Category: 2. World

NEW DELHI (AP) — The men shared bear hugs, showered praise on each other and made appearances side by side at stadium rallies — a big optics boost for two populist leaders with ideological similarities. Each called the other a good friend.

In India, the bonhomie between Prime Minister Narendra Modi and U.S. President Donald Trump was seen as a relationship like no other. That is, until a series of events gummed up the works.

From Trump’s tariffs and India’s purchase of oil from Russia to a U.S. tilt toward Pakistan, friction between New Delhi and Washington has been hard to miss. And much of it has happened far from the corridors of power and, unsurprisingly, through Trump’s posts on social media.

It has left policy experts wondering whether the camaraderie the two leaders shared may be a thing of the past, even though Trump has stopped short of referring to Modi directly on social media. The dip in rapport, some say, puts a strategic bilateral relationship built over decades at risk.

“This is a testing time for the relationship,” said Ashok Malik, a former policy adviser in India’s Foreign Ministry.

The White House did not immediately respond to a message seeking comment.

Simmering tensions over trade and tariffs

The latest hiccup between India and the U.S. emerged last week when Trump announced that he was slapping 25% tariffs on India as well as an unspecified penalty because of India’s purchasing of Russian oil. For New Delhi, such a move from its largest trading partner is expected to be felt across sectors, but it also led to a sense of unease in India — even more so when Trump, on social media, called India’s economy “dead.”

Trump’s recent statements reflect his frustration with the pace of trade talks with India, according to a White House official who was not authorized to speak publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity to describe internal administration thinking. The Republican president has not been pursuing any strategic realignment with Pakistan, according to the official, but is instead trying to play hardball in negotiations.

Trump doubled down on the pressure Monday with a fresh post on Truth Social, in which he accused India of buying “massive amounts” of oil from Russia and then “selling it on the Open Market for big profits.”

“They don’t care how many people in Ukraine are being killed by the Russian War Machine. Because of this, I will be substantially raising the Tariff paid by India to the USA,” he said.

The messaging appears to have stung Modi’s administration, which has been hard-selling negotiations with Trump’s team over a trade deal by balancing between India’s protectionist system while also opening up the country’s market to more American goods.

“Strenuous, uninterrupted and bipartisan efforts in both capitals over the past 25 years are being put at risk by not just the tariffs but by fast and loose statements and social media posts,” said Malik, who now heads the India chapter of The Asia Group, a U.S. advisory firm .

Malik also said the trade deal the Indian side has offered to the U.S. is the “most expansive in this country’s history,” referring to reports that India was willing to open up to some American agricultural products. That is a politically sensitive issue for Modi, who faced a yearlong farmers’ protest a few years ago.

Trump appears to be tilting toward Pakistan

The unraveling may have gained momentum over tariffs, but the tensions have been palpable for a while. Much of it has to do with Trump growing closer to Pakistan, India’s nuclear rival in the neighborhood.

In May, India and Pakistan traded a series of military strikes over a gun massacre in disputed Kashmir that New Delhi blamed Islamabad for. Pakistan denied the accusations. The four-day conflict made the possibility of a nuclear conflagration between the two sides seem real and the fighting only stopped when global powers intervened.

But it was Trump’s claims of mediation and an offer to work to provide a “solution” regarding the dispute over Kashmir that made Modi’s administration uneasy. Since then, Trump has repeated nearly two dozen times that he brokered peace between India and Pakistan.

For Modi, that is a risky — even nervy — territory. Domestically, he has positioned himself as a leader who is tough on Pakistan. Internationally, he has made huge diplomatic efforts to isolate the country. So Trump’s claims cut a deep wound, prompting a sense in India that the U.S. may no longer be its strategic partner.

India insists that Kashmir is India’s internal issue and had opposed any third-party intervention. Last week Modi appeared to dismiss Trump’s claims after India’s Opposition began demanding answers from him. Modi said that “no country in the world stopped” the fighting between India and Pakistan, but he did not name Trump.

Trump has also appeared to be warming up to Pakistan, even praising its counterterrorism efforts. Hours after levying tariffs on India, Trump announced a “massive” oil exploration deal with Pakistan, saying that some day, India might have to buy oil from Islamabad. Earlier, he also hosted one of Pakistan’s top military officials at a private lunch.

Sreeram Sundar Chaulia, an expert at New Delhi’s Jindal School of International Affairs, said Trump’s sudden admiration for Pakistan as a great partner in counterterrorism has “definitely soured” the mood in India.

