Asian equities were mixed in another holiday-thinned trading day Thursday, with investors digesting broadly positive tech earnings that came days after the upheaval caused by China’s DeepSeek explosion onto the global AI scene.With most markets closed for the Lunar New Year break, there was little major reaction to the Federal Reserve’s widely expected pause in …
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Israel will cut ties with the UN agency for Palestinian refugees on Thursday following accusations it provided cover for Hamas militants, a move likely to hamper delivery of its vital services after 15 months of war in Gaza.The agency, UNRWA, will be banned from operating on Israeli soil, and contact between it and Israeli officials will also be forbidden.UNRWA has provided support for Palestinian refugees around the Middle East for over 70 years, but has long clashed with Israeli officials, who have repeatedly accused it of undermining the country’s security.The hostility intensified in the wake of Hamas’s October 7, 2023 attack on Israel, with accusations that UNRWA employees participated in the assault.  “Humanitarian aid doesn’t equal UNRWA, and UNRWA doesn’t equal humanitarian aid. UNRWA equals an organization infested with Hamas terror activity,” Israeli foreign ministry spokesman Oren Marmorstein wrote on social media platform X ahead of the ban.”This is why, beginning on January 30 and in accordance with Israeli law, Israel will have no contact with UNRWA.”The agency’s offices and staff in Israel play a major role in the provision of healthcare and education to Palestinians, including those living in the Gaza Strip, which has been devastated by the war between Israel and Hamas.Government spokesman David Mencer told journalists on Wednesday that “UNRWA is riddled with Hamas operatives”, adding that “if a state funds UNRWA, that state is funding terrorists”.”UNRWA employs over 1,200 Hamas members, including terrorists who carried out the October 7 massacre,” Mencer said. “This isn’t aid, it’s direct financial support for terror.”- Terror accusations -Later on Wednesday, Israel’s Supreme Court rejected a petition by Palestinian human rights group Adalah contesting the UNRWA ban. The court did note that the legislation “prohibits UNRWA activity only on the sovereign territory of the State of Israel”, but “does not prohibit such activity in the areas of Judea-Samaria and the Gaza Strip”, referring to the West Bank by its biblical name.The ban does apply, however, to Israeli-annexed east Jerusalem, where UNRWA has a field headquarters for its operations in the West Bank.In a statement reacting to the judgement, Adalah said the law would come into effect “disregarding the catastrophic humanitarian consequences”.The move, which has been backed by Israel’s close ally the United States, has drawn condemnation from aid groups and US allies.The agency says it has brought in 60 percent of the food aid that has reached Gaza since the war started with Hamas’s 2023 attack on Israel.  Israeli envoy to the United Nations Danny Danon told the UN Security Council on Tuesday that UNRWA must cease its operations and evacuate all premises it operates in annexed east Jerusalem on Thursday.- ‘Relentless assault’ -In response, UN chief Antonio Guterres demanded that Israel rescind its order. “I regret this decision and request that the government of Israel retract it,” he said, stressing that UNRWA was “irreplaceable”.The agency’s chief, Philippe Lazzarini, said UNRWA’s capacity to distribute aid “far exceeds that of any other entity”.He called Israel’s actions against UNRWA a “relentless assault… harming the lives and future of Palestinians across the occupied Palestinian territory”. Israel claims that a dozen UNRWA employees were involved in the deadly 2023 attack, and insists that other agencies can pick up the slack to provide essential services, aid and reconstruction — something the UN and many donor governments dispute.A series of investigations, including one led by former French foreign minister Catherine Colonna, found some “neutrality-related issues” at UNRWA, but stressed Israel had not provided evidence for its headline allegation.Under US President Donald Trump, who returned to the White House earlier this month, Washington has thrown its weight behind Israel’s move, accusing UNRWA of overstating the impact of the decision.
