Government

A Pacific island has become one of the biggest economic success stories of the year so far.

Taiwan has witnessed a dramatic boom in recent months driven by the mania for artificial intelligence (AI). Earlier this year, its stock exchange soared to become the fifth largest in the world based on market capitalisation, the value of its publicly traded shares, overtaking the United Kingdom, Canada and India.

Much of that upward momentum has been driven by AI and other technology exports highly sought after by the United States.

Last year, the US imported $201bn worth of goods from Taiwan, nearly double its rate from 2024, when it acquired $116bn in imports. In May, Taiwan eclipsed China to become the third-largest source of US imports, after Mexico and Canada.

Experts have described Taiwan’s market acceleration as a return to its status as a “tiger economy” — a term used to capture surging growth in East Asia. Much of the credit, they say, falls to its flourishing technology sector.

“Artificial intelligence helps explain the rising importance of Taiwan,” said Chad Bown, a senior fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics.

But critics warn that, while Taiwan’s market remains strong, factors like tumultuous international relations, as well as demographic concerns, could complicate the island’s long-term outlook.

“It seems to be a win-win for now,” said Reza Hasmath, an academic faculty adviser at The China Institute at the University of Alberta. “But Taiwan is just postponing a reality that’s not sustainable.”

An economic boom

Taiwan’s thriving export market helped boost its gross domestic product (GDP) to 8.63 percent in 2025.

That rocket-ship trajectory continued into the first quarter of this year, when the GDP saw an exhilarating 13.69 percent rise.

Government data released on Friday showed that the island is continuing that momentum, with its economy growing an impressive 12.92 percent in the second quarter of the year, which ended in June.

“The GDP growth is going like gangbusters,” said Dexter Tiff Roberts, nonresident senior fellow at the Atlantic Council’s Global China Hub.

Roberts expects the trend to be “long term”, as Taiwan produces about 90 percent of the advanced chips used to power leading AI models.

“That’s not going to go away. We know the world, and the US, needs this,” he added.

While the AI boom is a global phenomenon, the US has become a major market for such chips, with billions of dollars flowing into the industry each year.

US President Donald Trump, meanwhile, has pledged to bolster his country’s status as “the world leader in artificial intelligence”. His administration has claimed to attract more than $2.7 trillion in tech and AI investments since the start of his second term.

To secure US access to Taiwan’s cutting-edge semiconductor technology, the Trump administration signed an agreement under which Taiwan will invest $500bn in the US.

Half of that amount is expected to come in the form of direct investments by Taiwanese semiconductor and tech firms, including through the development of onshore tech manufacturing.

The rest is largely comprised of credit guarantees for additional investments from Taiwan in the US.

Under the agreement, Taiwanese firms would be allowed to import 2.5 times the capacity of their US factories, without fear of steep tariffs.

In a subsequent trade agreement, Taiwan agreed to reduce its tariffs on 99 percent of US exports.

Taiwan has also boosted its tech exports to the US through investments in nearby Mexico, with cross-border plants manufacturing inputs for data centres in Texas.

‘Unbalanced relationship’

But Hasmath, the faculty adviser at the University of Alberta, warns that there are troubling signs on the horizon for Taiwan-US relations.

Trump has long sought to eliminate trade deficits with US economic allies, and he has lashed out at countries that export more to the US than they import.

Hasmath pointed out that Taiwan is building a robust trade surplus with the US, close to $200bn and counting. That could spark a backlash.

“This is an unbalanced relationship and not conducive to Taiwan in the long term,” Hasmath warned.

Trump will not tolerate a hefty trade surplus for long, he added. Hasmath believes the US president will soon look to renegotiate his country’s deals with Taipei.

Roberts at the Atlantic Council, meanwhile, warned that Trump is “mercurial” — and with such a temperament comes “uncertainty”.

Then there’s the question of political upheaval in the US. Trump’s approval ratings are low, and he is ineligible under US law to run for a third term as president.

Demographic problems

While Taiwan’s economic boom is “very real” and “very obvious”, Roberts said there are clear vulnerabilities even on the domestic front.

Taiwan’s traditional export sectors like plastics and textiles are underperforming. Plus, Roberts pointed out that only a small fraction of the Taiwanese population is involved in the AI sector.

“A majority of the younger population is not in hi tech, so that’s a real problem,” he said.

While the booming stock market has sparked a “wealth effect” — those with rising portfolios feel richer and are more inclined to spend — that helps the wider population only to an extent.

With most of Taiwan’s employment concentrated outside of the AI sector, economists have warned that the island could develop what’s called a K-shaped economy, where the wealthy see growth, while the poorer segments of society stagnate or decline.

The chip industry employs up to 350,000 people at most, experts say.

Meanwhile, TSMC, Taiwan’s biggest chip company, makes up to 40 percent of the stock market and provides four percent of the island’s GDP growth. That lopsided proportion is “unsustainable”, according to Hasmath.

Plus, Taiwan has a rapidly ageing population, with roughly a fifth of its population over the age of 65.

The island also has other vulnerabilities. For example, it relies heavily on foreign imports of energy products, particularly oil, and has struggled with water scarcity.

Then, there’s the superpower next door: China. The government in Beijing considers Taiwan, a self-governing island, as its own territory, and it has taken aggressive measures to limit the island’s ability to establish diplomatic relations of its own.

That conflict has added fuel to the debate around Taiwan’s growth, with a spokesperson for the Chinese government reportedly saying the island’s growing proximity to the US tech sector will “drain Taiwan’s economic interests” and “hollow out” the country’s major industry.

Hasmath said that, if the AI boom backfires on Taiwan, all of that ultimately adds up to a “recipe for electoral change, a shift in government” in Taipei.

United States President Donald Trump has criticised his own Department of Justice after it decided to drop criminal charges against a former Olympic athlete for the alleged vandalism of the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool in Washington, DC.

Trump voiced his opposition to the decision on Saturday, a day after US Attorney Jeanine Pirro announced she was dismissing the charges against 67-year-old competitive canoeist David Hearn.

Pirro said the damage was the result of “a botched installation and not vandalism”, contradicting both her own previous statements and claims made following Hearn’s June 19 arrest.

On Saturday, Trump wrote on his Truth Social page that he disagreed “100 percent” with Pirro, although he did not directly reference Hearn. Instead, he maintained that vandalism had been committed at the Reflecting Pool.

“To me, it was a pure case of VANDALISM,” Trump wrote. “There may have been some contractor difficulty, but the major damage was caused by VANDALS!”

He followed his statement by posting a video showing an individual, though not Hearn, sticking a hand into the Reflecting Pool.

He also shared a photo of the numbers “86 47” etched into the lawn of the nearby National Mall, which has been interpreted as a call to “86” — or “nix” — the 47th president by removing him from his office.

There is no evidence that the numbers on the lawn are related to the Reflecting Pool, which has become a major political flashpoint for Trump.

Through a series of controversial renovation projects, Trump has sought to physically transform Washington, DC, including by resurfacing the pool.

He initially used the pool’s condition and previous renovation projects to criticise past presidents.

But his own attempt to fix the Reflecting Pool instantly attracted scrutiny, particularly after Trump hand-picked a company he had previously used in a private capacity.

It had never before received a government contract, and the multimillion-dollar deal was awarded without a competitive bidding process, as is standard.

Upon the renovation’s completion, problems soon emerged. The Reflecting Pool’s new lining quickly appeared to peel, and algae blooms sprouted in early June.

Trump repeatedly blamed the situation on “vandals”. The announcement of at least seven arrests connected to the pool sparked accusations of political scapegoating.

Hearn, who represented the US three times at the Olympics, emerged as the most high-profile case.

The athlete said he was bicycling past the Reflecting Pool when he stopped, reached in and felt the peeling sealant. He has denied committing any vandalism, with his lawyers calling his arrest an attempt to distract from the shoddy renovation work.

Pirro, a former Fox News host and Trump loyalist, had initially accused Hearn of “forcefully and violently” ripping the pool’s liner, decrying his actions as “an affront to the dignity of our shared history”.

In their court filings, federal prosecutors alleged that the damage Hearn caused exceeded $1,000, justifying federal charges.

They further claimed that all of the damage done to the Reflecting Pool had been caused by vandals.

Pirro struck a far different tone in her filing on Friday. She claimed she had received new information, leading her to dramatically pivot.

“It was not until after the return of the indictment, that the [Department of Interior] provided additional documents to the [US Attorney’s Office for Washington, DC] indicating that damage to the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool in June 2026 was the result of flawed installation by the contractor,” Pirro wrote.

The Department of the Interior’s documents, she continued, showed “that the damage was the result of a botched installation and not vandalism”.

Pirro further blamed the damage on pressure to finish the project by July 4, a date that coincides with US Independence Day and the country’s 250th anniversary.

“The rush to complete the project led to hasty and botched work that was not remediated before the project was finished and the fencing removed,” Pirro wrote.

The Trump administration wants to make sure that the Mexican train crews who haul freight over the border can understand key safety information in English and that the common practice of using foreign crews to cross into America doesn’t threaten U.S. jobs.

Two major rail unions praised the proposed rule announced Friday that would also strengthen the standards for certifying that crews can safely operate a train.

The government had concerns after inspecting two Texas rail yards near the border last fall on the two railroads directly affected by these restrictions on Mexican crews — Union Pacific and Canadian Pacific Kansas City, or CPKC. Union Pacific didn’t immediately respond but CPKC and the Assn. of American Railroads trade group declined to comment while they study the rule.

The Federal Railroad Administration sent letters to both CPKC and Union Pacific in December after inspections found that train crews often had trouble understanding English during focused inspections. The government urged those railroads to reexamine their practices and make sure that Mexican crews can speak English and don’t operate a train more than 10 miles inside the United States.

Last fall, federal inspectors found numerous problems in Union Pacific’s Eagle Pass rail yard and CPKC’s facility in Laredo where train crews were having a hard time understanding English-language operating bulletins and U.S. regulations. Information about hazardous materials and emergency responses are required to be in English.

Both Union Pacific and CPKC have pledged to make sure they were following the existing rules, including that the Mexican crews do not travel more than 10 miles into the United States. But now the federal government wants to strengthen the rules “because railroad crews must be able to communicate fully and accurately when crossing into the United States, most notably with dispatchers and emergency responders during a crisis, as a safety-critical function.”

