Category: 2. World

THE UN says there is a famine in Gaza.

Yes, the killing fields of Gaza are seeing another weapon — starvation — being deployed, because the Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF), under orders from the Netanyahu government, are not content with killing 60,000 people — a figure which its own database says included, in the first phase of the war, 83 per cent unarmed civilians. If the first phase set a trend that continues, then some 50,000 innocent civilians have been killed so far.

The blockade clamped by IOF, also known as IDF (Israeli Defence Forces), has triggered a famine. Malnutrition and death stalk the Strip as the UN says that one in five households, some half a million Gaza Palestinians, are facing an acute food and nutrition deficit, and one in three children or more are acutely malnourished. Similarly, two per 10,000 people are dying daily due to malnutrition and disease. Soul-destroying numbers, you’d agree.

The web-based +972 Magazine, run by Israeli and Palestinian journalists, has published a story based on the Israeli ministry of intelligence’s database, which says that of those killed by Israel in the first phase, only 17pc are identified as Hamas militants or other combatants. The rest were unarmed civilians. This when Israel was claiming a high ‘kill ratio’ of 50pc to 60pc of militants. The report also says of those killed, 60pc were women and children.

It seems that starvation and killings are not enough to achieve the goal of total and expeditious ethnic-cleansing of Gaza. So, Nobel Peace Prize aspirant US President Donald J. Trump has greenlit Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Gaza occupation plan for which a 60,000-strong IOF force has been assembled. Reservists in multiples of that number are being recalled to duty.

There can be no doubt that the apartheid state enjoys unparalleled impunity to kill, maim and forcefully displace Palestinians.

This occupation plan and the UN designation of the situation in Gaza as a famine has stirred the conscience of ‘civilised and democratic’ Europe enough for its leaders to quickly issue perfunctory statements of disapproval — while continuing to supply the apartheid state with advanced weaponry, vital parts and other defence equipment.

There can be no doubt that the apartheid state enjoys unparalleled impunity to kill, maim and forcefully displace Palestinians not just in Gaza but also in the West Bank where settlers backed by IOF personnel have been on the rampage. The story of the Palestinians in Jerusalem is no different.

And this impunity extends to American soil too. Just Google to see how many Israeli paedophiles have been arrested by joint FBI Police and Homeland Security taskforces and then bailed out and allowed to return home. The story of the latest such incident was broken by independent journalist Shaun King on X.

Tom Alexandrovich was caught this month in a joint taskforce sting targeting paedophiles when he tried to lure a decoy underage girl for sex and used explicit language in his messages to her. A lot of reporting on the issue has been deleted by X but try and search for a video recorded by the Nevada law-enforcement officers where he is seen saying “Sorry, I didn’t mean to do anything”, in a daze, minutes after having been caught. When I checked last, it was there on the handle Ultras_antifaa on X.

While a lot of information is available online, this powerful man, who told law-enforcement officers he was in the US for meetings with the NSA and FBI, had a lot of content taken down by X and also wiped off other internet sites where the matter was being reported.

Why did he have such influence? Well, he heads the department in Israel which is behind the agency’s ‘take down’ requests to, for example, X. He is one of Netanyahu’s top aides and his social media profile says “Executive Director, Israel National Cyber Directorate, Building National Cyber Security, AI for Defence, Threat Intelligence (CTI), Aviation Security”.

King reported that taskforce officers involved in the sting operation and arrest confirmed to him that the “Trump administration personally intervened, at Israel’s request, to override US law enforcement, including their own federal agents involved in the sting, to make sure Alexandrovich got back to Israel quickly and safely”. The officers confirmed that the arrested man did not have a diplomatic visa or any kind of diplomatic immunity.

Alexandrovich’s department works in close coordination with NSO, the developer of the Pegasus spying software that governments around the world use to snoop on confidential conversations of their own citizens as well as foes. In all likelihood, the department snoops on foreign players and governments. He has also posted about making presentations to Netanyahu on projects to protect his country and undermine the adversaries.

Now imagine if the citizen of any other country was caught while attempting to lure a minor for sex. The US has cancelled the student visas and ruined the lives of a large number of foreign students for merely exercising their freedom to protest peacefully against Israeli atrocities in Gaza. It has also blocked visas to overseas students admitted to US colleges because their social media timelines show them to be critical of Israel.