Chaulia said “the best-case scenario is that this is just a passing Trump whim,” but he also warned that “if financial and energy deals are indeed being struck between the U.S. and Pakistan, it will dent the U.S.-India strategic partnership and lead to loss of confidence in the U.S. in Indian eyes.”

India’s oil purchases from Russia are an irritant

The strain in relations has also to do with oil.

India had faced strong pressure from the Biden administration to cut back its oil purchases from Moscow during the early months of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Instead, India bought more, making it the second-biggest buyer of Russian oil after China. That pressure sputtered over time and the U.S. focused more on building strategic ties with India, which is seen as a bulwark against a rising China.

Trump’s threat to penalize India over oil, however, brought back those issues.

On Sunday, the Trump administration made its frustrations over ties between India and Russia ever more public. Stephen Miller, deputy chief of staff at the White House, accused India of financing Russia’s war in Ukraine by purchasing oil from Moscow, saying it was “not acceptable.”

Miller’s remarks were followed by another Trump social media post on Monday in which he again threatened to raise tariffs on goods from India over its Russian oil purchases.

“India is not only buying massive amounts of Russian Oil, they are then, for much of the Oil purchased, selling it on the Open Market for big profits. They don’t care how many people in Ukraine are being killed by the Russian War Machine,” Trump wrote.

Some experts, though, suspect Trump’s remarks are mere pressure tactics. “Given the wild fluctuations in Trump’s policies,” Chaulia said, “it may return to high fives and hugs again.”

India says it will safeguard its interests

Many expected India to react strongly over Trump’s tariff threats considering Modi’s carefully crafted reputation of strength. Instead, the announcement prompted a rather careful response from India’s commerce minister, Piyush Goyal, who said the two countries are working toward a “fair, balanced and mutually beneficial bilateral trade agreement.”

Initially, India’s Foreign Ministry also played down suggestions of any strain. But in a statement late Monday, it called Trump’s criticism “unjustified and unreasonable” and said it will take “all necessary measures to safeguard its national interests and economic security.”

It said India began importing oil from Russia because traditional supplies were diverted to Europe after the outbreak of the Ukraine conflict, calling it a “necessity compelled by global market situation.”

The statement also noted U.S. trade with Russia.

“It is revealing that the very nations criticizing India are themselves indulging in trade with Russia,” the statement said.

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Associated Press writer Michelle L. Price in Washington contributed reporting.

Netanyahu’s war cabinet set to approve military operations across entire enclave, according to Israeli media.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is set to announce plans to fully occupy the Gaza Strip, Israeli media have reported.

Netanyahu’s decision will see the Israeli military expand its operations across the entire enclave, including areas where Hamas’s captives are being held, i24NEWS, The Jerusalem Post, Channel 12 and Ynet reported on Monday.

“The decision has been made,” Amit Sega, chief political analyst with Channel 12, quoted an unnamed senior official in Netanyahu’s office as saying.

“Hamas won’t release more hostages without total surrender, and we won’t surrender. If we don’t act now, the hostages will starve to death and Gaza will remain under Hamas’s control.”

The Palestinian Ministry of Foreign Affairs condemned the reported plans and called on the international community to “intervene urgently to prevent their implementation, whether they are a form of pressure, trial balloons to gauge international reactions, or genuinely serious”.

Netanyahu’s office did not immediately respond to Al Jazeera’s request for comment.

The reports come as Netanyahu is set to convene his war cabinet on Tuesday to discuss the next steps for Israel’s military in Gaza as its war in the besieged enclave nears the two-year mark.

Netanyahu is facing growing international pressure to allow more humanitarian aid into Gaza and halt the war amid mounting Palestinian deaths due to malnutrition and Israeli attacks.

At least 74 Palestinians, including 36 aid seekers, were killed in Israeli attacks on Monday, according to medical sources in Gaza.

The Israeli leader is also facing mounting domestic pressure to secure the release of Hamas’s remaining captives in Gaza, following the release of footage of detainees Rom Braslavski and Evyatar David appearing emaciated.

Netanyahu on Monday doubled down on his war goals, including eliminating Hamas and securing the release of the remaining captives.

“We must continue to stand together and fight together to achieve all our war objectives: the defeat of the enemy, the release of our hostages, and the assurance that Gaza will no longer pose a threat to Israel,” Netanyahu said at the start of a regular cabinet meeting on Monday.

