NEWS

English side Manchester City beat Italy’s Juventus 5-2 in Orlando at FIFA’s Club World Cup staged in United States.

Manchester City sealed top spot in Group G with a 5-2 thumping of Juventus in Orlando at the FIFA Club World Cup.

Jeremy Doku put on a brilliant display with plenty of support, and some help from the opposition, in Thursday’s game as the English side sealed a third win from their three games in the group.

Juventus, like City, had already sealed qualification for the round of 16 with two wins in their opening two games.

“We played well. I’m happy with the victory,” City forward Doku said. “Now we’re just curious to see who we’re going to play against.”

Defender Pierre Kalulu’s gaffe on a cross from Savinho past his own keeper nudged City into the lead, 2-1, at the 26th minute.

In the 52nd minute, striker Erling Haaland scored while shuffling his feet with a touch that bounded into an open net on a dish from Matheus Nunes. It was the 300th career goal combined for team and country for the 24-year-old Norwegian in only his seventh minute in Thursday’s match.

Phil Foden entered off the bench and tapped in the fourth goal of the match in the 69th minute. Haaland’s header failed only for Savinho to power a rebound off the crossbar and into the goal to make it 5-1 in the 75th minute.

Juventus trimmed the lead on a breakaway from Dusan Vlahovic, who scored for the second consecutive match with just over five minutes to play.

Juventus had led the group on goal difference entering the match, but City’s win took them to the top and also bumped them to the top of the tournament’s goalscoring list with 13 strikes.

City also became the only club to win all three matches in the group stage.

As the Group G winner, City stays in Orlando for Monday’s round of 16 match with the Group H runner-up.

The opponent will be determined by Thursday’s later match between RB Salzburg and Real Madrid. Juventus head to Miami as the runner-up in the group.

Man City went ahead 2-1 and held the margin at halftime, marking first at the nine-minute mark when Doku hit the brakes in front of the net and found the top right corner.

Teun Koopmeiners evened the score two minutes later, but that was the final indication of a close tussle.

The victory was Man City’s first outright over Juventus since 1976.

Protests in Kenya to mark the anniversary of deadly 2024 anti-tax protests turned deadly themselves. Rights group Amnesty Kenya said at least 16 people were killed, and 400 others were injured in Wednesday’s demonstrations. A government minister accused the protesters of attempting a coup.

Anadolu via Getty Images

‘She’s a changed person’

Getty Images

‘There’s a level of fear’

‘Catalyst for change’

The Rapid Support Forces (RSF) have killed 31 people from the Salha area, including children, in the largest documented mass killing in the area, the Sudanese Doctors Network said yesterday.

The network warned that the mass killing of “unarmed civilians” threatens the lives of thousands of people in Salha, south of Omdurman.

It considered the mass killings a war crime and a crime against humanity, calling on the international community to take urgent action to rescue the remaining civilians and open a safe exit for them to leave the Salha area.

It also calls on the international community to pressure the RSF leaders to stop crimes and violations against civilians under their control.

UN: More than 480 killed in Sudan’s North Darfur state in past two weeks

GoFundMe has been accused of blocking “millions of dollars” of life-saving aid from reaching Gaza.

Charity leaders, activists and desperate Palestinians in Gaza have condemned the crowdfunding website for shutting down or blocking withdrawals for Palestine-related fundraising pages – and have accused bosses of having “blood on their hands”.

Despite questions from Al Jazeera, the company has not revealed the amount of money raised on its platform for Gaza that has been frozen in its system or has been refunded to donors.

But it has told Al Jazeera that more than $300m has been raised on the platform for both Palestinians and Israelis since Hamas’s October 7 attacks on Israel in 2023 and the beginning of Israel’s war on Gaza.

Hala Sabbah, the founder of mutual aid group The Sameer Project, said that in September, more than $250,000 of donations to her organisation was refunded.

The London-based NGO-sector worker described the closure of her GoFundMe page as a “disaster” for her group’s efforts to provide emergency aid in the enclave.

The Sameer Project runs a camp for displaced people in Deir el-Balah, providing healthcare and essentials to its residents – paid for by money that, until now, had been raised through GoFundMe, totalling more than $1m. It also funds food, water, shelter and clothing for people across Gaza.

Sabbah said she was “treated like scum” by GoFundMe, despite her group’s pages raising about $44,000 for it in transaction fees.

“Our GoFundMe page had daily updates with complete cost breakdowns of every single initiative we did – everything was well-documented, with receipts,” she said.

“This information – including all transfers – was forwarded to GoFundMe, yet they still chose to shut us down.”

GoFundMe notifies page organisers that there will be a “review” process after they launch fundraisers related to Palestine – or “the conflict in the Middle East”, as it is phrased by the company’s compliance team in emails seen by Al Jazeera. The company claims this is part of its “standard verification process”, but critics say it appears to inordinately restrict Gaza-related pages rather than those for other causes, such as Israel or Ukraine.

GoFundMe has refused to disclose figures that show how many Israel or Ukraine fundraisers have been closed compared with those for Gaza.

Intrusive reviews

Social media has been flooded with Palestinian advocates speaking out about their pages being shut down. Fundraisers for Israel and Ukraine appear to face little of the same scrutiny. And when they do, media campaigns can quickly force GoFundMe to act. One Ukraine fundraiser that was shut down in March 2022 was reinstated the next month after media coverage of the case.

The company’s long and intrusive review process often results in Gaza fundraisers being shut down and money refunded to donors or pages being “paused”, preventing funds from being accessed by account holders until the review is concluded.

One United States-based fundraiser for the Sulala animal shelter in Gaza says it had about $50,000 dollars refunded to donors when its first page was closed. The team behind the fundraiser then created another page without specifically mentioning Gaza or Palestine, which was not flagged by GoFundMe, placed under review or paused, and ran for months uninterrupted.

In the case of The Sameer Project, GoFundMe’s compliance team said it was concerned about how funds were being distributed, and said that the documentation Sabbah had provided was not “accurate, complete or clear”. An email to Sabbah added that there were “material discrepancies” between the information shared and how funds were distributed to beneficiaries.

Before shutting the page down, the compliance team asked for personal information about who was receiving funds, evidence of bank transfer statements and details about partner organisations, which Sabbah says The Sameer Project provided.

“We spent weeks fighting back, and they completely ignored us – even denying us access to our donor lists,” Sabbah told Al Jazeera.

“People can raise funds to help the Israeli military…  and their pages don’t get closed. But we try to raise money for diapers and lifesaving medication, and we get scrutinised and shut down.”

“We have children in our camp on the verge of death. The company has blood on its hands.”

The mutual aid group – named after Sabbah’s Gaza-based uncle who died in January – says it has provided more than 800,000 litres (211,330 gallons) of water, $100,000 in cash aid, 850 tents and medical treatment for 749 children across the enclave.

It transfers money to intermediaries via makeshift exchange sites and by sending money directly to doctors or pharmacies.

Crowdfunding websites have for months been one of the only feasible ways to help those trapped in Gaza.

Famine is creeping further into the enclave, humanitarian aid is being blocked for long periods, civilian infrastructure lies in ruin and banks and ATMs have either been destroyed or have halted operations.

Sabbah slammed GoFundMe for not justifying shutting her page down despite the huge amount of money the company made from the group’s pages in”payment processing fees”. It charges 30 cents per donation and a 2.9 percent cut of the total raised.

There are no banking services left in Gaza, but there are exchange offices – often people using POS (point of service) cash machines charging exorbitant interest rates – and the option to swap cryptocurrency for physical currency, amid critical shortages of the latter.

Without regular aid flowing into the enclave, most charities rely on sending money via these limited routes to intermediaries who will distribute essentials and medical supplies.

