Category: 2. World

  • Secretary-General’s remarks at the Plenary Meeting on the International Day for the Total Elimination of Nuclear Weapons [as delivered]

    We gather under a shadow that should have been lifted long ago.

    A threat born of human design – and prolonged by human folly.

    Nuclear weapons continue to menace our world.

    And despite decades of promises, we see this threat is accelerating and evolving.

    Last month, the world marked eighty years since the devastation of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

    Every day since then, the hibakusha – the survivors – turned their suffering into a call for peace.

    They were awarded the Nobel Peace Prize – and have stirred the global conscience. 

    And yet every day, we see newer and even more dangerous weapons.

    Nuclear testing threats returning.

    Norms eroding.

    Dialogue fading.

    And the nuclear saber rattling – louder than in past decades.

    Hard-won progress – reductions in arsenals, the cessation of testing – these are being undone before our eyes.

    We are sleepwalking into a new nuclear arms race.

    More complex, more unpredictable, and even more dangerous.

    New technologies and new domains of conflict have erased the margin for error.

    From cyberspace to outer space, from hypersonic missiles to deep sea drones, the risks of escalation and miscalculation are multiplying.

    This is not just a crisis of weapons.

    It is a crisis of memory, responsibility, and courage.

    That is why I have appointed an Independent Scientific Panel to assess the effects of nuclear war.

    The Panel has a mandate to ensure that our collective response to nuclear risk is grounded in rigorous scientific evidence.

    Excellencies,

    We must reject the myth that disarmament depends on the so-called “right” conditions.

    Article VI of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty makes no such exception.

    Disarmament is not the reward for peace – it is the foundation of peace.

    We know the total elimination of nuclear weapons will not happen overnight.

    But it will never happen if we keep waiting for perfect conditions.

    No more excuses.

    No more delays.

    No more ignoring legal obligations.  

    No more abandoning future generations.

    States that possess nuclear weapons must return to dialogue.

    They must adopt and implement transparency and confidence-building measures to prevent catastrophic miscalculation.

    They must also ensure that humans always retain full responsibility and accountability for any decision to use nuclear weapons.

    State parties must also honour their commitments under the NPT.

    I call on every State to ratify the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty, ending once and for all and for all the dark legacy of nuclear tests.

    And every State must support the victims of nuclear use and testing – and confront the enduring harm: poisoned lands, chronic illness, and lasting trauma.

    I urge the United States and the Russian Federation to negotiate further arsenal reductions.

    These steps alone will not build a world without nuclear weapons.

    But without them, we surrender our future to fear – and silence the promise of peace.

    If we falter now, we condemn future generations to live forever under the shadow of our mistakes.

    On this International Day for the Total Elimination of Nuclear Weapons, let us make long needed progress to forge a world free of these weapons of extinction.

    Let us build that world together – with courage, conviction and concrete action.

    Thank you.
     

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  • Netanyahu says backing Palestinian state sends message: Murdering Jews pays off – Reuters

    1. Netanyahu says backing Palestinian state sends message: Murdering Jews pays off  Reuters
    2. Does international recognition mean Palestine is going to be a state?  Al Jazeera
    3. Live: Netanyahu criticizes countries recognizing Palestinian state as ‘sheer madness’  Reuters
    4. What to know ahead of the UN summit on the Question of Palestine  UN News
    5. Politics latest: Starmer says the UK is at a ‘crossroads’ and there is a ‘battle for the soul of this country’  Sky News

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  • Live updates: Delegates walk out on Netanyahu speech at UN General Assembly

    Live updates: Delegates walk out on Netanyahu speech at UN General Assembly

    Majd Alshaghnobi was waiting to collect flour, like so many children in northern Gaza, when Israeli shrapnel tore through his face in February 2024, inflicting a blast injury on his jaw and lower mouth.

    “Someone had dragged me and took me to safety,” the 15 year old told CNN.

    Palestinian doctors whisked him away before sewing up his wounds in a kitchen because there were not enough operating rooms at Al-Ahli Baptist Hospital in Gaza City — in a scene of improvisation replicated across the strip. Majd then trekked alone through razed neighborhoods and military checkpoints before reuniting with his mother in the southern city of Khan Younis.

    In July, he became the third child from Gaza to enter the United Kingdom in a private medical evacuation facilitated by the NGO Project Pure Hope, with support from the non-profit Gaza Kinder Relief.

    From the morgue to the operating room: Majd’s fight to smile again

    03:23

    Five months prior, Majd had left the enclave through Egypt with his mother, Islam Felfel, his younger brother, Nader, 10, and his sister, Rahaf, 7, during a ceasefire.

    On Tuesday, Majd underwent facial reconstruction surgery in London, days after the British government announced a scheme to facilitate the safe arrival of ill children from Gaza.