Weeping, Fairuz Shalish grasps the red earth at an unmarked grave in Syria that she believes may hold her son, one of tens of thousands of people who vanished under ousted president Bashar al-Assad.Thousands poured out of the country’s web of prisons in the final days of Assad’s rule and after Islamist-led rebels toppled him on December 8.But as the weeks go by, many families are still desperately searching for news of relatives who were detained or went missing during years of his iron-fisted rule.Shalish, 59, has not seen her 27-year-old son Mohammed since military security personnel stormed their home near Homs around dawn in early November, just weeks before Assad’s ouster.”I was screaming,” she said at the Tal al-Naser cemetery near Homs.”They shot him in the leg, he fell on the ground and two of them came and opened fire” repeatedly before taking him away, she said, a foul smell lingering in the crisp winter air.”He has four young children… he has a son who is two,” she told AFP.”I tell him that (his father) will be back tomorrow.”The fate of detainees and others who went missing remains one of the most harrowing legacies of Syria’s conflict, which started in 2011 when Assad’s forces brutally repressed anti-government protests.Arbitrary arrests, violence and torture were all part of a paranoid state killing machine that crushed any hint of dissent.”There were people who accused (Mohammed) of being in contact with revolutionaries in the north,” Shalish said.Her other son, detained at the same time, was later released, but she was told unofficially that Mohammed had died, without receiving any formal notification.- ‘Need to be certain’ -At the sprawling cemetery, pieces of construction blocks serve as makeshift headstones in the dirt where Shalish sits.At an earlier visit, she learnt that an individual buried there had the same date of death as her son.But she has been unable to obtain authorisation to exhume the body, which was identified only by a code.”If I have to go to the end of the Earth, I will go. I need to see if it’s my son or not,” she said.”I need to be certain, so my heart can be at rest.”Adnan Deeb, known as Abu Sham, who is in charge of burials at the Tal al-Naser cemetery, sorts through ledgers containing the names of people who are interred there, leafing through worn, handwritten pages of records, organised by date.He said that after the uprising started, authorities began bringing bodies from the military hospital to be buried at the cemetery.”Some had codes, while others were identified by name,” said the towering man in a long black robe, his head wrapped in a traditional keffiyeh.”Sometimes we’d get 10, sometimes five… They’d bring them in ambulances or in pick-ups or military vehicles,” he said, adding that some bore signs of torture.”It was an atrocious sight. Atrocious. But we had no choice but to do our job,” he added.- Still looking -Deeb estimated several thousand former detainees could be buried at the cemetery.He expressed hope that the military hospital’s computer systems would eventually reveal the names of the bodies identified only by codes.People need to “know where their children are buried”, Deeb said.The International Committee of the Red Cross has said determining the fate of the missing will be a massive task likely to take years.The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a Britain-based war monitor, has said more than 100,000 people have died in detention from torture or dire health conditions across Syria since 2011.Rafic al-Mohbani, 46, from Homs, has been searching for answers for more than a decade.His eyes flash with rage as he recounts how his brother Raef and brother-in-law Hassan Hammadi disappeared on their way home from work in June 2013.”They told us they were at the military security branch in Homs. We went and asked, and they said they transferred them to Damascus. After that, we don’t know what happened,” he said.”We paid several sums of money to several people” secretly, he said.”We got a lawyer, and still couldn’t find out anything.”After prisoners began streaming out of Assad’s jails last month, “we posted the photos again, we’ve been looking at cemeteries and hospitals”, Mohbani said.He also visited Tal al-Naser cemetery, with no success.But the gaunt man, who works as a mechanic, said he still had hope of learning the two men’s fate.”God willing, justice will prevail for us and everyone in Syria.”