Some tinned food, tents and health products are on sale in Gaza markets. But cash is scarce, stocks are extremely limited, and most people cannot afford to pay. Since breaking the ceasefire agreement with Hamas brokered in January, Israel resumed bombing and re-established a blockade on humanitarian aid lasting months.

Now, aid is only reaching the enclave through the heavily criticised US-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF). Hundreds of desperate Palestinians have been shot and killed by Israeli forces at GHF aid collection sites.

‘Treated like animals’

Both still trapped in Gaza, Mostafa Abuthaher and his brother Yahya Fraij, aged 30, have twice created GoFundMe pages, and on both occasions, the company closed them down.

Yahya lost his home and three of his cousins to Israel’s onslaught, and now his family survives with only a makeshift tent near the beach in al-Mawasi in southern Gaza.

His wife gave birth to their six-month-old daughter during the war. Yahya told Al Jazeera that she has experienced nothing but suffering during her short life – and he has had to protect her from extreme cold and the trauma of Israeli bombardment.

“My daughter and I face death almost every day,” he said. “And now we have nothing – not even a tent. The war has taken everything from us.

“We’ve been treated like animals and insulted by the world for the last 20 months.”

The brothers had raised more than $12,000 to support their families until their first page was suddenly shut down. The company blocked them from withdrawing nearly $5,000.

In an email exchange with GoFundMe, a compliance officer said Mostafa’s page breached the company’s terms of service for “prohibited conduct”, which covers fundraisers that are “fraudulent, misleading, inaccurate, dishonest or impossible”.

He was asked to send a photo ID, provide his location and explain why his page description had changed so often and how the funds would be used. Then his page was closed, after which he expressed astonishment and accused the platform of bias.

The brothers say that many people in Gaza have set up GoFundMe pages because of the platform’s size and reputation, and then found themselves “trapped” once their pages began the often ill-fated verification process. Critics of GoFundMe say campaigns fundraising for Israel appear to be able to avoid similar interventions from its compliance team.

Other fundraisers on the website state they aim to raise funding for “equipment” that supports the Israeli military, or “training” and travel for new recruits.

A page raising money for gun sights and other equipment to “safeguard”  the Kishorit kibbutz in the north of Israel appeared to breach the website’s terms of service, but was active for nearly a year before no longer becoming accessible.

The terms of service prohibit fundraising for “weapons meant for use in conflict or by an armed group”.

Sabbah added that there is no guarantee that money from similar pages to fundraise for “equipment” or “security” won’t be used to buy weapons, at a time when the Israeli government is actively arming its citizens.

Double standards?

Al Jazeera sent several questions to GoFundMe, asking how many Gaza-related fundraisers there are, how much they had raised, the number listed as “transfers paused and the total removed or taken down. We also asked the company to provide like-for-like figures for Israel and Ukraine.

At the time of writing, GoFundMe refused to provide the specific information and data we requested. A spokesperson said: “GoFundMe has helped raise and deliver over $300m from donors in more than 215 countries and jurisdictions to support individuals and organisations helping those in both Gaza and Israel.

“Any suggestion of double standards is wholly without merit, baseless, and contrary to the values that guide our platform.

“Any decision to remove a fundraiser from the platform is never taken lightly and is informed explicitly by our Terms of Service. Taking action like this is difficult, but it protects our ability to support people who are fundraising to help others.”

Amr Shabaik, the legal director at the Council for American Islamic Relations (CAIR), told Al Jazeera that the fundamental issue with platforms like GoFundMe was the “imbalanced application of rules” – behaviour consistent with other forms of digital censorship since October 7.

“Algorithmic discrimination and targeting, looking for certain descriptors and categories – like Gaza or Palestine specifically in the last 18 months – means some pages are subjected to an unfair and high level of scrutiny that other fundraisers are not,” he said.

“All platforms have their rules and regulations, but they’re applying them disproportionately and unfairly towards Palestinians.”

“There is a clear indication of a double standard. If you are actively preventing lifesaving aid – intentionally or unintentionally -– from reaching Gaza, it’s tough to say you’re not supporting a genocide.”

Shabaik points to studies undertaken by Human Rights Watch (HRW), The Arab Centre for the Advancement of Social Media and Palestine Legal that detail platforms’ inordinate targeting of pro-Palestine pages or accounts.

HRW says that between October and November 2023, 1,049 pro-Palestinian posts on Facebook and Instagram were taken down by the platform’s owner, Meta. Palestine Legal says that between October 7 and December 31, 2023, the organisation received 1,037 requests for legal support from people “targeted for their Palestine advocacy”. The Arab Centre for the Advancement of Social Media documented more than 1,639 “censorship violations” in its 2023 annual report, including content removal and suspensions.

Last December, the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) Freelance Journalists’ Union said that GoFundMe prevented $6,000 of funding from reaching the Palestinian Journalists’ Syndicate after its fundraiser was shut down. This is despite the organisation being based in Ramallah in the occupied West Bank, not in Gaza.

One union delegate, using the name “Arv” as he wanted to remain anonymous, told Al Jazeera the money would have provided protective helmets, press vests and other safety apparatus for journalists reporting in the territory. He added that GoFundMe said the fundraiser was shut down due to a lack of compliance with unspecified “laws and regulations”.

In December, a union spokesperson said on its Twitter page: “Over the course of the fundraiser, we received a dozen requests for further information from GoFundMe, all of which were answered as thoroughly and in as timely a manner as possible, given the ongoing war.”

Arv added that the union had been pushed to explore the use of other fundraising platforms because of the difficulty of working with GoFundMe.

“Current GoFundMe users should do the same before they too are caught in such Kafkaesque circumstances,” he said.

The GoFundMe compliance team asked for business information, such as bank accounts, and even after informing the union the information had been accepted, the page was still closed down.

GoFundMe boasts that it is the world’s number one crowdfunding platform, but it only allows fundraisers to be created in 20 nations (not including Israel, Ukraine or Palestine) – meaning people in Gaza are reliant on intermediaries thousands of miles away if they want to receive donations.

All those interviewed for this story and other campaigners have endorsed a boycott of the platform. Sabbah says she has since begun using the Australian crowdfunding website Chuffed, which reviewed her documentation and swiftly permitted her to withdraw, allowing her to continue her group’s work in Gaza.

The platform says it advocates on behalf of campaigners to sort out verification issues with its payment providers to prevent pages from being frozen or refunded.

Chuffed general manager Jennie Smith said: “We’ve been helping campaigners migrate from GoFundMe to Chuffed by the thousands over the last year and have seen firsthand the devastation the shutting down of their GoFundMe campaigns causes.”

Yahya described life for his family in his makeshift tent. He walks miles every day to get water and wraps up his baby daughter for the cold winter nights, fearing they may not wake up in the morning.

He says his family may have escaped the enclave if GoFundMe had allowed him to withdraw the money he raised.

“I try not to think about losing our money,” Yahya said. “If I kept thinking about how terrible everything is, I wouldn’t be alive now!

“But it makes you feel like everyone is conspiring against us. They are leaving us to die slowly.”

Coastal blaze triggers evacuation orders, days after state of emergency declared over fires on Aegean island of Chios.

A fast-moving wildfire has engulfed holiday homes and forest land on a section of the Greek coastline just 40km (25 miles) south of the capital, Athens.

More than 100 firefighters, supported by two dozen firefighting aircraft, battled the wildfire that tore across the coastal area of Palaia Fokaia on Thursday, officials said. The flames were whipped up by high winds as temperatures approached 40 degrees Celsius (104 degrees Fahrenheit) in the country’s first heatwave of the summer.

Fire department spokesman Vassilis Vathrakogiannis told reporters that 40 people had been evacuated by police, with evacuation orders issued for a total of five areas. A seaside roadway running across the affected areas was protectively cordoned off, he added.

