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ONCE the golden couple of Hollywood, Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie’s multi- million-pound divorce battle rumbled on longer than they were man and wife.

And ten years since proceedings first started, the bitterness between those involved shows no sign of slowing down.

Brad, 62, watched in horror this week as the final steps were taken to remove any trace of him from the once-glorified “Brangelina” clan.

In a brutal move, his children Maddox, 24, and Zahara, 21, have both filed court papers to officially change their surname from Jolie-Pitt to just Jolie.

Siblings Shiloh, 20, and Vivienne, 18, have already turned their backs on the Pitt name, while Knox, 18, has also dropped it from informal documents and is estranged from Brad.

This leaves only Pax, 23, still using the Pitt surname.

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Insiders say that Brad has been left privately “devastated” by the decision.

A source said: “One by one, his children, who he was once so close to, have removed their connection to him.

“He really wonders if he’ll ever rebuild bridges with his shattered brood now.”

It is the latest twist in the family saga, following on from allegations of physical abuse, financial coercion and severe family PTSD as well as a Father’s Day Instagram post from Pax calling Brad a “world-class a**hole”.

It all helps cement Brad and Angelina’s divorce as perhaps the most toxic the entertainment world has ever seen.

In September, it will have been a decade since Maleficent star Angelina, 51, first filed for divorce from movie heart-throb Brad.

Their relationship started not long after they met on the set of 2005 film Mr & Mrs Smith, when Brad was still married to Jennifer Aniston.

They wed in 2014 but, less than two years later, in September 2016, they split in explosive fashion.The former couple had previously adopted Maddox, Zahara and Pax before having Shiloh, Vivienne and Knox.

But Brad, who was once inseparable from all six kids, has now been well and truly frozen out.

Legal notices published in the Los Angeles Daily Journal yesterday reveal that both Maddox and Zahara have filed petitions to change their surnames.

If approved, the changes will become official in court, with Maddox’s hearing set for September 14 and Zahara’s two weeks later.

Zahara has publicly gone by Zahara Jolie since starting university.

Shiloh legally dropped “Pitt” after turning 18 in 2024, while Vivienne was credited simply as “Vivienne Jolie” as a production assistant for the Broadway show The ­Outsiders.

Pax is the only one still using the Pitt surname, but he has an incredibly difficult relationship with his dad, who he once claimed made his younger siblings ­“tremble in fear”.

Brad’s relationship with his children seemed to change for ever after an ill-fated flight in 2016, which also marked the end of the high-profile showbiz marriage.

The couple are said to have tried to keep their blistering rows from the children, but that became impossible in the confines of a private jet.

In a report filed by the FBI about the incident, Angelina claimed Brad yelled at her before pulling her into the toilet, where he pushed her against the wall and punched the ceiling repeatedly.

It is also alleged that when one of their kids tried to protect their mum, Brad “choked one of the children and struck another in the face”.

It has long been rumoured that it was Maddox who was assaulted.

The report said Brad then poured beer on his family as they tried to sleep.

The incident led to an investigation by children’s services, with Angelina being awarded temporary full custody and Brad only allowed supervised visits. He was later fully cleared.

Just days later, Angelina filed for divorce, citing irreconcilable diff­erences.

Pax’s private Instagram post on Father’s Day 2020 suggests the kids experienced problems before and after the plane incident.

He wrote: “You time and time again prove yourself to be a terrible and despicable person.

“You have no consideration or empathy toward your four youngest children, who tremble in fear when in your presence.

“You will never understand the damage you have done to my family because you’re incapable of doing so.”

Brad later confirmed that his boozing had become a problem, revealing he had visited Alcoholics Anonymous groups.

He said: “I had taken things as far as I could take it, so I removed my drinking privileges.

“You had all these men sitting around being open and honest in a way I have never heard.

“It was this safe space where there was little judgment, and therefore little judgment of yourself. It was actually really freeing just to expose the ugly sides of yourself.

“There’s great value in that.”

The confession did nothing to quell the animosity between the parties, though.

And while the divorce might have been finalised in 2024 — after eight agonising years — another legal fight is still rumbling on.

The former lovers are locked in an acrimonious $350million court battle, known as the War Of The Rosés, over Angelina’s decision to secretly sell her stake in their ­Chateau Miraval vineyard and home for $64million to Russian booze tycoon Yuri Shefler in 2021.

Brad then sued her in a bid to void the sale.

The couple bought the 1,300-acre Miraval estate in Provence, southern France, in 2008 and married there in 2014.

Angelina claims she originally wanted to sell her stake to Brad, but he demanded she sign an $8.5million non-disclosure agreement as part of the deal.

Her legal team argued it was a coercive tactic to prevent her ­talking about his alleged abuse.

A trial has been scheduled for February 1 next year.

Insiders have claimed that Brad’s partner of four years, Ines de Ramon, 33, has tried to persuade him to end the hostilities.

A source said: “Ines wants to have a life together — with possibly children in the future — without the albatross that is the eight-year War Of The Rosés.”

While Angelina’s attorneys have filed explosive allegations in court, she has kept a mostly dignified silence.

In 2020, the actress turned human rights advocate addressed the ugly split in a rare interview with Vogue.

She said: “I separated for the wellbeing of my family. It was the right decision.

“I continue to focus on their healing.”

During another interview, when asked if she worried about the safety of her children, she said: “Yes, for my family. My whole family.”

And during the Press tour for her 2021 Marvel film Eternals, in which she played Thena, a warrior battling memory loss and a fantasy-world version of PTSD, she revealed that she had been diagnosed with the condition.

She said: “I had talked to the director about experiencing PTSD myself a few years ago and my own fears about not being strong enough to protect those that I love.”

And while Brad might have moved on, Angelina, who was widely once considered one of the world’s most beautiful women, remains single.

Last month, she said: “To be candid, I haven’t dated since I divorced a decade ago.

“So I kind of get in my head that that aspect of me is not centered in my life if I’m focusing on my children, my family.”

It is true that all six children have certainly been caught up in the crossfire of their parents’ decade-long war, with the sorry saga serving as a cautionary tale to other Hollywood couples on the cusp of divorce.

Now, as the February 2027 trial over the battle for the French vineyard looms, peace still seems a long way off.

And while Brad might still be fighting over his financial future, his legacy with his family appears to be long gone.

Damascus, Syria – For many Syrians, the decades of rule by the al-Assad family – Hafez al-Assad from 1971 to 2000, then his son Bashar from 2000 to 2024 – were filled with oppression from the state and eventually more than a decade of civil war.

But one of the most important legacies has been an economic one – the result of the sanctions imposed by a number of countries, led by the United States, that effectively froze Syria out of the international economic system.

Despite the fall of Bashar al-Assad after rebel groups defeated him in December 2024, many of the sanctions, including a “state sponsor of terrorism” designation, have remained.

The designation has impeded Syria’s rejoining of the international community, while sanctions have impacted Syrians. Sending money back home from abroad often requires routing transfers through neighbouring countries, such as Lebanon or Turkiye, while access to some websites and online services, including Netflix and Slack, may require a virtual private network.

But there has been a positive reaction to the announcement on Wednesday by US President Donald Trump that his administration will remove Syria from the state sponsor of terrorism list.

The lifting of previous US sanctions, such as those related to the Caesar Act, has not transformed the Syrian economy, but it is hoped that those linked to the “state sponsor of terrorism” listing will allow the country to finally flourish.

“God willing, it will improve things,” said Ihab, a pastry shop owner in central Damascus.

Reintegration

US sanctions are thought to have been a huge barrier to foreign investors since the rule of Bashar al-Assad.

The World Bank said that since 2011, sanctions have led to a major collapse in exports and an increase in the trade deficit.

After the fall of the al-Assad government, interim President Ahmed al-Sharaa’s administration has identified the removal of all international and US sanctions as the key to reinvigorating the economy.

Al-Sharaa, the former head of the al-Qaeda-aligned Nusra Front, was himself sanctioned by the United Nations and was wanted as a “terrorist” by the US. But he has made efforts to shed those associations and build trust internationally, including by pledging to play a role in the fight against ISIL (ISIS).

His efforts have largely been successful, with the European Union and the US removing many of the sanctions on Syria and on al-Sharaa himself. The sanctions linked to the US’s “state sponsor of terrorism” list are among the few to remain.

The first “state sponsor of terrorism” designation on Syria was during Hafez al-Assad’s rule in 1979, due to the government’s support for Palestinian armed groups.

Additional sanctions were imposed on the state and individuals associated with the al-Assad regime, due to their systematic use of torture and chemical weapons.

Some rebel groups were also sanctioned due to their links to al-Qaeda and other banned organisations.

Al-Sharaa ended al-Nusra Front’s affiliation with al-Qaeda in 2016 and effectively eschewed the group’s ideology.

He also moved to establish a broader, national armed coalition dedicated to fighting the Assad government, later becoming Hayat Tahrir al-Sham.

In May 2025, around the time Trump met al-Sharaa in Riyadh, the US president promised to remove many of the sanctions on the Syrian government. But the expected removal from the “state sponsor of terrorism” list will be particularly welcome as it gets rid of one of the main barriers for international banks and companies.

“This is extremely significant because it’s the last major impediment to international economic and political engagement with Syria and with the al-Sharaa administration, and in terms of reintegrating Syria back into the international order and indeed the international economic and political system,” Rob Geist Pinfold, a lecturer on security studies at King’s College London, told Al Jazeera.

Struggling economy

However, he is careful to add that the removal of the designation does not mean a flood of investment will instantly start pouring into Syria.

“This is a big hurdle that’s been overcome, but it doesn’t mean that there’s no more hurdles to investment or engagement with Syria.”

He added that international actors may be concerned about the government’s control and ability to confront remnants from the al-Assad regime, a potential ISIL (ISIS) comeback, bureaucratic impediments and corruption.

Some Syrians were also sceptical that the designation change would lead to instant results.

“This needs a long breath,” said a minimarket owner in Damascus, who refused to give his name. “You can’t sleep and wake up and expect change.”

He referred to ongoing economic problems and rising costs, as well as a recent fuel shortage.

“There’s no economy, and there’s no investment.”

Other Syrians were more hopeful that the economy, and other aspects of daily life, would improve. Still, there is a recognition that a little more patience is needed.

For some, that patience has worn out, such as the minimarket owner. Others, however, are biding their time.

At a juice stall in central Damascus, Zaher counted money received from a customer.

“I’m on the street with my cart and nobody is bothering me,” he said. “Electricity is getting better, but nothing gets better after just one day.”

“It took God Almighty six days to create Earth,” the 50-year-old said. “These things take time.”

In recent weeks, there have been renewed tensions in Yemen. Attacks by the Houthi group – which has controlled Sanaa and large parts of northern Yemen since 2014 – have coincided with controversy prompted by the arrival of an Iranian plane at Sanaa airport and renewed concern over navigation in the Red Sea.

This comes in the context of a stalled peace process and the failure to reach an agreement on de-escalation mechanisms.

In this climate, movements on the front lines appear to be an attempt by the Houthis to exert pressure and to test the limits of the response of the internationally recognised government, its ally, Saudi Arabia, and the international community at large.

So far, these developments do not point to a decision to launch a broad military confrontation, but they show that the truce announced in 2022 can no longer contain the conflict.

From Hays to Al-Jawf: Limited clashes and tribal mobilisation

The Hays district in Hodeidah governorate near the port of Hodeidah on the Red Sea has been one of the main flashpoints in recent weeks.

On July 5, Houthi rebels attacked government forces’ positions using mortar shells, drones and sniper fire. According to medical and military sources cited by Al Jazeera, 16 government soldiers were killed in the attack and 22 others were wounded. The Houthis did not announce their casualty toll or provide a detailed account of how the clashes began.

Hays is of particular importance because it has remained relatively calm since the truce, and because its location is close to the coast and shipping lanes.

The tensions are not confined to Hodeidah. Marib, Taiz and al-Dhale have also witnessed varying levels of military mobilisation.

In al-Jawf, the picture is different. A tribal disturbance was triggered by a dispute over a house in Sanaa and then turned into a test of the Houthis’ influence and their relationship with the tribes. Sheikh Hamad bin Rashid bin Fadgham al-Hazmi intervened in the dispute, per tribal custom, but was detained by the Houthis.

This turned discontent into an anti-Houthi tribal movement, which is accompanied by calls for a “tribal nakaf”, a traditional call for mobilisation and support, alongside the “al-Rayyan sit-ins”, temporary tribal gatherings to rally supporters.

This development points to how developments in the battlefield are causing tensions in the tribal and social sphere.

Al-Jawf lies near Marib and within a sensitive military and tribal zone, and any prolonged unrest there could open an additional pressure front on the Houthis and complicate their calculations in one of the most important fronts of Yemen’s northeast.

Tensions have also extended to the Red Sea. On July 5, the British military said that a cargo ship had come under attack off the coast of Hodeidah, which did not result in any injuries. No one claimed responsibility, but the incident took place near an area under Houthi control and at a time when the group has renewed its threats regarding navigation.

The attack highlights the continuing risks ships face in transiting in the vicinity of Hodeidah and Bab al-Mandab, one of the world’s busiest straits.

Sanaa airport tensions and a frozen prisoner exchange deal

Tensions between Yemen’s internationally recognised government and the Houthis havе not been confined to the battlefield. On July 3, an Iranian aircraft arrived at Sanaa airport to pick up a Houthi delegation to attend the funeral of the late Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

A week later, the internationally recognised government announced that Iran had submitted a request to operate a Mahan Air flight from Tehran to Sanaa to return the Houthi delegation. It rejected the request and proposed returning the individuals on an aircraft chartered by Yemenia Airways.

In response, some Houthi leaders insisted on the continuation of Mahan Air flights to Sanaa, presenting them as part of their right to operate the airport and open direct routes with the outside world. Thus, the dispute went beyond a single flight to the issue of managing an international airport and airspace outside government institutions, and the resulting struggle over sovereignty and de facto recognition of Houthi authority over the entry point.

Saudi Arabia is also affected by the dispute. The operation of a direct route between Sanaa and Tehran would affect the security and political arrangements that accompanied the reopening of the airport during the truce. Riyadh views the expansion of airport traffic outside an agreement as a factor that strengthens the Houthis’ relationship with Iran near the kingdom’s southern border. Therefore, its position is linked to keeping flights within declared arrangements while continuing to operate the national carrier.

Another issue that has heated up in the past few days is a long-negotiated prisoner and detainee exchange deal, which has stalled.

On July 10, Hadi Haig, head of the government negotiating team on the prisoners and abductees file, announced that the team had received notification from the International Committee of the Red Cross and the office of the United Nations envoy that the Houthis have refused to implement the agreement on its scheduled date and have postponed it indefinitely.

In response, the head of the Houthis’ Prisoners Affairs Committee, Abdulqader al-Murtada, blamed the government side for the delay, accusing it of failing to abide by the terms of the agreement and of refusing to add names to the agreed list.

The deal includes more than 1,600 detainees and requires field arrangements and an air bridge under the supervision of the International Committee of the Red Cross. Regardless of each side’s responsibility, the postponement places the negotiation track before a new test and confirms the continued use of humanitarian files as tools of political and military pressure.

Regional tension and the limits of confrontation

Regional developments have directly impacted Yemen. The US-Israel war on Iran and tensions between the Houthis and Saudi Arabia have reduced the ability of Yemeni parties to control escalation and increased the influence of external calculations on the course of the conflict.