Senior Hamas official Osama Hamdan on Monday accused the United States and other Western countries of turning a blind eye to Israeli atrocities, and said that Netanyahu’s government bore “full responsibility” for the lives of the captives “due to its stubbornness, arrogance, and evasion of reaching a ceasefire agreement, and the escalation of the war of extermination and starvation against our people”.

More than 60,930 Palestinians, including at least 18,430 children, have been killed in Gaza since October 2023, according to Gaza health authorities.

Forty-nine captives, including 27 who are believed to be dead, are still being held by Hamas, according to Israeli authorities.

AP
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Afghanistan is seeing its sharpest-ever surge of child malnutrition, the World Food Programme said Monday, adding it needed $539 million to help the country’s most vulnerable families.

Almost 10 million people, a quarter of Afghanistan’s population, face acute food insecurity. One in three children is stunted.

The WFP said the rise in child malnutrition was linked to a drop in emergency food assistance over the past two years because of dwindling donor support. In April, the administration of US President Donald Trump cut off food aid to Afghanistan, one of the world’s poorest countries.

The US had been the largest funder of the WFP, providing $4.5 billion of the $9.8 billion in donations last year. Previous US administrations viewed such aid as serving national security by alleviating conflict, poverty, extremism and curbing migration.

Food insecurity in Afghanistan is being worsened by mass returns from neighboring countries, which are deporting foreigners they say are living there illegally.

The WFP said it has supported 60,000 Afghans returning from Iran in the last two months, a fraction of those crossing the border.

“Going forward, the WFP does not have sufficient funding to cover the returnee response at this time and requires $15 million to assist all eligible returnees from Iran,” said WFP Communications Officer Ziauddin Safi. He said the agency needs $539 million through January to help vulnerable families across Afghanistan.

Climate change is also hurting the population, especially those in rural areas.

Matiullah Khalis, head of the National Environmental Protection Agency, said last week that drought, water shortages, declining arable land, and flash floods were having a “profound impact” on people’s lives and the economy.

• Say conflict is leading Israel to ‘lose its security, identity’
• Aid seekers among 19 more killed over 24 hours

JERUSALEM: More than 600 retired Israeli security officials have urged US President Donald Trump to pressure their own government to end the war in Gaza.

“It is our professional judgement that Hamas no longer poses a strategic threat to Israel,” the former officials wrote in an open letter shared with the media on Monday, calling on Trump to “steer” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s decisions.

“At first this war was a just war, a defensive war, but when we achieved all military objectives, this war ceased to be a just war,” said Ami Ayalon, former director of the Shin Bet security service.

The war, nearing its 23rd month, “is leading the State of Israel to lose its security and identity,” Ayalon warned in a video released to accompany the letter.

The letter was signed by three former Mossad heads: Tamir Pardo, Efraim Halevy and Danny Yatom.

Other signatories include five former heads of Shin Bet — Ayalon as well as Nadav Argaman, Yoram Cohen, Yaakov Peri and Carmi Gilon — and three former military chiefs of staff, including former prime minister Ehud Barak, former defence minister Moshe Yaalon and Dan Halutz.

The letter argued that the Israeli military “has long accomplished the two objectives that could be achieved by force: dismantling Hamas’s military formations and governance.”

It added that the third, and most important, could only be achieved through a deal: bringing all the Israeli prisoners home.

In the letter, the former officials tell Trump that he has credibility with the majority of Israelis and can put pressure on Netanyahu to end the war and return the prisoners.

In recent weeks Israel has come under increasing international pressure to agree to a ceasefire that could free Israeli prisoners and allow UN agencies to distribute humanitarian aid.

But some in Israel, including ministers in Netanyahu’s coalition government, are instead pushing for Israeli forces to push on and for Gaza to be occupied in whole or in part.

Israel’s war goals

Meanwhile, Prime Minister Netanyahu promised on Monday to update Israel’s Gaza war plan, a day before a UN Security Council meeting on the fate of prisoners still held in the Palestinian territory.

Addressing a cabinet meeting nearly 22 months into the war, the Israeli leader told ministers that later in the week he would instruct the military on how “to achieve the three war objectives we have set”.

Israel — backed by the United States and Panama — is preparing to convene a UN Security Council meeting on Tuesday to highlight the fate of the prisoners.

