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Tens of thousands of people are converging on the northern Serbian city of Novi Sad for a commemoration of the victims of a tragedy a year ago that killed 16 people.

Regular student-led protests have gripped Serbia since the collapse of the canopy at the newly renovated railway station in the country’s second largest city on November 1, 2024, which became a symbol of entrenched corruption.

Protesters first demanded a transparent investigation, but their calls soon escalated into demands for early elections.

Students, who called for the “largest commemorative gathering” on Saturday, and others, have been pouring into Novi Sad since Friday, arriving by car, bicycle, or on foot.

Thousands marched from Belgrade for some 100km (62 miles) and other parts of the country, including Novi Pazar, about 340km (210 miles) south of the capital. It took them 16 days to finish the march.

Residents of Novi Sad took to the streets to greet the marchers, blowing whistles and waving flags, many visibly moved.

Reporting from the city on Saturday, Al Jazeera’s Milena Veselinovic said local residents have provided marchers with food and shelter.

She added the student organisers of the event have stressed they want it to be peaceful and only about the victims, rather than the country’s politics.

‘I am looking for justice’

Dijana Hrka’s 27-year-old son was among the victims.

“What I want to know is who killed my child so I can have a little peace, so that I don’t keep going through hell,” she told Al Jazeera.

Hrka added: “I am looking for justice. I want no other mother to go through what I am going through.”

The protests over the station’s collapse have led to the resignation of the prime minister, the fall of his government and the formation of a new one. But nationalist President Aleksandar Vucic has remained defiantly in office.

Vucic regularly labelled demonstrators as foreign-funded coup plotters, while members of his SNS party pushed conspiracy theories, claiming that the train station roof collapse may have been an orchestrated attack.

But in a televised public address on Friday, Vucic made a rare gesture and apologised for saying things that, he said, he now regretted.

“This applies both to students and to protesters, as well as to others with whom I disagreed. I apologise for that,” Vucic said and called for dialogue.

Saturday’s commemorative rally at the Novi Sad railway station will start at 11:52am (10:52 GMT), the time when the tragedy occurred, with 16 minutes of silence observed for 16 victims.

Thirteen people, including former construction minister Goran Vesic, were charged in a criminal case over the collapse.

A separate anticorruption probe continues alongside a European Union-backed investigation into the possible misuse of EU funds in the project.

‘Sky high’ corruption

The government has declared Saturday a day of national mourning while the head of the Serbian Orthodox Church (SPC), Patriarch Porfirije, is to serve a mass for the victims at the Belgrade Saint Sava church.

“On this sad anniversary, we appeal to everyone … to act with restraint, to de-escalate tensions and to avoid violence,” the EU delegation in Serbia said in a statement.

Aleksandar Popov, a Serbian political analyst, told Al Jazeera that “sky-high” corruption is a major issue in the country that needs to be addressed.

“We’re not talking about tens of millions of euros, but hundreds of millions of euros spun through large infrastructure projects, perhaps billions of euros,” he said.

“This government and the president have captured all key institutions of state, like the judiciary,” he added.

The protests have remained largely peaceful, but, in mid-August, they degenerated into violence that protesters blamed on heavy-handed tactics by government loyalists and police.

Lío Mehiel has been working for a moment like “After the Hunt” for a long time.

Directed by Luca Guadagnino, this thorny morality play of a film set at Yale University pits well-liked professor Alma (played by Julia Roberts) against both her protegé, Maggie (Ayo Edebiri), as well as her longtime friend and colleague Hank (Andrew Garfield) during a scandal that risks her entire academic career.

Amid that starry A-list cast, the actor plays Maggie’s partner, Alex. The film, which had its world premiere in August at the Venice Film Festival, is Mehiel’s most high-profile project yet.

“There is so much time as an artist where you are doing the work and nobody cares and you have to find within yourself the motivation and the commitment and the drive to keep going,” Mehiel tells The Times. “Because you know that when you are going to be able to reach people, it will be worth it.”

