t want to see it. At the same time, we have to end that nightmare.”

Read: Turkish first lady urges Melania Trump to speak out on Gaza

Trump said there was a “very serious” diplomatic effort under way, with the US and Israel pressing Hamas to release hostages. US Secretary of State Marco Rubio added: “It has never stopped. We have always sought a solution, and ultimately, as the president said, we want it to end. It has to end without Hamas.”

Israeli protests for hostage deal

Protesters in Tel Aviv and other cities demanded an end to the Gaza war and the release of hostages ahead of a key security cabinet meeting. Demonstrators accused Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of prioritising Hamas’s defeat over hostage safety.

The meeting is expected to discuss ceasefire and hostage release talks, after Hamas accepted a mediator-backed proposal for staggered releases. Qatar said Israel has yet to respond to the plan.

Global outrage over Nasser Hospital strike

Israeli attacks killed at least 61 people across Gaza on this Monday, according to medical sources. A strike on the Nasser Medical Complex in Khan Younis killed 21 people, including five journalists, in a “double-tap” attack that hit the hospital’s fourth floor.

Israelis demonstrate to support Palestinian civilians in the Gaza Strip and against the Israeli government, in front of the Sourasky Medical Centre – Ichilov, in Tel Aviv, on August 25, 2025 [AFP]

Read More: Israeli strike on Gaza hospital kills 20, including five journalists

China condemned the strike, with Foreign Ministry spokesman Guo Jiakun saying: “We are shocked and condemn the fact that medical personnel and journalists have once again lost their lives in the conflict. Israel should immediately stop its military operations in Gaza and allow humanitarian supplies.”

Australian Foreign Minister Penny Wong called the attack “horrific” and urged Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to “heed the call of the world and agree to a ceasefire.”

Switzerland’s Foreign Ministry posted on X that it “strongly condemns the Israeli attack on Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis, which caused numerous civilian casualties,” stressing that civilian infrastructure must be protected under international humanitarian law.

Canada’s Foreign Ministry also issued a statement, saying it was “horrified” by the strike and calling the deaths of journalists, health officials, and rescuers “unacceptable.”

Canadian photojournalist Valerie Zink has announced she is severing ties with the Reuters news agency after eight years as a stringer, saying she can no longer continue in her role given the agency’s “role in justifying and enabling the systematic assassination of 245 journalists in Gaza”.

In a post on X, Zink criticised Reuters’ coverage of the killing of Palestinian journalist Anas al-Sharif, a member of a Pulitzer Prize–winning Reuters team in 2024. She said the outlet repeated “baseless” Israeli claims about him, putting his life and those of other journalists at risk.

“Reuters’ willingness to perpetuate Israel’s propaganda has not spared their own reporters from Israel’s genocide,” she added, noting that a Reuters cameraman was among five journalists killed in the Nasser Hospital attack yesterday.

Germany’s Foreign Ministry wrote on X that the work of journalists was “indispensable for depicting the devastating reality” of Gaza.

Israeli military officials, cited in local media, claimed tank fire was responsible for the attack, which Prime Minister Netanyahu described as a “tragic mishap.” But the Belgium-based Hind Rajab Foundation disputed that account, saying footage indicated the use of a guided missile consistent with precision systems. It called the incident a “deliberate double-tap war crime.”

Doctors and aid workers at Nasser Hospital said they fear becoming “patients in their own hospital.” Al Jazeera quoted ICU nurse Anneliese Stephenson Wenn as saying staff are “tense” and suffering “severe psychological trauma.”

Palestinians look on as smoke rises following an explosion during an Israeli operation in Gaza City, August 26 [Reuters]

“They’re coming in after staying up all night listening to bomb strikes hit all around them and wondering if they’re going to be the next one that’s hit,” she said. Patients, too, remain in fear after shrapnel from the attack injured people inside the hospital.

Also Read: 289 Palestinians, including 115 children, die of starvation

Israel’s war on Gaza

The war, now in its 21st month, has killed more than 62,744 Palestinians, according to Gazan health authorities. Most of the victims are reported to be women and children.

Last November, the International Criminal Court (ICC) issued arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Defence Minister Yoav Gallant over war crimes and crimes against humanity.

Israel is also facing a genocide case at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) over its conduct in Gaza.

LONDON — Nigel Farage, the leader of Britain’s hard-right Reform UK party, said Tuesday that if he wins the next election he will leave the European Convention on Human Rights and immediately detain and deport anyone who arrives in the country illegally, including children.

Farage laid out his plans to tackle illegal immigration following a significant rise in the number of migrants who arrive by boats across the English Channel, and weeks of protests over the government’s use of hotels to house asylum-seekers.

“If you come to the U.K. illegally, you will be detained and deported and never, ever allowed to stay, period,” Farage told a press conference.

“The mood in the country around this issue is a mix between total despair and rising anger,” he added, claiming there is now “a genuine threat to public order” if no action is taken.

He said the issue of “how we deal with children is much more complicated,” but added: “Women and children, everybody on arrival will be detained.”