And in the US, the Nevada state attorney, whose personal social media account (since deleted) had multiple posts supporting Israeli actions and the annihilation of Palestinians and the Clark County district attorney (both US-Israeli dual nationals) played their part in freeing a man charged with a serious offence that carries a jail term of up to 10 years. They happily complied with the Trump administration’s request and freed him on bail.

This story is shared here because you are unlikely to have read it on Western media, the self-proclaimed citadel of free speech. The purpose of sharing this was also to underline the sort of leverage the apartheid state has over the US. The one major consequence is the fate of Palestine and the Palestinians.

The writer is a former editor of Dawn.

abbas.nasir@hotmail.com

Published in Dawn, August 24th, 2025

MUMBAI:

India’s foreign minister said on Saturday that trade negotiations with Washington are continuing, but there are lines that New Delhi needs to defend, just days before hefty additional US tariffs are due to hit.

Indian goods face additional US tariffs of up to 50%, among the highest imposed by Washington, due to its increased purchases of Russian oil. A 25% tariff has already come into effect, while the remaining 25% is set to be enforced from August 27.

A planned visit by US trade negotiators to New Delhi from August 25-29 has been called off, dashing hopes that the levies may be lowered or postponed.

“We have some redlines in the negotiations, to be maintained and defended,” Indian Foreign Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar said at an Economic Times forum event in New Delhi, singling out the interests of the country’s farmers and small producers.

India-US trade talks collapsed earlier this year due to India not agreeing to open its vast agricultural and dairy sectors. Bilateral trade between the world’s largest and fifth-largest economies is worth over $190 billion.

“It is our right to make decisions in our ‘national interest’,” Jaishankar said.

Analysts at Capital Economics said on Friday that if the full US tariffs come into force and stick, the hit to India’s economic growth would be 0.8 percentage points both this year and next.

“The longer-term harm could be even greater as a high tariff could puncture India’s appeal as a global manufacturing hub.”

The Indian minister described US President Donald Trump’s policy announcements as “unusual”.

“We have not had a US president who conducts his foreign policy so publicly as the current one and (it) is a departure from the traditional way of conducting business with the world,” Jaishankar said.

He also said Washington’s concern over India’s Russian oil purchases was not being applied to other major buyers such as China and the European Union.

“If the argument is oil, then there are (other) big buyers. If the argument is who is trading more (with Russia), then there are bigger traders,” he said.

Russia-European trade is bigger than India-Russia trade, he added.

The minister also said India’s purchases of Russian oil had not been raised in earlier trade talks with the US before the public announcement of tariffs.

A few days earlier, India suspended an 11% import duty on cotton until September 30, in a move seen as a signal to Washington that New Delhi is willing to address US concerns on agricultural tariffs, while also easing pressure on its garment industry.

The temporary suspension, announced late on Monday, could benefit US cotton growers and provide relief to India’s apparel sector, which faces tariffs of nearly 60% on shipments to the United States from later this month.

President Donald Trump earlier this month announced an extra tariff on Indian goods as punishment for New Delhi’s purchases of Russian oil, doubling the total duty to 50% on US imports of Indian goods from later this month.

Indian exports had previously faced levies of 0-5%, with duties on some textiles ranging between 9% and 13% before Trump raised tariffs in April.

KYIV:

Russia on Saturday said its forces had taken two villages in eastern Ukraine’s Donetsk region, increasing the military pressure as world leaders struggle to broker an end to the conflict.

South Africa added its voice to those calling for a summit between Ukraine and Russia.

Russian forces are slowly advancing in the embattled eastern region of Donetsk, grinding closer to Kyiv’s key defensive line in costly metre-for-metre battles.

Moscow’s defence ministry said on Telegram that its forces had captured the villages of Sredneye and Kleban-Byk.

The taking of Kleban-Byk would mark a further advance towards Kostiantynivka — a key fortified town on the road to Kramatorsk, where a major Ukrainian logistics base is located.

On Friday, Russia said its troops had captured three villages in the Donetsk region it claimed to have annexed in September 2022.