This has given the Houthis greater room for political and military manoeuvre, while the government has struggled to assert its sovereign presence.

Saudi Arabia wants to contain the Houthi threat while preserving the gains of de-escalation. The Houthis, for their part, are betting on combining military action with pressure over the airport, prisoners, and navigation files to extract broader recognition of their authority and their direct relationship with Iran.

These developments reflect the fragility of the de-escalation process and the growing political and military pressures.

Limited clashes and mobilisation are likely to continue, with each side using the leverage it possesses to apply pressure. So far, there is no evidence of a decision to engage in a full-scale confrontation, but repeated attacks and faltering negotiations could end the state of relative calm that has persisted since 2022.

The risk of confrontation will remain as long as the root causes of the war remain unresolved, and as long as the parties use weapons to impose their vision and improve their political fortunes.

IT HAS been 30 years since the Spice Girls dropped their debut single Wannabe and kickstarted one of the most remarkable pop juggernauts of all time.

But while they once defined girl power for a generation, Geri Halliwell-Horner, Mel B, Victoria Beckham, Emma Bunton and Melanie C are now more divided than ever before – with their long-hoped-for reunion concert a distant dream.

With the bandmates at each other’s throats, this week’s anniversary celebrations have amounted to little more than a few posts on Instagram and a show from Emma Bunton on Heart Radio – despite promoters initially planning a tour for the group to mark the occasion.

And the reunion pleasantries didn’t last long, after Mel B appeared to have blocked Geri Horner on Instagram.

The pair clashed in 2022, after Mel B claimed Geri lied about her age, with the pair unfollowing each other on social media.

And now fans have claimed Scary Spice has blocked her former bandmate, after Geri was unable to properly tag her in a post marking the anniversary of their 1996 breakthrough track.

Geri shared a photograph of the band, also made up of Victoria Beckham, Mel C and Emma Bunton, with the caption: “30 years of Wannabe…Thank you to my beautiful Spice sisters.”

All of Geri’s tags for her bandmates registered, apart from Mel B’s – which happens when a user has been blocked.

The Sun can also reveal that dates were looked at for a global jaunt for 2026, although the plans never got off the ground.

And now it is looking increasingly likely that we may never see the Spice Girls on stage together again.

To make matters worse, Mel C confirmed this week that the group’s relationship with their former manager Simon Fuller is over, which puts paid to the ambitious plans he had for their legacy.

We revealed last April that Geri had flown to Miami to meet with Simon about exciting ideas for the group, in the hope he could persuade the reluctant star to return to the fold.

The following month it was revealed that he was shopping around the idea of a Spice Girls digital avatar show, much like ABBA Voyage, which could take place in London or Las Vegas.

However, that is now believed to have been put on ice as divisions over the direction of their legacy deepen.

And a Netflix drama about the group, which was to be scripted by Bad Boys writer Jack Rooke, has also been shelved.

The most reluctant to return has long been Victoria, having declined the opportunity to take part in their sold out, 13-date stadium tour in 2019.

They last performed as a five-piece at the 2012 Olympics Closing Ceremony.

Geri has said she is only prepared for a reunion if it includes all five girls. And now it is Ginger Spice who, like Posh, is reluctant for anything else.

She has retreated from public life and is said to be anxious at the prospect of returning to the stage. That isn’t helped by her strained relationship with Mel B, who has also washed her hands of future plans.

Mel, whose 50th birthday party last year was only attended by Emma and Mel C, said of a reunion tour: “I can tell you it’s not happening. If it does, it’ll be a shock to me, let’s put it that way.

“You can’t be nagging everyone to go on tour if they don’t want to. I laid that to rest when I turned 50.”

And on previously-discussed plans for a documentary, she pointedly added: “I think we’ve all been asked and were all thinking about it at some point.

“But it has to be done in the right way, and it has to be honest – and not everybody wants to be honest.”

In October, Geri, Mel C and Emma attended Victoria’s Netflix series launch, and in January, they were all at Emma’s 50th party, although Mel B was absent from both.

Geri and Mel B were once extremely close, but Ginger Spice said it was “hurtful” when Mel claimed in 2019, weeks before their reunion tour, that they had once had a sexual relationship.

Speaking on The Louis Theroux Podcast this week, Mel C admitted the pair’s friendship was often volatile and impacted the group – as it still seems to be doing, 30 years later.

She explained: “Like any group of people there’s a dynamic, and what was difficult for us was that Melanie [B] and Geri were really great mates, but if they had a fallout, it would affect everybody.

“I think because they were both so outspoken and, myself, Emma, and Victoria, I don’t know, we didn’t have as much airtime as the other two girls.

“I don’t mean that in a thingy [public] sense. I mean, like, just in the room. So that would cause issues sometimes.

“If it wasn’t for Geri and Melanie being the way that they are, we wouldn’t have been as successful as we were.”

While Victoria, Geri and Mel B look increasingly reticent, it is Sport Spice Mel C who has become the most loose-lipped of them all – taking over from Scary Spice.

In 2022, Emma said of Mel B: “If we want anything to be kept a secret we don’t tell her.”

But in the last year, it has been Mel C raising fans’ hopes, only for them to be dashed.

She gave several interviews where she teased a tour could happen, and said that exciting plans were in motion for their 30th anniversary.

Even this week, on the prospect of marking it, she teased: “We want to. Everything’s in discussion. But it’s a really positive time for us.”

She then conceded: “There’s nothing in the works, so it’s obviously not going to be anything in time for the anniversary. But we are discussing lots of great opportunities.”

She also claimed the group have won back the rights to their 1997 movie Spice World and that they are in talks to get it on streaming services.

However, sources close to the group insisted no talks are currently taking place.

So while fans may be streaming their hits, buying re-released vinyl or forking out for new merch from their online shop, the dream of seeing all five back together again is something of a pipe dream.

In 2024, Victoria said of their 30th anniversary: “It would be lovely for us to do something to celebrate [the 30th anniversary] – a dinner or a lunch – and reminisce. But yes, it will not be any more than that.”

Judging by the state of relations right now, even that would be a surprise.

THE Rolling Stones and Amy Winehouse — somehow it was a match made it heaven.

On June 10, 2007, the original rock and roll miscreants invited the supremely gifted but wayward singer on stage at the Isle Of Wight Festival.

Amy was all the rage that summer with her second (and final) album Back To Black riding high in the charts. Britain and the world had taken her songs to their hearts — Rehab, You Know I’m No Good, Tears Dry On Their Own and Love Is A Losing Game among them.

At the festival, Amy wore a pristine white shirt, skinny black jeans, a chunky belt, ballet flats and THAT towering beehive.

She looked every inch at home next to the man with all the moves, Mick Jagger — a lean, sinewy T-shirted figure in an all-black outfit.

Together, they belted out a wild rendition of The Temptations’ soul classic Ain’t Too Proud To Beg.

Together, they perfectly captured the rebellious spirit of rock and roll.

When Amy died four years later aged just 27, the world lost a generational talent — a sultry, emotionally wrought voice for the ages.

Now, in 2026, the Stones are releasing a cover of Amy’s You Know I’m No Good on their vibrant, age- defying 25th studio album, Foreign Tongues.

I’ve had the chance to speak to guitarist and lovable rogue Ronnie Wood about the song, his close friendship with Amy — and all things related to the eclectic 14-track album.

By Stones standards, it’s a rapid-fire follow-up to 2023’s Hackney ­Diamonds and a freewheeling ­confection of rock, soul, dance, country, blues and balladry.

“We just loved to pay tribute to Amy because she was such a jewel,” Ronnie says with typical warmth.

“A very lost jewel in the jewellery box but she was wonderful.”

At the time of Isle Of Wight, Ronnie was still battling alcohol addiction himself and he discovered an immediate bond with troubled Amy.

“We came back on the ferry together and had such a laugh,” he recalls. “Then shortly before Amy died, I had a real in-depth [chat] with her in the garden of a hotel in Rio.

“She was asking me, ‘Oh Ron, what am I going to do? And I was going, ‘Don’t worry because everyone knows you’ve got vodka in your water bottle. Just don’t hide it and try to go on stage tonight.

“Her band pleaded with me. They went, ‘Ronnie, please get her to go on — she’s trying to pull out of the gig.’ Anyway, I talked her through stuff and she did go on.”

“Amy needed a carer all the time otherwise she went off the rails, which of course she did.”

I ask Ronnie where Amy ­Winehouse should be placed in the pantheon of great female singers, past and present.

“There are some lovely singers around,” he answers. “They arrive in spasms. Chanel Haynes from my band is great — she played Tina Turner [in the stage musical] and really has the essence of Tina. I also like Jessie J.

“But Amy was like Billie Holiday. She had that once-in-a-lifetime deep blues. It’s a pity she was her own worst enemy.”

Of the Stones’ rousing rendition of You Know I’m No Good, Ronnie says: “I love the way Mick has put the harmonica over the brass riff.”

Mick himself reflected on the song this week at an intimate fan playback at Metropolis Studios in Chiswick, West London, where much of Foreign Tongues was recorded.

“We decided we wanted to cover this Amy Winehouse song. We do it in the same key as her. There’s a well-known horn lick on that record and I thought, ‘Yeah, I can do that. I’ll do it on the harmonica.”

Mick is accompanied by Ronnie but minus Keith Richards, who’s at home in the States and sends a video message saying “god bless you all”.

Wearing a floral shirt beneath a black leather jacket despite the heat outside, Mick, the planet’s most sprightly octogenarian, is in expansive mood. He saunters into the room and greets the assembled throng from countries far and wide with a World Cup quip, “Apologies to anyone from Mexico!” Cue much laughter.

With his face wreathed in smiles, he peers around the sound-proofed room and says: “We had a lot of fun making this record in this very room.

“It didn’t look quite like this,” he adds before waving his arms in ­different directions.

“The drums were over there, Ronnie was there, I was there, Keith was there.” Ronnie also can’t help a reference to important football matters when he describes the band’s preparations for the sessions at Metropolis.

“We had a lot of rehearsals — a bit like practising for the World Cup — at Electric Lady Studios in New York and on the West Coast at Jim Henson’s studios.”

The subject soon moves on to how the Stones have kept going nearly 65 years after Jagger and Richards met on Platform 2 of Dartford railway station and decided to be in a band together.

Listen to Foreign Tongues and you’ll be astonished by Mick’s still jaw-dropping range.

So how does he keep his most precious instrument — his vocal cords — in shape?

He says: “With other instruments, you can see them — a guitar, a piano — but you can’t see your vocal cords.

“So, you can’t say, ‘Oh they look really good today, I’ll do this.’

“If anything goes wrong, the doctor has to look at them. You have to keep them in shape like a muscle.” How does Ronnie keep his fingers nimble enough to dance across the fretboard? “There are exercises for the hands,” he replies. “And I put arnica [a herbal remedy] on them because they can hurt a lot.”

Mick says: “The thing with Ronnie is that he’s very good because he doesn’t stop playing, either with another band or doing his own gigs.”

This helps explain why Ronnie’s guitar work is a prominent feature of Foreign Tongues.

“When the first mix was finished, Ronnie came to my house and I played him the whole record,” reveals Mick. “I said, ‘So, what do you think Ron?’ And he said, ‘I didn’t really get any solos.’”

That comment was a classic piece of Ronnie mischief because, as Mick points out, “No one else gets a guitar solo on the record apart from Ronnie!

“I get a harmonica solo but Keith doesn’t really get a solo,” he adds before turning to his bandmate and asking, ‘Why is that, Ronnie?’ Ronnie gives a knowing smirk and says: “Keith told me, ‘Anyone can play a solo, it’s the riff that matters!’

“And I said, ‘OK, you’ve done the groundwork there but I’ve got the icing on the cake.”’

This brings us to a wider discussion about the Foreign Tongues sessions which prompts Ronnie to chip in with: “We’re much more civilised than we used to be.”

Mick picks up the thread: “I’m always the last to arrive. I’m not sure how that happens.

“We usually start about half past three and finish at about ten, ­having agreed the night before what we’re going to do.”

Ronnie salutes producer Andrew Watt, the live-wire American ­producer who helmed Hackney Diamonds and Paul McCartney’s recent album, The Boys Of ­Dungeon Lane. “We need someone to boss us around, and Andrew did that.”

Mick interjects: “Otherwise, it would all fall to bits! So we’re very pleased that Andrew herds us into doing it.”

Ronnie comes back in with a very telling comment: “Mick never lets anything fall to bits because the Rolling Stones is his baby — and he won’t let anything destroy that.”

The Stones’ approach these days clearly has something to do with the fact they’re all sober.

Yet Foreign Tongues has drawn comparisons to 1978’s Some Girls, Ronnie’s first album as a full-time member — recorded when things were far less civilised.

For instance, the disco-inflected Jealous Lover, with Mick still able to produce his best falsetto, is reminiscent of Miss You. Elsewhere, the band summons the raw energy of Respectable or Shattered.

The frontman sifts through the mists of time to the sessions at Pathé Marconi in Paris: “In the late Seventies, I’d have to dig Ronnie and Keith out of a late-night pizza place. I’d go in there at 1am and say, ‘It’s time for the studio, lads!’

“And poor Bill Wyman [bassist] had been in the studio since six o’clock waiting for us.

“We’d get there at 2am and we’d leave at eight. We’d run into the factory workers getting their ­morning coffees.”

Ronnie laughs: “We played for so long back in those days that Bill would have a sleep, come back and we’d still be playing.”

With the album out tomorrow, Mick is asked about his hopes for a good reception for Foreign Tongues. It prompts a comparison with an album many regard as the Stones’ finest, released in 1972.

With 14 new songs about to be unleashed, he accepts that it’s “a lot of music” and says: “It’s longer than Exile On Main St. When that came out, reviewers generally said things like, “It’s kind of rambling and all over the place.”

“It was too much for people to take in all at once. But, from the reviews I’ve seen, we are getting very good ones [for Foreign Tongues].

The album is notable for guest appearances — Steve Winwood, The Cure’s Robert Smith and Red Hot Chili Peppers’ Chad Smith.

One song, the “punky” Hit Me In The Head features the late effortlessly cool Stones drummer Charlie Watts. Mick explains: “People would say, ‘Charlie’s such a subtle drummer, he loves jazz — you can hear that soft touch.

“Well, not on this one. This one sounds banging, banging, banging — very punk. We recorded it in 2021.”

In my chat with Ronnie, he talks about Paul McCartney’s bass playing on Covered In You, reprising his role on Hackney Diamonds track Bite My Head Off.

He says: “Oh Paul was so lovely.  He said playing with the Stones was one of his biggest ambitions. He loved it, like a kid in a toy shop.”

He remembers how in The Beatles and Stones’ early days, he was a bystander in a band called The Birds,” but told himself that one day he would join Mick, Keith and co.

Why the Stones? “Because I’m more of a jazzer and a bluesman,” he replies. “I respected The Beatles’ music, their adventurousness, but I liked the funk and the women around the Stones.

“I thought, ‘That looks like a good job.’ Then, like a jigsaw, all the pieces fell into place.”

Finally, I beg the question: Is there’s more in the tank from the world’s greatest rock and roll band?

“There is, but what we’ve got to do is survive!” says Ronnie.

ROLLING STONES

Foreign Tongues

★★★★★

AS Mick Jagger says, this is “a lot of music.”

But over 14 tracks, the Stones have a blast.