The coastguard said two patrol boats and nine private vessels were on standby in the Palaia Fokaia area in case an evacuation by sea became necessary.

“We’re telling people to leave their homes,” local town councillor Apostolos Papadakis said on Greece’s state-run ERT television.

The cause of the fire was not immediately known, but the fire department spokesman said that an arson investigation unit had been sent to the area.

Local mayor Dimitris Loukas said on ERT television that several houses were believed to have been damaged by the blaze.

The wider Athens area, as well as several Aegean islands, were on Level 4 of a 5-level scale measuring the risk of wildfires owing to the weather conditions, with the heatwave expected to last until the weekend.

Early in the week, hundreds of firefighters took four days to bring a major wildfire under control on the eastern Aegean island of Chios, where a state of emergency was declared and more than a dozen evacuation orders issued.

The fire department said one woman had been arrested on suspicion of having contributed to the sparking of that fire.

Greece has spent hundreds of millions of euros to compensate households and farmers for damage related to extreme weather and to acquire new equipment to deal with wildfires.

It has increased its number of firefighters to a record 18,000 this year.

Scientists say human-caused climate change is contributing to extreme weather conditions and extending heatwaves for billions of people across the world.

Last Thursday, just days after he had ordered strikes upon Iran, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu stood outside Beersheba’s Soroka Hospital and spoke of his outrage that the building had been hit in an Iranian counterstrike.

“They’re targeting civilians because they’re a criminal regime. They’re the arch-terrorists of the world,” he said of the Iranian government.

Similar accusations were levelled by other Israeli leaders, including the president, Isaac Herzog, and opposition leader Yair Lapid, during the conflict with Iran, which ended with a ceasefire brokered by United States President Donald Trump on Monday.

However, what was missing from these leaders was an acknowledgement that Israel itself has attacked almost every hospital in Gaza, where more than 56,000 people have been killed, or that the Strip’s healthcare system has been pushed to near total collapse.

It was an omission noticeable in much of the Israeli press reporting on the Beersheba hospital attack, with few mentions of the parallels between it and Israel’s own attacks on hospitals in Gaza. Instead, much of the Israeli media has supported these attacks, either seeking to downplay them, or justifying them by regularly claiming that Hamas command centres lie under the hospitals, an accusation Israel has never been able to prove.

Weaponising suffering

According to analysts who spoke to Al Jazeera, a media ecosystem exists in Israel that, with a few exceptions, both amplifies its leaders’ calls for war while simultaneously reinforcing their claims of victimhood, all while shielding the Israeli public from seeing the suffering Israeli forces are inflicting on Gaza and the occupied West Bank.

One Israeli journalist, Haaretz’s media correspondent Ido David Cohen, wrote this month that “reporters and editors at Israel’s major news outlets have admitted more than once, especially in private conversations, that their employers haven’t allowed them to present the humanitarian crisis in Gaza and the suffering of the population there”.

“The Israeli media … sees its job as not to educate, it’s to shape and mould a public that is ready to support war and aggression,” journalist Orly Noy told Al Jazeera from West Jerusalem. “It genuinely sees itself as having a special role in this.”

“I’ve seen [interviews with] people who lived near areas where Iranian missiles had hit,” Noy added. “They were given a lot of space to talk and explain the impact, but as soon as they started to criticise the war, they were shut down, quite rudely.”

Last September, a complaint brought by three Israeli civil society organisations against Channel 14, one of Israel’s most watched television networks, cited 265 quotes from hosts they claimed encouraged war crimes and crimes against humanity, including genocide. Among them, concerning Gaza, were the phrases “it really needs to be total annihilation” and “there are no innocents.”

A few months earlier, in April, the channel was again criticised within the Israeli media, this time for a live counter labelled “the terrorists we eliminated”, which made no distinction between civilians and fighters killed, the media monitoring magazine 7th Eye pointed out.

Analysts and observers described how Israel’s media and politicians have weaponised the horrors of the past suffering of the Jewish people and have moulded it into a narrative of victimhood that can be aimed at any geopolitical opponent that circumstances allow – with Iran looming large among them.

“It isn’t just this war,” Noy, an editor with the Hebrew-language Local Call website, said. “The Israeli media is in the business of justifying every war, of telling people that this war is essential for their very existence. It’s an ecosystem. Whatever the authority is, it is absolutely right. There is no margin for doubt, with no room for criticism from the inside. To see it, you have to be on the outside.”

“The world has allowed Israel to act as some kind of crazy bully to do whatever it wants, whenever it wants,” Noy added. “They can send their troops into Syria and Lebanon, never mind Gaza, with impunity. Israel is fine. Israel is bulletproof. And why wouldn’t they think that? The world allows it, then people are shocked when Iran strikes back.”

The Israeli media largely serves as a tool to manufacture consent for Israel’s actions against the Palestinians and in neighbouring countries, while shielding the Israeli public from the suffering its victims endure.

Exceptions do exist. Israeli titles such as Noy’s Local Call and +972 Magazine often feature coverage highly critical of Israel’s war on Gaza, and have conducted in-depth investigations into Israel’s actions, uncovering scandals that are only reported on months later by the international media. Joint reporting from Local Call and +972 Magazine has revealed that the Israeli military was using an AI system to generate bombing target lists based on predicted civilian casualties. Another report found that the Israeli military had falsely declared entire Gaza neighbourhoods as evacuated, which then led to the bombing of civilian homes in areas that were still inhabited.

A more famous example is the liberal daily Haaretz, which regularly criticises Israel’s actions in Gaza. Haaretz has faced a government boycott over its coverage of the war.

“It’s not new,” Dina Matar, professor of political communication and Arab media at SOAS University of London, said. “Israeli media has long been pushing the idea that they [Israel] are the victims while calling for actions that will allow them to present greater victimhood [such as attacking Iran]. They often use emotive language to describe a strike on an Israeli hospital that they’ll never use to describe an Israeli strike on a hospital in Gaza.”

Take Israeli media coverage of the siege of northern Gaza’s last remaining functioning healthcare facility, the Kamal Adwan Hospital, in December.

While descriptions of the attacks on the hospital from United Nations special rapporteurs spoke of their “horror” at the strikes, those in the Israeli press, in outlets such as Ynet or The Times of Israel, instead focused almost exclusively upon the Israeli military’s claims of the numbers of “terrorists” seized.

Among those seized from the hospital were medical staff, including the director of Kamal Adwan, Dr Hussam Abu Safia, who has since been tortured in an Israeli military prison, his lawyer previously told Al Jazeera.

In contrast, Israeli coverage of the Soroka Hospital attack in Beersheba almost universally framed the hit as a “direct strike” and foregrounded the experience of the evacuated patients and healthcare workers.

In this environment, Matar said, Netanyahu’s representation of Israel as home to a “subjugated people” reinforced a view that Israelis have long been encouraged to hold of themselves, even amid the decades-long occupation of Palestinian land.

“No one questions what Netanyahu is saying because the implications of his speech make sense as part of this larger historical narrative; one that doesn’t allow for any other [narrative], such as the Nakba or the suffering in Gaza,” the academic said.

United States President Donald Trump has insisted that the military strikes he ordered on Iran’s nuclear facilities on Sunday morning “completely obliterated” Iran’s uranium enrichment capabilities.

And after an initial classified US intelligence report contradicted that assertion, Trump and his administration have lashed out at those who leaked the document and the media that has covered it – throwing out its assessment.

The standoff between Trump and the evaluation of sections of his own intelligence community continued through Wednesday at The Hague, where the US president was attending the NATO summit and was asked several questions about the leaked document.

Yet it was only the latest instance of Trump publicly disagreeing with US intelligence conclusions during his past decade in politics – whether on Russia or North Korea, Venezuela or Iran.

