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United States Secretary of State Marco Rubio is hosting more than 65 countries for a conference focused on political violence from the far left, a designation that a number of critics say is being used to target legitimate opposition.

The “Ministerial on the Resurgence of Political Terrorism”, taking place on Thursday, brings together government representatives from around the world to coordinate on what the US Department of State calls a “renewed threat”  that has “remained a blind spot in the international community’s counterterrorism focus”.

Critics, including the American Civil Liberties Union, told the Reuters news agency that “the far-left terrorism designations could be used to target lawful protest activity and political opponents rather than genuine security threats.”

Here’s what’s driving the summit and who’s attending:

What is this summit about?

The Trump administration’s 2026 counterterrorism strategy identifies three primary threats: “Islamist terrorism”, “narco-terrorism”, and “violent left-wing extremists, including Anarchists and Anti-Fascists”.

The strategy states that the third category of left-wing “extremists” has been traditionally ignored, and notes that Charlie Kirk’s assassination in September 2025 was executed “by a radical who espoused extreme transgender ideologies”.

The counterterrorism strategy omits right-wing extremism and white supremacist groups, despite growing instances of violence that some of these outfits have been accused of – including several of those who attacked the Capitol on January 6, 2020, in an attempt to overturn the US presidential election that Donald Trump lost.

Thomas Renard, director of The Hague-based International Centre for Counter-Terrorism, said the summit reflects a fundamental shift in how the US sees the threat.

“What we are seeing now in the United States is that counterterrorism has been completely politicised, instrumentalised,” he told Al Jazeera. “For instance, the threat from far-right terrorism, which was for decades considered as the primary domestic threat, has now completely disappeared from the US counterterrorism strategy.”

Who has been invited?

Invites went to more than 70 countries as the State Department wrote on social media that countries had shown “overwhelming interest”. It is reported that Israel’s Foreign Minister Gideon Saar will be present alongside representatives from multiple countries. The stated aim is to “expand coordination, enhance information sharing, and strengthen international law enforcement mechanisms”.

The summit follows a series of smaller meetings held earlier this year, including one in The Hague with law enforcement officials.

Renard says many European nations are expressing their unease with this ministerial meeting by sending relatively junior ministers.

“They are not particularly convinced that this is a topic that justifies this type of gathering, but at the same time, they don’t want to antagonise the United States either. And therefore, this is the compromise they found,” he said.

In November, 2025, the US designated four European groups as terrorist organisations: The German Antifa Ost, the Italian Informal Anarchist Federation/International Revolutionary Front (FAI/FRI), the Greek Armed Proletarian Justice and the Greek Revolutionary Class Self-Defense.

What is “far-left terrorism”?

The term is usually used by governments to describe movements accused of violence and driven by left-wing ideologies, including Marxism, socialism, or anarchism. Such movements usually describe themselves as anti-capitalist and anti-imperialist.

Latin America saw several left-wing armed movements during the Cold War, a number of which carried out sustained campaigns of political violence, such as Colombia’s Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), the Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front (FMNL) in El Salvador and the Tupamaros in Uruguay. Throughout the 20th century, Washington repeatedly backed hardline right-wing regimes that opposed left-wing movements across Latin America.

India has been dealing with the Naxalite rebellion, a far-left Maoist movement that started in the 1960s and claims to fight for the rural population. The group is seen as one of India’s most serious internal security threats. At its peak, about the year 2000, thousands of people were killed due to the conflict with the Naxalite rebellion.

During the 1970s and 1980s, Marxist groups like the Red Army Faction in West Germany were behind several assassinations, abductions and bombings that they argued were aimed at weakening the capitalist state.

By contrast, the Antifa movement, which the Trump administration has consistently tried to portray as a major violent threat, is a loose, decentralised collection of socialist-leaning individuals opposed to far-right extremism, white supremacy and authoritarianism. Several individuals described by prosecutors as Antifa members have been indicted on accusations of violence in US courts, especially in states like Texas that are ruled by Trump’s Republican Party, since he returned to power. In June, eight such individuals were sentenced to several years in prison: Benjamin Hanil Song, convicted of the attempted murder of a law enforcement officer, was sentenced to 100 years in prison.

Far-right political violence and terrorism in the US

But the same Trump administration has pardoned all those charged with violence during the January 6, 2023 insurrection, including individuals accused of beating police officers.

This week’s summit also specifically focuses on far-left political violence but does not include the threat from far-right ideology and terrorism, similar to the counterterrorism strategy.