There’s the ragged majesty of Rough And Twisted, the dance floor-primed Jealous Lover, the politically charged Mr Charm, the country twang of Ringing Hollow, the three-minute punk mayhem of Hit Me In The Head, a yearning Keith Richards lead vocal on Some Of Us and the raw delta blues of Chuck Berry’s Beautiful Delilah.

At times, it needs to be a little rougher around the edges, but this high-energy album is nothing short of a miracle from rock and roll’s great survivors.   

Fifty years ago, in 1976, the median age of the global population was just under 21 years. That means of the 4.1 billion people on Earth at the time, about half were younger than 21 and half were older. Today the median age is 31, and by 2050 the United Nations projects it will reach 36. The typical human being is steadily getting older.

What is the replacement rate?

The engine of that change is fertility. Demographers measure it using the total fertility rate, the average number of children a woman would have over her lifetime at current birth rates. The figure that matters most is the replacement rate, generally put at about 2.1 births per woman. That is the level at which a generation exactly replaces itself, keeping the population stable over the long run without immigration. The slight margin above two accounts for children who do not survive to adulthood.

The global fertility rate today is about 2.2, barely above replacement and down from approximately five in the 1960s. The United Nations expects it to reach the replacement level around the middle of this century and to keep falling after that. More than half of all countries are already below replacement, including China, the United States, India, Japan and most of Europe.

In practical terms, a fertility rate below replacement means that, over time, each generation is smaller than the one before it. Fewer babies today means fewer working-age adults tomorrow, and a growing share of retirees supported by a shrinking workforce. That is the pressure now facing pension systems, health services and labour markets from Italy to South Korea. It is why population ageing, more than raw numbers, is becoming the defining demographic story of the century.

After years of closure due to war, hospitals in the Sudanese capital are welcoming mothers again, despite lingering economic and logistical hurdles.

In the Sudanese city of Omdurman, the maternity hospital, known locally as Al-Dayat or ‘Midwives” in English, has resumed operations after a long closure caused by the war. Mothers are once again arriving at maternity wards, navigating difficult economic and logistical conditions to give birth safely.

Al-Toma Jabara, a mother from East Nile, gave birth to her daughter, Doaa, at the hospital two days ago. She told Al Jazeera that she was unable to conceive during the war years. Fighting between the Sudanese armed forces and the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) separated Jabara from her husband for two years.

She has lived under constant bombardment and clashes in her home, making a normal family life seem impossible. She described Doaa’s arrival as a “new beginning” for her family after years of fear and deprivation.

At Bahri Hospital, Fatima Abdel Rahman, a mother from Al Jazirah state, recounted her exhausting and expensive journey to the capital Khartoum. Her family had to spend a large portion of their income on transportation and temporary accommodation near the facility to monitor her condition post-delivery.

Abdel Rahman noted that medication shortages forced her to buy basic drugs from outside pharmacies at inflated prices, adding to her financial burden. However, she stressed that the functioning maternity ward provided her with a vital sense of safety, sparing her the fear of dying due to lack of medical care – a constant dread she lived with during the war.

Rebuilding the shattered health sector

During the conflict, the closure of specialised maternity hospitals forced many women to undergo unsafe home births or travel long distances, drastically increasing risks for both mothers and infants. An anonymous official from the Khartoum State Ministry of Health confirmed that maternal and infant complications and mortality rates surged during the war due to closures.

The official told Al Jazeera that complication rates are now gradually decreasing as services resume. The health ministry has repaired and reopened 15 maternity wards across the capital, including Al-Dayat and the Saudi Hospital. The capital’s hospitals are now recording a significant increase in births, reaching about 7,000 new deliveries per month.

Emad Abdullah, director of the Omdurman Maternity Hospital, noted that it initially received only one or two cases a day upon reopening. Today, that number has climbed to approximately 60 births per day, as services expand to meet growing demand.

The hospital has several vital departments, including a caesarean section, an intensive care unit and a neonatal department equipped with about 140 incubators, making it the largest in Sudan.

Rising costs and logistical nightmares

Maternity costs vary significantly depending on the facility. At government hospitals, a natural birth typically costs about 130,000 Sudanese pounds ($216), while C-sections cost around 400,000 pounds ($666). In private hospitals, the cost of a natural birth shoots up to approximately 500,000 pounds ($813) and C-sections range between 600-800,000 pounds ($999-1,322), depending on the service level.

Despite the reopening of wards in Khartoum, Omdurman and Bahri, large challenges remain with patients from distant regions such as Al Jazirah and Kordofan facing exhausting journeys and exorbitant transport costs.

In the hospitals, there is a shortage of basic medicines and emergency rooms often operate beyond their capacity. In addition, the wartime exodus of doctors and nurses has left a critical gap in qualified staff, while essential medical equipment needs regular maintenance to keep up with demand.

Amira Othman Abdel Majeed, an infection control officer at Bahri Hospital, described the war as the most challenging period for the health sector, marred by severe shortages of supplies, electricity and water. That has imposed psychological pressure on medical staff who feared losing mothers and children during treatment.

However, she said the “liberation of Khartoum” and the resumption of maternity services have dramatically changed the landscape. Staff emerged stronger and more resilient, with the ongoing medical care serving as a prime symbol of the capital’s recovering health sector.

At first, Jesus did not believe it was possible, but then he heard his father shouting out from the rubble, saying: “Don’t leave me here.”

“I said, ‘Trust me: Stay calm. Keep the kids calm over there. I’m not leaving here without you,'” Jesus recalled.

Jose had been trapped for more than an hour by that point, unsure of his fate. He and his two younger sons had survived the collapse with relatively minor injuries, but dangers remained. The debris could still shift and crush them.

“The first thing I thought of was my children. I had the little one right here,” Jose recalled, lifting his hands to his chest. “And I still had the other one. He was right next to me but buried. I couldn’t see his face; I could only see one foot and one hand.”

Still, Jose put on a brave face for his boys. A friendly voice had pierced the rubble: Jesus’s friend, the firefighter.

He had been shouting for survivors. He had also brought Jesus’s old firefighting equipment to the site.

After finding out his father and brothers were alive, Jesus began desperately trying to get them out. But he realised he would have to wait until the next day for the sun to come up and, crucially, to get his hands on a jackhammer that could drill through the floors of rubble separating him from his family.

Finally, the next morning, a specialist squad from the police arrived with the gear they needed to carry out the rescue.

With the help of his firefighting team from La Guaira, who showed up to help their old comrade, Jesus was able to pull his father and two younger brothers from the rubble at about 3:30pm on June 25, more than 20 hours after the earthquakes.

He quickly swept Diego and Santiago into his arms.

“When I saw them, I hugged them, gave them a kiss, and said, ‘I love you, brother,'” Jesus recalled. “Then I stepped away for a moment and started crying.”

Jose is still shaken from the experience, which has changed his life forever. “I am someone who will be grateful for the rest of my life that I was given this opportunity. Not just me, but my two young children.”

On Thursday morning, a small group of advocates gathered outside the United States federal courthouse in San Diego, California.

One of them pointed to a poster of a young man in a US Navy uniform, three golden medals pinned to his chest.

“This is my brother, Benito Miranda Hernandez, US Navy veteran,” said James Smith, the founder of Black Deported Veterans of America.

Smith and the other advocates had organised the demonstration on behalf of Hernandez, who was miles away at that moment, stuck in an immigration detention facility.

Brought from Mexico to the US as a baby, Hernandez had completed three tours of duty with the US military during the Iraq war. His military service was meant to be his path to citizenship.

But now, Hernandez is among the immigrant veterans fighting deportation under US President Donald Trump.

“These men and women were promised that they were going to get their citizenship if they served,” Smith said. “Help this brother come home.”

Trump has pledged to prioritise immigrants with criminal records in his push for mass deportation.

But advocates for US military members argue that veterans are particularly vulnerable, given their over-representation in prisons and jails. The majority have reported suffering from mental health problems after their service.

Hernandez, for instance, said he struggled to reintegrate into civilian life after leaving the military. But on June 14, he had finally completed his years-long sentence for a drug conviction.

As he waited for his mother, Maria Miranda, to pick him up, agents from US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detained him.

Only afterwards did Miranda and her other son arrive. They spent hours that day looking for him, not knowing where he had gone.

“He was doing things right,” Miranda told Al Jazeera in Spanish. “He had so many hopes, so many dreams.”

Hernandez has since been transferred to the Otay Mesa Detention Center in San Diego. He faces deportation, despite having received his green card for permanent residency earlier this year. He previously spoke to Al Jazeera about his experiences for an article published in April.

Hernandez’s detention is part of a trend under the Trump administration.

While the exact number of deported veterans is impossible to pin down – ICE has long failed to collect the veteran status of the people it detains, as is required – several advocates told Al Jazeera that they have been witnessing a rise in the deportations of US veterans during Trump’s second term.

The New York Times reported in March that at least 34 veterans have been placed in deportation proceedings in the last year.

Some cases have received media attention. But advocates say other immigrant veterans have avoided the spotlight, fearing it may have a negative impact on their immigration cases.

“As the ICE raids continue and revamp across the country, there’s going to be people that are veterans that have not become US citizens that unfortunately will end up falling through the cracks,” said Robert Vivar, cofounder of the Tijuana-based Unified US Deported Veterans Resource Center.

Veterans, like other immigrants across the country, have been detained while pursuing the mandatory steps in their immigration process, according to Danitza James, the president of Repatriate our Patriots, an advocacy group.

They are often flagged for having outstanding warrants or criminal convictions that have not been vacated. James said she is in contact with about six veterans who had been detained by ICE in 2026 alone.

“Our government, they don’t place any value in the service that our immigrants have,” James, who is herself a veteran and naturalised citizen, told Al Jazeera. “They honestly see us as disposable.”

For decades, the US military has recruited immigrants to enlist in its wars abroad to help address staffing shortages.

Recruiters often tell immigrant enlisters that military service offers a shortcut to naturalised citizenship.

In theory, it should. But while deployed, many immigrant soldiers, like Hernandez, have reported delays in the naturalisation process.

By the time Hernandez was called for his citizenship interview in 2006, two years had passed since he finished his last deployment. He had a criminal conviction by that point – and his citizenship case was denied.

The failure to protect immigrant veterans is representative of the government’s larger failures to reckon with its military policies, according to advocates like Smith.

“The United States government is failing to take accountability for what they’ve created,” Smith told Al Jazeera. “You bring us in and strip us of part of our humanity so that we can kill without repercussions.”

“Then, when you get out, there is no process that gets you ready to be in the civilian world.”

Several bills to protect immigrant veterans are currently under consideration in Congress. But recruiters continue to target immigrant communities with the promise of expedited citizenship.

The next steps for Hernandez are not yet clear. At Thursday’s rally, a lawyer with a local immigration nonprofit told Smith and other advocates that the group may be interested in helping with Hernandez’s case.

In the meantime, Hernandez’s mother has been trying to keep his spirits up.

Miranda takes his calls from the ICE detention centre and sees him during the facility’s visiting hours on Saturdays. But the two-hour drive from Anaheim to San Diego is difficult for her health.

“On Saturday, when I saw him, he was very, very depressed,” Miranda told Al Jazeera.

“He said, ‘I don’t want to cause you any more problems. I don’t want to upset you any more, Mom. I’m doing things right. I’m praying for myself,'” Miranda recalled, in tears.

“They clipped the wings of a bird, and all the hopes he had. They threw them in the trash.”

The Benin Bronzes are a broad term used for the carved ivory, wooden works, metal sculptures and plaques looted by British troops during the Punitive Expedition in 1897.

Scholars estimate that more than 5,000 artefacts were stolen, some of which were gifted to Queen Victoria, others sold in auctions, held in private galleries or donated to museums across Europe and elsewhere.

The call to return the art, which began in the 1930s, intensified in the recent decade, inspired by growing pressure, repatriation activism and the relentless effort of the Benin Dialogue Group, a multilateral stakeholders’ group.

As momentum built at the peak of the homecoming of these arts, Igun Street unexpectedly found itself in the global spotlight. Diplomats, state officials, museum curators and researchers began arriving in numbers local artisans say they had never witnessed before.

This noon, Double Chief’s voice brims with pride as he points to a recently completed sculpture resting on a wooden bench. The bronze figure, a man in a suit and tie, had received its final polish only that morning after months of work.

Yet for many bronze casters, the attention has done little to solve underlying concerns.

“We are struggling to keep the industry alive,” says Oriakhi Osazee, who sits on a wooden stool at the entrance of a store in Igun. A sculptor whose mediums are clay, fibre, brass and bronze, Osazee has been in the craft for more than 35 years. He speaks with depth and conviction, drawing from vivid dates and past events to reinforce his ideas.

Efforts to recruit apprentices have stalled, he says. Young people, on whom the future of the craft depends, are increasingly leaving in search of what he calls “quick money” in other professions, cities and countries.

When their ancestors began, he recalls, their craft extended beyond bronze casting. There were, among the Iguns, men who had a gift in ivory carving. Long before the global ban on ivory trade was made official, that layer of art, without heirs and hope of continuity, had died.

For Agbonmwenre Alex, the subject of heirship within the craft is a matter of personal pain.

Alex, who was taking a tour of his workshop, began learning the craft at the age of eight under the guidance of his father. He started with errands and light tasks before progressing to kneading clay pottery. Over time, he learned every stage of the casting process, from preparing moulds to the final polishing of finished works.

Today, he is the only one of his father’s seven sons who remains in the profession. But uncertainty now hangs over the next generation.

“I would like my sons to take after me,” Alex says. “Unfortunately, I started exposing them to this craft so late. They literally see this work as outdated, archaic, and dying. The zeal, the love for the job, is dead.”

I would like my sons to take after me. They see this work as outdates, archaic, and dying. The zeal, the love for the job, is dead.

by AGNONMWENRE ALEX, BRONZE CRAFTSMAN

His first son chose to study law. His second is pursuing a degree in healthcare. Despite repeated efforts to pique their interest, including offering workshop space, raw materials and financial support to start a business of their own, neither accepted.

“The number of youths is declining drastically. It [the craft] is at risk of going into extinction. Apprentices are so scarce,” says Osazee. “We used to have a lot of apprentices in the past.”

THE word “splat” has been on Ian Gillan’s mind for a few years now.

To him, it is a word to conjure with, one to fuel his wild flights of imagination.

To most of us, it summons visions of insects hitting windscreens or ripe tomatoes falling to the floor.

As you will discover, however, the Deep Purple singer and lyricist — he of the legendary full-throated holler — has given “splat” a much deeper meaning.

What if it represents the end of humanity as we know it?

Then, as he suggests with an “optimistic” spin on the notion, “What if we morph into something else that’s metaphysical?”

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When Gillan first considered Splat! as an album title, he thought it sounded “too terminal”.

He says: “I knew how the interviews would go — ‘So this is your last record, right?’ ”

It soon becomes clear from talking to the hard rock survivor that Deep Purple, the last band standing in a so-called “unholy trinity” alongside Led Zeppelin and Black Sabbath, are very much alive and kicking.

When it came to writing themed lyrics for Purple’s 24th studio LP, Splat! screamed out from the pages of the notebook Gillan keeps to record his ideas.

Now, in tall, spidery type, it adorns an album cover housing some of the band’s heaviest, most riff-driven, yet most concise music in years.

As Gillan attests, Splat! summons the devil-may-care spirit of iconic early albums Deep Purple In Rock and Machine Head — and songs like Child In Time, Smoke On The Water and Black Night.