Here’s what the latest spat is about, and Trump’s long history of disputing intelligence assessments:

What is Trump’s latest disagreement with US intelligence about?

On June 21, the US joined Israel in its strikes against Iran. US forces hit Fordow, Natanz and Isfahan, three Iranian nuclear sites, with a range of missiles and bunker-buster bombs.

Trump applauded the success of the US attacks on Iran multiple times. “Iran’s key nuclear enrichment facilities have been completely and totally obliterated,” he said in a televised address from the White House after the attack.

However, a confidential preliminary report by the intelligence arm of the Pentagon, the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA), suggested otherwise.

The DIA report said the US attacks had only set Iran’s nuclear programme back by less than six months.

The report added that in the DIA’s assessment, Iran had moved its stockpile of enriched uranium before the strikes, something Tehran has also claimed. As a result, little of the material that Iran could in theory enrich to weapons-grade uranium had been destroyed.

On Tuesday, the White House rejected the findings of the intelligence report. “This alleged assessment is flat-out wrong and was classified as ‘top secret’,” White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said in a statement, describing the person who leaked the document as a “low-level loser in the intelligence community”.

“The leaking of this alleged assessment is a clear attempt to demean President Trump and discredit the brave fighter pilots who conducted a perfectly executed mission to obliterate Iran’s nuclear program. Everyone knows what happens when you drop fourteen 30,000-pound bombs perfectly on their targets: total obliteration,” Leavitt added.

Trump also dismissed the report on Wednesday during the NATO summit in the Netherlands, continuing to claim that the US decimated Iran’s nuclear capabilities and denying claims that Tehran moved its enriched uranium. “I believe they didn’t have a chance to get anything out because we acted fast,” Trump said, adding “it would have taken two weeks, maybe, but it’s very hard to remove that kind of material… and very dangerous.

“Plus, they knew we were coming,” Trump added. “And if they know we’re coming, they’re not going to be down there [in the underground sections of the nuclear facilities].”

On Wednesday, the White House website published an article titled Iran’s Nuclear Facilities Have Been Obliterated – and Suggestions Otherwise are Fake News.

Besides Trump, the article also quotes Israel’s Atomic Energy Commission, which has said that “the devastating US strike on Fordow destroyed the site’s critical infrastructure and rendered the enrichment facility inoperable.” Of Iran’s three major nuclear sites, Fordow is the hardest to reach for Israel’s missiles, as it is buried deep under a mountain – which is why Israel successfully convinced the US to hit the facility with bunker-buster bombs.

Additionally, the White House article quotes the Trump-appointed US director of national intelligence (DNI), Tulsi Gabbard, as saying: “The operation was a resounding success. Our missiles were delivered precisely and accurately, obliterating key Iranian capabilities needed to quickly assemble a nuclear weapon.”

John Ratcliffe, director of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), also diverged from the DIA report, saying the US had “severely damaged” Iran’s nuclear facilities.

In a statement published on the CIA website on Wednesday, Ratcliffe said: “CIA can confirm that a body of credible intelligence indicates Iran’s Nuclear Program has been severely damaged by the recent, targeted strikes. This includes new intelligence from a historically reliable and accurate source/method that several key Iranian nuclear facilities were destroyed and would have to be rebuilt over the course of years.”

Yet Trump’s track record of disputing intelligence assessments and distrusting the intelligence community runs much deeper than Iran.

Did Trump disagree with US intelligence during his first term?

Yes, multiple times, including:

In 2016, on Russian election interference

The US intelligence community, in July 2016, accused Putin of meddling in the US presidential election with the aim of helping Trump defeat Democratic challenger Hillary Clinton.

In November of that year, Trump won the election. His transition team rebuked intelligence reports that concluded that Russian hackers had covertly interfered in the election.

In a statement, the Trump transition team said: “These are the same people that said Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction.”

In an interview in December 2016, Trump himself said: “I think it’s just another excuse. I don’t believe it.”

He added that: “Nobody really knows. And hacking is very interesting. Once they hack, if you don’t catch them in the act, you’re not going to catch them. They have no idea if it’s Russia or China or somebody. It could be somebody sitting in a bed someplace. They have no idea.”

In 2018, again on Russian election interference

In July 2018, the US indicted 12 Russian military intelligence officers, accusing them of being involved in “active cyber operations to interfere in the 2016 presidential elections”, according to then-Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein. This indictment was part of a probe into allegations of collusion between the Trump team and Russia before the 2016 election, being led by former FBI Director Robert Mueller.

That same month, Trump met his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin in Helsinki for a joint summit. During a joint news conference after the two leaders had a one-on-one private discussion, Trump backed Putin on the Russian leader’s insistence that the Kremlin did not meddle in the 2016 election.

“I have great confidence in my intelligence people, but I will tell you that President Putin was extremely strong and powerful in his denial today,” Trump said.

“He just said it’s not Russia. I will say this: I don’t see any reason why it would be.”

Trump also said the Mueller investigation was a “disaster for our country” and drove a wedge between Washington and Moscow, the “two largest nuclear powers in the world”.

Former CIA Director John Brennan called Trump’s statements during the news conference “nothing short of treasonous”. Trump later pulled Brennan’s security clearances. Those clearances give select former officials access to classified information and briefings.

In 2019, over Iran, North Korea and ISIL (ISIS)

In 2019, Trump again rebuked the intelligence community, disagreeing with them over multiple issues.

The US intelligence community, on January 29, 2019, told a Senate committee that the nuclear threat from North Korea remained and Iran was not taking steps towards making a nuclear bomb.

Intelligence agencies said they did not believe that Iran violating the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, a nuclear deal signed between Iran and a group of countries led by the US in 2015. This, even though Trump had pulled out of the deal in 2018.

“The Intelligence people seem to be extremely passive and naive when it comes to the dangers of Iran. They are wrong!” Trump wrote on X, then called Twitter.

“Be careful of Iran. Perhaps Intelligence should go back to school!” Trump wrote in another X post.

On the other hand, US intelligence said North Korea was unlikely to give up its nuclear program.

On January 30, Trump contradicted this in an X post: “North Korea relationship is best it has ever been with US No testing, getting remains, hostages returned. Decent chance of Denuclearization.”

During his first term, Trump engaged directly with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, and in June 2019, met him at the fortified Demilitarized Zone between the two Koreas – the first US president to travel there.

Meanwhile, US spy chiefs warned that the ISIL (ISIS) armed group would continue to launch attacks from Syria and Iraq against regional and Western adversaries, including the US.

That assessment was at variance with Trump’s views. In December 2018, he withdraw 2,000 US troops from Syria on grounds that ISIL (ISIS) did not pose a threat any more. “We have won against ISIS,” he said in a video.

What did Trump and US intelligence clash over recently?

During his second term, too, Trump has differed with the intelligence community’s conclusions on multiple occasions, including:

In April, over Venezuela

Trump’s current term has been marked by an aggressive immigration crackdown. In March, he signed a proclamation invoking the 1798 Alien Enemies Act. Trump’s proclamation claimed that the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua is “perpetrating, attempting, and threatening an invasion or predatory incursion” against US territory.

The proclamation says all Venezuelan citizens aged 14 or older “who are members of” the gang and are not naturalised or lawful permanent US citizens are liable to be restrained and removed as “Alien Enemies”.

In his proclamation, Trump said the Tren de Aragua “is closely aligned with, and indeed has infiltrated, the [Venezuelan President Nicolas] Maduro regime, including its military and law enforcement apparatus”.

However, in April, a classified assessment from the National Intelligence Council (NIC), an arm of the DNI, found there was no coordination between Tren de Aragua and the Venezuelan government. The assessment found that the gang was not supported by Venezuela’s government officials, including Maduro.