Such a step has been years in the making. Mehiel, who lived in Puerto Rico until they were 5 years old, began their creative endeavors almost as soon as they arrived in New York City, first as a salsa dancer and later as an actor. By the time they were in fifth grade they were attending Broadway auditions, eventually booking a role in the 2003 revival of “Cat on a Hot Tin Roof” starring Ashley Judd and Jason Patric.

(L to R) Lio Mehiel as Alex and Ayo Edebiri as Maggie in AFTER THE HUNT, from Amazon MGM Studios.

(Yannis Drakoulidis / Yannis Drakoulidis © 2025 Amazon Content Services LLC. All Rights Reserved)

But as they began finding their own sense of self and body, they also found the kind of opportunities that led them to “After the Hunt.” That began in earnest back in 2023, when they starred in Vuk Lungulov-Klotz’s film “Mutt” as Feña, a role they booked after cold-emailing the director and telling them they’d do anything to win that part. The film chronicled a particularly hectic day in the life of a young trans man in New York City, as he struggles to rekindle old relationships he’d severed since he’d transitioned. Mehiel’s soulful performance won them a Special Jury Award for Acting at the 2023 Sundance Film Festival, putting them on the map as a trans Latine performer to watch.

“Moving forward from ‘Mutt,’ I was really interested in building on that momentum to what’s next,” they say. Not just in terms of their career but in the broader cultural conversation around contemporary queer and trans representation. The following year, they returned to Sundance with Alessandra Lacorazza’s “In the Summers,” which walked away from the festival with the U.S. Dramatic Grand Jury prize — the first for a film directed by a Latina director. Like “Mutt,” that sun-dappled film found Mehiel breathing life into a trans character navigating a thorny relationship with their father (played by renowned Puerto Rican rapper Residente).

Mehiel has long been building a body of work that centers on the very work of having a body. Just this past summer, they visited the Salton Sea for a performance installation titled “angels of a drowning myth.” In photos from that day, Mehiel is seen naked and half-submerged into that so-called sea, posing alongside a bust of their own chest made six months after they’d received top surgery. A portrait of a body twice represented, Mehiel’s piece stressed the solidity and malleability of their own body, and the beauty they find within and around it. Their work moves past familiar ideas of the body in transition, gleefully embracing the messiness of the queer experience and refusing the easy siren call of visibility.

“‘After the Hunt,’ is such a beautiful example of that because Alex is a queer and trans character, but we just see them getting home from a run, taking their shirt off, being with their partner, dealing with stuff that has nothing to do with their queerness,” Mehiel says.

That moment Alex first appears on screen is quintessential Mehiel. Not just because of the honeyed intimacy their sweaty, bare chest exudes. But because their appearance immediately reframes everything audiences have heard about this seemingly militant, radical social justice warrior. Alex at first appears as a figure of “woke” culture there to defy the older generation Roberts’ Alma comes to stand for. But there’s more to them than that.

“Alex doesn’t represent all queer people who have a political orientation in the world, all queer people who might attend a protest,” they explain. “I think what Luca did and what Nora did in the script was to give us all an opportunity to move away from identity politics. Instead, they gave each of the characters enough meat on their bones that they get to be complex, messy characters.”

“After the Hunt” may focus on complicated ethical questions surrounding sexual assault allegations at a university, but within that plot, Mehiel sees also a chance for viewers to catch a glimpse of characters like Maggie and Alex who may not otherwise be centered in such stories.

“I’m just excited that there is more exposure that people are having to queer and trans people and to queer relationships, and how that can fit in the context of a ‘normative’ world,” they add. “This is a movie with Julia Roberts, one of our biggest stars and crown jewels of Hollywood and of American cinema. There’s going to be a lot of folks that are going to see it because Julia is in it. And then they’re also going to get to experience a queer and trans person on screen who is likable in some moments and unlikable in others, just as much as every other character.”

That’s been Mehiel’s purpose for years now: to expand what queer and trans characters can look like on stage, on screen and, in turn, in real life. At a time when these communities are vilified by those who wish to harm them, Mehiel insists on the importance of such normalized visibility.