This rail safety effort aligns closely with the Transportation Department’s efforts to ensure that truck drivers can understand English, so they can read road signs and warnings and communicate with first responders after an accident or during an inspection. The government has tried to withhold millions of dollars in highway funding from New York and California because it isn’t satisfied with the steps those states have taken to make sure the commercial driver’s licenses they issue are valid.

Mark Wallace, the national president of the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and Trainmen union, has been raising concerns about this practice of using Mexican train crews for several years because of safety, security and job concerns.

The union has said that the handoffs used to happen right at the border, but now Union Pacific and CPKC routinely ask Mexican crews to bring trains several miles over the border to one of their rail yards where the crew switches can be done more safely. But the firm 10-mile restriction in this rule will prevent the railroads from expanding this practice to rail yards farther into the United States. The union said Union Pacific was considering this type of expansion in New Mexico.

Wallace said the language barrier would pose a hazard in the event of issues such as a derailment.

But the railroads have said that this practice of using Mexican train crews to bring the trains into rail yards in America was developed in 2018 with the approval of the first Trump administration to address smuggling concerns. When trains are stopped at the border, smugglers often try to conceal drugs or other contraband aboard them and immigrants might jump aboard to get into the United States.

It is also routine for Canadian crews to bring trains a few miles over the northern border with the United States before handing off to American crews.

The SMART-TD union that represents conductors and other rail workers also said the provisions of the rule that will prohibit train crews from using a system that’s similar to cruise control when they take their certification tests will help ensure they can operate a train safely.

“Railroad certifications should represent proven ability, not simply possession of a certificate,” said Jared Cassity, who is SMART-TD’s top safety expert. “When lives are on the line, the FRA must know that an engineer can safely operate a train, not just supervise a computer doing it.”

Funk writes for the Associated Press.

The administration of United States President Donald Trump has moved to drop a criminal charge against former Olympic athlete David Hearn, in a remarkable about-face.

In a motion filed on Friday afternoon, US Attorney Jeanine Pirro acknowledged that the accusations levelled against Hearn — blaming him for vandalising the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool — did not appear to be substantiated.

“The damage was the result of a botched installation and not vandalism, as initially represented by [the Department of the Interior],” Pirro wrote.

Earlier this month, the prosecutor had accused Hearn, an Olympic canoeist, of “forcefully and violently” ripping the newly installed liner of the Reflecting Pool, part of a renovation project Trump had championed.

She described his actions as “an affront to the dignity of our shared history” and warned that Hearn could face up to 10 years in prison for the destruction of government property.

But in Friday’s court filings, a different narrative emerged.

Pirro repeatedly emphasised she did not receive the new information until after the criminal indictment against Hearn had been returned. She blamed, in part, the “barebones police reports” her office had received.

“It was not until after the return of the indictment, that the DOI provided additional documents to the [US Attorney’s Office for Washington, DC] indicating that damage to the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool in June 2026 was the result of flawed installation by the contractor,” Pirro wrote.

She added that the pressure to finish the Reflecting Pool renovation project before the Independence Day holiday — marking the 250th anniversary of the US — contributed to the renovation’s failure. Trump had planned several events for the occasion.

“The rush to complete the project led to hasty and botched work that was not remediated before the project was finished and the fencing removed,” Pirro explained, citing delayed installation work, inclement weather and repeated testing failures.

Reshaping Washington, DC

The Reflecting Pool project is one of several changes to the landscape of Washington, DC, that Trump has pursued during his second term in office.

In seeking to leave his mark on the US capital, the Republican leader has torn down the East Wing of the White House, gilded statues with a fresh coat of gold leaf, and proposed to build a large triumphal arch on the road to the Arlington National Cemetery.

Just this week, he unveiled a $22.5bn project to revamp the Dulles international airport, the main air terminal for the capital region.

Several of his public works projects have been challenged in court, including an attempt to affix his name to the John F Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts.

The Reflecting Pool renovation was among Trump’s most controversial.

The 618-metre (2,028-foot) pool has served as the backdrop for many iconic moments in US history, including the 1963 March on Washington, when civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr delivered his “I Have a Dream” speech.

It sits between the Washington Monument, a large obelisk, and the Lincoln Memorial, two popular tourist sites mere blocks from the White House. But the pool had long struggled with leaks along its granite edge and concrete bottom.

In April, Trump abruptly announced he would address the problem by resurfacing the Reflecting Pool’s bottom with swimming pool coating in a shade of “American Flag Blue”.

The project, he added, would be finished “long before July 4” and at relatively little cost to the government.

By early June, Trump had announced the project was complete. But within days, a thick layer of green algae appeared on the surface of the pool, and the blue coating appeared cracked, with sheets of paint flapping in the water.

The project also attracted criticism for how the government contract for the renovations was awarded.

The Trump administration granted a $13.1m contract to Atlantic Industrial Coatings, a company he claimed to have worked with as a real estate developer, led by one of his donors. The deal was struck without taking competitive bids, as is standard, on the basis that the renovation was necessary immediately.

Within two days of the site’s final inspection, on June 11, a National Park Service engineer observed that the Reflecting Pool’s new lining had begun to peel, according to Pirro.

Citing the engineer’s report, Pirro wrote that the damage to the pool appeared to have been caused by “over spraying and delamination”.

Accusations of vandalism

But Trump had aggressively pushed accusations that the algae and tears in the Reflecting Pool’s new bottom had been the result of vandalism.

“We caught some people vandalising our beautiful Reflecting Pool,” Trump said at a news conference in June. “They took a cutter, a box cutter, or something very sharp. Can you imagine? Where do these people come up with this? And they threw a little fertiliser in the water.”

Separately, he suggested those responsible should face “years in jail” for their alleged crimes.

Hearn, a three-time Olympian representing the US, has said he was among the members of the public drawn to the hullabaloo surrounding the Reflecting Pool’s controversial renovation.

In media interviews, he admitted he bicycled past the pool, reached in and felt the peeling sealant, out of curiosity. He has adamantly denied, however, damaging any property.

Hearn was among at least seven people arrested or cited over alleged damage to the Reflecting Pool. His indictment was announced at a news conference held by Pirro on July 2.

Friday’s motion to dismiss arrived just four weeks later. In it, Pirro acknowledged the peeling was not caused by vandalism.

She wrote that the revelation came around July 17, when her office inspected the Reflecting Pool site, which had once again been drained for repairs.

“It was at that time that [the US Attorney’s Office] first became aware of the significant damage throughout the pool and accordingly requested all documents from [the Department of the Interior] concerning how the pool was lined,” Pirro said.

Her office received “695 megabytes of additional documents” in return, revealing “a rushed and flawed installation process”.

Since indicting Hearn, Pirro’s office has faced questions about whether it was pursuing justice — or simply doing Trump’s political bidding, as he seeks to save face after the botched renovation.

The withdrawn indictment also comes as courts have repeatedly pressed the Department of Justice about prosecutions that appear to be hastily submitted and lacking in evidence.

“ Did you ultimately decide to charge this so harshly at the president’s direction?” one reporter asked Pirro at the outset of Hearn’s case.

“I didn’t charge anything harshly. I charge according to the evidence,” she replied at the time.

In a statement, Hearn’s legal team called the case an “abuse of government power”. They added that the Trump administration owes their client an apology.

A sweeping package of new Russian sanctions has cleared its first hurdle in the United States Congress, and, if passed, could trigger huge tariffs for countries such as India and China which continue to buy oil from Moscow.

The bill, which was advanced in the US Senate this week, has been named for the late Lindsey Graham, whose funeral was attended by world leaders including Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu earlier in the week.

Here’s what we know:

What happened in the Senate?

The “Lindsey O Graham Sanctioning Russia Act of 2026” was advanced overwhelmingly by the Senate this week in a vote of 86 to 12, meaning it can now proceed to the House of Representatives for further deliberation.

Named for the late Senator Graham, a staunch Ukraine supporter who died unexpectedly this month, the bill moved forward with the support of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, who was in Washington to attend Graham’s funeral and watched the proceedings from the gallery.

“It was an honour to be present as the votes were counted – 86 senators supported the bill,” he wrote on X afterwards. “This is the first step towards implementing Lindsey [Graham]’s plans, and certainly a step towards peace. It is important that this tool works.”

After clearing the Senate, there will be a delay before the bill can move forward to the House, which is now in summer recess.

On Wednesday this week, US President Donald Trump ordered lawmakers to amend the bill to include tariffs covering Iran as well. This will likely delay the bill further if it deters Democrats from supporting it, analysts said.

David Smith, an associate professor at the University of Sydney’s US Studies Centre, told Al Jazeera: “One of the things they’re worried about is how the tariff power in relation to Iran is going to be expanded. They’re going to be ok with tariff powers on Russia but they’re worried about tariff power on countries buying Iranian oil, which means China. I think there are going to be a lot of Democrats that are going to say these powers should be limited to sanctions and not tariffs.”

Without the Iran addition, he said he would have expected the bill to pass once the House resumes given strong Democratic support for Ukraine.

“Democrats have been genuinely worried about the Trump administration abandoning Ukraine. Something like this, which is ramping the pressure up on Russia so much, I just think there will be a large critical mass of Democrats who will vote for this,” he said.

What’s in the bill?

The bill makes use of sanctions and tariffs to target Russia and cut off the economic pipeline that has kept the Ukraine war going.

Major provisions include new sanctions on Russian President Vladimir Putin as well as on more than 20 top officials and companies which work with the Russian defence industry. It also targets Russia’s “shadow fleet” of oil tankers and the network it uses to evade international sanctions on its energy exports.

The bill gives the president authority to impose sanctions by invoking the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA). Under it, he would be able to apply tariffs of up to 100 percent on exports to the US from the top five purchasers of Russian energy, military equipment or countries facilitating Russian sanctions evasion.

Tariffs of up to 500 percent can also be applied to Russian imports directly into the US. The US imported $3.8bn in goods from Russia in 2025.

Which countries are likely to be targeted?

China, India and Türkiye are potential targets of the bill, as they are among the largest buyers of Russian energy, according to data compiled by the Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air (CREA).

