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The world is entering an era of “global water bankruptcy” with rivers, lakes and aquifers depleting faster than nature can replenish them, a United Nations research institute said on Tuesday.It argues that decades of overuse, pollution, environmental destruction and climate pressure had pushed many water systems so beyond the point of recovery that a new classification was required.”Water stress and water crisis are no longer sufficient descriptions of the world’s new water realities,” read a new report by the UN University Institute for Water, Environment and Health (UNU-INWEH).These terms were “framed as alerts about a future that could still be avoided” when the world had already moved into a “new phase”, it said.The report proposes the alternative term “water bankruptcy” — a state in which long-term water use exceeds resupply and damages nature so severely that previous levels cannot realistically be restored.This was reflected in the shrinking of the world’s large lakes, the report said, and the growing number of major rivers failing to reach the sea for parts of the year. The world has lost enormous proportions of wetlands, with roughly 410 million hectares — nearly the size of the European Union — disappearing over the past five decades.Groundwater depletion is another sign of this bankruptcy.Around 70 percent of major aquifers used for drinking water and irrigation show long-term declines with rising “day zero” crises — when demand exceeds supply — the “urban face” of this new reality.Climate change was compounding the problem, spurring the loss of more than 30 percent of the world’s glacier mass since 1970 and the seasonal meltwater relied upon by hundreds of millions of people.- ‘Be honest’ -The consequences were visible on every inhabited continent, but not every country individually was water bankrupt, UNU-INWEH director and report author Kaveh Madani told AFP.Madani said the phenomenon was a “warning” that a policy rethink was essential.Instead of approaching water scarcity as something temporary, governments must “be honest” and “file for bankruptcy today rather than delaying this decision”, he said.”Let’s adopt this framework. Let’s understand this. Let us recognise this bitter reality today before we cause more irreversible damages,” Madani added.The report draws on existing data and statistics and does not provide an exhaustive record of all water problems, but attempts instead to redefine the situation.It is based on a peer-reviewed report, soon to be published in the journal Water Resources Management, that will formally propose a definition of “water bankruptcy”.The report “captures a hard truth: the world’s water crisis has crossed a point of no return”, Tim Wainwright, chief executive of the WaterAid charity, wrote in a statement.Some scientists not involved in the report welcomed the spotlight on water but warned that the global picture varied considerably and a blanket declaration might overlook progress being made at a local level.

Syria’s government and the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces agreed a new ceasefire on Tuesday as Washington said the SDF’s purpose in fighting Islamic State group jihadists was largely over.The announcement came after the army sent reinforcements to the Kurds’ Hasakeh province stronghold in the northeast, and Kurdish forces withdrew from the Al-Hol camp which houses thousands of people with suspected IS links, including foreign women and children.The latest truce opens the way for further talks on a deal announced Sunday between President Ahmed al-Sharaa and SDF chief Mazloum Abdi that includes integrating the Kurds’ de facto autonomous administration into the state, in a major blow to the Kurds.The SDF once controlled vast areas of north and east Syria which it seized fighting IS with support from a US-led international coalition.But they have now withdrawn from Arab-majority Raqa and Deir Ezzor provinces after a government military escalation that began in Aleppo earlier this month.The defence ministry in Damascus announced a four-day ceasefire starting Tuesday evening.The SDF said it was committed to the truce and ready to “move forward with implementing” Sunday’s agreement.An AFP correspondent saw major military reinforcements moving towards Hasakeh province, while a military official said his tank convoy had “assault and defensive vehicles behind us for support”. Sharaa’s Islamist forces toppled longtime ruler Bashar al-Assad in 2024. The new authorities are seeking to extend state control across Syria, resetting international ties including with the United States, now a key ally. US President Donald Trump backed Sharaa as a “tough guy” Tuesday, adding: “But you’re not gonna put a choir boy in there and get the job done.”- ‘Largely expired’-US envoy Tom Barrack said earlier “the original purpose of the SDF as the primary anti-ISIS force on the ground has largely expired, as Damascus is now both willing and positioned to take over security responsibilities, including control of ISIS detention facilities and camps”.Syria’s presidency on Tuesday announced a fresh “understanding” with the Kurds over the fate of Kurdish-majority areas of Hasakeh province, and gave the Kurds “four days for consultations to develop a detailed plan” for the area’s integration.If finalised, government forces “will not enter the city centres of Hasakeh and Qamishli… and Kurdish villages”, it added.In Hasakeh city earlier Tuesday, an AFP correspondent saw Kurdish residents including women and the elderly bearing weapons in support of the SDF, which patrolled and manned checkpoints.Fighter Shahine Baz told AFP: “We promise our people to protect them until the end.”In northeast Syria’s Qamishli, Hasina Hammo, 55, holding a Kalashnikov, said “we will not surrender”.Earlier Tuesday, the SDF said its forces “were compelled to withdraw from Al-Hol camp and redeploy” near north Syria cities “that are facing increasing risks and threat”.Northeast Syria’s Kurdish-administered camps and prisons hold tens of thousands of people, many with alleged or perceived IS links, nearly seven years after the group’s territorial defeat. Al-Hol is the largest camp.The defence ministry said it was ready to take responsibility for Al-Hol camp “and all IS prisoners”.