Category: 2. World

“I HAVE lived pain in all its details and I have tasted pain and loss repeatedly. Despite this, I never hesitated to convey the truth as it is, without distortion or misrepresentation, hoping that God would witness those who remained silent, those who accepted our killing, and those who suffocated our very breaths.” Journalist Anas al-Sharif’s final message was posted on his X account within hours of the targeted Israeli strike that killed him and three of his colleagues in Gaza on Sunday.

The voice of Anas al-Sharif, the Al Jazeera correspondent whose live coverage had informed the world about the ongoing Israeli genocide, has been silenced. But his last message should be enough to prick the conscience of those who have remained quiet, silently accepting the mass killing of Gaza’s hapless people.

Al-Sharif was yet another journalist killed in the line of duty. According to Al Jazeera, shortly before he was killed, he wrote on X that “Israel had launched intense, concentrated bombardment — also known as ‘fire belts’ — on the eastern and southern parts of Gaza City”. He knew he was being targeted but never backed out of his responsibility. Reportedly, he told a colleague: “I will not leave Gaza except to the sky! I will not leave Gaza even if I am killed.”

Al-Sharif had been reporting from Gaza since the Israeli invasion of October 2023, and was on Israel’s hit list. While acknowledging his killing, the Israeli military accused the journalist of being a Hamas operative — not the first time Israel has labelled slain journalists as such.

Al-Sharif had been reporting from Gaza since the invasion and knew he was on Israel’s hit list.

According to the Committee to Protect Journalists, at least 186 journalists have been killed since Israel commenced its military strikes on Gaza after the October 2023 Hamas attack. It has been described as “the deadliest period for journalists since [CPJ] began recording such data in 1992”. “Israel is killing the messengers,” said the CPJ. The Watson School of International and Public Affairs’ Costs of War project recently revealed that the Gaza conflict “has killed more journalists than the US Civil War, World Wars I and II, the Korean War, the Vietnam War … the wars in Yugoslavia in the 1990s and 2000s, and the post 9/11 war in Afghanistan, combined”.

Israel has banned journalists from reporting its genocidal war in Gaza. Most of the reports in the Western media on the Gaza war have come through Israeli military sources, which largely cover up Israel’s war crimes. Al-Sharif’s ‘crime’ was that he had recently been reporting on the starvation caused by Israel’s refusal to allow food and other humanitarian supplies into the devastated territory — for several months now. He reported how Israeli soldiers killed people waiting desperately for food. Some two million people are on the brink of starvation. Hundreds of children have perished because of hunger. In April, António Guterres warned of a catastrophic situation in Gaza. “Gaza is a killing field, and civilians are in an endless death loop,” he asserted.

His comments followed the appeal of the heads of six UN agencies to the world community to take quick action to ensure that food and aid reached the Palestinians. But the international community appears helpless before the impunity of the Zionist state. The scale of killing and devastation seen in Gaza has few precedents in recent times. It could not have happened without the tacit support of the US and some other Western countries. In the words of al-Sharif: “Not even the mangled bodies of our children and women moved their hearts or stopped the massacre that our people have been subjected to for over a year and a half.”

The apathy of the Arab nations, in particular, towards the genocide is no less than abetment of the Zionists’ crime. They are keeping quiet even after the murder of al-Sharif and other journalists, who put their lives in jeopardy to inform the world about Israel’s crimes. They are sitting on the fence even as tens of thousands of Palestinian men, women and children are killed by Israel.

Israel is intensifying its military operation in Gaza as its far-right government recently announced plans to permanently take over the enclave, thus pushing the entire population of the occupied Strip into a concentration camp. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told a press briefing that Israel had “no choice” but to proceed because Hamas had not surrendered. It’s just an excuse for the Zionist state that wants to annex the occupied territory. It may also be the reason why, as Al Jazeera pointed out, the latest killings of journalists by Israeli forces were “a desperate attempt to silence voices in anticipation of the occupation of Gaza”.

Netanyahu’s plan to militarily occupy Gaza will have serious consequences for global peace. According to the UN chief, it “marks a dangerous escalation and risks deepening the already catastrophic consequences for millions of Pales­tinians”. The planned move has raised eyebrows among certain Western countries (including some that had backed Israel’s military offensive). The foreign ministers of Australia, Germany, Italy, New Zealand and the UK condemned Israel’s plan in a joint statement, saying it risked “violating international humanitarian law”.