China has historically responded to Trump’s tariffs with tariffs of its own on US exports. Even Pay, a director at the Beijing-based consultancy Trivium China, told Al Jazeera that the US may wait to impose tariffs as Trump is due to meet Chinese President Xi Jinping later this year.

Trump would still welcome the option, she said, after the Supreme Court struck down many of his tariffs in February.

“If passed and signed into law [which is still a big if at this point], the legislation would give Trump something he’s wanted for a while, namely, the legislature’s permission to impose high tariffs on China, alongside the small handful of other countries that import Russian oil,” Pay told Al Jazeera.

India is in a tricky position as its attempts to diversify away from Russian energy were disrupted by the shutdown of the Strait of Hormuz, according to Maia Nikoladze, a deputy director of the Economic Statecraft Initiative at the Atlantic Council.

Due to the disruptions, it has also applied for and received US sanction waivers to continue buying Russian oil in the interim, Nikoladze wrote in a report this week, and it is expected to do the same in the future.

“India will face a trade-off between maintaining energy security and managing the risk of US tariffs, potentially prompting it to again seek waivers and exemptions,” Nikoladze said.

What do critics say about the bill?

Critics like Senator Maggie Hassan say the bill gives Trump too much power to impose tariffs while also potentially harming both the US taxpayer and allied countries.

Turkiye, for example, buys Russian energy but it is also a US ally and NATO member, while “major non-NATO ally” Brazil and “major security cooperation partner” Singapore both buy Russian oil products, according to CREA.

In a post on X, Hassan wrote that while she supports sanctioning Russia, she does “not think tariffs, which are paid for by American businesses and consumers, will help Ukraine win”.

The bill is also opposed by lobby groups such as the US Chamber of Commerce, which also says the true cost will be passed on to US businesses and consumers, as with past tariffs.

While many of Trump’s tariffs have already been struck down by the Supreme Court, the Russia tariffs could have more staying power because they would be imposed on a stronger legal basis, according to Smith.

That’s because it is new legislation which has been crafted using the powers of the IEEPA.

“Previously what Trump has done is to go back to old pieces of legislation and invoke from those his power to use tariffs in ways they haven’t been used before and in ways courts have subsequently found less lawful, whereas this looks like new legislation that is going to lawfully expand his tariff authority,” he told Al Jazeera.

BUENOS AIRES — After a bruising World Cup defeat gave way to what many Argentines saw as a sweeping wave of hatred against their country, Argentine President Javier Milei on Thursday signed an emergency decree empowering the government to deny entry to or expel foreigners who incite discrimination or violence against Argentines because of their nationality.

The measure adds new grounds to Argentina’s immigration law, allowing authorities to bar, deport and revoke visas of people found to have promoted hatred against Argentines in spoken or written statements or who have desecrated national symbols.

“In light of recent displays of hostility toward the Argentine Republic and Argentines, the national government reaffirms that the defense of the nation, its citizens and its symbols is non-negotiable,” the president’s office said. “Anyone who attacks the Argentine Republic is not welcome in our country.”

The move marks a sharp shift for a country that has long prided itself on welcoming immigrants. Argentina’s Constitution explicitly encourages immigration, and for decades the country has offered foreigners broad civil rights and relatively easy access to legal residency, public education and healthcare.

Milei’s office cast the decree as a response to weeks of criticism from celebrities, opposing fans and social media users after controversial refereeing decisions fueled speculation that FIFA had tilted the tournament in favor of the reigning champions and superstar Lionel Messi.

Condemnations of occasionally aggressive Argentine fans and the team’s roughhousing on the pitch soon broadened into attacks on Argentine society as a whole, amplifying long-standing criticism that Argentines view themselves as culturally and economically superior to their Latin American neighbors. Online petitions to expel Argentina from the World Cup drew hundreds of thousands of signatures.

The backlash intensified when Argentina players and staff became involved in a post-match brawl with Spanish opponents after the World Cup final.

FIFA, global soccer’s governing body, on Wednesday opened disciplinary proceedings against the Argentine Football Assn. over the scuffle, as well as over alleged racist abuse and fan misconduct. Players also faced a FIFA investigation into their parading of a banner that asserted Argentina’s claim to the British-controlled Falkland Islands after the team’s semifinal victory over England.

Milei, a close ally of President Trump’s, has described the torrent of criticism as an “anti-Argentina campaign.” He alleged without evidence last week that the left-wing governments of Brazil and Mexico and the U.S. Democratic Party had financed the effort to stigmatize Argentina to discredit his libertarian government.

His accusations and insults triggered a diplomatic crisis with neighbor Brazil, which recalled its ambassador to Argentina last weekend.

Thursday’s decree says the punishments don’t apply to ideological disagreement or political, academic or civic criticism protected under Argentina’s Constitution.

But it leaves unanswered how officials will distinguish protected speech from prohibited hate speech, whether immigration authorities will review foreigners’ social media activity and how aggressively the new powers will be enforced against tourists and longtime residents.

Debre writes for the Associated Press.

Ghana is facing an opioid addiction crisis, with a flood of cheap, synthetic drugs destroying lives and communities. In the northern city of Tamale, a group of civilians, frustrated by what they see as the inaction of local authorities, are taking the law into their own hands. The ‘anti-drug task force’ patrols the streets, seeking out dealers and users and meting out its own brand of justice. Some government officials condemn the vigilantes, while others embrace them as a useful tool in the fight against illegal drugs. As word spreads about the success of Tamale’s task force, some question whether civilians can properly replace state services – and warn about the dangers of vigilante justice.

A spike in mortality

The tightening restrictions have forced the Cuban government to effectively ration care.

In February, Havana announced a package of emergency energy-saving measures. Among them was the suspension of all non-essential medical services across the island.

But non-essential does not mean unimportant. Fernandez, the paediatric anaesthesiologist, explained that preventive healthcare plays a major role in saving lives.

Under normal conditions, he said, preventive healthcare helps doctors catch potentially fatal conditions like appendicitis sooner.

But in recent months, Fernandez has observed patients arriving at his hospital in a “worsened” condition than they might otherwise have had.

“All the appendicitis cases we treat now present complications,” he said. “They demand more resources and antibiotics – supplies we don’t have.”

Deaths in Cuba have also escalated as years of increasing restrictions take effect.

Just last month, the Cuban Ministry of Public Health (MINSAP) reported that survival rates for childhood cancer dropped from 85 percent to 65 percent amid the oil blockade.

Infant mortality has also steadily climbed. In 2017, at the start of Trump’s first term, Cuba had an infant mortality rate of four for every 1,000 live births. That figure climbed to 7.7 in 2024, just before Trump’s second term, and reached 9.9 in 2025.

The maternal mortality rate similarly rose to 44.1 deaths for every 100,000 live births by the end of 2025, up from 40.6 the previous year.

Lilian Delgado, an obstetrician and gynaecologist at Cuba’s main maternity hospital, explained that the escalating humanitarian crisis has triggered a sharp rise in premature births and severe morbidity among pregnant women.

“Conditions are far from ideal at all the levels of the system,” Delgado noted. “There are shortages everywhere.”

The decision to prioritise emergency care can be deceptive. A wide range of medical procedures are considered “elective”. But just because they do not rise to the level of an emergency does not mean they are optional.

Typically, in Cuba, emergency surgeries are those that need to be urgently completed within 48 hours. Other necessary surgeries often fall into the “elective” category.

Mastectomies – a common breast cancer treatment – are among the surgeries often categorised as elective. So too are some organ transplants.

Healthcare advocates point out that, if certain elective surgeries are postponed too long, they too can result in deadly conditions.

More than 100,000 Cubans are currently on waiting lists for elective or reconstructive surgeries, a backlog MINSAP credited to the US sanctions.

Among those waiting are 5,152 cancer patients and approximately 12,000 children. Delgado said some of her patients have been languishing on such lists for months.

“Our surgical services are severely hampered by a lack of supplies,” she explained. “We have more women suffering from serious complications, and our operating rooms have become tied up with emergency cases, making it impossible to perform elective surgeries.”

Hospitals in Cuba largely have backup generators to weather the increasingly frequent power outages. But accessing even emergency medical care is tough when the fuel blockade is affecting basic services like transportation.

“Ultimately, if you have a cancer patient and cannot operate due to a number of factors – such as a nationwide blackout forcing the suspension of surgeries – then, whether you intend to or not, you are directly condemning that patient to death,” Delgado said.

The oil embargo has cost “human lives, both directly and indirectly”, she added.

Deadly clashes reported in Pakistan-administered Kashmir amid first round of voting for regional elections on July 27.

Watchdogs have raised concerns over mounting reports of deadly clashes during regional elections in Pakistan-administered Kashmir, where a banned activist group has boycotted the vote and staged protests.

The clashes between police and protesters earlier this week killed more than 30 people in the region, according to the leaders of the Joint Awami Action Committee (JAAC).

In a video statement on Wednesday shared by Arab News Pakistan, JAAC committee member Sardar Umar Nazir claimed 20 of the group’s supporters had been killed during a march on Monday, when the first round of voting took place.

He listed reports of at least 10 other protesters being killed the following day in the towns of Rawalakot, Mirpur and elsewhere, including during sit-ins.

“Our demand was peaceful, it was peaceful, we tried to keep it non-violent and bullets were fired at it,” said Nazir in the video statement.

Pakistani authorities said a member of the security personnel was killed and five more were injured in clashes on Monday.

Rights group Amnesty International called the reports of lethal force against protesters in the area “disturbing” and urged an investigation.

Pear Pandya, a senior analyst at conflict monitor ACLED, said the violence in Pakistan-administered Kashmir “is bound to overshadow the legitimacy of the entire electoral exercise”.

Monday’s first-round vote – covering the districts of Mirpur, Kotli and Bhimber – will be followed by two more rounds on August 2 and August 10.

Pakistan’s primary governing party, ⁠the PML-N, won nine out of the 13 seats that were up for election on Monday.

No justification to ‘mete out violence’

JAAC was banned by the local government under “anti-terrorism laws” in June, causing deadly protests to erupt in Pakistan-administered Kashmir.

Banking, roads and internet services have largely been disrupted since then, hindering the flow of information.

Pakistani officials have justified the crackdown by alleging that armed and India-backed fighters joined the Kashmiri protesters. India has rejected similar accusations in the past.