- ‘Red line’ -SDF chief Abdi urged the coalition to “bear its responsibilities in protecting facilities” holding IS members.”We withdrew to predominantly Kurdish areas and protecting them is a red line,” he added.Al-Hol director Jihan Hanan told AFP in December that the camp was home to more than 24,000 people, including thousands of foreigners.The Kurds have repeatedly urged countries to take their citizens from the facility, which has a high-security section holding non-Syrian and non-Iraqi women and children, but most have repatriated only a trickle.Trump told the New York Post Tuesday he had helped stop a prison break of European jihadists in Syria, a day after the army accused the SDF of releasing IS detainees from the Shadadi prison. The Kurds said they lost control of the facility after an attack by Damascus.The SDF on Monday had urged Kurds at home and abroad to “join the ranks of the resistance” in Syria.The Kurds are spread across Syria, Iraq, Iran and Turkey, where the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) said it would “never abandon” Syria’s Kurds.Clashes erupted on the Syria-Turkey border on Tuesday between police and pro-Kurdish protesters angered by the Syrian military offensive, an AFP correspondent said.Dozens of Kurds residing in Iraqi Kurdistan headed for Syria in response to the call, a correspondent there said.Nadia Murad, the Iraqi Yazidi survivor of sexual slavery at the hands of IS, condemned what she said was the world’s abandonment of Syria’s Kurds.strs-mam-lar/lg/srm/amj

Iran has been pressing ahead with arrests following a wave of protests, according to local media and monitors, as the country faces international pressure over a crackdown rights groups said led to thousands of deaths under cover of ongoing internet restrictions. Here are key developments: – Arrests -Iranian state media continues to regularly report arrests of people it says were part of a “terrorist operation” spurred by Tehran’s arch foes Israel and the United States. State television said on Tuesday that 73 people had been arrested for “American-Zionist sedition” in central Isfahan, though the nationwide figure remains unclear.  Tasnim news agency said late last week 3,000 people had been arrested, with rights groups saying the estimated number has risen to around 25,000. The Tehran prosecutor has lodged lawsuits against 25 people including athletes and actors, as well as 60 coffee shops “that directly or indirectly accompanied or supported the calls for terrorism” during the protests, the judiciary’s Mizan Online website reported, adding that properties had also been seized. – Iran isolated -Iran has faced increased international isolation over the crackdown. The World Economic Forum cancelled Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi’s appearance set for Tuesday at the Davos summit in Switzerland, saying it would not be “right”.Araghchi said the decision was based on “lies” and political pressure from Israel and the US. On Monday, Germany’s Lufthansa told AFP the airline would not operate flights to Tehran through March 29 and that group member Austrian would also cease flights until mid-February. And on Tuesday, the UN’s Human Rights Council said it would hold an urgent meeting on Friday on “the deteriorating human rights situation” in Iran.It cited “credible reports of alarming violence, crackdowns on protesters and violations of international human rights law”. Brussels on Tuesday proposed banning the export of more European Union drone and missile tech to Iran over the crackdown, European Commission head Ursula von der Leyen said.- Pahlavi says ‘be ready’ -Reza Pahlavi, the US-based son of the former shah, has presented himself as leader of the opposition.He called for protests before the rallies surged in size and intensity on January 8, with videos showing crowds chanting his family’s name.  He again called for demonstrations over the past weekend. Some reports of scattered demonstrations from late last week emerged but the rallies have largely subsided, with many shops in the capital Tehran’s Grand Bazaar open again Tuesday amid a heavy security presence, an AFP correspondent said. Pahlavi urged Iranians on Tuesday to “be ready”, in a post on X. “The time will come to return to the streets.” – Dead, wounded tolls -The Norway-based Iran Human Rights NGO (IHR) has said verification of deaths in the crackdown remains severely hampered due to the communication restrictions, but noted on Monday that available information “indicates that the number of protesters killed may exceed even the highest media estimates”, which reach 20,000. The Human Rights Activists News Agency has reported 4,029 confirmed deaths.Iran’s head of the national security and foreign policy commission in parliament, Ebrahim Azizi, said death tolls reported by foreign media were “lies”, without giving an exact figure himself, according to the ISNA news agency. He said, however, that 3,709 security personnel had been wounded. Other officials have said a few thousand were killed, attributing the deaths to foreign agents. Fars news agency cited a provincial official from northeastern Razavi Khorasan — home to Iran’s second largest city, Masshad — saying the death toll for the province was less than 400. Mehran, a 50-year-old Mashhad native, told IHR there was a bloody crackdown on protests in the city. “Security forces opened fire on protesters with live ammunition. People carried the wounded in their arms or on motorbikes,” he said.  – Internet still restricted -Twelve days after Iranian authorities imposed an internet blackout, tight communications restrictions remain in place. The monitor Netblocks said on Tuesday that “traffic on select platforms points to an emergent strategy of whitelisting”, in which selected users, entities or services are allowed to bypass restrictions.Tasnim said on Tuesday that local messaging applications had been activated. People in Iran have been able to make outgoing international calls and send texts, but cannot receive them. 