“What I’m hearing now is the band as it was in ’69,” he says.

There’s no doubting that the current line-up of Gillan, founder member Ian Paice (drums), another stalwart in Roger Glover (bass), Don Airey (keyboard player since 2001) and recent recruit Simon McBride (guitar) has hit a purple patch.

“You can give all kinds of reasons, but, quite simply, I think it’s human chemistry,” says Gillan, who lives in Portugal and turned 80 last August.

“The songs are coming easy.

The band is cranking live.

When all the elements work well, they feed off each other.”

He salutes Northern Irish guitarist McBride, who replaced Steve Morse in time for previous album =1, for adding a dynamic gut-punch to proceedings.

He agrees with me that the songs on Splat! don’t “outstay their welcome”, crediting legendary Canadian producer Bob Ezrin (Alice Cooper, Pink Floyd, Kiss) for “keeping the arrangements snappy”.

Gillan recalls how it used to be: “With the band having no leader — we never have really — it was often a case of sitting there and one of us would say, ‘Let’s make this bit longer, let’s put another section in there’.

“We might spend weeks arguing or debating an arrangement.

But Bob just comes in and says, ‘I’m not liking that’, and cuts it out.”

Gillan considers Purple to be “an instrumental band”, with the music always getting written first.

Then it’s time for him to step in with the lyrics and those still mighty vocals, delivered with all the theatricality you might expect from someone who took the part of Jesus on the original Jesus Christ Superstar album.

It’s fair to say that Splat!, also the name of the album’s emphatic closing track, represents one of Gillan’s most ambitious concepts, so let’s return to his thought process.

“For some time now, I’ve been trying to make an album sound as if all the songs belong,” he says.

“There’s one exception on this record and I’m not happy about it,” he announces by way of a slight digression.

When I suggest that the track in question might be Third Call, which seems more to do with sex than metaphysics, Gillan replies: “Oh, how did you guess?

It should have been called Sore Thumb.

“I’ve done my own little album on my computer, replacing it with a song destined to be a B-side or bonus track called Hoot ’n’ Slither, which does fit.”

So, let’s hear about his mind-boggling concept, so big that it almost hurts the brain.

“I’ll probably find myself in pseud’s corner again,” he mutters with a smile, before launching into his explanation.

“I’ve been fascinated by the word eternity since I was eight.

I couldn’t understand how things could go on forever.

As a child, it didn’t seem possible to me.

“One summer night, I started thinking about the end of the road, the end of the country, beaches, the sea, the sky, the stars.

“I started panicking, so I built a brick wall around my universe, as many kids have, I’m sure.

“That was it, I was safe.

And then, a horrible thought occurred to me: ‘What’s behind the bricks?’ ”

Gillan says that “later in life”, Edwin Abbott’s classic novella Flatland, a satirical study of a two- dimensional world written in 1884, got him thinking about other dimensions, the afterlife and spiritual worlds.

Then he considered that the population of Earth had “virtually tripled” during his lifetime.

He continues: “For some years, this explosion has seemed unsustainable to me and that the only way to escape is not by flying through the solar system in tin cans.

“It has to be metaphysical.

I’m hopeful.

Perhaps we might become some sort of intelligent energy.”

Gillan draws my attention to the song The Only Horse In Town, one of the last recorded for Splat! and driven by Airey’s fulsome keys and McBride’s shimmering riffs.

It was inspired by a real-life encounter with someone close to death near Noble Street Studios in Toronto where Purple were doing a recording session.

“The snow came down and we saw there were these vagrants living under a blue tarp,” he says.

“The place looked like a rubbish dump.

“We offered them some hot food when we went out to get our takeaway for lunch — and they didn’t want it.

They just wanted dollars for crack.

“I thought of this one guy who probably had days to live.

I imagined his final hit.

“Then (in my mind) I stepped into his shoes and started walking across America until I got to the high plains of New Mexico and found this derelict film set.

“Along with a clapped-out old horse, this guy finds solace, a haven.

It fits very nicely with the overall pattern of the album.”

Next, we take a dive into more of the Splat! songs, starting with the three-minute opening blast, Arrogant Boy, about a bloke called Billy.

“The attitude in the music screamed frustration to me,” says Gillan.

“I had this idea of an ordinary guy down the pub who doesn’t give a monkey’s toss about what goes on at the higher levels of society.

He’s sick of the political pendulum.

“Everyone knows that nothing’s happened in the last fifty, sixty years.

We’ve built nothing.

We’ve done nothing.

We’ve gone backwards in almost everything.

The great institutions are useless piles of rubble.

“So Billy is sticking his head up out of a hole and saying, ‘Get on with it!’”

This brings us to the wild Diablo, recorded in Nashville and featuring guitar solos from none other than country rock star Keith Urban, whose studio the band were occupying.

Here, Gillan truly lets his imagination run riot.

“Diablo is a place where young people go for their rite of passage.

It’s dangerous and many don’t come back,” he says.

“This is the story of Dra-ma.

She pickles her knuckles and has 20 fights before beating up Guts McKenzie in the final.

She celebrates with a bucket of wine and falls into the glitter pool.

It’s all a bit surreal.”

You may think Gillan’s gone off on one but this ceaselessly entertaining character is also partial to a bit of humour.

The Rider is not about someone on a horse, but more about the notorious demands of rock stars when they go on tour.

He says: “I’m not going to mention his name, but he’s a very famous musician in a very famous band.

I was sitting having a beer with him and he said, ‘Someone got a fear of flying so we hired a psychologist.

The next week, there were four psychologists on the plane, one for each member of the band.

Then someone got a bad back so we got a physiotherapist.

The next week, there were four of them.’’

So what about his band’s riders?

“Deep Purple have never been extravagant,” he answers.

“When I was with Black Sabbath, it was a slightly different story, more funny than extravagant.

“I remember Geezer [Butler] complaining that the ham was round and the bread was square, that his sandwich was an incongruous mess which didn’t look right.

“My rider has always been very simple.

It’s bread and cheese, some tea bags — it has to be PG Tips — and a kettle.”

Elsewhere on Splat!, Jessica’s Bra has got to be one of the most eye-catching song titles of the year.

It was supposed to be Bar but, as Gillan admits: “I can’t see too well and make loads of typos these days.

“It’s a sort of Irish pub song.

I grew up in pubs with a beer in one hand, a fag in the other, and in fantastic company.

“My pals were drinking pals — I didn’t smoke a joint until I was 38.

We were pub guys who got locked in, behaved outrageously, but it stayed within the walls.

No harm done.”

Guilt Trippin’, with its gorgeous piano intro and outro and screaming vocals, is about “God and Charlie Darwin having a pint”.

Gillan says: “God is saying, ‘We’ve got to get the numbers right next time,’ but Darwin just goes, ‘Humpty, humpty’.

He doesn’t want to interfere!”

The Lunatic, inspired by the plight of George Orwell’s 1984 protagonist Winston Smith, summons a bout of indignation from Gillan.

“I can’t believe the prescient nature of that book, which was published in 1949,” he says.

“More recently, the NHS proscribed the word lunatic.

I take great offence at that.

Most of my friends are lunatics and always have been — and I happily follow the moon around.”

Through the song Scriblin’ Gib’rish, Gillan vents his spleen at those online matrixes where you have to identify motorbikes or traffic lights, “proving that I am a human being to a f***ing robot”.

Of note here is that he’s heading to UK theatres next spring for his Talking Gib’rish spoken-word tour, a departure from the arena-sized norm.

It’s an opportunity for him to regale audiences with stories from more than six decades in the business.

On a personal level, it’s clear that Gillan is pressing on despite the rigours of live performance and, as he reports, “failing eyesight”.

“Over the past few days, I’ve been taking a deep breath and looking at the future,” he says.

“A few years ago I was doing a talk and the theme was positive ageing.

I realised that when people retire, they stop making long-term plans — even if it’s small things to do with the house or garden.

“But I keep thinking some years ahead with projects, and don’t worry whether I complete them.

“That’s a self-creating energy, like nuclear energy.

It’s incredible.

So, I’m making long-term plans and to hell with it!”

If that’s the template for his mind, what about his body?

Alluding to his younger self — that skinny figure in tight flared jeans with a shaggy mane — he says: “Obviously, I used to be quite athletic when I was young, but I can’t pole vault anymore!

“Well into my sixties, I used to run upstairs two at a time, and now I run down ten at a time.

“So, you’ve got to have a laugh.

Otherwise, you’d sit down and cry.”

One thing is for certain, Ian Gillan and Deep Purple are NOT about to go Splat!

DEEP PURPLE

Splat!

★★★★☆

Temperatures in Europe hit a new high this summer, with hotter early-summer heatwaves triggering illness, deaths and the collapse of infrastructure across the continent.

Transport buckled on Sunday as temperatures hit 40C (104F) across Germany, the Czech Republic and Poland. In France, days averaging 29.8C (85.6F) – spiking to 44C (111.2F) in one town – gave way to storms, leaving an estimated 1,000 excess deaths behind.

Scenes like this may well be the new normal.

Last summer’s heatwave alone caused an estimated 2,300 climate-related deaths in 12 European countries, WWA says.

A study by World Weather Attribution (WWA) has found that intense heat on this level is now tens to hundreds of times more likely than it was in 2003, and was unheard of 50 years ago.

“Heat-related mortality is likely to remain a feature of Europe’s warming climate,” warns Dr Hans Kluge, the World Health Organization (WHO)’s regional director for Europe. Deaths have already risen by an average of 52 per million people annually since the 1990s, he told Al Jazeera – a trend he says shows little sign of reversing on its own.

So what does this mean for the future? Are these temperatures the new normal, and if so, why?

We asked the climate experts:

Is this really the new normal?

Yes, it certainly looks that way. According to WWA, heatwaves were generally about 3.5C cooler in June 1976, and 2C cooler even in 2003.

“Think of it like a race where the starting line has been moved much closer to the finish,” Dr Akshay Deoras of the University of Reading told Al Jazeera. Ultimately, this is down to global warming, he says.

Europe has warmed at roughly twice the global average since the 1980s, according to the European Commission’s climate change service, Copernicus.

Deoras says this amounts to “loading the dice” towards once-rare extremes.

WWA’s modelling goes further: at current emissions rates, an event of the magnitude of this summer’s heatwave is expected to occur every couple of decades – and today’s extremes are effectively a preview of what an ordinary summer could look like by the middle of the century.

Why is this happening in Europe now?

The immediate trigger is a stalled high-pressure system, or a “heat dome”, which traps heat in one concentrated area for days or weeks.

Heat domes aren’t new, but Europe’s already-shifted baseline means the same pattern now produces far hotter outcomes than decades ago, Deoras told Al Jazeera.

Professor Hannah Cloke of the University of Reading told Al Jazeera that’s because the warming behind new, extreme weather patterns comes from emissions released decades ago, and the climate system takes time to respond – so we’re feeling the effects now of pollution from the past.

Copernicus’s European State of the Climate 2025 report confirms this: more than 95 percent of the continent saw above-average annual temperatures last year, alongside record Alpine glacier loss and the highest sea-surface temperatures ever measured in Europe.

And because Europe is warming roughly twice as fast as the rest of the planet, that gap with the global average is projected to keep widening – meaning whatever the world experiences on average in the coming decades, Europe will likely see first, and worse.

Is this trajectory irreversible?

Partly. Some of the damage is permanent. Some of it isn’t – yet.

Take glaciers. Because the effects of pollution from decades ago are cumulative, “some of what we are experiencing this summer is already locked in”, Cloke says.

Alpine glaciers, which feed major European rivers, she says, have already shrunk past the point of recovery, and their contribution to summer river flow is “permanently reduced”.

Not everything is set in stone, however. “Every tonne of emissions avoided changes the odds of what comes next,” Cloke says.

What we do now, therefore, will decide the difference between summers that are simply hard to live with in the future, and summers that become “genuinely beyond our ability to cope with”.

Some resources, like groundwater in northern Europe, can still recover – “but the window to act is narrowing with each dry year”, she says.

What is this doing to human health?

The toll is already severe and likely to worsen.

The Lancet Countdown Europe calculates that there were 62,000 heat-related deaths across the region in 2024 alone, with projections showing a steep further rise by 2050 if we don’t make changes.

Much of the problem, Kluge told Al Jazeera, is architectural and largely unaddressed.

“Most of the housing stock across this region was designed for a colder climate – to retain heat, not shed it,” he said, warning that without large-scale retrofitting, deaths could keep climbing past 2050 regardless of how good warning systems become.

His prescription: treat heat as predictable, not an emergency.

“Governments need to plan for heat the way they plan for winter flu – as a recurring, predictable challenge requiring permanent infrastructure, not a one-off crisis requiring emergency improvisation.” The highest-return step, he added, is identifying who’s most at risk – often older people living alone – and reaching them before a heatwave hits, not after.

What else can be done?

Cloke points to two priorities: early warning systems that reliably reach the people who most need to be protected, and an overhaul of water infrastructure in Europe which has been built for rainfall patterns that no longer exist.

Deoras says emissions also still matter: cutting them won’t eliminate heatwaves, which are “a natural part of the climate system”, but doing so would make them “less intense, less frequent and shorter-lived”.

None of the experts who spoke to Al Jazeera describe this as hopeless.

They do warn that the window of opportunity for addressing the issue is narrowing: infrastructure can still be retrofitted, emissions can still be cut, warning systems can still be improved – if the decisions to do so are made now, rather than after the next heatwave.

What a “normal” European summer looks like in 2050 is still being written, they say.

Dakar, Senegal – The silence came before kickoff. Not from fear but anticipation, a nation holding its breath.

Across Dakar, radios crackled from open windows. Men gathered shoulder to shoulder in cafes, their eyes fixed on flickering television screens. Families crowded into living rooms. Friends leaned over phones, tea growing cold as conversation gave way to concentration.

The city’s usual rhythm horns, its markets, its arguments, its laughter – did not disappear. It simply yielded to something larger.

Senegal were in the first knockout round of the World Cup, playing against Belgium.

On the 25th-minute mark of the game, the boy from the suburbs of Dakar, Habib Diarra, delivered the nation from its anxiety, sweeping a loose ball beyond the Belgian goalkeeper: 1-0 to Senegal.

Eight thousand kilometres away from the game in Seattle, the United States, Dakar became the stadium. The celebrations only grew after Senegal scored a second goal early in the second half. Confidence turned into complacency. Five minutes from full-time, car horns blared and firecrackers echoed through the night. Victory was near.

But the celebrations came too early.

Belgium scored once. Then again. All in the space of five minutes, completing an astonishing comeback. And then, in the final minutes of extra-time, Senegal gave away a penalty: 3-2 to Belgium.

Problem is preparation

A day later, the silence remains.

Not quite mourning, but more disbelief.

“It’s incomprehensible,” says former Senegal international footballer Ferdinand Coly. “When you control a match with such quality until the 85th minute, you have to finish it. But psychologically, everything changed.”

Coly believes the turning point was not Belgium’s resurgence, but the Senegal coaching team’s decisions.

“The substitutions completely changed the midfield. There was no reason to make them. Once Belgium scored, they gained the psychological advantage. Senegal became fragile. They retreated, played with fear, and never recovered.”

Coly was part of Senegal’s 2002 World Cup squad, the team that famously stunned France in the tournament’s opening match.