Amnesty has called the ban on JAAC unlawful and said it does not provide justification for authorities to “mete out deadly violence against protesters”.

The rights group has also urged Pakistani authorities to ”restore all communications access and allow media and independent observers into the area”, its acting regional director for South Asia, Isabelle Lassee, said.

‘Controversial’ seats

One of JAAC’s central demands regarding the regional elections is the abolition of 12 assembly seats reserved for Kashmiri refugees.

JAAC supporters say the seats are used by major Pakistani political parties to tip the composition of the local parliament in their favour with those who mostly live outside the region.

To form a regional government, the PML-N would likely need the support of some of the 12 representatives, said Hasan Askari, ‌a political analyst.

“But when their government is dependent on those 12 controversial seats, how would it be able to find a solution for this issue?” Askari told the Reuters news agency.

Even among the candidates that did not boycott the vote on Monday, the results were contested. Parties accused each other of ballot ‌box ‌stealing and vote rigging.

Dr Anthony Fauci, a former top United States public health official, has declined to answer questions at a Republican-led Senate committee hearing into the origins of COVID-19 and the handling of the pandemic.

The former director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) repeatedly invoked his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination on Wednesday.

Fauci was called to testify by Republican Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky, who accuses him of misleading Congress and questions whether US-funded research in China played a role in the pandemic, allegations Fauci denies.

Although former President Joe Biden granted Fauci a preemptive pardon in 2025, Republicans claim it does not protect him from any alleged crimes committed after it was issued, such as perjuring himself at a Senate hearing.

Fauci’s lawyers advised him not to testify, arguing that anything he said under oath could expose him to new legal risks.

Here is what to know:

Who is Anthony Fauci?

Fauci, 85, is a physician and immunologist who led the US NIAID for 38 years, advising seven presidents, both Republican and Democratic.

He became the public face of the US response to the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, after helping lead the country’s response to health crises including HIV/AIDS, Ebola and the 2001 anthrax attacks.

He became a target of conservative criticism over pandemic policies, including mask recommendations, vaccines and school closures.

During his last year in government, Fauci was also chief medical adviser to Biden until he retired in 2022.

During the pandemic, between 2019 and 2022, he kept more than 1,000 pages of diary entries documenting his work advising the White House and responding to the pandemic.

The notes chronicle his interactions with senior officials and the media.

Why is Fauci being questioned?

He was subpoenaed to testify over his handling of the pandemic and its origins before the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee.

The hearing, led by Paul, focused on several issues:

• COVID-19’s origins: Paul has long argued that the coronavirus that causes COVID may have leaked from a laboratory in Wuhan, China, and questioned whether US-funded research played a role in the outbreak.
• Gain-of-function research: Republicans say Fauci misled Congress about whether the National Institutes of Health (NIH) funded gain-of-function research at the Wuhan Institute of Virology, involving modifying viruses to understand how they evolve and assess pandemic risks. Fauci says the NIH did not fund research that caused COVID-19.

• Allegations of a cover-up: Paul accused Fauci of making false statements to Congress and concealing the NIH’s involvement in research in Wuhan. Fauci denies that.
• Fauci’s diary: Before the hearing, Paul released more than 1,100 pages of Fauci’s typewritten diary. Health Secretary Robert F Kennedy Jr said the notes were government record because they were written by a federal employee on a government computer during a public health emergency and they were found on government property.
• Paul said the diary showed differences between Fauci’s private discussions and his public statements. Fauci’s supporters say the entries reflect the uncertainty scientists faced as they learned more about a new virus.

What happened at the hearing?

The tense hearing lasted about three hours.

After a brief opening statement, Fauci repeatedly invoked his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination and declined to answer more than 100 questions.

He accused committee chairman Paul of having an “obsession” with prosecuting him.

The hearing included several tense moments:

• Contempt vote: Paul said the committee would vote next week on whether to hold Fauci in contempt of Congress over his refusal to answer questions, threatening “consequences for refusing to answer”.
• Lawyer removed: Paul directed Capitol Police to remove Fauci’s lawyer, David Schertler, after he tried to speak without being recognised by the committee. “This testimony is from Anthony Fauci. This is not a game with his lawyers,” Paul said. Schertler later described the hearing as an “obsessive vendetta”.
• Democrats defend Fauci: Democratic senators said the hearing was politically motivated. Senator Gary Peters called it “a partisan exercise” designed to support “a predetermined conclusion” rather than offering legitimate oversight.

Closing the hearing, Paul asked rhetorically: “Did [Fauci’s] actions lead to the largest man-made plague in history?”

Why did Fauci invoke the Fifth Amendment?

Fauci said he invoked the Fifth Amendment on the advice of his lawyers because he believed his answers could expose him to new legal risks.

He argued that Paul was trying to build a criminal case against him rather than conduct legitimate congressional oversight.

Although Biden’s pardon protects Fauci from prosecution for actions before January 2025, Republicans say any false statements made under oath during this hearing could still expose him to perjury charges.

The Fifth Amendment protects people from being forced to give evidence that could incriminate them in a criminal case. Invoking it is a constitutional right and does not imply guilt.

What do scientists believe about COVID-19’s origins?

Most scientists believe COVID-19 likely spread naturally from animals to humans, known as zoonotic spillover, pointing to a wildlife market in Wuhan as the most likely place where it first spread.

Fauci has consistently said he believes that scientific evidence points to a natural origin, while remaining open to other possibilities.

Notes from his diary detail a January 2020 call with 11 top virologists and evolutionary biologists – only two were convinced the virus had a natural origin, while the rest debated whether it could have been engineered.

Today, most scientists favour a natural origin, while the US intelligence community is divided.

The FBI said in 2023 that a laboratory-related incident is the most likely origin of the pandemic. The CIA reached the same conclusion in 2025, but with low confidence. Other agencies and the National Intelligence Council continue to favour a natural origin or remain undecided.

Does Biden’s pardon protect Fauci?

Yes, but only what happened before the pardon was issued.

On January 19, 2025, Biden granted Fauci a full and unconditional pardon covering any federal offences he may have committed since 2014, saying the move aimed to protect Fauci from “politically motivated prosecutions”.

The pardon does not cover actions taken after it was issued. Fauci could face legal consequences if he were accused of committing a new crime, such as making false statements under oath during Wednesday’s Senate hearing.

Paul and other Republicans also argue that because Biden’s pardon shields Fauci from criminal liability for his past actions, he can no longer claim that his testimony about those actions would incriminate him and should not be able to invoke his Fifth Amendment.

The legal standing of this argument is not clear, and Paul has acknowledged that it is a novel “legal question that the courts may have to decide”.

Can Fauci be held in contempt or prosecuted?

Potentially, but it remains unclear whether either will happen.

Paul said the Senate committee will vote next week on whether to hold Fauci in contempt of Congress after he refused to answer more than 100 questions.

Being held in contempt means lawmakers believe a witness has refused to cooperate with a lawful investigation. It does not automatically lead to criminal charges, but can trigger further legal action.

If the committee approves the measure, it could refer the case to the Justice Department for possible criminal prosecution, ask a federal court to pursue a civil action, or, in the rarest case, ask the Senate to use its powers to detain a witness through the Senate sergeant-at-arms.

Paul has not said which option, if any, he plans to pursue.

Interim United States Attorney General Todd Blanche is facing a possible roadblock from within the Republican Party as he faces a confirmation hearing to formally lead the Department of Justice.

Speaking to reporters on Wednesday, Republican Senator John Cornyn said he was still sceptical about confirming Blanche to the top federal law enforcement position in the country.

“I’m not prepared to vote yes,” said Cornyn.

The senator’s comments come a day before a key committee vote in the US Senate to move Blanche’s nomination forward.

Cornyn cited concerns about Blanche’s current stewardship of the Department of Justice, which he has led in an acting capacity since April.

Previously, Blanche served as deputy attorney general, and before joining President Donald Trump’s second term, he worked as the Republican leader’s criminal defence lawyer.

But Cornyn has questioned a rare settlement Blanche brokered in May, in response to a lawsuit Trump filed against the Internal Revenue Service (IRS).

Under the deal, Trump and his family would be shielded from future IRS audits. The scheme also created a so-called “anti-weaponisation fund”, under which individuals deemed to have faced alleged political persecution could seek financial compensation.

Blanche has backed away from the “anti-weaponisation fund” amid bipartisan backlash. Critics had described it as a slush fund that would benefit the president’s allies.

Earlier this month, a federal judge also ruled the settlement illegal, accusing Blanche of double-dealing by working on behalf of both the federal government and Trump as a private citizen.

During his confirmation hearing, Blanche again assured lawmakers that the fund was dead, but Cornyn said he was awaiting written guarantees on the matter.

“I haven’t seen a single piece ⁠of writing that is responsive to what I’ve requested,” Cornyn told reporters.

Committee vote looms

Cornyn spoke before the Senate Judiciary Committee is set to hold a Thursday vote on Blanche’s nomination, the first step in a wider Senate debate on his confirmation.

All Republicans on the committee would need to vote in favour of Blanche for him to progress to the broader confirmation hearing.

While Republican lawmakers have generally been wary of opposing Trump, Cornyn has become an increasingly public critic of the president in recent months.

Trump endorsed Cornyn’s primary opponent, former Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, in May. Paxton went on to win the Republican Party’s nomination in May, allowing him to progress to the midterm election in November.

That race will see Paxton take on Democratic upstart James Talarico in what is expected to be one of the closest Senate races of the season.

Cornyn will leave the Senate, where he has served for more than two decades, at the end of his term in January.

In an Oval Office news conference on Wednesday, President Trump was asked about Cornyn’s reticence about approving Blanche for the attorney general role.

“ Well, all I can say is Todd Blanche is outstanding,” Trump said, before questioning Cornyn’s motives.

“Maybe John Cornyn’s upset with me because I didn’t endorse him. I don’t know what it is, but I haven’t heard that there’s a problem.”

Critics have accused Blanche of placing his loyalty to Trump above all else, including by using the Department of Justice to prosecute the president’s political adversaries.

Under Blanche’s watch, for instance, the Justice Department chose to file a second indictment against James Comey, a former director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, over a social media message made of seashells.

Blanche has denied any claims that his relationship with Trump presents a conflict of interest, saying he acts independently of the president.