The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) was the only one, among the 18 organisations that make up the US intelligence community, to disagree with the assessment.

In June, over Iran’s nuclear weapons

On March 25, Trump’s DNI Gabbard unambiguously told US Congress members that Iran was not moving towards building nuclear weapons.

“The IC [intelligence community] continues to assess that Iran is not building a nuclear weapon and Supreme Leader [Ali] Khamenei has not authorised the nuclear weapons programme he suspended in 2003,” Gabbard said.

On June 17, however, Trump told reporters he believed Iran was “very close” to building nuclear weapons, after he made an early exit from the Group of Seven summit in Canada.

Trump’s distrust for his own intelligence community is widely viewed as stemming from what he has described as a “witch-hunt” against him – the allegations that Russia interfered in the 2016 election to help him win.

During the 2018 news conference in Helsinki, Trump said: “It was a clean campaign. I beat Hillary Clinton easily.”

This doctor in Gaza has tried to save children torn to shreds by Israeli bombs and bullets at GHF aid sites. Speaking to Al Jazeera, she asked how the world can stand by and let the killing of starving people continue?

A new Bitcoin Layer-2 project is going viral with a bold claim: sub-second transactions at a fraction of today’s fees.

Bitcoin Hyper (HYPER) has already raised over $1.5 million during its presale, with demand increasing daily.

Could this be the catalyst that finally unlocks Bitcoin’s full potential?

What Is Bitcoin Hyper & What Does It Actually Do?

It’s a Layer-2 network that makes BTC usable for everyday tasks – payments, apps, and more.

Instead of waiting around for minutes and paying several dollars per transfer on Bitcoin’s main chain, you can send wrapped BTC on Hyper in under a second.

Here’s how it works: you lock your BTC on Bitcoin’s base layer through something called the “Canonical Bridge” smart contract.

This triggers the creation of an equal amount of wrapped BTC (wBTC) on Hyper.

From there, you can trade, spend, or use that wBTC in apps just like you would on Solana – because Bitcoin Hyper uses the Solana Virtual Machine.

Every batch of transactions on Hyper is bundled, verified using zero-knowledge technology, and then anchored back to Bitcoin for final settlement.

That means no middlemen and no compromise on decentralization.

Analyst Umar Khan from 99Bitcoins called it one of the “best crypto presales to buy” for this exact reason.

HYPER Token Presale Ramps Up as Staking Rewards Draw Attention

The Bitcoin Hyper presale is picking up momentum, rolling past $1.5 million just weeks after going live.

Currently, HYPER tokens are priced at $0.012 each – but that won’t last.

The presale uses a stage-based model, where each funding milestone triggers an automatic price bump.

You can buy HYPER using BTC, ETH, USDT, USDC, BNB, or even a debit card.

And the team recommends using Best Wallet for smoother purchasing and staking.

Presale investors can even stake their HYPER tokens immediately and earn yields of 504% per year.

That’s far higher than the market average, although the yield will naturally drop as more people stake and the reward pool becomes more widely distributed.

Looking ahead, Bitcoin Hyper’s roadmap shows the mainnet going live in Q3, followed by the Token Generation Event and DEX listing.

CEX listings are planned for Q4, with complete DAO governance handover targeted for early 2026.

Why Bitcoin Hyper Could Transform Bitcoin Forever

Bitcoin moves billions of dollars in value daily, but it’s still limited to processing just 3-5 transactions per second with ten-minute block times.

That’s perfectly fine for storing value – Bitcoin’s “digital gold” reputation isn’t going anywhere.

But if BTC wants to power DeFi, gaming, or everyday payments, it needs an infrastructure upgrade.

Layer-2 solutions like Bitcoin Hyper tackle this issue head-on.

By shifting heavy computational tasks off-chain, it can clear up Bitcoin’s bottlenecks.

Transactions are processed in parallel on a high-speed Layer-2 network using Solana’s proven tech stack.

This allows for sub-second confirmations, virtually zero fees, and room for developers to build real-world dApps on Bitcoin.

What’s great is that none of this sacrifices what makes Bitcoin so popular.

The Canonical Bridge locks real BTC, creates a 1:1 wrapped version on Hyper, and allows users to move back at any time.

Transactions on Bitcoin Hyper get bundled, validated with zero-knowledge proofs, and posted back to Bitcoin’s base chain for final confirmation.

Compare this to the Lightning Network, which lacks smart contracts, or Stacks, which has slow block times, and Bitcoin Hyper’s value proposition becomes clear.

It’s aiming for the sweet spot: matching Solana’s speed and flexibility while keeping the trust and security that Bitcoin users want.

If this approach gains traction, we could see HYPER explode after listing.

Visit Bitcoin Hyper Presale

This article is for informational purposes only and does not provide financial advice. Cryptocurrencies are highly volatile, and the market can be unpredictable. Always perform thorough research before making any cryptocurrency-related decisions.

Through the 12 days of the recent Israel-Iran conflict, China moved quickly to position itself as a potential mediator and voice of reason amid a spiralling regional crisis.

The day after Israel’s unprovoked attack on Iran on June 13, Beijing reached out to both sides to express its desire for a mediated solution even as the country’s top diplomat, Foreign Minister Wang Yi, condemned Israel’s actions as a violation of international law.

Chinese President Xi Jinping soon followed with calls for de-escalation, while at the United Nations Security Council, China joined Russia and Pakistan in calling for an “immediate and unconditional ceasefire”.

When Iran threatened to blockade the strategically important Strait of Hormuz, through which 20 percent of the world’s oil passes, Beijing was also quick to speak out.

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs instead called for the “international community to step up efforts to de-escalate conflicts and prevent regional turmoil from having a greater impact on global economic development”.

Beijing’s stance throughout the conflict remained true to its longstanding noninterference approach to foreign hostilities. But experts say it did little to help shore up its ambition of becoming an influential player in the Middle East, and instead exposed the limitations of its clout in the region.

Why China was worried

Unlike some countries, and the United States in particular, China traditionally approaches foreign policy “through a lens of strategic pragmatism rather than ideological solidarity”, said Evangeline Cheng, a research associate at the National University of Singapore’s Middle East Institute.

This approach means China will always focus on protecting its economic interests, of which it has many in the Middle East, Cheng told Al Jazeera.

China has investments in Israel’s burgeoning tech sector and its Belt and Road infrastructure project spans Iran, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Oman, Kuwait, Iraq, Egypt and the United Arab Emirates.

Critically, China relies on the Middle East for more than half of its crude oil imports, and it’s the top consumer of Iranian oil. A protracted war would have disrupted its oil supplies, as would an Iranian blockade of the strategically important Strait of Hormuz – something threatened by Tehran’s parliament during the conflict.

“War and security instability not only undermines Chinese investment and trade and business… but also the oil price and gas energy security in general,” said Alam Saleh, a senior Lecturer in Iranian Studies at the Australian National University.

“Therefore, China seeks stability, and it disagrees and opposes any kind of military solution for any type of conflict and confrontations, no matter with whom,” he said.

John Gong, a professor of economics at the University of International Business and Economics in Beijing, told Al Jazeera that China’s top concern through the conflict was to avoid “skyrocketing oil prices” that would threaten its energy security.

Flexing diplomatic muscle, protecting economic might

Aware of China’s friendly relations with Iran and Beijing’s economic fears, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio called on Beijing to keep Tehran from closing the Strait of Hormuz as ceasefire negotiations stumbled forward this week.

It was a brief moment of acknowledgement of Beijing’s influence, but experts say China’s overall diplomatic influence remains limited.

“China’s offer to mediate highlights its desire to be seen as a responsible global player, but its actual leverage remains limited,” Cheng said. “Without military capabilities or deep political influence in the region, and with Israel wary of Beijing’s ties to Iran, China’s role is necessarily constrained.”