The emergence of the DeepSeek chatbot has sent Silicon Valley into a frenzy, with calls to go faster on advancing artificial intelligence and beat communist-led China before it is too late. California tech investors have usually kept their involvement in politics low key, generally supporting centrist politicians who don’t get in the way of their innovations …
Syria’s new authorities announced Wednesday that Ahmed al-Sharaa, who took the helm after Bashar al-Assad’s ouster last month, has been appointed interim president and tasked with forming a transitional legislature, state media reported.A rebel alliance led by Sharaa’s Islamist group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) ousted Assad on December 8 after a lightning offensive, ending five decades of his family’s iron-fisted rule, with a transitional government previously installed to steer the country until March 1.Sharaa was appointed “as the country’s president in the transitional phase”, state news agency SANA reported, quoting military official Hassan Abdel Ghani, without specifying a timeframe, adding that he would also represent the country “in international forums”.Sharaa was tasked with forming “a temporary legislative council… until a permanent constitution for the country is decided”, SANA said, adding that the Assad-era parliament had been dissolved and the 2012 constitution suspended.The announcements came during a conference on “the victory of the Syrian revolution” that was also attended by Sharaa, Foreign Minister Asaad al-Shaibani and the heads of armed factions.Abdel Ghani also announced the dissolution of all armed groups involved in Assad’s ouster, as well as the former government’s army and security agencies.”All military factions and political and civil revolutionary bodies are dissolved and integrated into state institutions”, SANA reported Abdel Ghani as saying.- ‘Civil peace’ -He also announced “the dissolution of the defunct regime’s army”, security agencies “and all the militias it established, and the formation of a new security apparatus that preserves citizens’ security” and the “reconstruction of the Syrian army”.The Syrian army has effectively collapsed, along with the other instruments of Assad’s rule.The Baath party which ruled Syria for decades was also dissolved, SANA reported.In a speech at the event, Sharaa set out Syria’s priorities as “filling the power vacuum, preserving civil peace, rebuilding state institutions and working to construct a development-oriented economy”, SANA said.”The mission of the victorious is heavy, and their responsibility is immense,” Sharaa added.Last month, he said it could take four years before elections could be held, and up to three years to rewrite the country’s constitution.Authorities had previously spoken of a national dialogue conference that would bring together Syrians of all political stripes, but SANA made no mention of any such conference on Wednesday.Civil war broke out in Syria after Assad suppressed peaceful anti-government protests in 2011. The conflict has killed more than 500,000 people and displaced millions more.HTS, rooted in Syria’s Al-Qaeda branch, is proscribed as a terrorist organisation by many governments including the United States, though it has recently sought to moderate its rhetoric and vowed to protect Syria’s religious and ethnic minorities.Since Assad’s ouster, a succession of Western diplomats have visited Syria to call for an inclusive transition.bur-tgg-kam-lk/lg/kir
US aid experts on Wednesday rejected Donald Trump’s claim that the United States had spent $50 million to fund condoms for the war-battered Gaza Strip, which the president has sought to make a poster child for wasteful spending.”We identified and stopped $50 million being sent to Gaza to buy condoms for Hamas,” Trump told reporters, referring to the militant group that has ruled the Palestinian territory for nearly two decades.”And do you know what’s happened to them? They’ve used them as a method of making bombs.”Trump offered no evidence to back his claim, which prompted both vehement rejections and ridicule from relief agencies and experts.The United States sent no condoms to any part of the Middle East since 2019, according to a detailed report last year from the US Agency for International Development (USAID).Its only family planning contribution to the region was a small shipment of injectable and oral contraceptives worth $45,680 that was sent to Jordan in 2023, the report said.International Medical Corps, a humanitarian aid organization, said it received about $68 million from USAID for its Gaza operations since October 7, 2023 — the day Hamas launched a major attack on Israel –- which paid for two field hospitals providing lifesaving care.”No US government funding was used to procure or distribute condoms,” the organization said in a statement.- ‘Dangerous’ -On Tuesday, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt claimed the $50 million expenditure was discovered in Trump’s first week by the budget office and the new Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) led by tech billionaire Elon Musk.She called it a “preposterous waste of taxpayer money.””The White House claim that DOGE uncovered $50 million in funding for condoms in Gaza is quite obviously untrue,” Matthew Kavanagh, director of Georgetown University’s Center for Global Health Policy and Politics, told AFP.”It does not even make sense.”A back-of-the-envelope calculation suggests $50 million would buy over a billion condoms for Gaza’s adult population.”What’s going is here is NOT a billion condoms for Gaza,” Jeremy Konyndyk, president of Refugees International, wrote on X, the Musk-owned site formerly called Twitter.”What’s going on is that the bros at DOGE apparently can’t read (government) spreadsheets.”Jesse Watters, host of a conservative-leaning talk show on Fox News, said that Hamas were using the non-existent US shipments to make “condom bombs,” floating explosives-laden balloons into Israel — a claim echoed by Trump.Soon after returning to office for a second term on January 20, Trump ordered a 90-day freeze in foreign assistance.He has vowed a review to ensure that aid conforms with policies of his administration, which opposes abortion, transgender rights and diversity programs.Secretary of State Marco Rubio said in a memo that the United States was freezing nearly all aid disbursement except for emergency food and military aid to Egypt and Israel. “What seems clear is the administration is taking a large grant to support healthcare infrastructure in Gaza and mischaracterizing it in order to justify the dangerous halt to lifesaving aid programs around the world,” Kavanagh said.