“It’s never over… until the final whistle,” he said, reflecting on Belgium’s dramatic comeback.

Since retiring, Coly has swapped his football boots for farming. He has also worked with the Senegalese Football Federation, and believes the national team has lost sight of the basics.

For him, the problem is not talent but preparation.

He criticises what he sees as an over-reliance on data, statistics, and performance apps, instead of building a coherent team identity and developing a clear tactical strategy.

As Belgium searched for an equaliser, their coach was still scribbling notes on a sheet of paper, adjusting and reacting until the very last minute.

“What a contrast!” Coly said. “We’re relying on technology when football is still about reading the game, adapting and thinking.”

Same old struggle

Coly’s analysis echoes that of supporters still trying to process a defeat that slipped away in the closing minutes.

Ibrahima Diop is a die-hard fan of the Lions of Teranga. He travelled to the 2022 FIFA World Cup in Qatar. He was even jailed in Morocco after trouble during the Africa Cup of Nations Final earlier this year.

In that controversial final – played against the hosts, Morocco – Senegal’s coach controversially called his players off the pitch after a disputed penalty decision. Senegal went on to win the match, but later lost the title over the incident.

For Diop, the lesson was the same as against Belgium.

“It comes down to concentration,” he says. “For 85 minutes the team was organised and united. Then it disappeared. European teams are prepared psychologically to fight until the very end. We still struggle in those final minutes.”

Diop also believes Senegal were missing something impossible to measure.

“The team played without its supporters. Visa restrictions and the economic crisis meant many fans could not travel. The players know what that atmosphere gives them. Mentally, it made a difference.”

US President Donald Trump signed a proclamation in December declaring that no visas would be given for business or tourism to nationals of Senegal, and several other countries. This meant that fans with only Senegalese nationality were unable to travel to the tournament.

Diop sees a pattern in this World Cup. Ivory Coast, DR Congo, and now Senegal led until the closing minutes, only to watch victory slip away in stadiums empty of their fans.

Cruel for country

Football is rarely just football. This World Cup – meant to unite – has revealed the deep inequalities beyond the stands. A nation may be united in victory. But when the referee blows the final whistle, another game begins: the blame game.

Football is opium for the masses, says Coly.  It has become one of the few moments when political loyalties disappear. For 90 minutes, everyone wears the same colours.

“The national team is a bridge,” Coly said. “When Senegal plays, there is no political affiliation. It’s simply Senegal. Sport has this unique ability to unite people beyond their differences.”

The unity makes defeat feel disproportionately heavy.

Social media quickly filled with frozen moments from the match: missed chances, defensive mistakes, and coaching decisions replayed endlessly.

Under pressure, football often reveals more than just sporting weaknesses.

Babacar Fall, a Senegalese journalist who has closely followed the national team, argues that the problems began long before kickoff.

According to him, uncertainty over the coach’s future, disagreements inside the federation, and unresolved contractual issues created instability during the tournament.

“There were already problems before the Norway match,” he says. “The coach’s contract wasn’t settled. There were disagreements over player selection. Then, 10 minutes from the end against Belgium, one substitution broke the defensive structure completely.”

He draws an even broader comparison.

“The country is paralysed. There was so much hope after the Africa Cup of Nations, just as there was so much hope politically. Today, there is disappointment. In many ways, the team’s collapse reflects the country’s mood.”

Those views capture a feeling repeated by many supporters in Dakar this week. There is frustration, not simply because Senegal lost, but because of how it lost.

The talent was there. The opportunity was there. For much of the match, Senegal looked like the stronger side. That is perhaps why the silence lingers.

This generation has raised expectations. Winning continental titles transformed how Senegal sees itself. Reaching the knockout stages is no longer enough; supporters believe this team should compete with the world’s best.

Ultimately, it is only football. But in Senegal, football has become something larger than sport. It is a source of national pride, a rare moment of collective unity, and a reflection of possibility.

That is why this defeat feels so cruel. Not because a match was lost. But because, for one evening, it felt as though an entire country’s potential had slipped away in the space of just five minutes.

FIRST REVIEW CONFESSIONS II

★★★★★

AS one of the most talked-about, celebrated and frequently derided pop stars of all time, returning with her first album in seven years is a high-stakes move for Madonna.

The Queen of Pop has never left it so long between albums in her 43-year career. And she has taken an even bigger risk by recording a ­follow-up to her much-lauded 2005 dance-pop opus, Confessions On A Dancefloor.

But rather than playing it safe, ­Confessions II sees her doing just that — confessing.

She addresses everything from how she failed her eldest daughter Lourdes to her regrets over her relationship with her late brother, Christopher Ciccone.

And also, surprisingly, how her first husband, Sean Penn, 65, made her feel during their short-lived marriage.

The most venom-tongued track is titled Bizarre, in which she squarely attacks the Hollywood A-lister, who she was married to from 1985 to 1989.

She references the 1968 Shelby GT500 convertible she gave him as a wedding gift and his conviction for reckless driving in 1987.

And she also lays into how Penn was “threatened” by her and claims he resented her while they were together.

Madge sings: “Love is the strangest thing. Just when you think you’ve finally let go, it comes back to you.

“Movie star, deep blue eyes. In Hollywood, we’re a perfect prize.

“He drove way too fast, Shelby Cobra wasn’t meant to last.”

Earlier the lyrics had turned to anger, as she sings: “Roll out the carpet for us, but you don’t share it.

“All ’cause you’re threatened by me, you won’t admit it.

“The little things that you do don’t make me want you. Who knew love could be so bizarre?”

And in a later verse, she adds: “I know I left you behind and you resent me.

“A thousand reasons why you could never have me.

“The thought of being with you is so indecent. I guess you’ll never know my dirty little secret.”

Penn isn’t the only subject of her scorn, with Betrayal appearing to be about her stepmum Joan, who died in 2024 while the album was being made. Madonna did not attend her funeral.

The singer was five years old when she lost her mum — who she was named after — to breast cancer. Three years later, in 1966, her dad Silvio married Joan, who worked briefly for the family as a housekeeper.

In the opening verse of Betrayal, Mad­onna sings: “This is a story of betrayal. You couldn’t see your fall from grace.

“So take the hammer, hit the nail. You’ll never take my mother’s place.”

And later in the track, she adds: “You betrayed me, you enslaved me.”

But Madonna, 67, shows her softer side on The Test, which sees her and Lourdes, 29 — the eldest of her six kids — open up about their at-times difficult relationship.

On how her daughter was thrust into the limelight because of her own fame, Madonna sings: “Little star, I tried to put you on a pedestal, you didn’t ask for all the flashing lights.

“I didn’t think of how we could disturb, or how it hurt. I wish I knew the pain I caused.”

She continues: “Sometimes I think you wish I’d go away, but the shadow stays, and it’s OK to be yourself.”

Madge also appears to touch on her 2023 brush with death, when she was found unresponsive at her New York apartment and placed into a coma after suffering from an infection that led to sepsis.

Lourdes, 29, who Madonna had with fitness trainer Carlos Leon, was among those that rallied around her in hospital.

Madonna sings: “You made me whole when I was broken, too. I hope and pray I can do the same for you.”

Paying tribute to her mum, Lourdes sings: “You are my reason to be, what I want or look like, what I wear, all the clothes on my back, and what I attract.

“I trace the line of what you have sewn. Keep my own design. Make it a landscape. Make it alive.”

Elsewhere on the album Madonna makes peace with Christopher, who she was accused of “dropping” as her creative director in the early-2000s, and who later wrote a book titled Life With My Sister Madonna.

The once-close pair never fully repaired their relationship and he died of cancer at the age of 63, in October 2024 although she says he now visits her in her dreams.

On the song Fragile, she sings: “We shared a name, a home. We shared a fragile bond, now you’re gone.

“We laughed, we cried, we held each other’s hands. We had each other’s eyes and they belonged

“This is the time I hate the most, the words inside my heart

“I know you’re fragile ’cause you’ve been hurt, been let down.”

At the end of the track, she adds: “Late last night I was fast asleep, you came to me in a dream.

“You said don’t forget about me, don’t forget to be happy.

“So I hope you found a higher ground.”

The 16-track album clocks in at almost 64 minutes, and is a metaphor for a night out, starting with the heavy, pulsating beats of a club.

Then the final five songs represent the evening winding down, with Madonna spilling out her deepest feelings with the bravery and vulnerability that comes from a night of loud, messy partying.

When she reaches the last track L.E.S. Girl — about her life pre-fame on the Lower East Side of New York — you can hear traffic beeping, signalling she is finally on her way home as the morning rush hour starts.

It’s a neat arc for the ambitious album, which she once again made with English producer and songwriter Stuart Price, who she teamed up with on the first Confessions album.

But this record is much darker, heavier and grown-up.

And as well as being symbolic of a single night out, Madonna uses it to represent key parts of her life and the moments that have made her.

The most brilliantly bombastic highlight comes in Danceteria — named after the New York nightclub where she found her friends in the industry and where DJs played her music for the first time.

It’s a feel-good number with a Vogue-style rap and namechecks for everyone from her pal Debi Mazar to artist Jean-Michel Basquiat and even The B-52s.

Another highlight comes with Love Sensation, which appears to be a tribute to her boyfriend, Akeem Morris, 30.

She started dating the former football player in 2024, two years after ending a three-year romance with dancer Ahlamalik Williams, 31, and they now live together in London.

Madonna sings: “When I feel alone I always want to bring you near ’cause you bring a smile right here. You chase away my darkest hours.”

And in the chorus she continues: “Baby, come and get with me, there’s something that I gotta do.

“Baby, when you’re here with me, there’s nothing that we cannot do.”

So far in her career Madonna has sold 450million albums, and counting.

And with this project, she proves there is still plenty of passion, ambition and talent.

Undoubtedly it is her most cohesive and accomplished album since the original Confessions, 21 years ago.

And long may the Queen of Pop ­continue to reign.

LOVE, BETRAYAL AND ECSTASY ON SWEET 16

I Feel So Free: The opening track, released in April, is a throbbing song with breathy vocals and a sample of the 1989 Lil Louis acid house track French Kiss, complete with orgasm. It’s a statement of what’s to come as she says: “On the dancefloor, I feel so free.”

Good For The Soul: Heavy-sounding verses make way for a buoyant and optimistic pop chorus, all about how important letting your hair down is. It was written on her first session for the record.

One Step Away: Madonna dives headfirst into house music on this pulsating track about the release she feels in a nightclub. Over the beat, she utters: “The dance floor is not just a place, it’s a threshold. A ritualistic space where movement replaces language.”

Bring Your Love: The credibly cool lead single features Sabrina Carpenter, uniting two generations of pop stars who are resolute in their determination not to be swayed by naysayers. In the chorus they say: “Bring your love ’cause you cannot shake me. Bring your love ’cause you’ll never break me.”

Danceteria: “Everyone here is a work of art,” Madonna sings on this wonderfully poppy single, inspired by the New York nightclub she went to as a youngster.

Read My Lips: Spanish guitar and a guest appearance from Colombian singer Feid give this a different feel, though there’s a Latin trap beat to keep the party going. It’s clear Madge isn’t happy on it, though, singing: “You cut me with your lies, ’cause you hurt me with your kiss.”

Everything: It opens with strings reminiscent of her 1992 track Deeper And Deeper, but evolves to have regular house music breakdowns fit for a packed Ibiza dancefloor. And she’s worked up, spitting: “It’s not OK, I don’t f*** with it.”

Love Sensation: Pop makes a return on this heart-warming crowd-pleaser. “There’s nothing that we cannot do,” she repeats as the track builds to euphoric choruses. This is destined to be a future single.

Love Without Words: An ode to partying, starts with the sound of smoke being pumped on to a dance floor. “Call it trance, call it house, call it love without words,” she sings.

Bizarre: Madonna teamed up with super-producer Martin Garrix for this revenge track about her ex Sean Penn. The melody, complemented by strings and hints of EDM production, is enough to have people throwing their hands in the air.

School: “I can make moves on the dance floor, I can make love on a man’s floor,” she breathlessly coos on this track, on which her vocals are heavily distorted. It’s one of the weaker songs.

Fragile: There’s a major change of pace with break beats and strings, as she sweetly sings about her late brother Christopher. Her voice truly takes centre stage here.

My Sins Are My Savior: She is joined by Belgian rapper Stromae on this dark and moody track, which wouldn’t sound out of place on 1992’s Erotica album. Reflecting on the criticism in her career, she sings: “I was not lost, I was just broken. They tried to take me down, they tried to take my crown.”

Betrayal: She teams up with producer Mirwais, who she first worked with in 2000, on this 90s-inspired track, featuring brass and piano over bleak and mournful vocals.

The Test: Madonna has said Lourdes approached her about working together to heal their rift, and it certainly sounds cathartic. Her daughter’s voice here is far smoother, but they blend exquisitely.

L.E.S GIRL: It’s the end of the night, Madonna is on her way home and she’s reflecting on when she was a “Lower East Side girl, lost in a fragile world.” It’s a tear- jerker, and triumphant look back at how far she has come. The perfect ending.

TO the untrained eye, he was just a bloke in a shiny police helmet singing about staying at the YMCA.

But behind the tight trousers and macho character in disco group ­Village People, Victor Willis was a musical hitmaker who co-wrote songs that will provide the soundtrack to every wedding, birthday and office party for years to come.

Yesterday, in a Facebook post, his wife Karen Huff-Willis announced Victor’s death, aged 74.

“It is with profound sadness that I must announce the death of my husband,” she said.

“Victor passed away on Tuesday, June 30, 2026, as a result of a short but aggressive illness.”

Long before he was commanding crowds to put their hands in the air to anthems that defined an era, including YMCA, Go West and In The Navy, Victor was singing gospel music in his Baptist minister father’s church.

Read more on Victor Willis

DISCO LEGEND

Village People lead singer & founding member dies at 74 after ‘short illness’

GET DON & BOOGIE

Brilliant moment Donald Trump dances to YMCA at starstudded World Cup draw

He grew up in San Francisco and his high school band, The Ballads, supported The Temptations.

He sat in on sessions with American jazz trumpeter Dizzy Gillespie, before becoming an actor and singer.

A role in the Las Vegas production of musical Hair earned him a place in Broadway productions of Two Gentlemen Of Verona and The Wiz.

In the late Seventies, he caught the attention of flamboyant French producer Jacques Morali, who was creating a musical group based on the macho stereotypes and gay pin-ups of New York’s Greenwich Village.

Their four-track demo, called The Village People, earned the group a record deal, and Jacques asked ­Victor to become the frontman.

While the rest of the line-up were recruited from dance studios and clubs for the roles of the cowboy, the Native American, the biker, the construction worker and the soldier, Victor was thought to be the only straight member.

After albums Macho Man in 1978, and Cruisin’ in ’79 which gave us YMCA, they put out Go West and its title track became a gay anthem, later covered by The Pet Shop Boys.

It also featured In The Navy, which the US Navy co-opted for a recruitment campaign, before realising they were using the ultimate camp parody.

It was around then that Victor met and married his first wife, future Cosby Show star Phylicia Rashad.

They split in 1982.

After battling growing frustrations within the group, Victor walked out in 1979.

But his departure triggered a downward spiral.

He struggled to escape the group’s flamboyant reputation and establish credibility on his own.

His 1979 solo project, Solo Man, remained unreleased for more than 30 years until 2015.

The Eighties and Nineties became a blur of substance abuse, addiction, and brushes with the law.