But the US is silent on Israel’s expansionist plan. Many analysts believe that the plan has the tacit approval of President Donald Trump, who, earlier this year, had suggested the complete evacuation of the population of Gaza to turn the territory into a “Riviera”. The US has also vetoed every resolution in the UN Security Council for a permanent ceasefire in Gaza. No wonder Netanyahu has nominated Trump for the Nobel Peace Prize.

Anas al-Sharif’s murder and last message have heightened public anger across the globe against Israel. But will the international community act now to stop Israel’s genocidal war?

The writer is an author and journalist.
zhussain100@yahoo.com
X: @hidhussain

Published in Dawn, August 13th, 2025

GENEVA: The European Union is ready to do a deal to land a groundbreaking treaty on plastic pollution, but not at any cost, the EU’s environment commissioner insisted on Tuesday.

With little over two days left to strike a global accord in talks at the UN in Geneva, Jessika Roswall said it was “time” to clinch a deal between oil-producing countries and more ambitious nations, including EU states.

Five previous rounds of talks over the past two and a half years have failed to seal an agreement, including a supposedly final round in South Korea late last year.

The current talks in Geneva opened a week ago but are due to close on Thursday. “The EU is ready to do a deal but not at any cost,” Roswall told reporters.

“We do like plastic… and we will continue to need it. However, we don’t like plastic pollution and it’s time to end plastic pollution as quickly as possible,” the commissioner said. She said any treaty should give businesses the certainty of a clear global framework in which to operate.

A cluster of mostly oil-producing states calling themselves the Like-Minded Group — including Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Russia and Iran — want the treaty to focus primarily on waste management.

The EU and others want to go much further by reining in plastic production — which on current trends is set to triple by 2060 — and by phasing out certain especially toxic chemicals.

Danish Environment Minister Magnus Heunicke admitted that the “wide gap” between the rival camps was making the negotiations a challenge but said the work of tackling plastic pollution “will only get harder the longer we wait. So now’s the time”.

“There’s going to be a whole lot more drama in the days to come,” he said, “but our goal is this drama should end up in a deal”, he said, speaking alongside Roswall at the United Nations. He said all parties, including the EU, had to re-examine their red lines and see where they could tweak them in the interests of landing a deal by Thursday. “If we all stick to our red lines then a deal is impossible,” he said.

“So we have to look at those red lines and we have to negotiate and compromise — because we will be worse off if we don’t succeed in making a deal.

Published in Dawn, August 13th, 2025

• Planes, tanks bombard eastern areas of Gaza City overnight
• Five more, including two children, die of starvation and malnutrition
• Hamas leader due in Cairo in bid to salvage ceasefire talks

CAIRO: Israeli planes and tanks kept bombarding eastern areas of Gaza City overnight, killing at least 11 people, witnesses and medics said on Tuesday, with Hamas leader Khalil Al-Hayya due in Cairo for talks to revive a US-backed ceasefire plan.

On Tuesday, Gaza’s health ministry said that 89 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli fire in the past 24 hours.

Meanwhile, five more people, including two children, have died of starvation and malnutrition in Gaza in the past 24 hours, the territory’s health ministry said. The new deaths raised the number of deaths from the same causes to 227, including 103 children, since the war started, it added.

The latest round of indirect talks in Qatar ended in deadlock in late July with Hamas and Israel trading blame over the lack of progress on a US proposal for a 60-day truce and prisoner release deal.

Israel has since said it will launch a new offensive and seize control of Gaza City, which it captured shortly after the war’s outbreak in October 2023 before pulling out.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s plan to expand military control over Gaza, expected to be launched in October, has increased a global outcry over the widespread devastation and a hunger crisis spreading among Gaza’s largely homeless population of over two million.

It has also stirred criticism in Israel, with the military chief of staff warning it could endanger surviving prisoners and prove a death trap for Israeli soldiers. It has also raised fears of further displacement and hardship among the estimated one million Palestinians in the Gaza City region.

A Palestinian official with knowledge of the ceasefire talks said Hamas was prepared to return to the negotiating table, and the leaders who are visiting Cairo on Tuesday would reaffirm that stance.

“Hamas believes negotiation is the only way to end the war and is open to discuss any ideas that would secure an end to the war,” the official, who asked not to be named due to the sensitivity of the matter, told Reuters.