    But relief and medical workers say it is not enough — warning that Majd’s ordeal offers a rare insight into the horrors of Israel’s war for children in Gaza. More than 50,000 children have been killed or injured, according to the UN’s children’s agency.

    Read more about Majd and the plight of children in Gaza.

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  • Indian police detain activist after deadly Ladakh protests – World

    Indian police detain activist after deadly Ladakh protests – World

    Indian police on Friday detained prominent activist Sonam Wangchuk over violent protests in the Himalayan territory of Ladakh that left at least five people dead, a lawyer said.

    Demonstrations demanding greater political autonomy for the sparsely populated, high-altitude region bordering China and Pakistan turned deadly on Wednesday when security forces opened fire.

    New Delhi blamed the unrest on “provocative speeches” by Wangchuk, who had been on a hunger strike demanding either full federal statehood for Ladakh or constitutional protections for its tribal communities, land and fragile environment.

    Mustafa Haji, a lawyer for the Apex Body Leh — which is spearheading the protests — told AFP that Wangchuk was “picked up” by the police from his village of Uley Tokpo on Friday.

    “Charges against him are not known yet,” Haji said.

    An engineer by training, Wangchuk, 59, is best known for pioneering water conservation projects in the Himalayas.

    He received the prestigious Ramon Magsaysay Award in 2018 for his environmental work and contributions to reforming local schooling in Ladakh.
    His life and work are said to have inspired a character played by Bollywood star Aamir Khan in the hugely popular movie Three Idiots.

    Wangchuk, who is a vocal advocate for Ladakh’s environmental protection and tribal rights, was briefly detained by Delhi Police last year during a protest march. Indian authorities on Thursday cancelled his non-profit organisation’s foreign funding licence.

    Pakistan’s Foreign Office (FO) said today that it is monitoring the situation.

    “The developments that unfolded in Leh, Indian Illegally Occupied Jammu and Kashmir, are extremely disturbing,” the FO told Dawn.com. They demonstrate the Indian authorities’ willingness to go to any extent to curb a protest. They are also another manifestation of India’s iron-fisted approach in that occupied territory.“

    Modi’s government split Ladakh off from occupied Kashmir in 2019, imposing direct rule on both.

    New Delhi has yet to fulfil its promise to include Ladakh in the “Sixth Schedule” of India’s constitution, which allows people to make their own laws and policies.

    India’s army maintains a large presence in Ladakh, which includes disputed border areas with China. Troops from the two countries clashed there in 2020, killing at least 20 Indian and four Chinese soldiers.

    Additional reporting by Abdullah Momand

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  • As Trump’s H-1B Visa Fee Targets Foreign Workers, China Woos Them – The New York Times

    1. As Trump’s H-1B Visa Fee Targets Foreign Workers, China Woos Them  The New York Times
    2. H1B visa controversy: From brain drain to brain gain  Organiser
    3. K-visa tempts, H-1B tests patience: Where should STEM grads head next?  Times of India
    4. After US raises H1B fee, China says it welcomes global talent for technological, economic progress  ANI News
    5. China introduces K-visa for STEM specialists  Buch-dein-Visum.de

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  • Israeli PM Netanyahu to address UN after Trump says he ‘won’t allow’ him to annex West Bank – live updates

    Israeli PM Netanyahu to address UN after Trump says he ‘won’t allow’ him to annex West Bank – live updates

    What’s the latest in Gaza?published at 13:40 BST

    Image source, Getty Images

    The war in Gaza has been going on for nearly two years.

    Israeli forces are nearing the centre of Gaza City, which Israel describes as the “last stronghold of Hamas”.

    The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) estimated last week that up to 3,000 Hamas fighters were in the city.

    Meanwhile the BBC has spoken to a Hamas figure who claims the militant group is willing to call thousands of fighters into the city, raising the fear of intense fighting in dense urban areas where thousands of civilians remain.

    On Wednesday, local hospitals reported that more than 80 Palestinians were killed by Israeli fire.

    The Israeli military said it struck two Hamas fighters and that the number of casualties did not align with its own information.

    And, over the past day, the IDF says it has struck over 140 Hamas targets throughout the Strip.

    In its latest update yesterday, Gaza’s Hamas-run health ministry says 83 people have been killed and 216 injured in the last 24 hours across the Strip. This brings the total number killed since 7 October 2023 to 65,502, it says.

    As a reminder, International journalists have been banned by Israel from entering the Gaza Strip independently since the start of the war nearly two years ago, making verifying claims from both sides difficult.