Despite holding just four of the 650 seats in the House of Commons, Farage ‘s party has gained momentum by seizing on public frustration over successive governments’ inability to bring down the number of migrants coming by boat. National polls have suggested that support for Reform equals or surpasses that of the ruling Labour Party and the Conservatives.

Farage, who has long sought to link problems such as public healthcare and housing to migrant arrivals, reiterated his stance that the U.K. is being “invaded” by migrants. He said he would introduce policies to mass deport hundreds of thousands of people over the first five years of being in government.

Reform will leave the ECHR and repeal or “disapply” all other rights treaties to bar all asylum claims and ensure migrants who arrive without authorization are deported, he added. It will scale up the capacity of detention facilities and secure deals with countries including Afghanistan, Eritrea and Iran, to return migrants.

Asked about the prospect of asylum-seekers being tortured or killed if they were sent back to countries they fled from, Farage said: “The alternative is to do nothing … We cannot be responsible for all the sins that take place around the world.”

Almost 29,000 people have crossed the English Channel by boat so far in 2025, up about 50% from the same period last year. On Monday, 659 migrants arrived in the U.K. by boat.

A much larger number of people — over 111,000 — applied for asylum in the U.K. in the year up to June, official figures show.

Reform’s deportation plans echo similar tough migration policies by Germany, which deported dozens of Afghan men to their homeland last month.

British Prime Minister Keir Starmer has ditched the Conservative administration’s flagship plan to send migrants who arrived by unauthorized means to Rwanda. Instead, he has pinned hopes on a deal agreed with France last month to send some migrants who cross the English Channel on dinghies and inflatable boats back to France.

U.K. officials have suggested the “one in, one out” plan is a major breakthrough, despite the initial program involving a limited number of people.

The government is also looking to speed up the processing of asylum claims. Officials have housed tens of thousands of migrants awaiting their asylum outcome in hotels at public expense — a controversial policy that has long simmered but tipped into protests in recent weeks after a hotel resident allegedly tried to kiss a 14-year-old girl and was charged with sexual assault. The man has denied the accusation.

Anti-migrant demonstrators, as well as counterprotests, have flared after local authorities won a temporary injunction last week to shut down the Bell Hotel in Epping, on the outskirts of London.

Deputy Prime Minister Ishaq Dar vowed to strengthen Pakistan’s ties with the North African countries of Egypt and Algeria as he met their foreign ministers on Tuesday in Saudi Arabia.

Dar arrived in Jeddah on a two-day visit yesterday, where he spoke on Israel’s ongoing Gaza onslaught during the 21st extraordinary session of the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation’s (OIC) Council of Foreign Ministers.

Today, on the sidelines of the OIC meeting, Dar met with Egypt’s Foreign Minister Badr Abdelatty and Algeria’s FM Ahmed Attaf.

Terming his discussion as a “meaningful interaction”, Dar said: “I reaffirmed Pakistan’s commitment to further strengthening ties with our brotherly countries in North Africa, Algeria and Egypt, through enhanced connectivity and broader cooperation across diverse fields.”

The foreign ministers discussed the “grave situation in Palestine”, Dar said on X.

The trio stressed the “urgent need for humanitarian access, a ceasefire, and lasting peace, while underscoring the importance of unity within the Muslim Ummah in these challenging times”.

At the OIC session yesterday, Dar slammed Israel’s “annexationist and rogue mindset” and condemned Tel Aviv’s plan to take control of Gaza City as threatening regional peace.

He also presented seven “urgent and essential steps” for the international community and Muslim nations to halt Israel’s war on Gaza — already termed a genocide by Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch — and secure enduring peace in Palestine.

Pakistan also fully endorsed and joined the statement issued by 31 Arab-Islamic countries and the secretaries general of the OIC, the League of Arab States and the Gulf Cooperation Council, condemning Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s comments about ‘Greater Israel’.

Algeria’s Ambassador to the UN Amar Bendjama has called for sanctions on Israel in response to its Gaza City plan.

Pakistan has brotherly ties with Egypt and Algeria, bonded in shared religion and culture.

In April, Islamabad and Cairo agreed to enhance bilateral collaboration in the health sector, with a specific focus on eliminating Hepatitis C. It was also reported earlier this year that Egypt’s renowned Al-Azhar University had plans to set up its campus in Pakistan.

Meeting with Turkiye’s foreign minister

The deputy PM also met with Turkiye’s FM Hakan Fidan today, expressing his “deep appreciation” to Turkiye for its leadership role in the capacity of chairing the OIC ministerial session.

“We affirmed firm solidarity with Palestine, noting the worsening humanitarian crisis and famine, and the urgent need for humanitarian aid and relief,” Dar noted.

The two ministers also “reaffirmed the brotherly Pakistan-Türkiye relations, and looked forward to further strengthening our multifaceted cooperation”.

Dar had also met with the top diplomats of several other friendly countries yesterday on the sidelines of the OIC meeting. They included Saudi Arabia’s FM Faisal Bin Farhan, Iran’s FM Abbas Araghchi, Malaysia’s Mohamad Haji Hasan, and Bangladeshi Adviser for Foreign Affairs Md Touhid Hossain.