In 2015, he said: “I got very depressed over the years.

“I got kind of drugged out, because I was disappointed with the way things were and got frustrated, and gave up for a bit.”

He began to turn things around in 2006 after he received court-ordered substance abuse treatment and completed three years of probation.

After getting clean, he turned his energy towards a battleground between him and ruthless record executives who had pocketed the lion’s share of the royalties from the Village People’s catalogue.

This led Victor to meet his second wife Karen, an attorney who helped him fight his copyright case against the companies who controlled Village People’s hits.

They ­married in 2007.

Victor, armed with a gritty determination, launched a historic, multi-year lawsuit under a loophole in the 1976 US Copyright Act, which allows artists to reclaim their work after 35 years.

In a legal victory that sent shockwaves through the music industry, the US courts ruled in his favour in 2013.

Victor clawed back up to 50 per cent of the lucrative copyright percentages for YMCA and his other hits, becoming a hero to older musicians everywhere.

The resolution paved the way for his return to the group in 2017.

Older, wiser, but with that same thunderous voice, he toured the world to packed arenas, watching three generations of families throw their arms in the air to spell out those four famous letters.

By then, YMCA was being regularly played at Donald Trump’s political rallies, a use Victor was unhappy with.

“I don’t endorse Trump, I’ve never endorsed Trump, nor have the Village People,” he told the BBC in 2020.

However, he surprised fans last year by agreeing to take part in the politician’s second inauguration saying: “Our song YMCA is a global anthem that hopefully helps bring the country together after a tumultuous and divided campaign where our preferred candidate lost.”

In his tribute yesterday, Trump claimed: “He was a great and happy guy who loved that I used YMCA at my rallies.”

Regardless, YMCA remains Victors’ biggest hit, reaching No1 in 17 countries.

The star may have hung up his police helmet for the final time, but his legacy is firmly etched into global nightlife.

As long as there is a wedding with a dancefloor, people will be ready to fling their arms up in the air in the shape of a “Y”.

Catia la Mar, Venezuela – Andreina Velasquez looks up at her multistorey apartment block overlooking Catia la Mar, a coastal city in the Venezuelan state of La Guaira. The concrete slabs that once separated each floor are now stacked on top of each other.

“They fell like a pack of cards,” she said, pointing to where she used to live on the sixth floor.

Velasquez feels lucky. She left her apartment a couple of hours before a pair of deadly earthquakes shook Venezuela on June 24, reaching magnitudes of 7.2 and 7.5, respectively.

She had gone to get a new key cut and was at the beach when the first quake struck.

Her neighbours did not make it. She remembers one as a gentle, retired man, another as a woman with a young daughter who had just moved in. They had been overjoyed with their view of the sea.

Velasquez is still struggling to process what she has lost. Her state was among the hardest hit by the earthquakes.

But despite her grief, she has started to hand out face masks to passersby, hoping to shield them from the gusts of dust drifting from the collapsed buildings and the stench rising from the rubble.

“I’ve been here every day. Other people came to help, but they don’t have helmets, they don’t have gloves, they don’t have masks. That’s why I’m helping,” she said.

More than 2,295 people have been killed and 11,000 injured in the twin earthquakes, according to Venezuela’s National Assembly. The United Nations has warned the death toll could rise to 10,000.

As Venezuela continues to confront the destruction, experts say recovery efforts have been driven largely by volunteers and neighbours like Velasquez.

Hospitals are overwhelmed, and government aid has been slow to reach some of the worst-affected areas.

Carolina Jimenez, the president of the Washington Office on Latin America (WOLA), a research and advocacy group, told Al Jazeera that the result has been growing anger towards the state.

“In a government in any other country, the first responder should be the state,” she said. “In the case of Venezuela, the state has been the last responder.”

In places like Catia la Mar, north of Caracas, authorities still haven’t arrived or are lacking.

Velasquez and other locals say that help from the federal government only arrived on Sunday — three days after the earthquakes hit the country. In some parts of La Guaira, such assistance has yet to arrive at all.

“[The] response has come from citizens, from civil society, from humanitarian workers, from volunteers — but not from the government,” Jimenez said.

AS one of Hollywood’s highest-earning actresses, Millie Bobby Brown has her pick of big-budget productions.

But she reckons British reality show The Celebrity Traitors would be the perfect platform for her secret manipulation skills — after she beat a lie-detector test.

The inquisitive actress took a polygraph with her Enola Holmes movie co-star Louis Partridge, who ended up in a real sweat as he was grilled.

But Millie, 22, remained so composed under questioning, that the machine failed to spot she was telling porkies.

The Stranger Things star, who earned nearly £20million last year, says: “I so want to be on The Traitors. I think I’d be really good.

“Do you know why? I did a lie-detector test with Louis, and Louis was sweating during the whole thing and could not lie.

“And then he said, ‘Her hands are getting cooler and she’s evading the questions’.

“Somehow, the report has come back, like, ‘She’s a pathological liar’.”

The BBC and its Traitors host Claudia Winkleman should get right on the telephone to Millie’s agent, because her appeal to young audiences is unrivalled by any other actress from these shores.

Millie, who grew up in Bournemouth, has been acting since she was nine.

For nearly a decade, she played telepathic Eleven in Strangers Things, which broke streaming records on Netflix before ending last December.

She is now back as Sherlock ­Holmes’ detective sister in her third Enola Holmes movie, which lands on the streaming channel today.

Millie is also working on a host of ideas, producing projects alongside her 24-year-old husband Jake Bongiovi, who is the son of rock singer Jon Bon Jovi.

The couple, who married in May 2024, have a lot on their hands.

Not only did they adopt a baby girl last summer, they also have a huge menagerie of animals at their home in Georgia — including sheep, ponies, goats, cows and ten dogs.

Some critics have questioned whether Millie was too young to adopt at the age of 21.

But she says: “I love being a young mum because I’m able to run around and chase after her.

“And I love where I’m at right now. I never was the kind of girl to be, like, out on the town, you know? So it wasn’t just in my nature. I love living on my farm. I love sewing.”

Having missed out on a normal childhood because she grew up on sets with “men over 40 years old” talking about “grips” and “ladders”, Millie was not the most outgoing teenager.

But that has all changed since she met Jake.

Millie explains: “I can’t talk about, you know, ‘Oh my God, what bars do you like around this area?’. I lack a little bit of that.

“When I met my husband, he’s the most social butterfly, the complete opposite of me. I really tried to lean more into that.”

A lot of Millie’s time, though, is spent watching the telly at home — where ITV’s Love Island is her guilty pleasure. Although Jake is not so keen on the dating show.

She says: “Love Island. He’s like, ‘Millie, I don’t care about these ­people’. And I’m like, ‘Well, I do. And they just broke up’.

“Yeah, I’m a reality TV snob. I mean, I just watch every show out there.”

Film buff Jake would rather go to the cinema to watch a movie, but parenthood now makes nights out a bit tricky.

And Millie says she usually nods off if she settles down in front of a movie.

She reveals: “I have to have a coffee because I typically fall asleep. It’s not because of the film, it’s because I’m tired. I’m a mum.”

Even though she is still only 22, Millie is now almost a showbusiness veteran, having been in the industry for 13 years.

She is able to call on a host of big names for advice, including Top Gun and Mission Impossible megastar Tom Cruise.

Millie is also close to many of the actors she has appeared with on screen, including Winona Ryder, Matthew Modine and David Harbour who are her Stranger Things co-stars.

There is also Helena Bonham Carter, who is her character’s mum in Enola Holmes.

Millie says: “Winona will text every four months, but the longest message ever. However, Helena Bonham ­Carter, she is there for me whenever I need her, and I’m very, very ­grateful to her.

“Matthew Modine, my godfather. He officiated my wedding.”

Tom Cruise is also only ever a phone call away. Millie says: “I’m very lucky to call him my friend.”

Now, she is paying back the support she has received from industry greats by helping to mentor young talent.

Owen Cooper, 16, was thrust into the limelight when his debut performance in Netflix drama Adolescence led to a string of awards, including an Emmy last year.

Millie says: “He has my number, anytime he needs me, has any questions. He texts me, he’s like, ‘Hey, am I doing this magazine? Is this, like, one I should do?’.

“And I’m like, ‘Owen, do what makes you happy. If you’re not tired, do it. But if you’re tired, don’t do it.

“‘Don’t run yourself into the ground and listen to your parents and just enjoy it. But don’t push yourself’.”

Reports emerged at the end of last year about a claimed fall-out between Millie and David Harbour.

It was alleged that she had filed a bullying and harassment claim against the 51-year-old actor, who played her adoptive father in Stranger Things.

But there is no sign of tension in Millie’s interview to promote Enola Holmes 3, where she speaks warmly about David.

She says: “I’m very lucky. David Harbour’s a great person. I like to talk to him.”

The duo are teaming up again for a Netflix TV series, where David is a former FBI agent reunited with his daughter, played by Millie.

The actress insists the untitled project, which will be written by Adolescence co-creator Jack Thorne, is “concrete”.

Millie adds: “The schedule is insane and it’s just placing things in the right place for my time and my schedule. But the David Harbour project is sooner than expected, I think.”

Most recently, Millie filmed a romantic comedy called Just Picture It and has written a book about her grandmother’s World War Two ­stories, called Nineteen Steps.

Whatever she is doing, the young actress and producer will make sure that everyone is comfortable with the working environment.

Discussing the main rules on set, the Gen Z icon says: “I don’t tolerate any bullying. I don’t tolerate any negativity.

“I have been in situations like that before and I only tolerate positivity, love, friendship, kindness, trust, communication.

“And I just will stop people in their tracks if I see that.

“I’ll just take them to the side and be, ‘This isn’t working’.

“I’ll just take them to the side and be, ‘This isn’t working’. We’re playing pretend, for goodness sake. My daughter plays pretend. This is meant to be fun.

“You know, let’s not yell or be upset or dwell on something that’s very, very small and minor.”

Years in showbiz, which is often unforgiving, has clearly taught Millie how to cope with relentless negativity.

The hatred she has experienced online led her to delete her social media in 2021 and leave someone else to deal with her digital output.

She explains: “I needed to hire someone for my mental health to take care of it for me.”

There is no escaping the trolls, though, and last year she called for the cruel comments about her appearance to stop.

There were dumb remarks online about her appearing to be aged 35 or 40.

Afterwards, Little Britain creator Matt Lucas apologised for posting, “No but, yeah but” — the catchphrase of TV “chav” Vicky Pollard — next to an image of Millie in a pink tracksuit top.

He admitted it was a misplaced gag.

Fortunately, Millie is now able to laugh off those brickbats, intended or not.

She says with a smile: “If you Google it, everybody says I look like a 50-year-old. And honestly, I am here for that.

“My mum looks amazing for 50. Gosh, I feel very much 22.”

Let’s all hope that is the truth, and that Millie has the youthful energy to keep up her incredible output on screen.

And with any luck, we will see her plotting away in a cloak inside a Scottish castle very soon.

• Enola Holmes 3 is streaming on Netflix from today.

New Delhi, India – Brajesh Kumar climbs three floors every evening to sit in solitude on the rooftop terrace of his house overlooking the Ram Temple in Ayodhya in northern India’s Uttar Pradesh.

Over decades, the 65-year-old has seen the once-sleepy town metamorphose into the biggest flashpoint of the Hindu majoritarian movement, championed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). Where the temple stands used to be the site of the 16th-century Babri Mosque, but in 1992 a Hindu mob tore it down, sparking religious riots that killed nearly 2,000 people across the country, mostly Muslims.

Two and a half years ago, Modi presided over the consecration ceremony of the new temple, devoted to the Hindu god Ram. Many Hindus believe Ram, the god worshipped as an epitome of righteousness, was born there.

To Hindu devotees like Kumar, the temple – despite the controversy and deaths that defined its birth – brought a sense of serenity.

Until recently.

For the past month, the temple has been embroiled in allegations that those entrusted with its management have instead embezzled donations worth potentially millions of dollars that the site attracted from devotees.

“We have been betrayed [by the management], who have looted our faith, nothing less,” Kumar told Al Jazeera. “Left to them, they will sell us all one day in the name of religion and stuff their own pockets.”

The allegations have led to police investigations, arrests and political fallout that could shape elections in India’s most populous state that are only months away.

Ayodhya’s can of worms

Since its inauguration, the Ram Temple has been among the top religious sites in India, attracting millions of Hindu devotees.

An independent trust, the Shri Ram Janmabhoomi Teerth Kshetra Trust, manages the shrine. Although it is outside the purview of the government, its executive members wield political influence, and some of them come from the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, the ideological wellspring of the BJP.

The corruption allegations first surfaced this month after Mahipal Singh, a former supervisor of the trust’s accounting team, publicly called out irregularities. Al Jazeera could not reach him for comment.

After a public uproar, Akhilesh Yadav, a former chief minister of Uttar Pradesh from the opposition Samajwadi Party, picked up the issue, alleging that millions of rupees in donations had gone missing.

The mounting pressure pushed the state government, ruled by the BJP, to form a three-member investigation team, which has submitted a report on the alleged misappropriation of donations.

Although the content of the report has not been made public, the state police registered a criminal case and have arrested at least eight people, including those involved in counting cash and valuable offerings at the temple.

More devotees have come forward since, seeking the whereabouts of their valuables, including silver bricks and gold jewellery and artefacts, that they had handed over to the trust’s executives.

On Friday, the trust’s longstanding general secretary, Champat Rai, stepped down with other high-profile trustees. The allegations have been particularly damning for Rai, who has been a central figure in the movement for the Ram Temple.

But it has done little to cool down the tensions in the state, where thousands of devotees, including some BJP supporters, feel cheated.

‘Cunning thieves running Ram Temple’

Santosh Dubey was among those tried for tearing down the Babri Mosque in 1992. He has never shied away from his role and instead has flaunted it.

After the mosque’s demolition, Dubey waited for a final verdict about what was to happen to the site from the courts, where both sides fought bitterly for decades. In 2019, the Supreme Court awarded the site to Hindus – even though it deemed the destruction of the mosque illegal. The top court gave a piece of land to Muslims outside Ayodhya to build a new mosque. In 2020, Dubey and others accused of roles in demolishing the mosque were acquitted — the court cited a lack of adequate evidence.

If those verdicts felt like vindication to Dubey, the alleged embezzlement at the temple has enraged him.

“This corruption causes me deep anguish, a pain that words cannot express,” Dubey told Al Jazeera, speaking from Ayodhya. “All I can say is that nothing less than the death penalty would suffice for them.”

“Cunning, dishonest and ruthless thieves are running the Ram Temple, and they have created such an atmosphere of fear that no one is willing to speak out against them,” he said.

Dubey said the government will struggle to ignore the anger among devotees because the episode batters the BJP’s narrative that it is a saviour of the Hindu faith.

This is not the first time that the temple trust has been the subject of controversy. In 2021, the trust allegedly bought land at highly inflated prices using public donations.

BJP spokespeople refused to comment on the recent allegations when Al Jazeera reached them.

‘Impact on upcoming election’

Devotees of the temple and critics of the government are accusing authorities of attempting a cover-up.

Opposition leader Yadav described the state government’s initial handling of the case as “suspicious”. “The government is arresting the counting staff while shielding the big fish who orchestrated the structural rot,” Yadav said while demanding transparency in the investigation.