On Saturday, Ukrainian military officials said its forces had stopped a Russian advance and recaptured the village of Zeleny Gai in the Donetsk region in a post to Telegram.

In July, Russia claimed the capture of the village, on the border with Dnipropetrovsk, adding that it was an important stronghold used by Ukraine to protect the area.

The latest Russian advances come as hopes dim for a summit between Russian and Ukrainian presidents — a solution championed by US President Donald Trump as part of his efforts to end the conflict.

South African President Cyril Ramaphosa on Saturday added his voice to calls for a Russia-Ukraine summit during a telephone conversation with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.

“President Ramaphosa stressed the urgency of holding bilateral and trilateral meetings between the leaders of Russia and Ukraine and the United States as key to signal a firm commitment to ending the war,” said a statement from his office.

Ramaphosa, who currently chairs the G20, also spoke with French President Emmanuel Macron and Finnish President Alexander Stubb, the statement added. He will speak with other European leaders in the coming weeks.

Ramaphosa spoke on Monday with Vladimir Putin, whom he described in October at the BRICS summit as a “dear ally” and a “valued friend”.

However, for the first time since Russia’s attack on Ukraine, South Africa earlier this year backed a UN resolution declaring that Russia had launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

WASHINGTON:

President Donald Trump on Friday tapped close political aide Sergio Gor as US ambassador to India, sending one of his feared enforcers at a delicate time in ties with New Delhi.

The 38-year-old Gor rose quickly in conservative politics to become one of the most powerful, if low-profile, aides in the White House with a task of vetting some 4,000 appointees to ensure utmost loyalty to Trump.

Gor’s enemies include Elon Musk, who following his spectacular falling-out with Trump branded Gor a “snake” after he scuttled the tech and aerospace billionaire’s choice to lead NASA.

Gor’s influence does not include extensive experience in foreign policy, beyond joining travel overseas and leading a purge of National Security Council staffers whose views were called into suspicion.

“For the most populous Region in the World, it is important that I have someone I can fully trust to deliver on my Agenda and help us, MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN,” Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform.

“Sergio will make an incredible Ambassador,” he wrote.

Trump wrote that Gor would also hold a role of special envoy for South and Central Asia.

Trump has largely sidelined traditional diplomats and relied for diplomacy on personal friends, with the State Department’s top position for South Asia still vacant.

The nomination comes after a spike in tensions with India, which the United States has prioritized as an emerging partner since the 1990s.

Trump has moved to ramp up tariffs on India to pressure it over its purchases of energy from Russia, despite Trump’s own diplomacy with counterpart Vladimir Putin.

India in recent days has held top-level meetings with both Russia and China. Successive US administrations have viewed India as a balance against China, seen as the top US global rival.

Trump has spoken of brokering between India and Pakistan after they reached a ceasefire in a brief conflict in May, although India has been hesitant on any direct US role.

Report comes a day before US President Donald Trump’s summit with his South Korean counterpart, Lee Jae-myung, in Washington, DC.

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has overseen the firing of two new air defence missiles, state media reported, announcing that the tests showed the weapons had “superior combat capability”.

The report on Sunday comes a day before United States President Donald Trump meets his South Korean counterpart, Lee Jae-myung, in Washington, DC.

North Korea’s Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) said the tests, which took place on Saturday, showed that the missiles demonstrated a “fast response” to aerial targets such as attack drones and cruise missiles.

The report did not explain the new missiles in any detail, only that their “operation and reaction mode is based on unique and special technology”.

It also did not say where the test had been carried out.

The launches also come as South Korea and the US continue their annual joint military drills and as the South Korean military announced that it had fired warning shots at several North Korean soldiers who had briefly crossed their heavily militarised border on Tuesday.

The United Nations Command in South Korea put the number of North Korean troops that crossed the border at 30, the Yonhap news agency reported.

North Korean state media, meanwhile, quoted Army Lieutenant General Ko Jong Chol as saying the incident was a “premeditated and deliberate provocation”.

“This is a very serious prelude that would inevitably drive the situation in the southern border area, where a huge number of forces are stationing in confrontation with each other, to the uncontrollable phase,” Ko said.