BEIJING: President Xi Jinping will host over 20 world leaders at a regional security forum in China next week, showcasing Global South solidarity in the era of Donald Trump while offering sanctions-hit Russia another diplomatic boost.

Among the attendees at the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) summit, set to take place in the northern port city of Tianjin from August 31 to September 1, will be Russian President Vladimir Putin, alongside leaders from Central Asia, the Middle East, South Asia, and Southeast Asia.

The summit will also mark Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s first visit to China in more than seven years, as the two neighbours seek to further ease tensions following deadly border clashes in 2020.

Modi last shared the same stage with Xi and Putin at last year’s BRICS summit in Kazan, Russia, even as Western leaders turned their backs on the Russian leader amid the war in Ukraine. Russian embassy officials in New Delhi last week said Moscow hopes trilateral talks with China and India will take place soon.

“Xi will want to use the summit as an opportunity to showcase what a post-American-led international order begins to look like and that all White House efforts since January to counter China, Iran, Russia, and now India have not had the intended effect,” said Eric Olander, editor-in-chief of The China-Global South Project, a research agency.

“Just look at how much BRICS has rattled (US President) Donald Trump, which is precisely what these groups are designed to do.”

This year’s summit will be the largest since the SCO was founded in 2001, a Chinese foreign ministry official said last week, calling the bloc an “important force in building a new type of international relations”.

The security-focused bloc, which began as a group of six Eurasian nations, has expanded to 10 permanent members and 16 dialogue and observer countries in recent years. Its remit has also enlarged from security and counter-terrorism to economic and military cooperation.

‘Fuzzy’ implementation

Analysts say expansion is high on the agenda for many countries attending, but agree the bloc has not delivered substantial cooperation outcomes over the years and that China values the optics of Global South solidarity against the United States at a time of erratic policymaking and geopolitical flux.

“What is the precise vision that the SCO represents and its practical implementation are rather fuzzy. It is a platform that has increasing convening power, which helps in narrative projection,” said Manoj Kewalramani, chairperson of the Indo-Pacific Research Programme at the Takshashila Institution thinktank in Bangalore.

“But the SCO’s effectiveness in addressing substantial security issues remains very limited.”

Frictions remain between core members Pakistan and India. The June SCO defence ministers’ meeting was unable to adopt a joint statement after India raised objections, saying it omitted reference to the deadly April 22 attack on Hindu tourists in Indian Illegally Occupied Jammu and Kashmir (IIOJK) which led to the worst fighting in decades between Pakistan and India.

New Delhi also refused to join the SCO’s condemnation of Israeli attacks on Iran, a member state, earlier in June.

But the recent detente between India and China after five years of heightened border frictions, as well as renewed tariff pressure on New Delhi from the Trump administration, are driving expectations for a positive meeting between Xi and Modi on the sidelines of the summit.

“It’s likely (New Delhi) will swallow their pride and put this year’s SCO problems behind them in a bid to maintain momentum in the détente with China, which is a key Modi priority right now,” said Olander.

Analysts expect both sides to announce further incremental border measures such as troop withdrawals, the easing of trade and visa restrictions, cooperation in new fields including climate, and broader government and people-to-people engagement.

Despite the lack of substantive policy announcements expected at the summit, experts warn that the bloc’s appeal to Global South countries should not be underestimated.

“This summit is about optics, really powerful optics,” added Olander.

Modi is expected to depart from China after the summit, while Putin will stay on for a World War Two military parade in Beijing later in the week for an unusually long spell outside of Russia.

NEW DELHI: The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has asked the country’s lenders to increase scrutiny over funds flowing indirectly from Pakistan, according to a letter seen by Reuters that cited a “high risk” of such money being used to buy arms.

Direct flows of funds from Pakistan to India are largely prohibited with every transaction requiring the central bank’s approval.

The directive, dated August 6, follows investigations by Indian agencies after the two neighboring countries engaged in a fierce four-day military conflict in May.

It named Pakistan as “high risk” jurisdiction from an arms financing perspective and cited Indian investigations into arms financing but did not go into detail about their findings.

According to a government source with direct knowledge of the matter, Indian investigative authorities found that some Pakistan nationals had sent funds to India via other countries. India’s banking channels are at a “high risk” of being used for arms funding by Pakistan, said the source who was not authorized to speak to media and declined to be identified.

The central bank has general guidelines in place for banks to prevent money laundering, and the financing of arms and terrorism, but a directive drawing attention to Pakistan is rare.

The Reserve Bank of India did not respond to a Reuters’ request for comment.

Zafar Masud, president of the Pakistan Banks Association, said in a statement that Pakistan’s “anti-money laundering laws and combating the financing of terrorism is very strict and robust.”

The RBI letter to banks and non-bank lenders also separately cited instances where Pakistan has been accused of violating global sanctions and rules.

It noted that a June 2025 report by the global anti-money laundering watchdog Financial Action Task Force had accused a Pakistan state-owned entity, the National Development Complex, of evading sanctions by importing items for missile development without declaring them.

Pakistan’s foreign ministry did not respond to a Reuters request for comment.

The letter also listed North Korea as a “high risk” jurisdiction, citing sanctions imposed by the United Nations Security Council on the country in the past.