However, he did little to shed the perception during a mid-July hearing before US lawmakers. Senator John Kennedy, a Republican, asked at the time if Blanche considered Trump a “friend”.

“I’m his lawyer,” Blanche replied, before quickly correcting himself to say “was his lawyer”.

The Department of Justice has had a long tradition of prosecutorial independence, whereby criminal charges are not meant to be influenced by politics.

AMMAN, Jordan — When Iranian ballistic missiles repeatedly struck Jordan last week, killing three American service members and wounding dozens of others, it brought the spotlight on a U.S. military presence the government of this desert kingdom has long worked to downplay.

Jordan has been a decades-long military and counterterrorism partner with the United States, opening its territory over the years to U.S. and other Western troops in their engagements throughout the region. But faced with a population that is overwhelmingly pro-Palestinian and suspicious of the U.S. for its all-out support of Israel, the government had kept those relationships at a low profile.

But now, Jordan’s growing role in the United States’ war with Iran — and the intensifying Iranian retaliation that role invites — is spurring uncomfortable conversations for the government.

“Jordanians are trapped in a dilemma: They’re being dragged into a war they didn’t want, but the cause of that war is ironically the ally they bargained with to protect them in the first place,” said Sean Yom, a professor of political science and Jordan expert at Temple University who wrote the book “Jordan: Politics in an Accidental Crucible.”

“So they’re asking what’s the wisdom of having this geopolitical bargain with a patron like the U.S. when one of the sources of our instability is the relationship that’s supposed to guarantee our security.”

Since the ceasefire broke down July 8 and the U.S. began launching near-daily waves of strikes on Iran, Jordan has been targeted on nine occasions, with ballistic missiles and drones hitting U.S. assets and facilities and endangering some 4,000 service members at a number of Jordanian military bases across the country.

One of those salvos, on July 17, hit a housing unit in Muwaffaq Al-Salti, a Jordanian base in the country’s east, killing three U.S. service members and wounding at least four others. Also attacked were King Faisal Airbase, Prince Hassan Airbase and the airport in Aqaba.

Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps claimed the strikes not only killed and wounded dozens of U.S. military personnel, but also damaged drones, helicopters, F-15 preparation hangars, radar sites, missile defense systems and munitions depots.

More worryingly for Jordan, the IRGC issued statements thanking “honorable people” in Jordan for providing “sincere cooperation and precise information,” which it said enabled it to target and kill “dozens of American terrorist forces.”

“Seize every opportunity to dismantle American institutions and expel the American occupation army from Jordan,” one of the statements said.

As word of the attacks spread, Jordan’s government, normally reticent about foreign military deployments in the country, embarked on damage control.

Officials and members of parliament swiftly condemned Tehran for violating the country’s sovereignty, while the foreign ministry summoned Iran’s charge d’affaires in Amman, the Jordanian capital, and demanded Iran cease attacks on the kingdom. Jordanian Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi, meanwhile, rejected Iran’s claim that the U.S. has bases in the country.

“There are no American bases in Jordan. We have American troops that are in Jordan as part of our long-standing military cooperation,” he said at the Aspen Security Forum earlier this month. Safadi was referring to the 2021 defense agreement that allows U.S. forces unfettered access to 12 facilities in Jordan, including five air bases; the agreement was approved via royal decree and bypassed parliament.

“Their presence is governed by a defense agreement that fully respects our sovereignty,” he said.

Yet government statements didn’t do much to allay concerns. Though many Jordanians have little love for Iran, more than 300 politicians, academics, lawyers, retired military officers and tribal leaders signed an open letter last week calling on the government to withdraw from the defense agreement and keep Jordanian installations neutral — a bold move in a country where opposition to government policies (especially in security matters) can be a red line.

“Jordan is not a party to this war. Its people should not have to bear the consequences or pay the price for policies that do not serve the nation’s supreme interests,” the letter said.

“We urge the avoidance of the dangers associated with aligning ourselves under the American umbrella; this requires adopting a policy of genuine neutrality, based on refraining from any military or logistical involvement that serves any party to the conflict.”

Another sign of popular anger came Sunday: When one member of parliament exhorted the body to send condolences to Congress for the killing of the U.S. service members, others shouted him down, saying the legislature wasn’t a funeral parlor to console “criminals” and “child killers,” in reference to the United States’ support for Israel in Gaza.

Jordan grapples with questions similar to those facing its gulf neighbors, all of which rely on the U.S. security umbrella that has exposed their nations to Iranian attack. But those countries’ oil riches afford them leverage to push back on the U.S. presence, while Jordan — a resource-poor nation of some 11 million people — cannot.

The conflict, meanwhile, has only compounded Jordan’s economic woes. Tourism, which official figures say accounts for almost 15% of the country’s GDP and had just begun to recover from the 2023 Gaza war, has cratered since the start of military operations against Iran. One month after the war, gas prices rose by 11%, a body blow for Jordan’s perpetually anemic economy.

All that has made the kingdom ever more reliant on U.S. largesse. Washington gives Amman roughly $1.45 billion annually, including around $800 million that go straight to government coffers for budgetary support. It would be hard pressed to substitute that level of support from Europe or elsewhere, experts say.

At the same time, Jordan has become a vital nerve center for U.S. forces. The U.S. military has since 2019 spent hundreds of millions of dollars on upgrades for Muwaffaq Al-Salti and other facilities, according to U.S. federal contracting documents, laying aircraft aprons, taxiways, munitions depots and other infrastructure.

Satellite imagery of those bases from 2019 onward show significant construction and an increasing presence of U.S. assets, including F-16s, F-18s, drones and helicopters.

Now, with U.S. troops deployed in gulf nations proving vulnerable to Iranian barrages, Pentagon planners have transferred assets to locations farther away from Iran, especially Jordan.

In recent days, despite a pause in operations against Iran, flight tracking sites showed brisk U.S. military traffic, with logistical aircraft — including the massive C-17 Globemaster and KC-35 fueling tankers — making repeated trips between Jordan and U.S. military hubs in Europe.

An Indian police officer has been suspended after firing an AK-47 rifle at students protesting over leaked exam papers. The protests, which led to the education minister’s resignation, have sparked accusations of excessive police force.

Islamabad, Pakistan – Pakistan-administered Kashmir, formally known as Azad Jammu and Kashmir (AJK), has spent the summer under an unofficial state of emergency.

Since early June, nearly 40 people have been killed in clashes between protesters and security forces, with sit-ins and road blockades regular features in the region over this period.

Banks remained shut for two weeks. Mobile and internet services remain suspended across most of the territory. Poonch division, which borders India and has been the epicentre of the unrest, was effectively sealed off for weeks, disrupting the supply of flour and other essentials to a region that depends heavily on them.

The Jammu Kashmir Joint Awami Action Committee (JAAC), the movement behind the protests, was banned by the local government on June 5, days before a planned demonstration.

Its leadership has since been arrested, has gone underground or has continued organising from sit-in camps in Rawalakot, the administrative headquarters of Poonch division.

Its demands, once centred on subsidised flour and cheaper electricity, have expanded to 38 points, chief among them the abolition of 12 assembly seats reserved for Kashmiri refugees.

All of this is unfolding as the region prepares to vote. Elections for the 45-seat Legislative Assembly, originally scheduled for July 27, have been split across three dates.

Mirpur division votes as planned, Muzaffarabad division and the 12 seats reserved for Kashmiri refugees follow on August 2, while Poonch division, where tensions remain highest, goes to the polls on August 10.

JAAC’s leadership is not on the ballot and has urged supporters to boycott the vote.

Of all the movement’s demands, one issue has proved impossible to resolve: the 12 refugee seats. The government says they cannot be touched without a constitutional amendment. JAAC wants them abolished outright.

Between those two positions lies a legal argument stretching back nearly a century, and a more fundamental question: who gets to decide who governs Muzaffarabad?

A dozen seats, one dispute

Of the AJK Legislative Assembly’s 45 elected seats, 33 are filled from constituencies within the territory.

The remaining 12 are reserved for refugees from Indian-administered Kashmir who now live in different parts of Pakistan.

The arrangement traces its roots to electoral arrangements introduced in 1960, reinforced through laws in 1964 and 1970, before being formalised in AJK’s 1974 Interim Constitution and reaffirmed by the constitution’s 13th Amendment in 2018.

Chaudhry Muhammad Ibrahim Zia, a former chief justice of the AJK Supreme Court, said the basis for the seats goes back further still, to the AJK government’s founding declaration of October 24, 1947, which he said reflected “the collective will of the people of the State of Jammu and Kashmir”.

Refugee representation, he told Al Jazeera, has “a firm historical basis” rooted in that document. He rejects any suggestion that the seats are unconstitutional.

“They have both historical grounding and constitutional support,” he said. “These seats cannot be described as unconstitutional.”

Pakistan-administered Kashmir’s electorate has grown from 3.2 million voters in 2021 to more than 3.8 million this year, according to Election Commission figures.

Within that, the 12 refugee constituencies account for roughly 439,000 registered voters, scattered across cities including Lahore, Rawalpindi and Sialkot, rather than concentrated in a single geographical area like AJK’s territorial constituencies.

And that’s a problem, says Kashif Abbasi, a JAAC committee member.

“This election is meant for people who actually live in AJK,” he told Al Jazeera. “These 12 seats sit outside AJK’s jurisdiction. This doesn’t happen anywhere else.”

From flour to the assembly floor

JAAC’s demands were not always centred on the refugee seats. Its original charter was almost entirely economic, focusing on subsidised flour, electricity at cost price, and a share in the benefits from the Mangla and Neelum-Jhelum hydropower projects.

The refugee seats first appeared in the group’s expanded charter, submitted in October 2025.

Even then, JAAC did not initially seek their outright abolition. In written proposals submitted on May 30 this year, the group offered two alternatives.

It proposed retaining symbolic refugee representation until the Kashmir dispute is permanently resolved or replacing the 12 assembly seats with four seats in the AJK Council, the Islamabad-chaired body that exercises legislative authority over AJK’s federal-facing affairs.

The 14-member council, chaired by Pakistan’s prime minister, oversees subjects including electricity, banking and parts of taxation, areas that largely fall outside the AJK assembly’s authority. The territory has no representation in Pakistan’s national parliament.

