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Afghanistan’s Taliban government took over management of Kabul’s famed Serena hotel on Saturday, a hotel statement said, a luxury property targeted by Taliban attacks during their insurgency. The Kabul Serena Hotel was run for nearly 20 years by the Aga Khan Fund for Economic Development in the Afghan capital and was popular with business travellers and …

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US President Donald Trump is set to unveil fresh tariffs Saturday on major trading partners Canada, Mexico and China, threatening upheaval across supply chains from energy to autos and raising inflation concerns.Trump has promised to impose 25 percent tariffs on immediate neighbors Canada and Mexico, pointing to their failure to stop illegal immigration and the …

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Half a century after her death, Umm Kulthum’s singular voice still echoes through busy streets in Egypt, across time-worn cafes in Iraq, and in millions of homes from Morocco to Oman.”As long as people listen to music, there will be Umm Kulthum,” said Abu Ahmed, the manager of a Cairo cafe named after the Arab world’s most revered singer.”She still lives in every song and every note,” he told AFP, adjusting the volume on an antique recorder as visitors to the historic bazaar the cafe is housed in peered in from outside.Sepia-toned photographs of the icon adorn the walls of Abu Ahmed’s cafe, alongside posters from her concerts.As her voice in her most famous ballad, “Enta Omri” (You’re My Life), rose to a crescendo, conversation around a nearby table fell to a hush.”Umm Kulthum is the voice of the nation,” Aya Khamis, 36, whispered as she sipped her tea.On a wooden stall just outside, a vendor laid out tiny figurines of Umm Kulthum and her orchestra.Each piece was carefully crafted — musicians in sharp suits, miniature renditions of classical instruments the qanun and the oud, and Umm Kulthum herself, with her signature scarf and sunglasses.”These are my bestsellers,” said Shadi Said, 37, holding up a figurine of the singer.- Disguised as a boy -More than 1,000 kilometres (600 miles) away, the same music poured out of Baghdad’s own Umm Kulthum cafe — open since 1970, five years before the singer’s death at 76 plunged the Arab world into mourning.Far away from her state funeral in Cairo, the cafe in Baghdad held its own ceremony for bereaved fans like Iraqi engineer Youssef Hamad.Now 77 and retired, Hamad told AFP he still comes to the same cafe every day to listen to Umm Kulthum’s hours-long concerts.Another cafe-goer, Khazaal Abu Ali, struggled to put his love for her into words.”She once sang ‘if a day passes without seeing you, it can’t count towards my lifetime’. That is how I feel,” the 83-year-old said, his eyes tearing up.”A day without her voice is a day that is lost.”Born in 1898 in a small Nile Delta village, Umm Kulthum rose from humble beginnings to become the most celebrated voice in the Arab world.Her father, an imam, recognised her talent early on, but fearing the ire of early 20th-century Egyptian society, disguised her as a boy so she could perform in public.Her full-bodied voice and magnetic presence soon captivated audiences, and in the 1930s, she moved to Cairo.Her music revolutionised Arabic music, as she blended classical poetry with grand orchestral arrangements.But it was her improvisations that made her a legend, feeding off the audience’s energy in a hypnotic exchange, as she stretched and reprised verses.Western musicians were also mesmerised, with Maria Callas, Robert Plant and Bob Dylan all paying tribute to her.”She is one of my favourite singers of all time,” Dylan once said.More recently, Shakira and Beyonce have sampled her songs.- ‘The Lady’ -Her influence was not just musical.Her voice became the soundtrack of a transforming Egypt, embodying a nascent nationalism, spirit of unity and a new republican identity after the monarchy was toppled in 1952.In 1967, she performed at L’Olympia in Paris to a sold-out crowd, and donated the huge profit from ticket sales to the Egyptian army for its war against Israel, then occupying the Sinai Peninsula.”Umm Kulthum was more than just a singer,” said veteran art critic Magda Khairallah.”She was a national figure. That is why people did not just call her Umm Kulthum — they called her El-Set (The Lady),” she told AFP.This year, her story is set to return to the big screen in a new biopic starring Egyptian star Mona Zaki.The film will portray her not just as a musician, but also as a feminist figure challenging societal norms.Though she eventually married at 56, Umm Kulthum never had children.In the 1940s she became the first woman to head Egypt’s Musicians’ Syndicate.”She was a woman who held immense power in a male-dominated industry,” Fayza Hendawi, an art critic, told AFP.”She was incredibly strong and completely in control of every detail — her songs, her image, her choices in life,” she added.In Cairo, a bronze statue of Umm Kulthum stands looking out on the Nile River 50 years after her death, commanding and timeless.Across the water, a museum dedicated to her legacy offers glimpses into her world.Visitors marvel at her ornate gowns, notebooks and the diamond-encrusted sunglasses that became her signature look.Roaming the museum’s halls are mostly teenagers, a new generation of music-lovers still as enthralled as their elders.Rodina Mohamed, 15, paused in front of a display case holding one of the singer’s embroidered gowns.”She was intentional about every detail — lyrics, melodies, performance,” she told AFP.”That is why she still matters.”