This, even though the Oklahoma bombing, which killed 168 people and wounded nearly 700 in the deadliest act of domestic terrorism in the US, was carried out by the right-wing hardliner Timothy McVeigh.

The Cato Institute, a US think tank in Washington, DC, stated in February that of politically motivated terrorism on US soil between 1975 and 2025, excluding the Oklahoma bombing and 9/11, “right-wing terrorists account for 45 percent of people murdered, Islamists are responsible for 32 percent, left-wing terrorists are responsible for 16 percent.”

Renard says the summit creates the very problem it claims to solve: “The United States, with this summit and with its strategy, is creating, actually, a blind spot about far-right terrorist threats, as that threat is strongly anchored and rooted in the United States.”

NATO leaders are meeting in Ankara, Turkiye on Tuesday and Wednesday.

The summit gets underway as US President Donald Trump renews pressure on member states over defence spending. European nations are expected to respond with billions of dollars in new military contracts.

At the NATO summit last year, members agreed to increase their target to 5 percent of GDP: 3.5 percent on military spending by 2035 and 1.5 percent on security-related needs.

Who is there and what is at stake?

Leaders from all 32 NATO member states are at the summit in Turkiye this week.

Two non-alliance heads of state will also be there: Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelenskyy and South Korea’s Lee Jae-myung.

Australia, Japan and New Zealand are sending defence or foreign ministers, as are Gulf countries affected by the US-Israel war on Iran: Bahrain, Kuwait, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates.

Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa is not expected to attend the summit but is holding a bilateral meeting with Trump in Ankara.

What Trump wants from NATO allies

Trump has questioned NATO’s value since his first presidential campaign. He argued that the US carried an unfair share of the costs. At the time, only five countries spent the agreed two percent GDP on defence.

His questions about shared defence responsibility have produced some results in recent years within the alliance as member states pledged an increased defence budget.

Ozgur Unluhisarcikli, the German Marshall Fund’s regional director for Turkiye, believes NATO this year will focus on implementing its promises from last year. “NATO allies just decided to increase their defence spending to five percent last year at The Hague and European allies took action to upgrade their defence industries,” he said. “This year in Ankara the discussion will be on how to translate spending to capabilities. It is therefore stronger than it was last year.”

But Paolo von Schirach, president of the Global Policy Institute, noted that any capability gains from increased spending are years away, saying that more orders mean more military hardware but only eventually. “You can spend a lot and obtain not too much,” he said.

What Ukraine needs from this summit

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy is meeting Trump for a bilateral meeting on Wednesday. Ukraine is not a NATO member.

Zelenskyy will be using his face-to-face with the US president to request additional Patriot air defence systems as Russian attacks are intensifying on Ukrainian cities. A drone attack on the Ukrainian capital Kyiv killed at least 11 people on Monday morning.

Jack Watling, a senior research fellow at the Royal United Services Institute said that Ukraine is looking for ongoing political and military technical support from alliance members, to signal to Russia “that this support will be sustained”.

The idea, he said, was “to show Russia that there will be no diminution in its defensive capacity over the next 12-24 months”.

“There is a direct correlation between the number of interceptors supplied to Ukraine and the damage that Russia can inflict with ballistic missiles,” says Watling.

What European nations are trying to solve for

The billions in contracts expected to be announced by European nations at this summit are seen by some analysts as trying to appease the Trump administration.

When European nations didn’t join the war on Iran, Trump stated he didn’t want their money, just their “loyalty”. He added he might not have attended the summit if it wasn’t hosted by Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. Turkey has in recent years not only increased its defence spending, it also has grown into one of NATO’s largest military exporters.

For now, the tone around defence spending remains sharp. On the eve of the summit, Trump called Germany’s defence spending “ridiculous”. Chancellor Friedrich Merz defended his country’s budget, saying that “this is the greatest effort we have ever made to strengthen our defence capabilities”.

Meanwhile, the US has gone a step beyond rhetoric and announced a phased withdrawal of warplanes, destroyers and submarines from NATO countries. “Less US infantry or armour in Europe has an impact on messaging but little else,” Watling said. But, he added, “the withdrawal of US air power has a more tangible impact”.

Whether the alliance can project unity amid the rhetoric and withdrawals is a key question, said analysts.

“The main value of this summit is political, it shows that the allies are still talking, still meeting, still trying to project unity, even if the underlying disagreements and doubts haven’t disappeared,” von Schirach of the Global Policy Institute said. “Ankara is more about reassurance and signalling than about concrete, immediate changes on the ground.”