“Our suggestion was that these seat-holders should instead be given representation on the Kashmir Council, and that their assembly seats be eliminated, with that money used elsewhere in the territory,” Khawaja Mehran, a member of JAAC’s core committee, told Al Jazeera recently.

Both proposals were rejected at an All-Parties Conference in Muzaffarabad on June 3.

Constitutional barrier

In June, the AJK Supreme Court addressed the issue directly.

The court held that the seats are protected under AJK’s constitution and can only be abolished through a formal constitutional amendment. They cannot be removed through executive action or public pressure.

A constitutional amendment, the judges wrote, is “a solemn constitutional act, not a concession to be wrested from a government under duress”.

Zia, the former AJK chief justice, said the opinion changed little about the existing legal position.

“These seats simply cannot be abolished without a proper constitutional process,” he told Al Jazeera, adding that, with the outgoing assembly’s term having ended, no such process is possible until a new legislature is elected.

The government’s account

Abdul Majid Khan, AJK’s former finance minister and himself from a refugee family, rejects the idea that the seat holders form an unaccountable political bloc.

He points instead to the size of the territory’s budget. AJK’s roughly 310 billion rupees (about $1.1bn) budget last year, he said, far exceeds the development funds allocated to the 12 refugee constituencies – nowhere near enough, in his view, to make them the powerful bloc JAAC describes.

“These are people who migrated for a larger cause,” Khan told Al Jazeera, referring to Kashmiris who fled Jammu, across the border, during the violence of 1947 following the partition of the subcontinent and settled across Pakistan in the decades that followed.

Refugee representation, he said, has existed since AJK’s first parliamentary election in 1975, when the territory’s first prime minister was himself from a refugee family.

At the June 3 conference that rejected JAAC’s proposals, AJK Prime Minister Faisal Mumtaz Rathore said any decision on the seats “can only be taken by the elected representatives in the House”, adding that most of JAAC’s other demands had already been met.

Pakistan’s Defence Minister Khawaja Asif told the National Assembly on June 11 that the future of the 12 refugee seats should be decided by voters, not under pressure from street protests.

He urged JAAC to contest the issue in the election rather than demand its resolution beforehand, asking: “How could you exclude them from the electoral process?”

A senior government official in Poonch, whose division has witnessed the worst of the unrest, took an even harder line.

“This is no longer a rights movement,” the official told Al Jazeera, requesting anonymity since he was not allowed to speak to the media, adding that the protesters were not only “challenging the authority of the state”, but also provoking the public through “inflammatory speeches and actions”.

Who holds power?

In mid-July, JAAC leader Umar Nazir Kashmiri told supporters at a sit-in in Rawalakot, Poonch division, that the group had written directly to army chief Field Marshal Asim Munir after concluding that its concerns were not reaching him “through official channels”.

He thanked Munir by name for “understanding the grievances of the people of Kashmir”.

Shaheen was more direct. “We believe real authority currently sits with Rawalpindi,” he told Al Jazeera, referring to Pakistan’s military establishment rather than the civilian government. “That’s why we’re forced to negotiate through that channel, since nobody else actually holds the authority.”

Ershad Mahmud, a Canada-based researcher on Kashmiri displacement and politics, said that “Islamabad’s bureaucracy, military and intelligence establishment have reduced AJK’s elected leadership to a largely symbolic role”.

The current crisis, he told Al Jazeera, has once again shown that the local leadership “lacks the authority to negotiate a political settlement with its own people”.

Unmet promise?

The dispute over the refugee seats is unfolding within a framework that predates Pakistan-administered Kashmir itself.

Under a United Nations Commission for India and Pakistan resolution adopted on January 5, 1949, and endorsed by the UN Security Council, Kashmir’s final status was to be determined “through the democratic method of a free and impartial plebiscite”.

Nearly 80 years later, that has yet to happen on either side of the Line of Control.

Mahmud, who is also the author of Poonch: Identity, Politics and Resistance, argues the refugee seats endure partly because they continue to serve Islamabad’s interests.

“They let Pakistan maintain its position that AJK represents the entire former State of Jammu and Kashmir, not merely the territory it administers,” he told Al Jazeera. “And allows Pakistan-based political parties to influence government formation in Muzaffarabad.”

Islamabad, he said, treats the seats “as an instrument of its Kashmir policy and political influence”.

Hassan Kamal Wattoo, a Lahore-based constitutional lawyer, argues that giving greater autonomy to AJK “strengthens Pakistan’s case on the international stage”.

“There is no tension between real autonomy for AJK and an eventual plebiscite,” he told Al Jazeera.

Anam Zakaria, a historian and author of Between the Great Divide: A Journey into Pakistan-Administered Kashmir, however, argued that there was a deeper contradiction within AJK’s constitutional framework.

On the one hand lies India’s “longstanding and ongoing systemic violence and human rights abuses in [Indian-administered] Kashmir”, she said, arguing that nothing Pakistan has done or does in the part of Kashmir it administers can be compared with what’s happened in Indian-administered Kashmir, where tens of thousands of people have been killed in violence involving armed rebels and security forces since 1989.

At the same time, she pointed out, candidates seeking public office in Pakistan-administered Kashmir must first swear allegiance to AJK’s accession to Pakistan.

That requirement, she told Al Jazeera, also “in itself contradicts the right to self-determination” and sidelines Kashmiris who hold a different vision for the region’s future.

The ISF, to be staffed by ‘friendly countries’, will operate in areas of the Palestinian enclave that are outside Israel’s military control.

Israel’s government has approved the entry of the International Stabilization Force (ISF), part of United States President Donald Trump’s 20-point “peace plan,” to Gaza.

An Israeli official reported on Sunday that Israel’s security cabinet had approved the key legal measures and that the force would operate “in full coordination with” the Israeli military, according to the Times of Israel.

There was no timeframe given for when the ISF, which will include 200 people from “friendly countries such as Uganda and Morocco”, according to the Reuters news agency, will be deployed.

The cabinet determined that Israel will have the authority to approve which countries can send forces.

Following the implementation of Trump’s deal, Israel dictates who can and cannot enter the Gaza Strip, along with how much aid and food can enter, in the wake of Israel’s two-year, genocidal war on Gaza.

Though a “ceasefire” between Hamas and Israel was agreed in October, reports of killings of Palestinians by the Israeli military occur almost daily.

The Palestinian Ministry of Health reports that 1,200 Palestinians have been killed since the deal was implemented, with 3,888 wounded.

The plan also called for an international “Board of Peace” to oversee the administration and reconstruction of the strip, for the creation of a National Committee for the Administration of Gaza (NCAG) technocratic governing body, and for Hamas to disarm and Israel to withdraw from the strip.

Nickolay Mladenov, the director-general of the Gaza Board of Peace – which the vast majority of Western countries refused to join – welcomed the news.

The former Bulgarian foreign minister and defence minister said Israel enabling the deployment was “a critical part of the agreed framework for stabilising Gaza, supporting demilitarisation, and enabling the transition to effective Palestinian transitional administration” under the NCAG.

The cabinet’s approval comes a day before Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is due to travel to Washington, DC in the United States.

Israel currently occupies close to 70 percent of Gaza. Its population of almost two million has been forced to live in a diminishing fraction of the strip, as Israel continues to move the “Yellow Line” it created to demarcate areas it withdrew to under the first phase of the deal.

The ISF will operate in the areas that are not under Israeli control.

The island has weathered a US oil embargo since January and is enduring one of its worst economic crises ever.

Cuba’s president has accused the United States of carrying out “genocide” against his people and seeking to seize the Caribbean island nation.

President Miguel Diaz-Canel lashed out during a rally on Sunday commemorating the start of the Cuban Revolution in 1953. His anger was a reaction to Washington’s continued pressure, which has included a crippling oil embargo that has produced regular blackouts and economic hardship.

“I denounce that Cuba is the victim of a cold-bloodedly calculated genocide,” Diaz-Canel said in Pinar del Rio at the event marking the 73rd anniversary of the uprising against former dictator Fulgencio Batista.

US relations with the communist-led island have long been tense, but have deteriorated further under US President Donald Trump.

Washington imposed an oil embargo on Cuba on January 29, causing daily blackouts of more than 20 hours.

The US, Diaz-Canel said on Sunday, was engaged in “economic strangulation” through its actions.

Employers have been forced to reduce workdays, industrial production has stopped, and water and medicine shortages are hitting a country already suffering from previous US sanctions and financial reforms that caused inflation.

Payment companies Visa and Mastercard, Spain’s Melia hotel chain, and Air Canada and Air France have all exited the country amid the crisis.

“Cuba is today waging a historic battle … against the walls of a genocidal policy whose objective is to suffocate an entire people in order to appropriate the country,” Diaz-Canel said.

Trump said he would “take over” Cuba, following the US abduction of former Venezuelan president and Cuban ally Nicolas Maduro in January.

Last week, a US State Department report accused Cuba’s government of running an espionage and influence network against Washington and Latin American neighbours.

In May, the US indicted former president and revolution leader Raul Castro – brother of Fidel – of murder and other crimes for his alleged part in the downing of two civilian airplanes operated by Miami-based exiles off the Cuban coast in 1996.

Cuba’s government has rejected the accusations and denounced Trump’s rhetoric. Talks between the two countries have largely stalled, Cuban officials said in June.

The Cuban Revolution, led by brothers and later leaders Fidel and Raul Castro, culminated in the Batista government’s fall in 1959. Former President Raul, 95, was unusually absent at Sunday’s rally.

Tehran, Iran – A public rift has emerged between Iran’s government and state television over how to portray the state of war and negotiations with the United States, as mediators try to nudge both countries towards diplomacy.

The Government Information Council on Friday accused state broadcaster IRIB of “censorship” after parts of a speech by President Masoud Pezeshkian earlier in the week were not shown to the public.

The broadcaster, whose head is appointed by the supreme leader, issued a response on Saturday rejecting the government’s “accusations and improper attributions”, and emphasised that it has a duty to prevent “an incorrect and unreal suggestion of duality in the country’s leadership pillars”.

In his speech, Pezeshkian had pointed out that after last year’s 12-day war with Israel, former Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei publicly said there would be no negotiations with Washington – but privately had given his approval.

“We went to the dear leader, explained the situation, and asked him what to do since he had said the ‘no war, no peace’ conditions are bad for the country,” the president said. “He ordered us to go negotiate. We started the talks based on his order.”