At the weekly cabinet meeting, Netanyahu reiterated that Israel’s three war goals remain “the defeat of the enemy”, the release of prisoners and the “promise that Gaza will no longer pose a threat to Israel”.

The UN session was called after Palestinian groups published last week three videos showing prisoners Rom Braslavski and Evyatar David appearing weak and emaciated.

Netanyahu said he had asked the International Committee of the Red Cross to provide food and medical treatment to the Israeli prisoners.

Hamas has said it was willing to allow access to the prisoners in exchange for opening aid corridors into all of Gaza.

‘We are starving’

Israel’s assault in Gaza has killed at least 60,933 people, also mostly civilians, according to figures from the Hamas-run territory’s health ministry, which are deemed reliable by the UN.

Gaza’s civil defence agency said Israeli fire on Monday killed at least 19 Palestinians, including nine who were waiting to collect food aid from a site in central Gaza.

In Gaza City, Umm Osama Imad was mourning a relative she said was killed while trying to reach an aid distribution point.

“We are starving… He went to bring flour for his family,” she said. “The flour is stained with blood. We don’t want the flour anymore. Enough!”

Further south, in Deir el-Balah, Abdullah Abu Musa told AFP his daughter and her family were killed in an Israeli strike.

Published in Dawn, August 5th, 2025

The US state department has prepared plans to impose bonds as high as $15,000 for some tourism and business visas, according to a draft of a temporary final rule.

The bonds would be issued to visitors from countries with significant overstay rates, under a 12-month pilot program.

It renews an initiative issued by the first Trump administration in November 2020, the month that Joe Biden defeated Donald Trump in the presidential election. That rule would have required a $15,000 bond for tourist and business travelers from two dozen countries with 10% or higher overstay rates, mostly in Africa.

The new federal registry notice of the visa bond pilot program is scheduled to be published on 5 August.

“The Pilot Program will enable the Department to assess the operational feasibility of posting, processing, and discharging visa bonds, in coordination with the Department of the Treasury (‘Treasury’) and the Department of Homeland Security (‘DHS’), and to inform any future decision concerning the possible use of visa bonds to ensure nonimmigrants using these visa categories comply with the terms and conditions of their visas and timely depart the United States,” it states.

It said it would announce the countries in question at the “Travel.State.Gov” website no fewer than 15 days before the pilot program takes effect. It also said the list might change, again with 15 days notice.

Tourists and business travelers would receive their bonds back when they depart the US, are naturalized as a citizen or die, according to the Department of Homeland Security and Immigration and Customs Enforcement regulations.

The original six-month pilot program was never implemented.

A state department spokesperson told Reuters that countries would be selected based on “high overstay rates, screening and vetting deficiencies, concerns regarding acquisition of citizenship by investment without a residency requirement, and foreign policy considerations”. The department did not provide an estimate on the number of applicants who could be affected.

The Trump administration has cracked down on immigration to the US, including terminating temporary protected status for many people living in the US, and banning immigration visas outright for 12 countries.

The bond policy could build on the president’s travel ban, which went into effect in June, mainly impacting countries in the the Middle East and Africa. Chad, Eritrea, Haiti, Myanmar and Yemen were targeted under the ban and also have high rates of visa overstays. Other countries with high overstay rates include Burundi, Djibouti and Togo, Reuters said, citing federal data from 2023.

The US Travel Association, a group that represents major tourism firms, said in a statement that the scope of the visa bond pilot “appears to be limited”, affecting an estimated 2,000 applicants, likely from countries with low rates of travel to the US.

The state department last month also unveiled new guidance directing US diplomats to review the online activity of foreign students before issuing educational and exchange visas. Students who refuse to unlock their social media profiles will be suspected of hiding the activity from US officials.

The announcement of the new policy comes as data has shown the US is suffering a sharp decline in tourism, including an 11.6% decrease in overseas visitors in March, with the tourism industry expected to lose out on billions of dollars this year due to government actions.

Travel from Canada and Mexico has fallen by 20% year over year, according to the US Travel Association. That group has also warned about the impact of requiring visitors to pay a $250 “visa integrity fee”, which was included in Trump’s sweeping tax bill last month. That fee, if adopted, would be one of the highest in the world for a country to charge.

There have also been increasing accounts of tourists and visitors with valid visas getting detained by Ice, escalating fears that a trip to the US could carry serious risks.