Earlier this month, Kim condemned the US-South Korea joint military drills as their intent to remain “most hostile and confrontational” to his country, pledging to speed up nuclear build-up.

South Korea’s new leader, Lee, has sought warmer ties with the nuclear-armed neighbour, and has promised to build “military trust”, but Pyongyang has said it has no interest in improving relations with Seoul.

ISTANBUL: Turkish First Lady Emine Erdogan has written to US President Donald Trump’s wife, Melania Trump, and urged her to contact Israel’s prime minister and raise the plight of children in Gaza.

Emine Erdogan wrote that she had been inspired by the letter Melania Trump sent to Russian President Vladimir Putin earlier this month about children in Ukraine and Russia.

“I have faith that the important sensitivity

you have shown for the 648 Ukrainian children … will be extended to

Gaza as well,” Emine Erdogan wrote in the letter dated Friday that was published by the Turkish presidency.

The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

“These days, when the world is experiencing a collective awakening and the recognition of Palestine has become a global will. I believe that your call on behalf of Gaza would fulfil a historic responsibility toward the Palestinian people,” the letter added.

A global hunger monitor determined on Friday that Gaza City and surrounding areas are officially suffering from famine, and it will likely spread, escalating pressure on Israel to allow more aid into the Palestinian territory.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu dismissed that report as an “outright lie”, and said Israel had a policy of preventing, and not causing, starvation.

Published in Dawn, August 24th, 2025

GAZA CITY: Desperate Palestinians clutching pots and plastic buckets scrambled for rice at a charity kitchen in Gaza City on Saturday, a day after the United Nations declared a famine in the battered territory.

Footage from Gaza’s largest city, which Israel plans to seize as part of an ex­­panded military operation, showed wo­men and children among the chaotic jostle of dozens clamouring and shouting for food.

One young boy used his hands to scrape a few leftover grains from the inside of a cooking vat. A girl sat on the edge of a tent and scooped rice from a plastic bag on the ground.

“We have no home left, no food, no income… so we are forced to turn to charity kitchens, but they do not satisfy our hunger,” said Yousef Hamad, 58, who was displaced from the northern city of Beit Hanoun.

The chief of UN agency for Palestinian refugees asks Israel to ‘stop denying the famine it has created’

Further south at a charity kitchen in Deir el Balah, 34-year-old Umm Mohammad said the UN’s declaration of a famine had come “far too late”. The children are “staggering from dizziness, unable to wake up because of the lack of food and water”, she added.

The UN officially declared a famine in Gaza on Friday, blaming the “systematic obstruction” of aid by Israel during more than 22 months of conflict. The Rome-based Integrated Food Security Phase Classification Initiative (IPC) said famine was affecting 500,000 people in Gaza governorate, which covers about a fifth of the Palestinian territory, including Gaza City.

‘Moral duty’

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu rejected the famine report as “an outright lie”.

On Saturday, the head of the UN agen­­cy for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA) said it was “time for the government of Israel to stop denying the famine it has created in Gaza”.

“All of those who have influence must use it with determination & a sense of moral duty,” UNRWA chief Philippe Lazzarini posted on X.

The IPC projected that the famine would expand to Deir el Balah and Khan Yunis governorates by the end of Sept­ember, covering around two-thirds of Gaza. Israel kept up its bombardment of the Palestinian territory, with a footage sho­wing heavy smoke billowing above the Zeitoun district of Gaza City as Pales­ti­nians picked through the wreckage of buildings.

‘Feel like end is near’

The spokesman for Gaza’s civil defence agency, Mahmud Bassal, called the situation in the Sabra and Zeitoun neighbourhoods “absolutely catastrophic”, describing the “complete levelling of entire residential blocks”.

“We are trapped here, living in fear, with nowhere to go. There’s no safety anywhere in Gaza. Movement now leads to death,” said Ahmad Jundiyeh, 35, who was displaced to the northern outskirts of Zeitoun. “We constantly hear the sound of bombing… we hear fighter jets, artillery shelling and even drone explosions,” he said. “We’re extremely afraid — it feels like the end is near.”

Israel’s Defence Minister Israel Katz vowed on Friday that Israel would destroy Gaza City as it has other parts of the territory if Hamas did not agree to disarm, release all remaining prisoners and “end the war on Israel’s terms”.