The government said in its statement the move to cut that section of the speech was part of a series of “unusual actions” taken by state television concerning recent comments made by the heads of the government, parliament and judiciary.

It pointed out that earlier this month, a part of the parliament speaker and chief negotiator Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf’s interview with state television dealing with negotiations had also been cut. The government council added that a part of a speech earlier this week by judiciary head Gholam-Hossein Mohseni-Ejei was not aired either, in which he expressed backing for the president.

Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi has also separately criticised IRIB, saying during an interview with a state-linked outlet released on Saturday that he “fought with a sword” in wartime interviews with US media such as Fox, CNN and others. The chief diplomat said he expected state television to show how Iran’s case was being strongly presented to US audiences and policymakers, but only one or two subtitles from the interviews ended up going on air.

Araghchi also rejected a notion raised by hardliners that the now-suspended memorandum of understanding signed with the US last month was “imposed” on new Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei, as some hardliners have claimed. He characterised it as the best possible agreement under the circumstances.

In its own statement, the government blamed the actions on “a political faction within” state television, in an apparent reference to the Paydari Front of ultrahardliners, and said their actions could serve to undermine national security and social cohesion.

IRIB, in a statement published by its public relations department, countered that broadcasting the president’s segment would have propagated an appearance of division.

Both sides accused each other of undermining the decree issued last week by Mojtaba Khamenei to reach a “sacred unity” in face of military, economic and diplomatic pressure by the US.

Mohammad Mirzaei, a member of parliament and spokesperson of a committee tasked with exerting oversight on IRIB, said on Saturday that directors of the state broadcaster have been warned about the necessity to display different viewpoints and to act as a “sign of national unity”.

Conservative journalist Mohammad Mohajeri told local media that the broadcaster is now at its most expensive and least effective. Reformist activist Mohammad-Sadegh Javadi-Hesar described the deeper problem as “one government being installed and another government called IRIB operating against it”.

Reformist Entekhab news outlet reported, citing an unnamed source, that Pezeshkian sharply reprimanded IRIB chief Peyman Jebeli at a cabinet meeting after the row over the negotiations. Jebeli, who was appointed by Ali Khamenei in 2021, was media deputy at the Supreme National Security Council when Saeed Jalili, the only council member said to have voted against an interim deal with the US last month, was its secretary.

Hardline lawmaker Meysam Zohourian said the president has threatened to cut state television’s budget, but the administration has not confirmed this.

As the public sparring unfolded, mediators from Oman were in Tehran on Friday to discuss the management of the Strait of Hormuz, a vital waterway whose control has become a central point of contention between the US and Iran.

US President Donald Trump argued on Friday the war was going “extremely well” and that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will visit Washington in the coming days.

He said the two sides continued to talk through mediators, but that he did not expect any agreement soon.

The US president also refused to answer whether realising his threat of systematically attacking power plants and bridges in Iran in case of a war escalation would constitute war crimes.

Mohammad Bagher Zolghadr, the secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council, on Saturday responded by saying missile and drone launches across the region will continue “until the full surrender of the enemy” and avenging the blood of civilians killed during the war.

Leaders of India’s youth-led “Cockroach” movement are set to hold talks with government representatives on Friday in an effort to resolve a growing political crisis triggered by national examination paper leaks. Despite the dialogue, protest leaders have made clear that nationwide demonstrations will continue until their key demands, including the resignation of Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan, are met.

The negotiations come after activist Sonam Wangchuk ended a 26-day hunger strike overnight, raising hopes of a possible breakthrough in the weeks-long standoff that has brought tens of thousands of young protesters to the streets of New Delhi.

The movement has become the biggest youth-led challenge to Prime Minister Narendra Modi since he first took office in 2014. Opposition parties have backed the protesters’ demands and disrupted the ongoing monsoon session of parliament, turning the issue into one of the most significant political crises of Modi’s third term.

Government and Protest Leaders Prepare for Talks

Representatives of the self-styled Cockroach Janta Party (CJP), which emerged from an online satirical movement into a nationwide protest campaign, will meet government ministers at a neutral venue.

CJP spokesperson Saurav Das said the movement hoped the government would engage seriously with protesters’ concerns.

“We hope that the government comes with an open mind and listens to the people of this country who have been on the streets for so long,” Das told reporters. “We will explain our demands in greater detail, and we hope the government will respond positively.”

However, he stressed that negotiations would not halt the movement.

“We are not backing out,” Das said. “Real change begins at the grassroots, and that is exactly what we intend to continue.”

Education Minister’s Resignation Remains Central Demand

While the government has indicated its willingness to continue discussions, protesters insist accountability must begin with the removal of Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan.

Thousands gathered again at Delhi’s Jantar Mantar protest site on Thursday, where demonstrators vowed to remain until Pradhan resigns.

“We will continue protesting until Dharmendra Pradhan is removed,” protester Sudesh Singh said. “If we stop now, we compromise the future of millions of students.”

The demonstrations were sparked after authorities cancelled the National Eligibility cum Entrance Test (NEET), India’s highly competitive medical entrance examination, following the discovery that question papers had been leaked. Nearly two million students were affected by the cancellation, triggering widespread anger over repeated failures in India’s examination system.

From Online Satire to National Movement

The Cockroach Janta Party began as an online satirical campaign involving only a few hundred young supporters. It rapidly evolved into a nationwide movement after the examination scandal, attracting millions of followers on social media and drawing large crowds to protests across the country.

Monday’s march toward parliament saw tens of thousands of protesters defy restrictions before clashes broke out with police, who used tear gas and batons to disperse demonstrators.

Further confrontations occurred on Wednesday night when more than 10,000 people gathered in central Delhi.

Analysts say the movement reflects broader frustrations among India’s youth over limited employment opportunities, repeated examination scandals and declining confidence in public institutions.

Security Tightened Across the Capital

Authorities have significantly increased security measures around the protests.

The Delhi Metro Rail Corporation announced that 17 metro stations in central Delhi would remain closed again on Friday, marking the third major shutdown of the capital’s transport network this week.

Mobile internet services around the protest area were also disrupted, with Reuters journalists reporting patchy connectivity throughout Friday morning.

Officials say the restrictions are necessary to maintain public order, though protesters argue they are intended to suppress demonstrations.

Government Plans Legal Reforms

Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced on Thursday that his cabinet would consider legislation aimed at strengthening punishment for those responsible for examination paper leaks.

The proposed amendments would seek faster prosecutions and tougher penalties for individuals involved in leaking examination papers.

Protest leaders, however, argue that stricter punishments alone will not solve the problem.

They say systemic reforms are needed to restore confidence in India’s examination process and prevent future leaks before they occur.

Political Stakes Continue to Rise

The protests have quickly evolved from a dispute over examination integrity into a broader political challenge.

Opposition parties, led by the Congress Party, have embraced the movement’s demands, seeing an opportunity to pressure Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) ahead of several important state elections scheduled for next year, including contests in Uttar Pradesh, Gujarat and Punjab.

Political analysts warn that the growing movement could reshape India’s political landscape if the government fails to address the concerns of young voters, who form a crucial part of the BJP’s electoral base.

The protests have also been accompanied by an unprecedented surge in online criticism, memes and satire targeting Modi, reflecting what observers describe as diminishing public hesitation to openly challenge one of India’s most influential political leaders.

Friday’s talks may provide the first opportunity for both sides to de-escalate the crisis, but with demonstrations set to continue regardless of the outcome, pressure on the government is unlikely to ease in the near term.

With information from Reuters.

London, United Kingdom — On his fourth day as prime minister, Andy Burnham did not stay at Downing Street in London. Nor did he go to Manchester, the home of Number 10 North. He went to Glasgow.

Hours before King Charles and Queen Camilla opened the 2026 Commonwealth Games, Burnham held his first in-person meetings with Scotland’s First Minister John Swinney and Wales’ First Minister Rhun ap Iorwerth. The talks were meant to demonstrate, in Burnham’s own words, that growth is needed “in every postcode across the whole of the UK”. A meeting with Northern Ireland’s First and Deputy First Ministers, Michelle O’Neill and Emma Little-Pengelly, is pencilled in for a wider UK tour in August.

Notably absent from the agenda, at Burnham’s insistence, was any discussion of a second Scottish independence referendum.

Just days after being appointed prime minister, Burnham is testing a proposition that will define his premiership. He’s selling a vision that the office itself can be partly relocated out of London to Manchester, the city he governed as mayor from 2017 until his return to UK Parliament in the Makerfield by-election last month.

What Number 10 North actually is

Stripped of rhetoric, Number 10 North is a written ministerial statement. On July 21, Baroness Smith of Basildon, Leader of the House of Lords and Lord Privy Seal, confirmed on the government’s behalf that devolution and local growth policy functions are moving out of the housing ministry and the Treasury and into a new Manchester-based operation. There, civil servants will work inside a restructured Office for the Prime Minister and the Cabinet, led by Cabinet Secretary Dame Antonia Romeo.

The interim headquarters is Heron House, in the New Islington area of Manchester, chosen partly for its proximity to a planned Manchester Digital Campus.

Caroline Simpson, the outgoing chief executive of the Greater Manchester Combined Authority, has been named Burnham’s deputy chief of staff, and will be in charge of day-to-day office operations. Downing Street says Burnham himself expects to work from Manchester “at least one day a week”, though officials caution his diary may change, and insists the arrangement carries no additional cost to taxpayers.

Burnham calls it “the nerve centre of a rewired Britain” and rejects suggestions it is symbolic. “Not a gimmick,” he told his first Cabinet meeting about Number 10 North.

Plumbing, but no water

Number 10 North “establishes the plumbing, but the water isn’t flowing yet”, said Mirte Boot of the Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR) North. The institutional architecture is firming up, but fiscal devolution – ie, the transfer of money and tax-raising power – that would make such a policy meaningful doesn’t yet exist, she added.

Still, she calls it “a step in the right direction” after what she describes as “too much power condensed into one postcode”. Leaving Westminster isn’t enough; Number 10 North will need “strong political leadership aside from the prime minister”, she added.

The verdict that Number 10 North contains vision and ambition but currently lacks a detailed plan and delivery mechanism is a recurring response from independent voices.