Reuters contributed reporting

PARIS:

Plastic pollution is a “grave, growing and under-recognised danger” to health that is costing the world at least $1.5 trillion a year, experts warned in a report on Monday.

The new review of the existing evidence, which was carried out by leading health researchers and doctors, was published one day ahead of fresh talks opening in Geneva aiming to seal the world’s first treaty on plastic pollution. “Plastics cause disease and death from infancy to old age and are responsible for health-related economic losses exceeding US$1.5 trillion annually,” said the review in The Lancet medical journal.

Comparing plastic to air pollution and lead, the report said its impact on health could be mitigated by laws and policies.

The experts called for the delegates from nearly 180 nations gathering in Geneva to finally agree to a treaty after previous failed attempts.

Philip Landrigan, a doctor and researcher at Boston College in the United States, warned that vulnerable people, particularly children, are most affected by plastic pollution. “It is incumbent on us to act in response,” he said in a statement.

“To those meeting in Geneva: please take up the challenge and the opportunity of finding the common ground that will enable meaningful and effective international cooperation in response to this global crisis.”

The researchers also warned about tiny pieces of plastic called microplastics, which have been found throughout nature — and throughout human bodies.

The full effect of microplastics on health are not yet fully known, but researchers have sounded the alarm about the potential impact of this ubiquitous plastic.

The amount of plastic produced by the world has risen from two million tonnes in 1950 to 475 million tonnes in 2022, the report said. The number is projected to triple by 2060.

India has called Donald Trump’s threat of “substantially” higher tariffs over its purchase of oil from Russia “unjustified and unreasonable”.

In a post on Truth Social, the US president warned he would raise levies, saying India “don’t care how many people in Ukraine are being killed by the Russian War Machine”.

India is currently among the largest buyers of Russian oil. It has become an important export market for Moscow after several European countries cut trade when Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022.

Trump did not specify what the new tariff would be, but it comes just days after he unveiled a hefty 25% levy on India.

In a statement, a spokesperson for India’s foreign ministry, Randhir Jaiswal, said the US had encouraged India to import Russian gas at the start of the conflict, “for strengthening global energy markets stability”.

He said India “began importing from Russia because traditional supplies were diverted to Europe after the outbreak of the conflict”.

India also criticised the US – its largest trading partner – for introducing the tariffs, when the US itself is still doing trade with Russia. Last year, the US traded goods worth an estimated $3.5bn (£2.6bn) with Russia, despite tough sanctions and tariffs.

“Like any major economy, India will take all necessary measures to safeguard its national interests and economic security,” the foreign ministry statement said.

“The targeting of India is unjustified and unreasonable,” it added.

Last week, Trump had described India as a “friend” but said its tariffs on US products “are far too high” and he warned of an unspecified “penalty” over its trade with Russia.

His latest Truth Social post again struck a critical tone.

“India is not only buying massive amounts of Russian Oil, they are then, for much of the Oil purchased, selling it on the Open Market for big profits,” he wrote.

“Because of this, I will be substantially raising the Tariff paid by India to the USA,” he added.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi has not ordered India’s oil refineries to stop buying Russian oil, Bloomberg reported, citing people familiar with the situation.

Ajay Srivastava, a former Indian trade official and head of the Global Trade Research Initiative (GTRI), a Delhi-based think tank, said Trump’s claims about India’s oil trade with Russia are misleading for several reasons.

He told the BBC that the trade has been transparent and broadly understood by the US.

Mr Srivastava said India ramped up purchases of oil to help stabilise global markets after Western sanctions disrupted supplies – helping to stop a global oil price shock.

He also said that India’s oil refineries – both public and private – decide where to buy crude oil based on factors like price, supply security, and export rules. They operate independently of the government and do not need its approval to buy from Russia or other countries.

Though relations between the US and Russia warmed after Trump returned to the White house in January, the US president has more recently toughened his rhetoric against the Kremlin and Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Trump has questioned whether Putin is truly committed to peace with Ukraine. In Monday’s Truth Social post he used stern language, describing the Russian military as the “Russian War Machine”.

Russia’s leader has repeatedly said he is ready for peace but only if Kyiv meets certain conditions, such as recognising Ukrainian territories that Russia has occupied.

Trump has threatened Moscow with severe tariffs targeting its oil and other exports if a ceasefire with Ukraine is not agreed by 8 August.

US envoy Steve Witkoff is due to visit Russia later this week, where he is expected to meet Putin.

Additional reporting by Soutik Biswas