Karpatri Maharaj, a prominent Hindu seer associated with the Ram Temple movement, told Al Jazeera that the government is using junior employees as scapegoats and arresting them.

Uttar Pradesh, India’s most populous state, is led by the firebrand Hindu monk-turned-politician Yogi Adityanath, who is often seen as a potential successor to Modi within the RSS-led Hindu majoritarian movement known as Hindutva.

Modi’s party lost a significant base in the state in the 2024 national elections when the BJP fell short of a majority, forcing it to rely on allies’ support to stay in power.

For the BJP, which has long used the campaign for the Ram Temple as a central political plank, the new controversy could prove a challenge before elections in Uttar Pradesh scheduled for early next year, political analyst Rasheed Kidwai said.

“It would have a massive negative impact on the BJP if more religious leaders came forward to speak on this,” Kidwai told Al Jazeera. “This is not something that would be forgotten because it is a matter of faith, and the state chief comes from a religious order himself.”

The episode carries broader lessons, he said: Pandering to religious emotions and fanning divisions can bite back. “What has been benefitting the BJP in these years can also cause immense damage,” Kidwai said.

Beirut, Lebanon – After the governments of Lebanon and Israel on Friday signed a United States-brokered framework agreement following months of direct negotiations, protesters took to the streets of the Lebanese capital to express their anger at the deal.

Many of the demonstrators waved flags of the Iran-backed group Hezbollah, which has been militarily confronting Israel’s ongoing invasion and occupation of large swaths of southern Lebanon.

Israel and Hezbollah have been fighting since October 2023, with varying levels of intensity, but the former has twice escalated the conflict – first in September 2024 and then nearly four months ago.

Some of the harshest critics of the framework, which does not force the Israeli army to withdraw from the areas it occupies, have been those most deeply impacted by Israel’s war, which has killed more than 4,200 people and forced hundreds of thousands from their homes since early March.

“After everything my family, my village, the south, and Dahiyeh have endured – the destruction, the displacement, the grief and the loss – it is incredibly difficult for me to accept an agreement with the same state that carried out the military actions that devastated our communities,” said Ali Zaytoun, a resident of Beirut’s southern suburbs, known as Dahiyeh.

Zaytoun, who runs a popular Instagram account called History of Dahieh, said he had been displaced multiple times due to Israeli attacks.

“Imagine someone destroys your home and your life, and then you’re expected to simply move on as if nothing happened,” said Zaytoun. “My protest is about remembering those who suffered, standing up for my community, and expressing that this agreement does not reflect the justice or respect that people who lived through this war deserve.”

A new Oslo?

The Israeli intensification on March 2 came after Hezbollah fired on Israel for the first time in more than a year following the killing of Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei in a joint US-Israeli air attack on Tehran two days earlier, and as a response to more than 10,000 Israeli violations of a ceasefire reached in November 2024.

On the same day, the Lebanese government declared Hezbollah’s military activities illegal and later tried – unsuccessfully – to expel the Iranian ambassador.

Its position was that Hezbollah’s actions invited Israel’s wrath in a war fought on behalf of Iran and not the people of Lebanon.

Hezbollah, however, continued fighting Israel in southern Lebanon, where the Israeli army has established what it calls a “security zone” that goes as deep as 10km (6.2 miles) into the country.

As attacks continued, Lebanon’s government entered the United States-brokered negotiations with Israel, despite Hezbollah’s objections.

The final text of the 14-point Washington agreement states Israel has no claim to Lebanese territory and that the Lebanese Armed Forces (LAF) will eventually be the authority in southern Lebanon, “pending the verified disarmament of” non-state armed groups such as Hezbollah.

Proponents point to Israel recognising Lebanon’s authority over its own territory, though critics say the framework relies too heavily on the US – Israel’s main military and diplomatic backer and a signatory to the deal – to enforce it.

“The United States is unlikely to act as a neutral mediator and will almost certainly align with Israeli positions whenever disputes arise over the interpretation or implementation of the agreement,” said Karim Emile Bitar, a professor of international relations at the Saint Joseph University of Beirut.

“This creates a fundamentally asymmetric negotiating environment in which Lebanon has little leverage and few effective guarantees.”

Hezbollah chief Naim Qassem declared the agreement “null and void”, calling it “humiliating, shameful, and a surrender of sovereignty”, while Hassan Fadlallah, a Hezbollah lawmaker, warned of “internal conflict” in Lebanon.

Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri called for calm but also declared that the deal was an attempt to incite strife.

Those who backed the government said it had originally little choice but to enter direct negotiations, given its limited leverage in a war where Israel has technological superiority and unwavering US support.

Lebanese Prime Minister Nawaf Salam wrote on social media after the agreement’s signing that it “aims to achieve Israel’s withdrawal from all Lebanese territories”, while President Joseph Aoun called it “a first step” towards restoring Lebanon’s sovereignty.

Still, the final terms of the deal were criticised by many analysts.

“This framework agreement essentially mirrors the reality of the military and political balance on the ground, which is decisively tilted in Israel’s favour,” said Bitar.

Bitar said the agreement was reminiscent of the Oslo Accords, a series of US-brokered agreements signed by the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) and Israel in the 1990s.

“We see a similar pattern here: Israeli negotiators seek recognition and get the other side to relinquish leverage while offering no binding timetable or reciprocal obligations,” he added.

On Saturday, Israeli Defence Minister Israel Katz insisted soldiers will remain in Lebanon until Hezbollah is disarmed.

US reliance

Days before the signing of the Washington framework, Iran and the US agreed on a memorandum of understanding (MoU) that aims to end the war launched by the US and Israel against Iran in late February.

The MoU declared, among other things, “the immediate and permanent termination of military operations on all fronts, including Lebanon”, between the two countries and their allies.

Lebanon’s inclusion in the MoU was reportedly an Iranian priority, while a “deconfliction cell” was formed to bolster the supposed ceasefire in the country.

Throughout the war and the period of negotiations, Lebanon’s government has tried to separate itself from Iran – but some said it may have gone too far in the other direction.

“We are seeing the confirmation of what Hezbollah has been warning all along. Not because Hezbollah got it right, but because the Lebanese state got it so wrong,” said Lebanese writer Elia Ayoub.

“I understand the need to not depend on Iran, but what we’ve instead done is become even more dependent on the US than we’ve previously been,” added Ayoub, the founder of the podcast The Fire These Times.

“And it’s the US that has been bankrolling Israel’s genocide in Palestine and war crimes in Lebanon,” Ayoub added.

Analysts also questioned whether the government would be able to implement the deal.

“It appears that the Lebanese side has come under significant US pressure to sign an agreement that is very likely to remain little more than ink on paper, and very unlikely to be implemented in any meaningful way,” said Bitar.

Karim Safieddine, a nonresident fellow with the Tahrir Institute for Middle East Policy, said the framework left the Lebanese government with “very little agency”.

“It’s Israel imposing a deal,” he added. “It’s very clear what this deal is. It’s just a surrender agreement.”

At the same time, some pointed to similarities to the 2024 ceasefire agreement, expressing doubt whether Israel will be incentivised to respect the framework.

“It’s one thing to sign a declaration of intent; it’s another thing to have it implemented, and I can see all kinds of problems emerging from this,” said Nicholas Blanford, a nonresident fellow at the Atlantic Council and author of a book on Hezbollah.

Last year, Israel repeatedly complained that LAF’s efforts to disarm Hezbollah were either too slow or ineffective. The US often sided with Israel despite diplomatic attempts from European and other officials encouraging it to support LAF.

In a call with his US counterpart, President Donald Trump, on Saturday, Aoun said Lebanon “would assume its responsibilities” in implementing the framework and expressed hope Washington would help ensure that commitments ‌are fulfilled, particularly by pressing Israel to pull out from the areas it occupies.

Point 9 of the agreement states Lebanon’s government commits to a “rigorous, performance-based program to enable the capacity of the LAF to assert full military and security control within Lebanon … to implement the disarmament of all non-state armed groups”.

This provision has some in Lebanon worried about potential confrontations between LAF and Hezbollah, but Blanford said the possibility of a large escalation is currently not likely.

“The Lebanese army and the government are unwilling to use force against Hezbollah,” he said. “Forcibly trying to disarm a group that is refusing to disarm is an act of war. And I think the Lebanese army and the Lebanese government would be extremely wary of that.”

Every morning Marisol Winfrey Herrera’s three-and-a-half-year-old daughter Jo reminds her to turn off the tap while washing her hands and brushing her teeth.

When they leave home, she reminds her mother to keep a bottle of ice with them to offer it to homeless people, who they sometimes find wilting in the Tucson heat. At first, they press the ice-filled bottles on the homeless folks to help them revive, then they offer the water to drink and hydrate. At her daycare, Jo is taught water-saving habits to combat Tucson’s soaring heat.

It is what prompted Herrera to join No Desert Data Center, a residents’ group that opposes two large data centres coming up on either side of Tucson – the $3.6bn project on the city’s southeast edge and a $5bn project on its northwest side in the town of Marana, together known as Project Blue.

The group believes these would consume more water and power than the city set in the Sonoran Desert can afford.

“We are in the middle of a 30-year drought, which is now an extreme drought,” says Lisa Shipek, co-executive director of the Watershed Management Group, a Tucson-based nonprofit.

“Water was a unifying theme in our campaign. The Colorado River cuts are looming, and this project would take water away,” Herrera told Al Jazeera.

Water flows in the Colorado River, which provides much of Tucson’s water through the Central Arizona Project canal system, have dropped by 20 percent since the year 2000 compared with water flows in the 20th century due to climate change, melting snow caps and warmer weather, making water cuts to Tucson imminent as the state could face as much as 77 percent water cuts.

“We say Not One Drop for data centres,” says Herrera, speaking of the campaign’s particularly emotive appeal for residents as water cuts get deeper and temperatures rise, with Tucson recording the warmest weather in 125 years last July and August.

Beale Infrastructure, a San Francisco-based company that is owned by investment management company Blue Owl in New York, had asked the city of Tucson to acquire 290 acres that were outside city limits for Project Blue. That would make it the city’s largest water consumer and among its largest power consumers. Beale did not respond to an emailed request for comment.

But at city council meetings, City Councillor Kevin Dahl began seeing hundreds of residents turn up to express their opposition to the project.

“Not for many issues do we get so much response,” he said. Herrera was among those who went.

Pitting environment against unions

At council meetings, Beale executives proposed that Project Blue could be the economic engine the city needed. It would create a few thousand jobs for construction workers, ironmongers, plumbers and other such workers during the construction of the project and a few hundred after that.

“Sometimes people travel as far as Phoenix for work,” Dahl said about Arizona’s largest city, which is nearly a two-hour drive from Tucson.

The project could bring jobs closer. Beale also expected the project to generate nearly $250m in taxes for the city, county and state in the first 10 years.

This left councillors with a difficult decision to make, weighing the project’s economic benefits against allocating it a share of the city’s increasingly scarce water and power.

Activists also raised concerns about whether Tucson Electric Power (TEP), the power utility, would raise rates for consumers so it could expand capacity to provide power for Project Blue. After raising rates by 10 percent in 2023, TEP proposed a 14 percent rate hike in June 2025 for grid upgrades made in the previous year.

Lee Ziesche, an activist from the Democratic Socialists of America who is campaigning to make TEP a public utility, said Project Blue could “lead to higher temperatures and higher rates” because of the heat island effect of the air conditioners and higher rates for power.

She often hears from residents that a rate hike would make it hard to pay bills or put on air conditioning, even as the number of 100-degree Fahrenheit (37.8 degree-Celsius) days has increased in Tucson, which is among the hottest cities in the United States.

The same concerns of needing ramped-up air conditioning would plague data centres too, experts say.

“The viability of data centres in Arizona will always be subject to climate change and heat risks,” says Kate Gordon, chief executive of California Forward, a think tank that works on a sustainable economy.

“The heat in Arizona makes energy less efficient, and servers heat up, so projects will need higher amounts of water and cooling, which developers have to balance against a possibly lower real estate and labour cost,” she said. “I am always amazed at how climate does not figure in business plans.”

Dahl and Andres Cano, a supervisor in Pima County, in which Tucson is located, had discussions with Beale representatives.

“We thought they would go elsewhere if the city did not acquire the land” for the project, Dahl said. Cano also came away with the same impression.

In August 2025, Tucson councillors voted unanimously not to acquire the land for the project or provide it with water and power. In December, Cano became one of only two supervisors in Pima County to oppose the project, and it was approved for construction in an unincorporated part of the county.

“It will create short-term construction jobs for what will ultimately be a project with few wins,” Cano said. “This pitted the environment and unions, but industry is not for unions. This will have just about 100 jobs when it is done.”

With no access to Tucson’s water supply, Beale decided to cool its servers with air conditioners rather than water and use a closed-loop water system, so it would recycle and reuse water.

But Vivek Bharathan, a spokesperson for the No Desert Data Center, said using air conditioners would increase power usage.

Nearly half of TEP’s power comes from fracking, he says. Data centre demand will only mean “more fracking somewhere else, climate and health consequences all along the way”.

The state’s largest data centre

Even as Project Blue was making its way through a fraught approval process, Beale announced another data centre project in the neighbouring farming town of Marana. It was to be spread over 600 acres (242 hectares), twice the size of Project Blue. The area was spread over two farm plots, one owned by the Mormon church and the other by a family trust of city council member, Herb Kai.

This project, too, is slated to bring thousands of construction jobs to a farming town as well as tax revenues.

But when Jackie McGuire, a mother of three and former Wall Street banker, heard about it, she and other residents launched a campaign to stop the land from being rezoned for a data centre. Residents wanted Marana to stay a farming town.

McGuire, who works as a research analyst, said the data centres’ servers and large air conditioners that would be installed to keep them running would raise the project’s cost and make Marana unbearably hot.

Temperatures rose by up to 2.2F (1.22C) downwind from data centres in the Phoenix area, a study published in May had found.

“The heat generated will be like one to two million space heaters,” McGuire says. “It can go up to 112 degrees [44.4C] here already. The heat island effect could make Marana uninhabitable.”

The Marana data centre will be provided power by TEP and Trico, which announced a 7.23 percent rate hike in January.

McGuire and other residents campaigned to have a referendum on whether the land could be rezoned for a data centre. Their plea was not successful, and the city council approved the rezoning of the land.

But the experience of the campaign had invigorated McGuire, and she decided to run for city council herself. The central issue of her campaign is to bring transparency to the data centre’s functioning.

Even as the campaigns in Pima County and Marana raged on, La Osa, the state’s largest data centre project, took shape in Tucson’s neighbouring Pinal County. The 3,300-acre project by the Vermaland real estate group was expected to house 59 data centres and two of its own natural gas facilities, as well as a utility-scale battery storage system.

But residents worried about noise pollution from protracted project construction and a possible increase in power costs.

“I’m worried about the constituents in that area, about the power bills going up, even though you’re saying that they’re going to pay for it,” Pinal County Supervisor Rich Vitiello said in a board of supervisors meeting on May 27.

In the face of such opposition, a La Osa lawyer spoke at the meeting to say the project had been scaled down and would now house 11 data centres from the 59 planned earlier.

‘A straw to the aquifer’

Sharing limited water has long been an emotive issue in the state, and the looming Colorado River cuts and data centre projects have brought such concerns to a head.

Arizona fought one of the longest-running cases, stretching more than three decades, in the US Supreme Court over the sharing of Colorado River water with California. Eventually, Congress adjudicated to provide California with a greater share of the water, which turbocharged its economic growth.