To be sure, Beijing has demonstrated its ability to broker major diplomatic deals in the region. In 2023, it mediated the normalisation of relations between Iran and Saudi Arabia. While seen as a huge diplomatic win for China, experts say Beijing owed much of its success to fellow mediators, Oman and Iraq. China also mediated an agreement between Palestinian factions, including Hamas and Fatah, in July 2024, under which they committed to working together on Gaza’s governance after the end of Israel’s ongoing war on the enclave.

But William Yang, a senior analyst for Northeast Asia at the Brussels-based International Crisis Group, said the odds were stacked against China from the beginning of the latest conflict due to Israel’s wariness towards its relationship with Iran.

In 2021, China and Iran signed a 25-year “strategic partnership”, and Iran is an active participant in the Belt and Road project. Iran has also joined the Beijing-led Shanghai Cooperation Organisation and this year took part in China’s “Maritime Security Belt” naval exercises.

Iran’s “resolute opposition to American hegemony” also aligns well with China’s diplomatic interests more broadly, compared with Israel’s close ties to the US, Yang said.

China’s dilemma

It’s a scenario that could be repeated in the future, he said.

“This case also reinforces the dilemma that China faces: while it wants to be viewed as a great power that is capable of mediating in major global conflicts, its close relationship with specific parties in some of the ongoing conflicts diminishes Beijing’s ability to play such a role,” Yang said.

For now, Beijing will continue to rely on the US as a security guarantor in the region, he added.

“It’s clear that China will continue to focus on deepening economic engagement with countries in the Middle East while taking advantage of the US presence in the region, which remains the primary security guarantor for regional countries,” Yang said.

“On the other hand, the US involvement in the conflict, including changing the course of the war by bombing Iranian nuclear sites, creates the condition for China to take the moral high ground in the diplomatic sphere and present itself as the more restrained, calm and responsible major power,” he said.

In this episode of Centre Stage, our guest is Dr Gabor Mate, a retired physician, author and Holocaust survivor who has written extensively on trauma and child development, as well as Israel and Palestine.

Mate talks about the colonial foundations of Zionism, how living under it has traumatised Palestinians and the ways mainstream media distorts the realities on the ground in Gaza.

Phil Lavelle is a TV news correspondent at Al Jazeera.

Seales and Joseph take nine wickets before Australia stage mini recovery by restricting West Indies to 57-4 at stumps.

In a performance reminiscent of West Indies’ fearsome bowling attacks of old, Jayden Seales and Shamar Joseph tore through the Australia batting lineup, toppling them for a meagre 180 on day one of the first Test at the Kensington Oval in Barbados.

Mitchell Starc, skipper Pat Cummins, and Josh Hazlewood saved Australia’s blushes, taking four wickets between them to send the West Indies in at stumps at 57 for four, trailing the tourists by 123 runs to leave the match delicately poised on Wednesday.

With Seales claiming a magnificent five-wicket haul and Joseph unleashing thunderbolts that left Australia’s batsmen floundering, the visitors never recovered from a catastrophic start that saw them reeling at 22 for three on a lively pitch.

“This one was pretty special for me,” Seales said.

“I have played against [Australia] once, and was injured. To play against them and get five on the first day was pretty special.

“With the new ball, the plan was to bowl fuller. We knew the batters would come hard if we gave them width, and the plan was to bowl full and as much at the stumps as possible.

“A little slower than what the Australians would have expected, and that made them play a lot more.

“Shamar was special today … He has a love for Australia. He got through the top order and made it easy for us in the middle and at the end.”

Australia, already vulnerable with Steve Smith sidelined by injury and Marnus Labuschagne axed, watched in dismay as their re-jigged top order wilted under relentless pressure from the Caribbean quicks.

Joseph got the Bridgetown carnival started in the fourth over when he trapped teenage debutant Sam Konstas leg before wicket after a review.

The 25-year-old then delivered a scorching delivery that all-rounder Cameron Green could only edge to Justin Greaves at second slip.

Seales then joined the party, coaxing a thick top edge from Josh Inglis that sent him trudging back to the pavilion for five, completing Australia’s horror start.

Veteran Usman Khawaja and Travis Head briefly stemmed the tide with an 89-run partnership, but Joseph struck again at the perfect moment, removing Khawaja for 47 – agonisingly short of his half-century – and extinguishing Australian hopes of a recovery.

The middle order offered little resistance, with Beau Webster (11) and Alex Carey (8) falling cheaply before Greaves claimed the prize scalp of Head for 59, caught behind.

Captain Pat Cummins (28) provided the only lower-order resistance before Seales returned to sweep through the tail, completing his five-wicket masterclass and leaving Australia to contemplate the wreckage of their innings.

West Indies would have fancied their chances at that point, but Starc had other plans, snapping up the wickets of Kraigg Brathwaite and John Campbell in an action-packed opening spell.

Cummins then had Keacy Carty caught behind on 20 before Hazlewood bowled nightwatchman Jomel Warrican out for a duck, as the Barbadian sun set on an exhilarating day of Test cricket dominated by pace.

The recently elected leader of Warwickshire County Council has resigned, leaving his 18-year-old deputy in charge.

Reform UK councillor Rob Howard released a short statement in which he said he had made the decision with “much regret”.

Howard was elected in May, when Reform made unprecedented gains in the local elections, becoming the largest party in Warwickshire and forming a minority administration.

The outgoing leader cited his health as the reason for his decision, adding: “The role of leader is an extremely demanding role and regretfully my health challenges now prevent me from carrying out the role to the level and standard that I would wish.”

He also confirmed that his current deputy, George Finch, would serve as interim leader until the council confirmed a new leader in due course.

Speaking to the BBC earlier this month, Howard said he was “not intimidated” by the challenge of running a local authority with £1.5bn of assets and a revenue budget of about £500m.

Despite resigning the top job with immediate effect, Howard confirmed he would be staying on as a county councillor.

“I am honoured and privileged to have held the role, even if only for a short time. I remain committed to my continued role working as a county councillor for the benefit of Warwickshire residents,” he said.

Mr Finch, councillor for Bedworth Central, was a member of the Conservative Party for three months before switching to Reform on the grounds that it would better tackle illegal immigration.

On the New Reformer website, he said his politics could be summed up as “Brexit, sovereignty and a strong and united family unit”.

The BBC has contacted the interim council leader for comment.

In the international relations structures in Southeast Asia, “strategic trust” acts as a glue between countries that are diverse in terms of institutions, histories, and national interests. Strategic trust can be understood as the extent to which one country believes that another country will not harm its core interests, even in the absence of strong enforcement mechanisms. This is not blind trust but calculated trust, based on consistent behavior, policy transparency, and commitment to complying with common rules of the game. In Southeast Asia, strategic trust is not only the foundation for bilateral cooperation but also a prerequisite for building the ASEAN Political-Security Community (APSC) according to the roadmap by 2025.

The relationship between Thailand and Cambodia is a case in point, reflecting the complex and fragile nature of strategic trust in the region. There have been periods of serious border conflicts, such as the dispute over the Preah Vihear temple area in 2008–2011, and the two countries have repeatedly been embroiled in military tensions. Although bilateral relations have stabilized under Hun Sen and subsequent civilian governments in Bangkok, underlying factors such as anti-Cambodian sentiment in the Thai military and a lack of transparency in the handling of migrant workers and border issues persist. In this context, the ASEAN institution, with its principles of non-interference and consensus, has shown its limits even more clearly. When tensions flare up, ASEAN often lacks effective tools for coordination and mediation, leading to a situation of “every man for himself” and dependence on personal relationships between leaders.