Lio Mehiel seen at the Los Angeles Premiere of Amazon MGM Studios’ “After The Hunt” at Academy Museum of Motion Pictures on October 04, 2025 in Los Angeles, California.

(Photo by Stewart Cook / Amazon MGM Studios via Getty Images)

“Honestly, exposure to these experiences creates connection more than anything and allows people to feel comfortable,” they add. “Because the political climate right now — for the Latine community and for the trans community — is really hard and heartbreaking and challenging. And I think so much of it has to do with people feeling like they don’t know who these people are.”

A central kernel of the premise of “After the Hunt” is that you never know what someone is going through. And, more to the point, that making assumptions about other people’s experience can be extremely dangerous.

“This movie really serves as a mirror to the people that are watching it,” Mehiel insists. The film confronts audiences with their own biases and refuses any tidy conclusions.

But for Mehiel, the film will forever be remembered as a highlight of a career that is only bound to get bigger and more exciting. Just this year, they spent the summer at the Williamstown Theatre Festival starring in Jeremy O. Harris’ new play as well as serving as head of production for “Mother, Daughter, Holy Spirit,” a grassroots fundraiser for the Trans Justice Funding Project, all while continuing to pursue their various interests as artist, writer, and filmmaker. In that context, “After the Hunt” stands now less as a calling card than as a reminder of how far they’ve come and yet how much further they want to go. That film, now playing in theaters and coming soon to Prime Video, will widen the scope and reach of their artistry.

“Watching it, I was like, ‘I fit right into the fabric of the movie,’” they say. “On a personal journey level, I feel confident that I have the skill, the talent and the experience at this point to work with the masters that I dream of working with (if the sexy French filmmaker, Julia Ducournau, ever reads this interview, she should know that I want to work with her).”

Or, in much simpler terms that echo an ethos they’ve brought to bear on and off screen: “I just feel ready and able to actualize the things that I have been dreaming about for a long time.”

The recent agreement between the United States and Australia to invest $3 billion in critical minerals and rare earths projects represents a significant step in the Western effort to reduce dependency on China for strategically vital resources.
While the deal has been heralded by Washington as a turning point in global supply diversification, a closer examination suggests that China’s entrenched dominance in rare earth mining, refining, and magnet manufacturing will remain largely unchallenged in the foreseeable future.

This analysis situates the agreement within the broader geopolitical and economic context of resource security, outlines its potential and limitations, and assesses its implications for the evolving balance of power in the Indo-Pacific region.

Rare Earths and Strategic Dependence

Rare earth elements (REEs) are indispensable for modern technology spanning clean energy, defence systems, electric vehicles, and semiconductors. Despite their name, REEs are relatively abundant in the Earth’s crust; their scarcity lies in the technically complex, costly, and environmentally damaging refining process.

Over the past three decades, China has systematically consolidated control over this value chain, developing low-cost refining and magnet production capabilities that now underpin 90% of global processing capacity, 69% of mining, and 98% of magnet manufacturing (Goldman Sachs, 2024).

This dominance has translated into a form of strategic leverage. Beijing has repeatedly demonstrated its ability to weaponize resource supply chains, most recently through export curbs on gallium, graphite, and rare earth magnets, heightening Western concerns about supply security and industrial resilience.

The United States and its allies, including Japan, Australia, and the European Union, have consequently prioritized critical mineral diversification as a matter of both economic sovereignty and national security.

Key Issues:

Technological Dependence:
Western economies lack refining and magnet manufacturing infrastructure comparable to China’s mature ecosystem, which benefits from decades of state investment and technological standardization.

Environmental and Regulatory Constraints:
High environmental standards, community opposition, and lengthy approval timelines in the U.S. and Australia increase project costs and delay production, deterring private investment.

Market Distortion by State Subsidies:
Chinese producers benefit from state-backed financing, subsidized energy, and vertically integrated industrial networks that suppress global prices, making it difficult for Western firms to compete without government intervention.

Investor and Consumer Behavior:
Global manufacturers continue to prioritize low-cost Chinese supply, perpetuating dependency despite policy rhetoric about diversification.