June 10 (UPI) — The U.S. Embassy in Mexico issued a travel advisory for American citizens who plan to attend soccer matches at the 2026 FIFA World Cup, warning of security risks, mobility restrictions and significant differences in risk levels among Mexican states.

The diplomatic mission urged travelers to review current advisories for each Mexican state before traveling and reminded them that Mexico includes states classified from Level 1 (“exercise normal precautions”) to Level 4 (“do not travel”).

“If you scored tickets for a FIFA World Cup 2026 match in Mexico, check the latest travel advisory level and risk information before you travel,” the embassy said in a message released this week.

Although the Mexican government has announced deployment of nearly 100,000 security personnel to protect the World Cup host cities of Mexico City, Guadalajara and Monterrey, international travel advisories remain in place because of cartel-related violence and organized crime, which vary by state.

The State Department maintains a Level 2 advisory for Mexico, recommending travelers “exercise increased caution” because of risks related to terrorism, crime and kidnapping.

However, the agency noted that specific areas of the country remain under Levels 3 and 4, the highest risk categories.

According to the advisory, violent crimes including homicide, kidnapping, carjacking, sexual assault and robbery occur in Mexico.

The U.S. government also said there is a risk of terrorist violence and reminded travelers that consular assistance may be limited in certain regions.

U.S. authorities recommended that citizens follow the same restrictions that apply to U.S. government personnel stationed in Mexico.

Those measures include avoiding intercity travel at night, using only regulated transportation services or ride-hailing applications such as Uber and Cabify, avoiding solo travel in remote areas and refraining from driving between border cities and the country’s interior except in specific circumstances.

The advisory also says that emergency services may be limited or unavailable in rural and remote areas.

In addition, it advises travelers to cooperate with highway checkpoints and roadblocks, warning that ignoring instructions or attempting to flee could result in violent situations.

The State Department recommended that travelers enroll in the Smart Traveler Enrollment Program, obtain travel insurance and review security conditions in the states they plan to visit during the tournament.

May 25 (Asia Today) — Buddhist temples in South Korea’s southeastern region are opening temple stay facilities to help accommodate foreign fans traveling to Busan for upcoming concerts by K-pop group BTS amid severe lodging shortages and complaints over soaring hotel prices.

The Korean Buddhism Culture Corps said Sunday that temple stay-operating temples in Busan and South Gyeongsang Province will provide lodging support for tourists visiting Busan for the “BTS World Tour Arirang in Busan” concerts scheduled for June 12-13.

Public concern has grown over accommodation costs ahead of the concerts as demand from domestic and overseas fans surged.

According to a February survey conducted by South Korea’s Fair Trade Commission and the Korea Consumer Agency covering 135 hotels and lodging facilities in Busan, average room rates during the concert weekend rose about 2.4 times compared with the weekends before and after the event.

The Busan city government has also been conducting inspections since May 13 targeting unfair business practices, including excessive room charges and possible violations of public sanitation and lodging regulations.

Alongside government measures, Buddhist groups said private-sector support was also urgently needed.

The Buddhist cultural organization and participating temples plan to use temple lodging rooms and available indoor spaces to provide safe and stable accommodations for visitors traveling to Busan.

Temples currently participating in the program include Beomeosa, Naewonjeongsa, Hongbeopsa and Seonamsa in Busan, along with Seongjusa and Daegwangsa in Changwon, Tongdosa in Yangsan and Pyochungsa in Miryang.

A representative from the Buddhist cultural organization said the effort was intended not only to provide lodging but also to allow foreign visitors to experience traditional Korean and Buddhist culture in a peaceful temple environment.

Temple stay programs have become increasingly popular among foreign tourists seeking cultural experiences in South Korea. Last year, temple stays attracted 349,236 visitors, including 55,515 foreign tourists.

Participants using temple stays during the BTS concerts will be offered accommodations, temple meals and simple cultural programs depending on conditions at each temple.

Organizers said visitors will also be required to follow temple rules, including check-in and check-out schedules and shared living guidelines, since temples remain active religious and monastic spaces.

The Buddhist organization and participating temples said they are also reviewing interpretation support and visitor guidance measures to help overseas guests stay comfortably.

“We hope to share the spirit of hospitality and generosity embodied by Buddhist temples with fans facing accommodation difficulties,” a representative said. “We want visitors to leave Busan with safe and warm memories.”

— Reported by Asia Today; translated by UPI

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Original Korean report: https://www.asiatoday.co.kr/kn/view.php?key=20260525010007064