Egypt’s state-affiliated Al Qahera News television said the Hamas delegates have arrived in Egypt “for consultations over ceasefire talks”. However, the gaps between the sides appear to remain wide on key issues, including the extent of any Israeli military withdrawal and demands for Hamas to disarm.

Disarmament conditions

A Hamas official told Reuters on Tuesday, the group was ready to relinquish Gaza governance on behalf of a non-partisan committee, but it wouldn’t drop its arms before a Palestinian state is established.

Netanyahu, whose far-right ultranationalist coalition allies want an outright Israeli takeover and re-settlement of Gaza, has vowed the war will not end until Hamas is eradicated.

Gaza’s health ministry said on Tuesday that 89 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli fire in the past 24 hours. Witnesses and medics said Israeli bombardments overnight killed seven people in two houses in Gaza City’s Zeitoun suburb and another four in an apartment building in the city centre.

In the south of Gaza, five people, including a couple and their child, were killed by an Israeli airstrike on a house in the city of Khan Younis and four others by a strike on a tent encampment in nearby coastal Mawasi, medics said.

The Israeli military said it was looking into the reports of the latest bombardments and that forces take precautions to mitigate civilian harm. Separately, it said on Tuesday that its forces had killed dozens of fighters in north Gaza over the past month and destroyed more tunnels used by fighters in the area.

Published in Dawn, August 13th, 2025

LONDON/STRAS­BOURG: The Elders group of international stateswomen and statesmen for the first time on Tuesday called the situation in Gaza an “unfolding genocide”, saying that Israel’s obstruction of aid was causing a “famine”.

“Today we express our shock and outrage at Israel’s deliberate obst­ruction of the entry of life-saving humanitarian aid into Gaza,” the non-governmental group of public figures, founded by former South Africa president Nelson Mandela in 2007, said in a statement after delegates visited border crossings in Egypt.

“What we saw and heard underlines our personal conviction that there is not only an unfolding, human-caused famine in Gaza. There is an unfolding genocide,” it added.

Helen Clark, former prime minister of New Zealand, called on Israel to open the Rafah border crossing between Egypt and Gaza so aid could be delivered, after visiting the site.

Council of Europe cautions on weapons sale to Israel

“Many new mothers are unable to feed themselves or their newborn babies adequately, and the health system is collapsing,” she said.

“All of this threatens the very survival of an entire generation.” Clark was joined by Mary Robinson, former president of Ireland and former UN High Commi­ssioner for Human Rights, on the visit. She said that international leaders “have the power and the legal obligation to apply measures to pressure this Israeli government to end its atrocity crimes”.

Weapon sales to Israel

The Council of Europe urged its member states on Tuesday to halt deliveries of weapons to Israel if they could be used for human rights violations. Michael O’Flaherty, the Council’s commissioner for human rights, said member states should do “their utmost to prevent and address violations of international human rights” in the conflict.

“This includes applying existing legal standards to ensure that arms transfers are not authorised where there is a risk that they may be used to commit human rights violations,” he said, in a statement.

It was also “essential to intensify efforts to provide relief to those affected by the conflict, by supporting efforts to ensure unhindered access for humanitarian assistance and by pressing for the immediate release of hostages”, O’Flaherty said.

Published in Dawn, August 13th, 2025

UNITED NATIONS:

Underscoring that oceans must remain zones of peace, Pakistan has drawn UN Security Council’s attention to the unchecked naval build-ups, militarization of strategic waters and pursuit of regional influence “through muscle-flexing”, as the 15-member body debated maritime security on Monday.

“Attempts to dominate maritime spaces or marginalize coastal States must be rejected; they are counterproductive”, Ambassador Asim Iftikhar Ahmad, permanent representative of Pakistan, said in the high-level debate convened by Panama, which holds the Council’s presidency for the month of August.

“In some quarters,” he added, “the seas are seen not as a shared domain, but as a stage for asserting primacy.”

Although the Pakistani envoy did not name any country, his comments about naval build-ups and attempts to dominate waterways were seen here as mainly directed at India.

“The oceans connect us all,” Ambassador Asim Iftikhar told delegates. “As a coastal State at the confluence of major sea lanes in the northern Arabian Sea, Pakistan accords the highest importance to a secure, rules-based maritime domain—critical to our national security, economic resilience, regional connectivity, and food and energy security.”

Volodymyr Zelenskyy has said Ukraine could not agree to a Russian proposal to give up more of his country’s territory in exchange for a ceasefire because Moscow would use what it gained as a springboard to start a future war.