Clashes erupted on Turkey’s border with Syria Tuesday between police and protesters angered by a Syrian military offensive targeting Kurds, an AFP correspondent said. Damascus has since announced a four-day ceasefire with Kurdish forces but protests across Turkey have continued. The earlier violence broke out in the border town of Nusaybin, just across from the northern Syrian town of Qamishli, at a protest called by the pro-Kurdish DEM, Turkey’s third-largest party.More than 1,000 demonstrators marched through the town towards the border, ending in a confrontation with police, who fired tear gas and used water cannon to disperse them.The clashes come after Syrian forces launched an offensive nearly two weeks ago that pushed the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) out of Aleppo, then advanced deep into the northeastern area held by Kurdish forces.The move has angered Kurds across the region, including the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) militant group in Turkey.An AFP correspondent said some people at the Turkish border protest hurled stones at police, while others tried to cross into Syria.Footage from the scene showed some trying to scale the wire fences, while protesters could also be seen gathering on the Syrian side.Syria’s defence ministry on Tuesday announced a four-day ceasefire with Kurdish forces, starting at 8 pm (17H00 GMT). But crowds of the women protesters still took to the streets in major Turkish cities on Tuesday evening in solidarity with Syria’s Kurdish community.In Istanbul, an AFP journalist saw around 150 women calling for the defence of Rojava — the name Syrian Kurds have given to the autonomous area they administer. Meanwhile, 77 people were detained and 35 were imprisoned across the country for “provocations” linked to the clashes in Syria, Turkish Justice Minister Yilmaz Tunc said Tuesday.On Monday, 10 people were arrested at a demonstration outside a DEM office in Istanbul, including a French journalist.Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has hailed the Syrian army for its “careful” offensive to take over Kurdish-held areas, but the move has triggered fury among Turkey’s Kurds, who make up a fifth of the country’s 86 million residents.”Mr President (Erdogan), you are congratulating HTS, which is killing our Kurdish brothers. There is a war going on!” DEM co-chair Tulay Hatimogullari said at the border protest, referring to the Islamist-led rebels now ruling Syria.In Ankara, Turkey’s top diplomat, Hakan Fidan, huddled for talks with US Syria envoy Tom Barrack, and later spoke to US Secretary of State Marco Rubio by telephone.”Despite all the difficulties, implementation of the January 18 agreement will play an extremely important role in the unity and integrity of Syria,” Fidan said.- ‘Whatever is necessary’ -The violence has also raised serious doubts about Turkey’s peace process with the PKK, which last year said it was ending its four-decade insurgency in favour of democratic means to advance the Kurdish struggle.That process largely stalled amid the stand-off in Syria over plans to integrate the SDF into the central state.On Tuesday, the PKK vowed it would “never abandon” the Kurds of Syria “whatever the cost”.”We, the entire Kurdish people and the movement, will do whatever is necessary,” senior PKK leader Murat Karayilan told pro-Kurdish news agency Firat.DEM, which has been mediating between Ankara and jailed PKK leader Abdullah Ocalan, has been enraged over Turkey’s support for the Syrian offensive.”You cannot treat those you call ‘citizens’ on this side of the border as ‘enemies’ on the other,” it said on Sunday, accusing Ankara of “pure hypocrisy”.Wladimir van Wilgenburg, an author and expert on Syrian Kurdish affairs, said the unrest risked collapsing Turkey’s efforts to end the PKK conflict.”There’s a risk it could blow up with cross-border protests,” he told AFP.”Kurdish groups in Syria have called on the Kurds, both in Iraqi Kurdistan and in southeastern Turkey, to come and cross the border and join them in solidarity,” he added.