The leak of an audio recording between Thai Prime Minister Paetongtarn Shinawatra and Cambodian Senate President Hun Sen in June 2025 is a typical example of the failure of strategic trust in a loose institutional framework like ASEAN.

What is remarkable about the incident is not only the content of the call but also the nature of the diplomatic form used. The 17-minute exchange was conducted outside official channels and was marked by an excessively intimate tone: Ms. Paetongtarn called Mr. Hun Sen “uncle” and agreed with him to ignore criticism from a Thai military general. This reflects the deeply personal political model in both countries. In Thailand, “Thaksinism” is not just a political phenomenon but also a family-based power structure, where the Shinawatra clan still holds great influence in politics, despite opposition from the military and royalists. In Cambodia, “Hun Senism” is a symbol of decades of personal rule, where Mr. Hun Sen and his family control almost all state power, passing the throne to his son without any real democratic competition.

The leaked audio recordings reveal a number of statements that have crossed the line on the military and security. Notably, the Thai military’s disdain for Ms. Paetongtarn’s response to her claim that the generals were just “showing off” is a provocative and insulting statement to the military, which has staged coups to overthrow governments led by her family. In addition, the fact that the prime minister of one country made such a clear statement in favor of another country’s leader on a potentially disputed border issue has touched the limits of domestic and international strategic trust. Not surprisingly, shortly afterwards, the Bhumjaithai Party—the second largest partner in the ruling coalition—announced its withdrawal from the government, citing the serious damage to the honor of the nation and the military.

Hun Sen’s role in releasing the recording has further complicated the situation. While Cambodia has said that Hun Sen simply wanted to “clarify the truth” after the first nine minutes of the recording were leaked earlier, observers have said that the release of the entire transcript was politically calculated. On the one hand, it helped Hun Sen demonstrate his status as a “great friend” of Thailand while sending a message to the Thai military that they should not underestimate his influence. On the other hand, he also unintentionally—or intentionally—put the Thai Prime Minister in a difficult position when Ms. Paetongtarn was forced to apologize publicly, undermining her reputation and legitimacy at home.

The impact of the leaked audio recording between Thai Prime Minister Paetongtarn Shinawatra and Cambodian Senate President Hun Sen goes beyond the bilateral level, spreading like a domino effect to many levels of national political structures, international relations, and institutional functioning of ASEAN. At each level, this incident highlights the fragility of strategic trust while exposing the gaps in the ability to control and institutionalize individual power in Southeast Asia.

For Thailand, the political consequences are profound and potentially long-lasting. Internally, Paetongtarn’s government—newly formed with the support of the Shinawatra family—is on the brink of collapse after the Bhumjaithai Party, the second-largest partner in the ruling coalition, announced its withdrawal. This move not only created a parliamentary majority crisis but also cost Paetongtarn her already fragile political legitimacy and credibility as the “political heir” to her father, Thaksin Shinawatra. Polls after the event showed that the government’s approval rating plummeted, while support for the military’s role as a guarantor of national stability increased significantly.

The Thai military—which has traditionally been deeply involved in politics—now has a new justification for acting in the name of “protecting national honor and the face of the military.” The coups of 2006 and 2014 were both carried out in the name of maintaining stability and countering the influence of the Shinawatra family. This time, a civilian leader directly insulting the generals and showing subservience to foreign leaders could be interpreted as a threat to national security. In this context, the possibility of the military intervening, directly or indirectly, is a very real risk. This raises questions about the future of Thailand’s young democratic system, which has been repeatedly disrupted by military coups.

For Cambodia, this event can be seen by Hun Sen as a tactical victory in domestic affairs. The release of the entire recording demonstrates his proactive control of information and public opinion and helps him affirm his role as a powerful regional figure, despite having stepped down from the position of prime minister. In the eyes of the Cambodian public, Hun Sen is praised as someone who maintains his influence in foreign affairs and takes the initiative against a larger country like Thailand. However, on the international level, the release of a private recording between two heads of state may raise doubts about Phnom Penh’s diplomatic credibility. The deliberate release of confidential information will make other partners—both within and outside ASEAN—more cautious in all forms of high-level contact with Cambodian leaders. This, in the long term, may cause Cambodia to be partially isolated in strategic diplomatic channels or at least lose its image as a responsible partner in the region.

In terms of bilateral relations, Hun Sen’s release of the full transcript of the call also puts Thailand in a vulnerable position, forcing the Paetongtarn government to publicly apologize. This is an extremely dangerous diplomatic precedent, especially in the context of the two countries still having unresolved historical disputes. Without a clear and in-depth trust-building strategy from both sides, Thai-Cambodian relations risk taking a major step backward. Any efforts to build trust through defense, border security, and labor cooperation channels could be frozen or shifted to a state of precaution.

Regionally, the impact of this event is systemic for ASEAN. First of all, the incident has seriously undermined strategic trust within the bloc. ASEAN countries, which are already very cautious about sharing information and coordinating security, will now be even more cautious in high-level communications if they are concerned that the content may be leaked or exploited for internal political purposes. The fact that a high-level leader was recorded and then released in full without any official response from ASEAN shows the inability of this organization to handle internal crises. ASEAN does not have any mechanism to investigate, intervene, or mediate in bilateral diplomatic crises, especially when they do not take the form of traditional armed conflicts.

In addition, this incident also sets a dangerous precedent for the entire regional diplomatic culture: when personal relationships can be recorded, edited, disseminated, and exploited for political purposes. This breaks the unwritten norms of ASEAN diplomacy, where friendliness and discretion are considered the foundation. If this trend continues, regional leaders will gradually lose trust in each other, and instead there will be a permanent state of hidden tension. More importantly, strategic rivals outside the region, such as China or the United States, can take advantage of these trust gaps to amplify internal ASEAN conflicts. If any member state feels threatened or betrayed, it can turn to external powers as a strategic counterweight, leading to polarization in regional foreign policy and seriously weakening ASEAN’s neutrality in the Asia-Pacific security architecture.

Recent developments are a wake-up call for Southeast Asia on the need to institutionalize and make transparent strategic diplomatic channels. First, countries need to establish clear standards for high-level contacts between leaders—including confidentiality, recording, and public statements. Calls or personal contacts between leaders should be coordinated by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and controlled by an official system to ensure accountability and information security. Second, ASEAN countries need to strengthen the role of professional diplomacy, limiting the use of backroom channels or friendly relationships as tools to resolve crises. In a region where individual leaders can change quickly, betting on personal relationships is a risky strategy.

ASEAN also needs to rethink its operating model. It is necessary to establish an early warning mechanism for intra-bloc diplomatic crises, as well as a code of conduct for senior leaders in bilateral contacts. This is not to control or limit the freedom of leaders but to ensure that individual actions do not undermine the foundation of shared trust. In the long term, a strong ASEAN security community can only be built if member states agree to abandon the mindset of “personal politics” and replace it with institutionalized, accountable, and transparent diplomacy.

Authorities say that rescue workers continue to search for the missing and assist residents in town outside of Medellin.

At least 11 people have been killed and 15 remain missing after a landslide in the city of Bello in Colombia’s northwest, according to authorities.

Evacuation orders and rescue efforts continue a day after the landslide, with government officials warning that heavy rains pose an ongoing threat to the area around Medellin, Colombia’s second-largest city.

“We continue to support emergency and rescue work in Bello, where 11 people have sadly been reported killed, at least 15 are missing, and more than 1,500 people are in shelters,” Medellin Mayor Federico Gutierrez said in a social media post on Wednesday.

Floodwaters overwhelmed local waterways on Tuesday during the early morning hours while residents were asleep.

A wave of mud surged through Bello, a crowded community in the hills above Medellin, burying about a dozen homes, sweeping away cars and leaving behind piles of debris.