Geopolitical Fragmentation:
Efforts to “de-risk” supply chains are hindered by divergent national strategies among Western allies, with varying levels of commitment to resource security versus environmental and economic priorities.

The U.S.-Australia Critical Minerals Pact

On October 20, 2025, President Donald Trump announced a joint U.S.-Australia agreement committing $3 billion to the exploration, mining, and processing of critical minerals.
The pact includes provisions for a price floor a mechanism designed to ensure profitability for Western miners operating in markets distorted by Chinese state subsidies and environmental cost advantages.

According to the White House, U.S. investments will “unlock deposits worth over $53 billion” in Australian reserves. The U.S. Export-Import Bank (EXIM) has issued seven Letters of Interest totaling $2.2 billion to Australian mining firms, including Arafura Rare Earths, developer of the Nolans project in Western Australia.

While these measures indicate a serious financial commitment, they also highlight the industrial asymmetry between emerging Western projects and China’s mature, vertically integrated supply chains.

Economic Feasibility and Industry Timelines

Industry experts have expressed caution regarding the feasibility of rapid supply diversification.
Barrenjoey analyst Dan Morgan noted that the “time frame for various projects to be ready even by 2027 would be heroic,” reflecting the inherent capital intensity and regulatory delays in rare earth development.

Similarly, Dylan Kelly of Terra Capital observed that the current pricing of NdPr oxide the most traded rare earth compound “does not reflect a market dynamic that can sustain a significant fall in prices,” implying that a price floor mechanism may be essential for commercial viability.

Such perspectives underline the structural constraint that industrial policy cannot compress geological and technological timelines. New rare earth projects require multi-year investments in exploration, environmental clearance, and processing technology transfer.

Strategic and Geopolitical Dimensions

The U.S.-Australia pact is emblematic of a broader strategic realignment in the Indo-Pacific, wherein critical minerals are increasingly framed not merely as commodities but as strategic enablers of power projection.
For Washington, the deal aligns with its economic security agenda to “de-risk” supply chains and reduce China’s capacity to use resource dependencies as geopolitical tools.

For Canberra, it represents both an economic opportunity and a strategic burden. Australia possesses abundant mineral reserves but faces pressure to align its export policies with U.S. strategic interests, potentially straining its trade relations with China still its largest trading partner.

At a deeper level, the agreement signals the emergence of a critical minerals bloc, mirroring patterns seen in energy geopolitics. Yet, the absence of comparable refining infrastructure, skilled labor pools, and environmental cost advantages continues to limit Western competitiveness.

Market Reactions and Corporate Beneficiaries

The deal has already produced identifiable commercial winners.
Arafura Rare Earths and Syrah Resources have reported increased investor interest following the announcement, reflecting market confidence in Western government-backed financing.
Arafura’s CFO, Peter Sherrington, emphasized that the U.S.-Australia initiative “de-risks raising money from an equity perspective,” while its CEO projected full project funding by early 2026.

However, as Syrah CEO Shaun Verner noted, unless global consumers “cure their addiction to lowest-cost supply from China,” even well-financed Western projects will struggle to secure stable demand. This underscores a behavioral dimension of market dependency, wherein private-sector procurement patterns perpetuate Chinese dominance despite political rhetoric of diversification.

Implications for Global Resource Governance

In the short term, the U.S.-Australia agreement is unlikely to materially alter the global rare earth landscape.
China’s entrenched advantages in scale, technology, and regulatory flexibility will ensure continued dominance through the decade.
Nevertheless, the pact marks an important symbolic and structural step toward building alternative supply chains, particularly if accompanied by coordinated policies on processing technology, environmental standards, and market access.

In the medium to long term, such agreements could catalyze a Western-led industrial ecosystem, reducing strategic vulnerability and fostering innovation in cleaner extraction methods. However, success will depend on sustained political will, technological breakthroughs, and a willingness to absorb short-term economic inefficiencies for long-term security gains.