Residents of Gaza City said the Israeli strikes targeting the area had been relentless for days. “Let them come and see what’s happening to us here on the ground in Zeitoun district. We have been ruined,” said Aymen Daloul, a 53-year-old from Gaza City whose home had been destroyed.

“We shall sleep on the streets as if we were cattle. Have mercy on us.”

Mahmud Abu Saqer, 24, said there had been a quickening exodus of residents ever since Israel announced its plans to seize Gaza City. “Just this morning, more than 500 to 600 families left, and yesterday thousands left,” he said.

Published in Dawn, August 24th, 2025

NEW DELHI: India is working with a French company to develop and manufacture fighter jet engines in the country, the defence minister said on Friday.

Defence Minister Rajnath Singh approved the prototype of a fifth generation Advanced Medium Combat Aircraft (AMCA) in May, calling it a “significant push towards enhancing India’s indigenous defence capabilities”.

Singh, in a speech at a conference in New Delhi, gave details about developing fighter jet aircraft engines in the country.

“We are moving forward to manufacture aircraft engines in India itself,” Singh said, in comments broadcast by Indian media. “We are collaborating with a French company to start engine production in India.”

Singh did not name the company, but Indian media widely reported the company to be Safran, which has been working in India for decades in the aviation and defence sectors.

India, one of the world’s largest arms importers, has made the modernisation of its forces a top priority and made repeated pushes to boost local arms production.

The world’s most populous nation has deepened defence cooperation with Western countries in recent years, including the Quad alliance with the United States, Japan and Australia.

India signed in April a multi-billion-dollar deal to purchase 26 Rafale fighter jets from France’s Dassault Aviation. It would join 36 Rafale fighters already acquired, and replace the Russian MiG-29K jets.

Singh has also promised at least $100 billion in fresh domestic military hardware contracts by 2033 to spur local arms production.

This decade India has opened an expansive new helicopter factory, launched its first domestically made aircraft carrier, warships and submarines, and conducted a successful long-range hypersonic missile test.

Published in Dawn, August 24th, 2025

North Korean state media has said two new air defence missiles have been fired in a test overseen by the country’s leader Kim Jong Un.

The weapons had “superior combat capability” and used a “unique technology”, the Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) said, without adding details.

The launches, carried out on Saturday, “proved that the technological features of two types of projectiles are very suitable for destroying various aerial targets” including drones and cruise missiles, KCNA said.

The test comes hours after South Korea confirmed it fired warning shots on Tuesday at North Korean soldiers who briefly crossed the Demilitarised Zone (DMZ) separating the countries.

United Nations Command said about 30 North Korean troops crossed the heavily-fortified border between the north and south, Yonhap News Agency said.

Pyongyang responded by accusing Seoul of a “deliberate provocation”.

South Korea and the United States have been conducting large-scale joint military exercises in the region since Monday.

US President Donald Trump is due to meet South Korea’s President Lee Jae Myung at a summit on Monday in Washington.

The newly-elected South Korean president had campaigned on improving inter-Korean ties.

However, Kim’s sister has since rebuffed efforts towards reconciliation made by Lee’s government.

Kim also earlier this month condemned the US and South Korea’s joint military drills, describing them as “most hostile and confrontational”.

The North Korean leader vowed to speed up his aim to increase the country’s stash of nuclear weapons.

In January, North Korea claimed to fire a new intermediate-range ballistic missile tipped with a hypersonic warhead, which it said “will reliably contain any rivals in the Pacific region”.

Senior South Korean officials have raised concerns about North Korea receiving Russian missile technology in exchange for sending troops to back the Russian aggression against Ukraine.

Shin Wonsik, national security adviser for former South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol, said last year that Seoul had found Moscow provided missiles and other equipment to help reinforce the air defense network for Pyongyang, the capital.

Whether the latest missiles fired by North Korea involved any Russian technology was unclear.

North Korea is one of the world’s most repressive totalitarian states, with Kim and his family ruling the nation for decades.

South and North Korea have been divided since the Korean War ended in 1953.

They did not sign a peace treaty and therefore have remained technically still at war ever since, although it has been years since either side shelled the other.