The Ukrainian president said he did not believe that Donald Trump supported Russia’s demands, and he expressed hope the US leader would act as an honest mediator when he meets Vladimir Putin in Alaska on Friday.

He added there was no sign that Russia was preparing to implement a ceasefire, as reports emerged that small sabotage groups had pierced Ukrainian defences in the eastern Donbas, advancing about six miles in three days. Zelenskyy also warned that Russia was planning new offensives on three parts of the frontline.

Speaking to journalists in the run-up to the Trump-Putin summit, and a day before a virtual meeting with US and European leaders, Zelenskyy said he believed Putin wanted to dominate his country because he “does not want a sovereign Ukraine”.

It was therefore dangerous, Zelenskyy said, for Ukraine to be forced by the US into accepting Russia’s demand to take over the parts of Donbas it does not control after the Alaska summit. The region sought by Russia amounted to “about 90,000 square kilometres” of the country, he said.

Last week Russia indicated it was prepared to consider a ceasefire in the Ukraine war for the first time, in exchange for Ukraine withdrawing from the parts of Donbas it still controlled. Though Trump then suggested that Russia and Ukraine could engage in some “swapping of territories”, Zelenskyy said he understood that Russia was “simply offering not to advance further, not to withdraw from anywhere” and that swaps were not on the table.

Map

“We will not leave Donbas. We cannot do it,” Zelenskyy said. “For Russians, Donbas is a springboard for a future new offensive.” The region demanded by Russia was too strategically important to give up, he said, because it was a heavily fortified area that protected Ukraine’s central cities.

“I have heard nothing – not a single proposal – that would guarantee that a new war will not start tomorrow and that Putin will not try to occupy at least Dnipro, Zaporizhzhia and Kharkiv” once Russia had gained all of Donbas, Zelenskyy said.

Ukraine’s leader said he wanted Putin instead to agree to a ceasefire on the current frontlines and for both sides to return all prisoners of war and missing children, before any discussion about territory and the future security of the country. “Any question of territory cannot be separated from security guarantees,” he said.

Zelenskyy said he would not be at the summit in Alaska, the first face-to-face meeting between Trump and Putin with both in office since 2018. But he said he hoped it would be followed by “a trilateral meeting” with Trump and Putin, though the Russian leader has so far said he is not willing to meet Zelenskyy.

The Ukrainian leader also expressed faith in the unpredictable Trump, who he said could act as an honest broker between himself and Putin. “I do not believe that Putin’s proposal is Trump’s proposal,” he said. “I believe that Trump represents the United States of America. He is acting as a mediator – he is in the middle, not on Russia’s side. Let him not be on our side but in the middle.”

He said he did not know what exactly Putin and Trump were going to discuss in Alaska, saying “probably there is a bilateral track” of talks about other topics of mutual interest, such as trade, sanctions and business. But he said Putin had scored a diplomatic win in securing the meeting: “He is seeking, excuse me, photographs. He needs a photo of his meeting with President Trump.”

Zelenskyy said Russia was desperately trying to show it was winning the war and that the Kremlin wanted “to create a certain narrative, especially in the American media, that Russia is moving forward and Ukraine is losing” by mounting sabotage attacks in the Donbas region.

He acknowledged that “groups of Russians advanced about 10 kilometres in several places” although he said: “They have no equipment, only weapons in their hands,” and said that some had already been killed or captured.

But the breach is ill-timed from Ukraine’s point of view. In Alaska, Putin is likely to tell Trump that such successes show that Russia is gradually winning the three-year war in the east, and so US future support for Kyiv will be wasted.

Map showing Russian advances

War maps showed two lines of advance east of the town of Dobropillya, and gains of about six miles since Friday. Experts said the next few days would be critical to see if Ukraine could contain the break in the front.

Ukraine’s military said Russia had concentrated about 110,000 troops in the sector and that the invaders were “brazenly attempting to infiltrate our defensive lines with sabotage and small infantry groups, regardless of their losses”.

The military command said in a social media post that reserves had been deployed at the order of Gen Oleksandr Syrskyi, Ukraine’s chief military commander, in an effort to restore the frontlines.

The Institute for the Study of War said Russian “sabotage and reconnaissance groups” had infiltrated Ukrainian-held territory near Dobropillya, a key supply point in the west of the Donetsk region.