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  • Indian police arrest activist Wangchuk after deadly Ladakh protests – Reuters

    1. Indian police arrest activist Wangchuk after deadly Ladakh protests  Reuters
    2. ‘Bloodiest day’: How Gen-Z protest wave hit India’s Ladakh, killing four  Al Jazeera
    3. India imposes curfew in Ladakh after statehood protests turn violent  BBC
    4. Sonam Wangchuk’s Journey From Real ‘Phunsukh Wangdu’ To Activist Under Lens  NDTV
    5. Indian police detain activist after deadly Ladakh protests  Dawn

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  • Tehran, Moscow sign $25 bn deal to build nuclear plants in Iran: state media

    Tehran, Moscow sign $25 bn deal to build nuclear plants in Iran: state media

    Son of Lebanon’s slain Hezbollah chief says his father’s final days were filled with rage


    BEIRUT: This time last year, Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah was consumed by rage over Israel’s detonation of pagers worn by members of his group throughout Lebanon, according to his son. Days later, Nasrallah himself was assassinated by Israel.

    The pager explosions and Nasrallah’s killing in an Israeli air attack on the southern suburbs of Beirut in September 2024 turned out to be the opening salvos of an Israeli assault that killed more than 4,000 people across Lebanon and destroyed swathes of the country’s south.

    The war, which Israel said it conducted to end Hezbollah’s cross-border attacks in support of its ally Hamas in Gaza, shook Hezbollah’s hold on power in Lebanon, where the group is now under pressure to give up its arms.

    Those developments were unimaginable a year ago when Hezbollah’s then-leader was confronted with the major intelligence breach in the communication devices that killed dozens of the group’s members and maimed thousands of others.

    “He was upset, angry, resentful – there was a lot of resentment and thinking, ‘How could this happen?’ He considered himself entrusted with those lives,” Jawad Nasrallah, Nasrallah’s second-oldest son, told Reuters in an interview at his father’s grave.

    Security was tight around Nasrallah at the time. Jawad, like more than a million Lebanese, had been displaced by Israeli air strikes and had not seen his father for three months.

    “You can say we took it day by day. Nothing was certain,” Jawad said.

    Nasrallah’s last televised speech was on September 19. Eight days later, a string of Israeli bunker-busting bombs on a Hezbollah complex in Beirut’s southern suburbs killed Nasrallah, who had led the powerful Shiite religious, political and military group for more than 30 years.

    “We found out on the news like everyone else. It was shocking but we couldn’t cry — no one in the house could scream or express their feelings,” Jawad said, explaining that other tenants in the apartment building where they were temporarily staying were unaware of their links to the Hezbollah leader.

    At the time, Israeli strikes targeted displaced Shiite Muslims dozens of kilometers from Lebanon’s southern border, raising the specter of civil war as Sunni or Christian towns regarded fleeing Shiite Muslims with open suspicion.

    “We felt a moment of alienation like everyone else, in addition to the horrors of that time, which was terrible for everyone: war, bombing, brutality — and on top of that, alienation,” Jawad said.

    With Israel escalating strikes across Lebanon and sending ground troops into its south, Nasrallah’s body could not be moved into a morgue for several days before a temporary burial. A formal ceremony was held months later during a truce.

    The war with Israel that left Hezbollah badly weakened was followed by the toppling of the group’s Syrian ally Bashar Assad and a new government in Lebanon that has pledged to enforce a state monopoly on all arms.

    Hezbollah has refused to give up its arsenal — a stance that Jawad, a businessman with no formal position in the group but who is sanctioned by the US, reiterated.

    “Never in your fantasies or dreams,” he said, adding that he still asks his father for guidance.

    “I ask him to solve some dilemmas. I tell him: ‘You have to solve this problem for us and help me with it,’” he said.

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  • Erdogan hails 'meaningful progress' in his talks with Trump – Reuters

    1. Erdogan hails ‘meaningful progress’ in his talks with Trump  Reuters
    2. Trump urges Turkey’s Erdogan to stop buying Russian oil  Dawn
    3. Trump administration latest: Former FBI Director Comey indicted  CNN
    4. President Erdogan hails UN support for Palestine, says talks with Trump ‘constructive’  TRT World
    5. Trump urges Erdogan to stop buying Russian oil as they meet at White House  BBC

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  • China, Taiwan, Viet Nam, Thailand – Tropical cyclone RAGASA, update (GDACS, NOAA South Asia, IFRC, media) (ECHO Daily Flash of 26 September 2025) – ReliefWeb

    1. China, Taiwan, Viet Nam, Thailand – Tropical cyclone RAGASA, update (GDACS, NOAA South Asia, IFRC, media) (ECHO Daily Flash of 26 September 2025)  ReliefWeb
    2. Social media footage shows water smashing through Hong Kong hotel  BBC
    3. Typhoon Ragasa takes aim at China after leaving 14 dead in Taiwan, lashing Hong Kong  Dawn
    4. Hong Kong and southern Guangdong reopen after world’s most powerful cyclone Ragasa  Reuters
    5. Super Typhoon Ragasa kills 14 in Taiwan as Hong Kong braces for impact: Live updates  The Independent

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