Israeli bulldozers began demolitions at the headquarters of the UN agency for Palestinian refugees in east Jerusalem on Tuesday, in what the organisation called an “unprecedented attack”.UNRWA spokesman Jonathan Fowler said in a statement to AFP that Israeli forces “stormed into” the compound shortly after 7:00 am and ejected security guards before bulldozers arrived and began demolishing buildings.”This is an unprecedented attack against UNRWA and its premises. And it also constitutes a serious violation of international law and the privileges and immunities of the United Nations,” Fowler said.”What happens today to UNRWA can happen tomorrow to any other international organisation or diplomatic mission around the world.”UN chief Antonio Guterres urged “Israel to immediately cease the demolition… and to return and restore the compound and other UNRWA premises to the United Nations without delay,” his spokesman Farhan Haq told reporters.Roland Friedrich, the agency’s director in the West Bank, called the demolition political.Friedrich told AFP “it seems the intent is to seize the land for settlement construction as has openly been stated by Israeli officials for many years in the media and elsewhere”.The Ramallah-based Palestinian Authority warned of the “gravity of this deliberate escalation against UNRWA”.AFP photos showed heavy machinery demolishing structures at the compound, as an Israeli flag fluttered overhead.An AFP photographer reported that far-right National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir briefly visited the site.”This is a historic day, a day of celebration and a very important day for governance in Jerusalem,” Ben Gvir was quoted as saying in a statement.”For years, these supporters of terrorism were here, and today they are being removed from here along with everything they built in this place. This is what will happen to every supporter of terrorism,” he added.Israel has repeatedly accused UNRWA of providing cover for Hamas militants, claiming that some of its employees took part in the group’s October 7, 2023 attack on Israel, which sparked the war in Gaza.A series of investigations, including one led by France’s former foreign minister Catherine Colonna, found some “neutrality-related issues” at UNRWA but stressed Israel had not provided conclusive evidence for its headline allegation.- ‘No immunity’ -An Israeli foreign ministry statement defended the demolitions and said “the State of Israel owns the Jerusalem compound”.The compound in Israeli-annexed east Jerusalem has been empty of UNRWA staff since January 2025, when a law banning its operations took effect after a months-long battle over its work in Gaza.”UNRWA-Hamas had already ceased its operations at this site and no longer had any UN personnel or UN activity there,” the foreign ministry said.”The compound does not enjoy any immunity and the seizure of this compound by Israeli authorities was carried out in accordance with both Israeli and international law,” it said.UNRWA’s Friedrich said the UN rejected the Israeli claim and insisted that the compound “remains United Nations property and is protected by the privileges and immunities of the UN, regardless of whether it is currently in use”.Although the UNRWA ban applies in east Jerusalem because of its annexation by Israel, the agency still operates in the occupied West Bank and Gaza.UNRWA chief Philippe Lazzarini said on X the demolition was yet another attempt by “Israeli authorities to erase the Palestine Refugee identity”.As the UN agency created specifically for the hundreds of thousands of Palestinians displaced from their homes during the creation of Israel in 1948, UNRWA provides refugee status registration, as well as health and education services for Palestinian refugees.Along with refugee status, which is passed on through generations, comes the right of return, which Israel contests, and is one of the most contentious issues for a lasting peace between Israelis and Palestinians.Months after the war in Gaza began in October 2023, Israeli authorities declared Guterres and Lazzarini personae non gratae in Israel.Jordan’s foreign ministry “strongly condemned” the demolition, calling it “a blatant violation of international law”.The Saudi foreign ministry also voiced its “strongest condemnation”.The UNRWA compound was a prison during the time of the Ottoman Empire, and later became property of the Jordanian government, which subsequently transferred it to UNRWA.