“It is premature to call the Russian advances in the Dobropillya area an operational-level breakthrough,” the ISW said on Monday night. It said the invaders would now try to turn “tactical advances” into something more significant.

Russia is taking heavy casualties of about 1,000 a day, with 500 killed and 500 wounded on Monday, Zelenskyy said, as it relies heavily on infantry assaults to break Kyiv’s defensive lines.

Zelenskyy said Ukraine’s casualties on the same day were much smaller – a total of 340 – “18 killed and 243 wounded, with 79 missing in action”. But in the past when Moscow’s forces have broken through, Ukraine has frequently proved unable to push them back.

A former senior Ukrainian army officer, Bohdan Krotevych, said the piercing of Ukraine’s lines had come about because “instead of reinforcing defensive units with infantry”, senior commanders in Kyiv had prioritised deploying newly mobilised soldiers into assault forces, leaving units already on the frontline weakened.

“To stabilise the front, we must reinforce brigades on the line of contact with infantry,” Krotevych said, and he called for Ukraine to urgently strengthen its reserve forces and adopt a defensive strategy rather than try to counter high-risk Russian infantry assaults with its own.

Dobropillya is a key supply point for the beleaguered towns of Pokrovsk and Myrnohrad to the south and the principal cities of Ukrainian-held Donbas to the east from the centre of the country.

Zelenskyy said Russia was preparing a fresh offensive in the autumn involving nearly 30,000 troops moved from Sumy, in the north-east of Ukraine, “in three directions” on the frontline – towards Zaporizhzhia in the south and Pokrovsk and the nearby Novopavlika in the south-east.

As Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin prepare to meet in Alaska on August 15th in a historic summit, tensions are building. On the front lines in Ukraine, Russian forces have been advancing in Donetsk amid bloody fighting, in an apparent push by the Kremlin to secure terrain and squeeze Ukraine ahead of the talks. After months of escalation, threats and U-turns, Mr Trump’s position on Ukraine is unclear, with the president muddying the waters further with contradictory statements on August 11th. He has put heat on the Kremlin by imposing an extra 25% tariff on India for its purchases of Russian oil, yet has also horrified Ukraine by suggesting it will have to cede more territory in any deal. Two competing White House envoys have been scrambling America’s diplomatic position, creating chaos.

A disturbing video recently went viral on social media, claiming to show a marine trainer named Jessica Radcliffe being violently attacked and killed by an orca during a live marine park show. The clip, shared across multiple platforms, was convincing enough to spark outrage and fear among viewers.

However, fact-checking investigations by outlets including IB Times and Vocal Media confirm the video is entirely fabricated. No credible news reports, marine park employment records, or public documents show that Radcliffe ever existed, let alone that such an attack occurred.

Experts identified the footage as AI-generated, warning how quickly misinformation can spread once emotional and graphic imagery takes hold online.
While sensationalized stories like the Radcliffe hoax paint orcas as relentless killers, research documented by National Geographic reveals a surprising truth: in the wild, these apex predators can form complex, even friendly relationships with other species, including animals they could easily kill.

Dolphins voluntarily seek the company of killer whales

In British Columbia’s icy coastal waters, scientists have recorded Pacific white-sided dolphins actively swimming alongside certain types of killer whales, specifically, fish-eating northern and southern resident pods, and the killer whales are allowing it.
These orcas feed exclusively on salmon and pose no threat to dolphins, unlike Bigg’s killer whales, which hunt marine mammals.
Using drone footage, researchers from the Coastal Ocean Research Institute have documented these interactions lasting minutes to weeks.
Orca calves sometimes chase dolphins playfully, while adults may flick their tails in annoyance, but the dolphins remain undeterred, weaving confidently among the giants.

A survival strategy in disguise

Experts believe this unlikely alliance may be strategic. By associating with resident orcas, dolphins could be using them as a shield against their mammal-hunting cousins.

Bigg’s killer whales tend to avoid the more vocal resident pods, making dolphin–resident orca encounters a potential life-saving tactic.

The relationship isn’t equal; dolphins gain protection, but resident orcas show little obvious benefit.

Still, their tolerance hints at a mutual understanding shaped by intelligence, social complexity, and perhaps even shared family ties; both species belong to the Delphinidae family.

These findings counterbalance the viral fear-mongering of the Radcliffe hoax. While orcas are powerful predators capable of lethal attacks, they are also social, intelligent animals whose behavior depends on species type, environmental context, and long-standing ecological relationships.