The Red Cross, accused of not doing enough to help hostages in Gaza or Palestinian detainees in Israel, has defended itself in a rare statement outlining the limits of its role.Insisting on its neutrality, the International Committee of the Red Cross said the escalation of violence in Israel and the Palestinian territories has triggered “a proliferation of dehumanising language and of false and misleading information about the ICRC and our work in the current conflict”.- Hostages -In recent days, ICRC vehicles have facilitated the transfer of Palestinians out of Israeli detention, and hostages held in the Gaza Strip since Hamas’s attack in Israel on October 7, 2023.But the transfer of hostages to the ICRC has been sharply criticised following chaotic scenes on Thursday as masked fighters from Hamas and Islamic Jihad, carrying automatic weapons, struggled to hold back a surging crowd.ICRC officials “did nothing to interfere with this intimidating display of indignity and public humiliation”, Gerald Steinberg, president of the right-wing Israeli organisation NGO Monitor, wrote in the Australian-based online magazine Quillette.The ICRC said: “Ensuring the safety and security of the handover operations is the responsibility of the parties to the agreement.”Furthermore, “Interfering with armed security personnel could compromise the safety of ICRC staff, and more importantly that of the hostages.”The Geneva-based organisation also said it had not given permission for “people carrying Hamas flags to get on top of our buses in Ramallah” during the release of Palestinian detainees, “nor did we have the capacity to prevent people from doing so”.- ‘No right to exist’ -In late 2023, Israel’s then foreign minister Eli Cohen said the Red Cross had “no right to exist” if it did not visit the hostages in Gaza.However, the organisation is reliant on the goodwill of the belligerents.”From day one, we have called for the immediate release of all the hostages, and for access to them,” it says.In World War II, the ICRC visited prisoners of war but its mandate did not explicitly extend to civilians unless governments allowed it.The ICRC acknowledges that during World War II, it “failed to speak out and more importantly act on behalf of the millions of people who suffered and perished in the death camps, especially the Jewish people targeted, persecuted, and murdered under the Nazi regime”.In its statement, the ICRC reaffirmed that it was the “greatest failure” in the organisation’s history, and said it unequivocally rejects anti-Semitism in all its forms.- Detainees and aid -The ICRC has been accused, particularly on social media, of not putting pressure on Israel to secure visits to Palestinian detainees since October 7, 2023, and also of not doing enough to help the wounded in the Gaza Strip.The humanitarian organisation says it has been actively engaging with the Israeli authorities “to allow for the resumption of ICRC visits and family contacts for these detainees”.As for the wounded in Gaza, the ICRC said it had received requests to evacuate hospitals in the north, but could not regularly safely access the area due the “extremely difficult security situation — together with roads blocked and unreliable communications”.Following the ceasefire between Israel and Hamas that came into effect on January 19, the ICRC, which already had 130 staff in Gaza, is deploying more personnel, including doctors.- Neutrality -In 1968, Leopold Boissier, a former ICRC president, noted that the criticism most frequently levelled at the organisation “is the silence with which it surrounds some of its activities”.Nearly 60 years later, the ICRC is facing similar accusations, notably since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, and the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza.Founded in Geneva in 1863, the organisation, which has more than 18,000 staff in over 90 countries, denies being “complicit” and says it establishes trust through “confidential dialogue with all parties to the conflict”.”Our neutrality and impartiality are critical to our ability to operate in any context.”