Britain, France, and Germany — the so-called E3 — have warned they will trigger an oft-threatened but never-used mechanism at the United Nations that could reimpose global sanctions on Iran. Their deadline: the end of August, unless Tehran makes tangible progress in nuclear talks with the United States.

The “snapback” mechanism is a special process created alongside the 2015 Iran nuclear deal, formally endorsed by UN Security Council Resolution 2231. Its purpose is to ensure that if Iran seriously violates the deal, the international community can swiftly restore the full set of UN sanctions that existed before the agreement without getting bogged down in great-power vetoes or endless negotiations.

Although “snapback” is a nickname rather than a term in the legal text, it has become the common shorthand for the automatic return of sanctions. The E3 have already notified the UN that they are prepared to use it, a step that could dramatically escalate tensions over Iran’s nuclear program. The mechanism itself is due to expire on October 18, giving the Europeans only a narrow window to act.

How Do UN Sanctions Snap Back?

The nuclear deal, formally known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), includes a dispute process. If a participant in the deal, such as the E3 states, believes Iran is in “significant non-performance,” they can raise the issue through the JCPOA’s built-in mechanisms and ultimately refer it to the UN Security Council.

Once the issue reaches the UNSC, a 30-day clock starts. During those 30 days, the council would need to adopt a new resolution to continue sanctions relief for Iran. If that resolution does not pass in time, the old UN sanctions that were lifted under the 2015 deal automatically come back into force. No further vote is required.

Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi has insisted for weeks that the E3’s legal authority to trigger the mechanism is “highly questionable” because they demand Iran abandon uranium enrichment — which he argues runs contrary to the JCPOA.

Their argument is that the E3 are breaking the deal, and therefore no longer parties to it.

But “there is no merit to this argument,” said Richard Nephew, who served as the lead sanctions expert for the US team that negotiated the JCPOA.

“There is no mechanism by which another JCPOA participant can kick a JCPOA participant out of the agreement,” he told RFE/RL. “The E3 never withdrew like the United States, so they maintain their rights.”

Iran has also threatened to respond, including by withdrawing from the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT).

Iranian diplomats will meet their European counterparts on August 28 in a last-ditch attempt to prevent the mechanism from being triggered.

Why It’s Called ‘Snapback’

A key feature — and the reason it’s called “snapback” — is that the process cannot be blocked by a veto. Normally, one of the five permanent UNSC members could veto a resolution to impose sanctions. Here, the system is reversed: To keep sanctions relief in place, the council must pass a new resolution.

Any veto of that resolution prevents it from passing, and because the default is that sanctions return if no resolution is adopted within 30 days, a veto actually speeds the snapback rather than stopping it. In practice, once a participant triggers the process, it is very difficult to prevent the old sanctions from coming back.

Iran says it is working with China and Russia — both permanent members of the UNSC and parties to the JCPOA — to “stop” the process. That, Nephew says, is not legally possible.

He noted that the only argument Beijing and Moscow can make is that the nuclear deal no longer exists, “but, that’s really, really hard to do.”

What Sanctions Will Return?

If the snapback process is successful, the UN will restore the six Iran-related Security Council resolutions adopted between 2006 and 2010.

These include wide-ranging restrictions such as a UN conventional arms embargo, measures curbing activities related to ballistic missiles capable of delivering nuclear weapons, and an array of asset freezes, travel bans, and other proliferation-related rules.

In practical terms, this means reinstating a broad, UN-backed legal framework that governments, banks, shippers, insurers, and technology providers take seriously.

Will This Affect Iran Much?

Iranian officials have been downplaying the potential impact of renewed UN sanctions, claiming the effects are exaggerated.

Even though the United States already maintains extensive unilateral sanctions that heavily constrain Iran’s economy and energy exports, renewed UN sanctions would still matter.

Nephew argued that Iran’s nuclear and missile trade would be hit hardest. “Both of those things will be illegal, along with the dual use imports that Iran will need to rebuild these programs,” he said.

Iran’s insistence that the sanctions won’t hurt much contrasts with its warnings of retaliation if they are reimposed.

“The sanctions cannot be so bad that they’d withdraw from the NPT and so meaningless as to not matter,” Nephew said.