Like other exiled Iranians, chess champion Mitra Hejazipour has been scouring social media for news about anti-government protests in her homeland and battling to reach friends and family through an ongoing internet shutdown.The 32-year-old is one of the greatest chess players Iran has ever produced, but she fled to France five years ago after removing her mandatory headscarf during a competition in Moscow.Speaking to AFP in Paris to promote her autobiography, Hejazipour said recent events had been “highly distressing” amid a brutal crackdown on protests which monitoring groups estimate has cost the lives of thousands of people. “I haven’t been able to reach my family in Iran for ten days because the internet and phone service are cut off,” she explained. “But I managed to speak to a friend who works in a hospital. She told me there were many gunshot wounds, especially to the eyes. And many deaths. She was so depressed she found it hard to talk about it,” she added.She added that it was “very hard to sleep or eat. But we’re hanging in there,” driven by hope that “the sacrifice of Iranians” will not be in vain. The protests were sparked by economic strain in late December and have exploded into the biggest challenge to the Iranian leadership in years, with the full scale of the violent crackdown yet to emerge. Rights groups say they have verified at least several thousand protesters killed by Iranian security forces, with some estimates putting the figure as high as 20,000 dead. – ‘Wretched country’ -Since fleeing Iran, Hejazipour has gone on to gain French nationality, becoming national champion in 2023 and helping the French to third place at the world team championships in the same year.She believes that the days are numbered for the Iranian Islamic Republic because “the Iranian people are increasingly mobilised and angry.” “It could be tomorrow, or in a year, but I’m sure the regime will fall soon. It can’t go on like this,” she added. She sees Reza Pahlavi, the son of the former shah, who lives in exile in the United States, as the “unifying figure” who “can accompany the Iranian people in the transition and the establishment of a democratic system.” “Every day, when I wake up, I turn on my phone hoping that (Supreme Leader Ali) Khamenei is dead, that the regime has fallen, and that we can return to a free Iran,” she added. In her book “The Chess Player”, which releases in French this week, Hejazipour recounts her childhood in Mashhad, Iran’s second-largest city, and her life as a chess prodigy.She started playing aged six with her father. “I sensed very early on that chess would be a balm to soothe my sorrow, my shield against life’s uncertainties,” she writes. But one day in 2019, “I knew I had to leave Iran, that wretched country where I no longer felt at home.” “I imagined tearing off my veil, trampling it, ripping it, burning it,” she writes —   which she did at the World Championship in Moscow in December 2019. “I was warmly welcomed in France and met wonderful people, but it’s not easy to rebuild your life in anonymity when I was known in Iran,” she told AFP. Now living in Paris, she has founded a charity to encourage more women to take up chess as “a tool of empowerment.” 

Hundreds of Israeli ultra-Orthodox Jews protested on Tuesday to voice their religious objections to planned autopsies of two babies who died in an incident at an unlicensed nursery in Jerusalem a day earlier.Israeli doctors declared the babies dead after medics evacuated 55 children from the daycare centre in an area of Jerusalem inhabited by members of the ultra-Orthodox community, though they have not yet specified a cause of death. Israeli media reported that the incident could have been connected to the daycare’s heating system, suggesting heat exhaustion and dehydration as possible causes.A supreme court ruling reportedly issued Tuesday afternoon appears to have blocked the post-mortems, but not before unruly protest scenes broke out on Tuesday in Jerusalem and other Israeli cities, according to police.An AFP photographer in Jerusalem reported seeing dozens of demonstrators scuffling with police, who used water cannon and smoke grenades against the crowd.”Rioters are setting fire to and rolling dumpsters, causing extensive damage to infrastructure, attacking and clashing with civilians and police officers, and blocking trains and vehicles in an attempt to disrupt daily life,” a police statement said.Certain hardline sections of the ultra-Orthodox community disagree with autopsies, saying any interference with a dead body is a desecration according to the Torah. The protests first sprung up late Monday over a Jerusalem court ruling allowing autopsies to be performed on the two babies’ bodies. But Israel’s Kan public broadcaster reported that the supreme court overturned the lower court’s decision on Tuesday after an appeal from the families of the deceased children.Hundreds of ultra-Orthodox Jews had taken to the streets of Jerusalem, Beit Shemesh and Bnei Brak on Tuesday to protest the planned post-mortems. Police said they arrested 11 people during protests in Jerusalem and Beit Shemesh, “including a rioter who bit a police officer”.In a separate statement, they said one protester had been hit by a vehicle and was “evacuated to hospital in moderate condition”.Police also reported that a driver in Jerusalem was “attacked by rioters” but was removed from the scene unharmed, sharing a video of around 200 ultra-Orthodox men surrounding a car. Kan reported Tuesday that two caregivers at the centre were being held on “suspicion of reckless manslaughter” and that their detention had been extended until Thursday.Ultra-Orthodox Jews make up 14 percent of Israel’s Jewish population, or about 1.3 million people.