Rescue workers have used dogs, drones and other means to search for the missing. Shelters have been set up in local schools and community centres.

Heavy rains pose especially high risks for makeshift homes built into the hillsides, which can become unstable during periods of sustained rainfall. It is often the country’s poorer residents who live in these danger zones, many of them having fled conflict in Colombia’s rural areas for the relative safety of a city.

The Medellin town hall also issued evacuation orders for Villatina, also on the outskirts of Medellin, on Tuesday, stating that 23 buildings would be demolished due to the risk of possible collapse. The town hall says that the order was based on previous landslides during late May, and that the risk posed by the insecure structures has been aggravated by recent heavy rain.

Around 60 homes were also ordered evacuated in Medellin, which suffered damage during recent storms.

A Salvadoran national whose mistaken deportation spurred national outcry in the United States will remain in jail for now, as lawyers discuss how to prevent him from being removed from the country a second time.

On Wednesday, Kilmar Abrego Garcia was set to be released from pre-trial custody without having to post bail. He is being held in detention in Nashville, Tennessee, on criminal charges of human smuggling.

The administration of President Donald Trump had sought to stop his release, deeming him to be a flight risk.

But US District Judge Waverly Crenshaw upheld a magistrate judge’s earlier decision finding that Abrego Garcia was eligible to walk free.

However, in an unexpected twist, lawyers on both sides argued that, if Abrego Garcia were released, he risks being taken into the custody of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) for a second deportation.

That would deprive Abrego Garcia of the chance to defend himself against the charges, which he has denied. And lawyers for the government argued that it would also scuttle their criminal case against him.

Judge Crenshaw noted in a written decision that, since it is the government’s choice whether or not to deport Abrego Garcia, the situation appeared to be a case of the executive branch doing “injury on itself”.

“If deported, the Government argues, the Department of Justice will be deprived of the opportunity to pursue its criminal charges against Abrego,” Crenshaw wrote.

But, he added, “it is the Executive Branch’s decision that places the Government in this predicament.”

Ultimately, it was decided that Abrego Garcia would remain in custody while lawyers sparred over whether they could prevent Abrego Garcia’s deportation if he were released to await trial.

A high-profile case

Abrego Garcia appeared at the Wednesday hearing wearing an orange jail-issued T-shirt and a headset to listen to the proceedings through a Spanish interpreter.

It was the latest chapter in an ongoing fight between Abrego Garcia and the Trump administration over whether he would be allowed to stay in the US.

According to his lawyers, Abrego Garcia fled El Salvador as a teenager to avoid gang violence, arriving in the US around 2011. He has lived for more than a decade in Maryland, where he and his American wife are raising three children.

In 2019, a judge granted him a protection order that barred his removal from the US.

But on March 15, Abrego Garcia was swept up in the immigration raids being conducted as part of President Trump’s mass deportation campaign.

He and more than 200 other Venezuelans and Salvadorans were accused of being gang members, and they were deported to El Salvador.

Many of the men were sent to the Centro de Confinamiento del Terrorismo, or CECOT, a maximum-security prison for those accused of terrorism. But advocates for the deported immigrants have argued that many of their clients had no criminal records and were in the process of seeking legal immigration status in the US.

Advocates have also pointed out that ICE has provided scant evidence against some of the deported individuals, in some cases appearing to arrest people based solely on their tattoos.

The Trump administration, however, has designated Latin American gangs like MS-13 and Tren de Aragua as “foreign terrorist organisations” and sought to crack down on their presence in the US.

A number of legal challenges followed the deportation flights to El Salvador. In Abrego Garcia’s case, the government acknowledged that his removal had been the result of an “administrative error”.

But the Trump administration initially insisted he could not be brought back to the US even after the Supreme Court in April ordered the government to “facilitate” his return.

A return to the US

That changed on June 7, when Abrego Garcia was returned to the US. The Trump administration justified the return as necessary to confront him with charges of smuggling undocumented migrants inside the US.

Those charges stem from a 2022 traffic stop for speeding in Tennessee. In a video recording of the stop, one of the police officers observed that Abrego Garcia was driving a vehicle with nine passengers and speculated he might be a smuggler. But no criminal charges were brought at the time.

In announcing Abrego Garcia’s return to the US this month, the Trump administration revealed it had sought a criminal indictment in May of this year.

At the recent detention hearings, Homeland Security special agent Peter Joseph testified that he did not begin investigating Abrego Garcia until April.

Abrego Garcia pleaded not guilty to the smuggling charges on June 13, and his lawyers have characterised them as an attempt to justify his mistaken deportation.

On Sunday, US Magistrate Judge Barbara Holmes ruled that Abrego Garcia does not have to remain in jail before his criminal trial.

But she described that decision as “little more than an academic exercise”, given that it was likely Abrego Garcia would be taken back into custody by ICE if released.

How to prevent Abrego Garcia from being deported a second time became the focus of Wednesday’s hearing.

A lawyer for Abrego Garcia, Sean Hecker, noted that witnesses cooperating with the Trump administration had been protected from possible deportation.

“The government has ensured witness cooperation by ensuring that people will not be deported,” Hecker said.

If the government could protect those witnesses from removal, Hecker asked why it could not do the same for Abrego Garcia.

Representing the government’s case, meanwhile, was acting US Attorney Rob McGuire. He argued that the executive branch of the government was vast, and he had little control over every entity’s actions.

Still, he added, he would ask the Department of Homeland Security for its cooperation in not deporting Abrego Garcia.

“That’s a separate agency with separate leadership and separate directions,” McGuire said. “I will coordinate, but I can’t tell them what to do.”

Speaking at a news conference before the court hearing, Abrego Garcia’s wife, Jennifer Vasquez Sura, noted that it had been 106 days since her husband had been “abducted” by the government. She called for his safe return.

“Kilmar should never have been taken away from us,” she said. “This fight has been the hardest thing in my life.”

President Trump extolls Israeli leader as a ‘warrior’, says the US will be the one that ‘saves Bibi Netanyahu’ amid corruption trial.

United States President Donald Trump has called for Israel to cancel the corruption trial of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, or grant him a pardon, describing the case against the Israeli leader as a “witch-hunt”.

Trump issued the call on Wednesday on behalf of his close Israeli ally, who was indicted in 2019 in Israel on charges of bribery, fraud and breach of trust.

Netanyahu’s trial began in 2020 and involves three criminal cases. He has denied the allegations and pleaded not guilty.

“Bibi Netanyahu’s trial should be CANCELLED, IMMEDIATELY, or a Pardon given to a Great Hero, who has done so much for the State (of Israel),” Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform using the Israeli leader’s nickname, adding that he had learned that Netanyahu was due to appear in court on Monday.

“Such a WITCH HUNT, for a man who has given so much, is unthinkable to me,” Trump added.

Israeli media have reported that cross-examination of Netanyahu began on June 3 in a Tel Aviv court and was expected to take about a year to complete.

Israeli President Isaac Herzog has the power to pardon Netanyahu, but has been quoted by Israeli media as saying that a pardon is “not currently on the table”.

Herzog also said that “no such request had been made”, according to the reports.

Trump also said in his post: “It was the United States of America that saved Israel, and now it is going to be the United States of America that saves Bibi Netanyahu.”

It was unclear what Trump or the US government could do to stop Netanyahu’s corruption trial.

Trump’s words of support for Netanyahu contrasted with the rare public rebuke he issued against the Israeli leader on Tuesday over Israel’s post-ceasefire strikes on Iran.

“Israel, as soon as we made the deal, they came out and they dropped a load of bombs, the likes of which I’ve never seen before. The biggest load that we’ve seen. I’m not happy with Israel,” Trump told reporters at the time.

Iran and Israel, he added, had been fighting “so long and so hard that they don’t know what the f*** they’re doing”.