“No water can flow into Tucson and Phoenix unless California gets its full share,” says Jason Robison, co-director of the Gina Guy Center for Land and Water Law at the University of Wyoming College of Law.  “Arizona has always been in a tough spot.”

It strengthened the state’s long-held tradition of conservation.

“Arizona communities have been preparing for the drought conditions we see today since 1980,” a spokesperson for the Arizona Department of Water Resources said in an emailed response.

Authorities have curtailed lawns in Tucson, he said, and educational campaigns of the kind Herrera’s daughter underwent are the norm.

It has meant that groundwater reserves go deep, and homeowners are assured of a water supply before it is given to data centres or farms.

“The use by data centres is low compared to farm use, especially alfalfa and hay,” says Eric Kuhn, retired general manager of the Colorado River Water Conservation District and co-author of Science Be Dammed: How Ignoring Inconvenient Science Drained the Colorado River.

However, “data centres are not under the same rules to replenish water” as other industries, says Sharon Medgal, director of the Water Resources Research Center at the University of Arizona. “So it adds a straw to the aquifer.”

Arizona’s governor, Katie Hobbs, who is up for re-election in November, has represented to the Bureau of Reclamation that the state is home to essential industry, including semiconductors, space and data centres, and so needs a higher share of water from the Colorado River. Water, as well as its use for data centres, has been an important issue in primary races across the state.

Construction began for Project Blue at the end of April. No Desert Data Centers’ activists arrived just after dawn to protest. Within days, they found subcontractors bringing in water to control dust on site from construction. County authorities cited Beale.

Then Beale began digging wells on site after reportedly receiving permits allowing that from the Arizona Department of Water Resources. This is likely for 31,000 gallons  (more than 117,000 litres) a year, which is just enough for toilets and kitchens and will likely be recycled for reuse after.

“This may not yet be a winning story,” Bharathan, the spokesperson for the No Desert Data Center, said. “But it is a continuing story.”

Israel and Lebanon have agreed on a new framework agreement after four days of marathon talks in Washington, DC, brokered by the United States, trying to end the months-long conflict.

Israel has been occupying almost 20 percent of Lebanese territory in the south and has killed more than 4,000 people since fighting erupted on March 2. A previous bout of fighting ended in a ceasefire in November 2024, but Israel carried out almost daily attacks and refused to end its occupation in breach of the deal.

The new deal, however, does not specifically call for the withdrawal of the Israeli forces and instead ties it to the disarmament of Hezbollah – a condition repeatedly rejected by the Iran-backed armed group.

Hezbollah chief Naim Qassem on Saturday rejected the framework agreement, calling it “null and void”. Hezbollah has demanded that Israel first end its occupation.

Hezbollah supporters flooded the streets of the capital, Beirut, on Friday evening to oppose the deal.

So, what is the new agreement, which does not include Hezbollah, and can it lead to peace in Lebanon?

What’s in the Israel-Lebanon agreement?

After the trilateral signing in Washington, the US Department of State released the text of the agreement, which talks of a “sequenced process” that will see the Lebanese army restore “effective sovereign authority over all Lebanese territory, pending the verified disarmament of non-state armed groups” – a clear reference to Hezbollah.

The deal does not mandate Israeli withdrawal from the fifth of Lebanese land it occupies. Instead, the framework notes that Israel shall “progressively redeploy” out of Lebanon, offering two “pilot zones” where the Lebanese military “will gradually assume full and effective security responsibility”.

“One [pilot zone] is south of the Litani River and outside the security zone altogether, and the other is north of the Litani – a small area in the expanded security zone that we conquered in the last two weeks, and which the [Israeli military] says it does not need,” Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu later said in a statement.

Once these conditions are met, “Lebanese civilians will be able to safely return to these areas under the exclusive control of Lebanese state authorities,” the framework says. More than 1.2 million people have been forcefully displaced.

Israel says that successfully returning southern Lebanon to Lebanese government control would “eliminate any future need for [Israeli military] action or presence in Lebanon” and “[declared] that it has not territorial ambitions in Lebanon”.

The Lebanese government has signed that it rejects “the claims of any state or non-state actor to use force on its behalf without its explicit authorization,” deeming such attacks “illegal” and “contrary to Lebanese national interests”.

How have parties to the conflict reacted to the agreement?

Israel

Netanyahu issued a video statement shortly after the agreement was announced, stressing that the framework would allow the Israeli military to remain in the occupied Lebanese land.

“We will maintain [the buffer zone] until Hezbollah disarms and as long as there is a threat to the State of Israel,” Netanyahu said.

It is also a partial, momentary win for Netanyahu, who faced intense domestic criticism after the US and Iran sidelined Israel to sign the Islamabad Memorandum of Understanding, which mandates an end to hostilities in Lebanon as well.

Lebanon

President Joseph Aoun expressed gratitude to Trump and other regional mediators after the signing of the trilateral agreement, which he hailed as “the first step on the path to restoring Lebanon’s sovereignty”.

In a statement from the Lebanese presidency, Aoun noted that the framework also “marks the beginning of the road to fructify [Lebanese citizens’] sacrifices, so that they may return to their fully liberated land”.

His statement has done little to tamp down the tensions in the capital, where supporters of Hezbollah took to the streets, burning tyres and blocking a road leading to the airport.

Hezbollah

Though the armed group is not a party to the agreement, and was not present at the negotiating table, its posture and actions will dictate where the conflict heads in the future.

The Hezbollah leader on Saturday condemned proposals to tie the Israeli withdrawal to the group’s disarmament. “Linking the Israeli withdrawal to the disarmament of the resistance throughout Lebanon is a very dangerous proposition that crosses all red lines,” he said.

“The framework agreement in Washington is humiliating, shameful, and a surrender of sovereignty,” he said.

He added that the framework agreement should be replaced by the Iran-US Memorandum of Understanding (⁠MoU) signed on June 15.

Earlier, Hassan Fadlallah, a Hezbollah representative in the parliament, said Lebanese authorities would not be able to enforce the framework agreement unless, with US support, “they go to civil war”.

In a televised speech before the agreement was signed, Qassem said that Hezbollah would hold its weapons closer, ready to fight Israel for Lebanon, if the Lebanese state fails to do so.

The Iran-US MOU called for the “territorial integrity and sovereignty of Lebanon” – a similar wording has been used in the framework agreement.

United States

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Washington’s point person in Israel and Lebanon talks, announced an “immediate” $100m donation by the US towards humanitarian assistance in coordination with the UN.

At the signing ceremony at the State Department in Washington, Rubio appeared to acknowledge the limited scope of the agreement, calling it “the beginning of the beginning.”

“There’s a lot of work ahead. We don’t in any way underestimate the difficulty of the task ahead, but we understand the importance of it, how vital it is, and we are honored to have played a part in bringing this together,” he said.

Two previous ceasefire agreements brokered by Washington failed to stop the fighting in Lebanon, as well as the Islamabad MOU, signed by President Trump and his Iranian counterpart Masoud Pezeshkian, earlier this month.

Iran

Though Tehran is yet to officially react to the agreement, its state media has been pressing against the deal.

Fars news agency noted that the agreement is essentially the US permitting Israel to violate the first clause of the Islamabad MOU, which mandated the cessation of hostilities on all fronts, including Lebanon.

Does the Israel-Lebanon agreement contradict the Islamabad MOU?

Analysts point towards two direct contradictions between the preliminary deal signed by the US and Iran, and the latest agreement between Israel and Lebanon.

In short, the Islamabad MOU mandates the end of hostilities on all fronts, including Lebanon, with no conditions – while the Israel-Lebanon agreement ties it to Hezbollah’s disarmament.

Israel has not adhered to any of the ceasefire agreements, including earlier ones, and continued with its assault on Lebanese territories. On Saturday, Lebanese state news agency NNA reported that the Farah amusement park intersection in Nabatieh al-Fawqa was targeted by an Israeli drone strike.

Israel has killed at least 4,192 people in Lebanon since the start of the war on Iran four months ago.

Secondly, the Islamabad MOU does not refer to or mention any of the Iran-backed proxy armed groups among its listed clauses to take forward the negotiations to end the war.

Tahani Mustafa, a visiting fellow on the Middle East and North Africa programme at the European Council on Foreign Relations, told Al Jazeera that Israel and Washington would “definitely use the fact that Hezbollah refuses to disarm and capitulate to blame Hezbollah for derailing the entire process”.

Mustafa further added that Israel “has also proven that it is acting in bad faith, which really gives no confidence to Hezbollah to disarm or capitulate in the way that is being demanded.”

Washington is not blame-free either, she noted, arguing that “the American negotiators actively work behind the scenes to try and decouple Lebanon and Iran.”

“This has really just been something that both the Israelis and the Americans have attempted to cook up behind the scenes and once again obfuscating the blame for its failure,” she told Al Jazeera.

Can a deal work if Hezbollah rejects?

This is not the first time that Hezbollah’s disarmament is on the table – and the existing challenges remain. The 2024 deal also called for Hezbollah’s disarmament, but it could not be achieved as Israel continued to attack Lebanon and refused to withdraw its troops in breach of the deal.

Alon Pinkas, an Israeli former ambassador and consul general in New York, says he is “very doubtful and sceptical” that this will work out because the deal is between Israel and Lebanon with the US; the issue here is Hezbollah.”

Iran’s linking of the Lebanon conflict to the maturation of an agreement with the US, Pinkas says, “complicates things [because] Netanyahu said that [Israel] would not yield to any linkage to Iran and that Israel would defend itself in Lebanon”.

Al Jazeera’s Ali Hashem said that the agreement is an “existential threat” to Hezbollah’s presence.

“Without Hezbollah’s consent, this is not going to happen,” Hashem said. “This is going to be a recipe for another confrontation. The Lebanese government isn’t capable of imposing this deal. It’s not the de facto force on the ground.”

Doha, Qatar – Gulf states have welcomed a breakthrough agreement between the United States and Iran to end a war they never wanted.

Six countries – Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Qatar, Kuwait, Bahrain and Oman – form the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), which was created in 1981 following fears of the perceived expansionist ambitions of the new Iranian government.

Since the 1979 Islamic revolution, Israel has attempted to isolate Iran and its wide network of regional proxy groups. But in a twist of irony, Israeli aggression in this pursuit has pushed some Gulf states closer to Tehran.

When Israel and the US launched strikes on Iran on February 28 – and Tehran responded by attacking Gulf states – they were again forced to reassess their relationship with their neighbour.

Gulf relations with Iran, at present, appear more shaped by realism than reconciliation, but this approach could help them navigate the uncertain road ahead.

“The ongoing conflict … compelled the Gulf states to pursue a more pragmatic relationship with Tehran, one that will include enhanced dialogue to deter conflict,” Farah al-Qawasmi, a researcher at the Gulf Studies Center at Qatar University, told Al Jazeera.

Embracing de-escalation – not Iran

All six GCC member states have welcomed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) signed by Iran and the US last week. But this is shaped more by the Gulf states wanting the war to end rather than a newfound trust of Iran.

“An agreement between the two parties is being [highly] advocated by the Gulf states in [an] attempt to prevent and contain regional conflicts,” al-Qawasmi said.

Shortly after the US and Iran agreed in 2015 to the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) – putting guardrails on Tehran’s nuclear programme – Gulf states remained sceptical about their neighbour.

The current war has only heightened these suspicions, but it has also seen regional states seek diplomacy with Tehran rather than military confrontation, despite Iran directly attacking Gulf cities.

“The Gulf states still feel like diplomacy is better than using force to get a deal … to change Iran’s behaviour and to insulate them from Iran’s destabilising actions,” Rob Geist Pinfold, a lecturer on security studies at King’s College London, told Al Jazeera.

Pinfold points out that Iran closed the Strait of Hormuz via drones and missiles, not nuclear weapons, making dealing with that threat a priority for Gulf states rather than Tehran’s nuclear programme.

Gulf states will want a more comprehensive agreement between Iran and the US, rather than the nuclear-focused JCPOA, said Pinfold.

“If you talk to people in Gulf capitals, they will tell you that the nuclear programme is a tomorrow problem for them,” he said.

“The today problem is Iran’s use of drones and proxies to destabilise and undermine the sovereignty of Gulf states, but also states throughout the region.”

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s three-day tour of the Gulf, which ends Thursday, is seen as a way of allaying these fears and assuring the GCC that Tehran will not be strengthened by the agreement.

Seat at the table

Mehran Haghirian, the director of research and programmes at the Bourse & Bazaar Foundation, believes Gulf states are in a better position to guide the outcome of the current US-Iran talks than in 2015.

“They are at the heart of the negotiations,” Haghirian said regarding the Gulf states’ role in the current talks.

In its role as a co-mediator, Qatar is essentially representing the GCC and their interests during the talks, while articles five and six of the Iran-US MoU place Gulf states at the centre of the agreement.

Among the biggest concerns for the GCC are the future of the Strait of Hormuz, with Tehran demanding tolls on shipping, and calls for the creation of a regional investment fund for Iran.

“There really cannot be any new Hormuz authority by Iran that would not include other GCC countries,” Haghirian told Al Jazeera.

US Vice President JD Vance claimed last week that the investment fund would be financed by the Gulf coalition, but Rubio said this week that regional allies would not be asked to contribute to any reconstruction fund for Iran.

Qatar’s Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman bin Jassim Al Thani has described the reported $300bn figure as “aspirational” in an interview with the Financial Times, while no Gulf state has yet said if it will contribute to the fund.

‘Maximum pressure era’

The analysts stress that the GCC is not a monolith – with Gulf states having contrasting and changing approaches towards Iran.

Oman, Qatar and Kuwait were broadly supportive of the JCPOA. Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Bahrain were more sceptical, but even these states publicly backed the agreement, said Haghirian.

When Trump pulled the US out of the JCPOA in 2018, Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Bahrain believed they had “found a partner in DC”.

That led to a “maximum pressure era” that brought a period of brinkmanship in the region, said Haghirian.

Suspected Iran-linked attacks on Saudi Arabia’s Abqaiq-Khurais oil facilities and vessels off the coast of Fujairah in 2019 were “the initial reaction by the Iranians to that maximum pressure” campaign, he added, but paradoxically, this also triggered a recalibration of relations.

The UAE and Iran restored ties in 2022, and a China-brokered Saudi-Iran agreement took place in 2023.

“That was enough of a reason for Saudi Arabia [and] the UAE, particularly, to basically restructure their approach towards Iran,” Haghirian said.

The war and accelerated pragmatic rapprochement

While Israel has used war to attempt to increase its presence in the Gulf region – reportedly sending an Iron Dome battery to the UAE – other Gulf states view both Iran and Israel as unsettling forces in the region.

“Israel started the war, which was a destabilising act, and then Iran escalated by targeting the Gulf states, which was in turn a destabilising act,” Pinfold said.

Despite this, the Gulf states targeted by Iran still demonstrated patience and pragmatism in dealing with their neighbour.

Qatar, for example, has played a leading role in mediating between the US and Iran, even after being on the receiving end of Iranian drone and missile attacks.

“All six got attacked, and that’s really a level of foreign policy decision-making that is very difficult for any state to be able to really undertake, considering the fact that it was a military attack,” Haghirian said.

“But again, this pragmatism came out within this context to engage Iran and to actually speak for themselves at these negotiations. This war has really initiated a complete rebalancing of the entire region.”