Jonathan Carr-West of the Local Government Information Unit calls Burnham’s devolution agenda “the most ambitious statement … from a senior politician in a generation”, while warning that English councils are so financially hollowed out that the vision “requires a vehicle” it does not yet have.

Malcolm Morgan, a transport researcher at the University of Leeds, puts it more bluntly: genuine devolution means spending, taxation and regulatory power, not just relocated functions, and “devolution does not create more funding”.

That funding question sits unresolved alongside the national one. The 2026 English Devolution and Community Empowerment Act expanded mayors’ control over transport, planning and housing, but left fiscal devolution to a separate Treasury “roadmap” due alongside the autumn budget. According to Centre for Cities, a UK urban policy think tank, the UK remains the most fiscally centralised country in the G7: some 95 percent of tax revenue flows straight to Whitehall.

Devolution, or recentralisation?

For Scotland’s SNP government, the Number 10 North framing is beside the point. First Minister Swinney responded that “rhetoric alone will not cut it” and argued that four consecutive Holyrood elections have handed his party a mandate for Scottish self-determination, something Westminster keeps ignoring, he said. In Glasgow, Burnham declined to engage with that argument directly.

Meanwhile, Wales’ Ap Iorwerth struck a more cooperative note but still said he expected “that Number 10 North would not become Whitehall with a different postcode”.

He also used the meeting with Burnham to press for a new Wales Bill granting policing and justice powers, and a replacement for the Barnett Formula funding mechanism, which Westminster uses to calculate annual changes to the block grants allocated to the UK’s devolved governments, so Wales would have funding parity with Scotland.

Reform UK’s Nigel Farage, from the opposite political direction, warned that a Number 10 in the south and one in the north would simply “fight against each other”.

What it means in Manchester

In Bury, Greater Manchester, Scottish-born Debe Conway sells children’s books at markets and has lived in the area for 56 years, but remains unconvinced about the new prime minister.

Her biggest concern is immigration, which she called Burnham weak on. And as for Number 10 North, she wants to know how it’s being paid for, and asks how long it will last, considering that the UK has had seven prime ministers in the last 10 years.

Rich Carver, who has run pizza restaurants in Manchester for 15 years and is currently “soaking up the energy in the city”, says he cares more about what will happen in the next 10 years.

He’s also tired of the succession of governments and wants this one to last. He likes Burnham and is optimistic enough about the city’s trajectory that he is opening a new restaurant in the coming weeks, something he would not have done five years ago.

“We are all one country,” he says, hoping the rest of the UK (and the media) give the new prime minister time and the chance to implement his vision. Whether that time produces growth, or just relocated offices, is the question Number 10 North still has to answer.

America’s war on Iran has already cost the US nearly $110 billion. Now, the Trump administration wants another $67 billion, even after declaring victory. Al Jazeera’s Emma Withrow breaks down the growing price tag.

Withdrawal is latest instance of government’s efforts to crack down on critical media facing setbacks in court.

Attorneys for the United States government have withdrawn subpoenas seeking to compel three New York Times reporters to testify about their sources for a story about an Air Force One jet gifted to US President Donald Trump by Qatar.

Judge Arun Subramanian slammed the government’s lawyers for what he deemed sloppy legal work in an exchange in court on Thursday.

“Subpoenas are not the first thing you do; they are the last thing you do,” an irritated Subramanian said.

“When you see something like this, if this were a civil proceeding, what I would normally do is ask the parties to show causes why sanctions should not be issued,” he added.

The Trump administration had sought to keep the proceedings secret as it pressured the reporters to reveal their sources for a story, a request that raised alarms for US press freedoms as the president and his allies continue to aggressively target critical media and political opponents.

Such efforts, however, have largely been rejected in court. The US government recently withdrew similar subpoenas that sought to compel testimony from reporters with the Washington Post and Wall Street Journal.

Lawyers for the New York Times challenged the legitimacy of the grand jury subpoenas along with subpoenas for the phone records of several journalists and their relatives. The paper’s managing editor and general counsel sat in the gallery during proceedings on Thursday.

The government has said that it is pursuing those who have leaked material to reporters for a story about Trump taking an older model Air Force One jet back from a summit in Turkiye, rather than the one gifted from Qatar.

The Secret Service reportedly advised that the new jet, which the government has spent $400m to retrofit and upgrade, lacks important security features such as antimissile capabilities.

“Reporters are not the targets; those leaking classified information are,” the Department of Justice said of the subpoena requests.

Obtaining information from government sources is a cornerstone of journalism, and national security reporting in particular and is considered essential to press freedom. Efforts by the US government under both Democratic and Republican administrations to compel reporters to disclose their sources have been viewed as an effort to weaken those protections.

New Delhi, India – Blood spots on the walls, overturned barricades, shattered mirrors and sandals strewn across the road. A scarf here, broken glasses and a torn shirt there lie as remnants of the chaos that took over the Indian capital.

The heart of New Delhi – Parliament Street and Connaught Place, a colonial-era square – bears the imprint of Monday’s police crackdown on thousands of protesters, most of them students, who had shut down the capital, demanding that Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan resign.

A swarm of protesters reached parliament’s doorstep before retreating as the police tear-gassed them. More than 100 students were injured.

“I still cannot believe my eyes that I’m in Delhi,” said Anshul Dev, an 18-year-old who grew up in the capital. “Part of it is because tear gas still stings,” he added, bursting into laughter with his group of friends. One of them had both legs bandaged.

“This government, whom our elders voted to power, is treating us like terrorists and criminals,” Dev said. “This is our country, and we are reclaiming it from their hateful politics. We are here to break the spell.”

Anger among India’s youth, the world’s largest Gen Z cohort, has been simmering for the past two months over a string of compromised entrance exams that affected millions of students. In some cases, exam papers were leaked; in others, students who sought copies of their answer scripts found that they had been wrongly graded. More than 20 students died by suicide, many citing the paper leaks.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi has not addressed the protests, even as he appeared smiling on Monday in parliament, barely metres away from demonstrators at one point.

Analysts said the student protests face formidable obstacles before they can extract concessions from Modi’s government. Yet the protests, the government’s refusal to hold any of its own accountable and the crackdown have also embellished a charge that the prime minister has long faced from critics and opposition parties – that although he is elected democratically, he behaves like an autocrat.

‘Protests will continue’

After dark on Monday, Abhijeet Dipke – the leader of the Cockroach Janta Party (CJP), a political pressure group that called the march – returned to a torn-down stage at the CJP’s main protest site near Jantar Mantar, an 18th-century observatory that is now an important location for protests.

“This barbaric Delhi police has beaten up our students and comrades. We are heartbroken,” he said, addressing about 2,000 protesters who stayed back after the crackdown. “We will continue to resist and demand accountability from the government. We will not back down until Dharmendra Pradhan resigns.”

Dipke told the protesters that the Delhi police “brutally cracked down to crush our hopes” that Pradhan would resign. “It was only our first call to march,” he said. “There will be more. Do not lose hope.”

Volunteers began to pick up rubbish, tie a tent together and sweep the road at the Jantar Mantar site. This is where more than 100 protesters from student unions have been sleeping for nearly a month to join Sonam Wangchuk, a prominent activist, on a hunger strike to seek the minister’s resignation.

The police also rampaged through these student unions’ tarpaulin tents and belongings on Monday.

The movement gained momentum last week after the police forcibly removed Wangchuk from the protest site and restricted him to a government-run hospital, where he remains. His family and the CJP have called it “illegal detention”, but the Delhi High Court has refused immediate relief.

Wangchuk, 59, broke his hunger strike before the march on Monday; however, later he said he would be at it again after “seeing the brutality” against “peacefully protesting students”.

The Delhi police have filed at least five criminal cases against protesters related to violence, stone-throwing and vandalism during the march.

Meeting with government a ‘waste of time’

Before the march, CJP leaders said the government reached out for talks.

As thousands of demonstrators assembled in New Delhi, two CJP spokespeople met JP Nadda, India’s health minister, to convey the movement’s three demands: Pradhan’s immediate resignation, Wangchuk’s discharge from hospital and compensation of nearly $105,000 for the families of those students who died by suicide.

However, they were disillusioned by sunset. “It was a waste of our time,” said Ashutosh Ranka, a CJP spokesperson. “We were made to wait for four hours, and the minister met us for 10 minutes.”

Nadda said he met with the spokespeople “in a cordial atmosphere”, adding that he “requested all the protesters to end their sit-in and assist the administration in restoring normalcy”.

Some students have been calling for the decentralisation of the protests, so they could move beyond the CJP to demand accountability from the government.

And political analysts who spoke with Al Jazeera said maintaining the credibility of the CJP’s leadership remains one of the biggest immediate hurdles for the movement in the face of an unprecedented crowd turnout for the march.

Confronting a ‘strong man’

Since the police forcibly removed Wangchuk from the protest site, the movement and demonstrators have called on Modi to resign. Slogans targeting the prime minister reverberated through central New Delhi on Monday.

The large number of protesters “is itself a big challenge to the prime minister”, said Nilanjan Mukhopadhyay, an author and Modi biographer.

As of now, he told Al Jazeera, “Modi has decided to continue with his instinctive response of not giving any concessions to protesters and continuing to project himself as a strong man with completely unshakeable will.”

The biographer added that the prime minister, who has been in power since 2014, “does not care before crushing a protest or using brute force until it cuts through his voting constituencies”.

“They will go by their gut response of a crackdown. Modi would not want to emerge from this with a bloody nose,” he added, “despite a lot of anger among youth, which shows the undercurrent of anti-incumbency.”

The simmering anger found a vent as Gen Z rallied behind a joke, the Cockroach Janta Party, after India’s chief justice equated government critics and unemployed youth to “cockroaches” and “parasites”.

Memes, online rants and students taking photos in front of police have flooded the internet in India, where they expressed anguish and took digs at the police crackdown.

Meghnad S, a YouTuber, was among the crowd of thousands in front of the Indian Parliament on Monday.

“It was insanity, and the crowd was really riled up due to police actions. It was cruel,” he told Al Jazeera from the protest site on Monday night. “But movements are always messy. This is very difficult to control. We are all cockroaches, after all. And we are still swarming here.”

By Tuesday morning, the crowd had packed the site yet again. The cockroaches had returned.