Analysis: Strategic Patience Over Political Rhetoric

The U.S.-Australia rare earths pact represents a strategically coherent but operationally constrained response to China’s resource hegemony. It reflects the increasing securitization of economic policy in an era of great-power competition.

Yet, as this analysis indicates, the pathway to rare earth independence will be long, capital-intensive, and geopolitically fraught.
While the agreement sends a strong signal of Western resolve, the transformation of intent into industrial capability will take years, not electoral cycles.

Until then, China’s dominance will persist not simply because of its mineral reserves, but due to its unparalleled integration of industrial policy, technological expertise, and geopolitical strategy.

With information from Reuters.

The Indian city’s Maratha Mandir has been holding daily screenings of Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge since it released in 1995.

A theatre in Mumbai is celebrating 30 years of screening a much-loved Bollywood romance that has become India’s longest-running film.

On Monday, Maratha Mandir theatre in Mumbai, the financial capital of India, will mark three decades of daily screenings of Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge (The Bravehearted Will Take the Bride), which shot actors Shah Rukh Khan and Kajol to superstardom.

The film, widely known to fans as DDLJ, redefined modern Hindi romance and continues to draw hundreds of cinemagoers to its morning screenings with its tale of young lovers bucking tradition since its release on October 20, 1995.

“I have seen it about 30 times … and I will continue watching it,” Mohammad Shakir, 60, told the AFP news agency as he bought a ticket for 40 rupees ($0.45).

Manoj Desai, the head of the cinema located near Bombay Central Station, told AFP that weekday crowds tend to be made up of university students and young couples.

“On Sundays, you will find around 500 people, even after 30 years,” said Desai.

Clash of values

The film, which far outstrips the five-year run of the 1975 action-thriller Sholay (Embers) at another Mumbai theatre, revolves around the contrast between the more liberal values of second-generation Indians overseas and the conservative values of their parents.

Desai said it was common for audiences to break into cheers and applause during the film’s climax, when the heroine runs alongside a moving train into her lover’s arms.

“This is the goosebump moment,” Desai said. “The father letting his daughter go, saying she won’t find a better partner to spend her life with.”

It is a message that continues to resonate with younger viewers, even those who were not born when it was released.

“In our generation today, we often see transactional relationships,” Omkar Saraf, 23, told AFP. “But in this film, the hero crosses all boundaries to win his love with no expectations.

“We have watched it on television, on our mobiles, but the big screen gives us goosebumps.”

‘Cultural monument’

Desai said one die-hard fan of the movie had been coming to screenings for 20 years, while for others, the film had played a part in their own love stories.

One couple watched it while dating, before inviting Desai to their wedding. “They went abroad for their honeymoon – and came back to watch the movie,” Desai said.

The film’s daily screenings were almost discontinued in 2015, but backlash from fans meant the decision was reversed, the Hindustan Times newspaper reported.

Film critic Baradwaj Rangan said the film had enduring appeal in a country still navigating the tensions between traditional and modern values.

“It represents a certain point in Indian culture, and that is why it is still loved,” Rangan said, adding that it “perfectly captured” the friction between two generations.

“The film has become a kind of cultural monument,” he said. “I think it is going to be playing forever.”

North Korea’s leader Kim Jong Un vowed to turn the country into a ‘socialist paradise’ during a huge ceremony for the 80th anniversary of the founding of the Workers’ Party of Korea.

Kim Jong Un claims no mistakes made in 80-year history of ruling party at event attended by Chinese and Russian leaders.

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has declared the country’s global standing is growing stronger and promised to transform the country into an “affluent socialist paradise” during an event marking the 80th anniversary of the governing Workers’ Party of Korea, according to state media.

At a speech at May Day stadium in Pyongyang on Thursday, Kim said the party had not made “a single mistake or error” in its 80-year history, leading the country on a path of ascent riding on the wisdom and strength of the people, KCNA state news agency said on Friday.

“Today, we stand before the world as a mighty people with no obstacles we cannot overcome and no great achievement we cannot accomplish,” he said, KCNA reported.

North Korea has long been one of the most isolated and insular nations in the world, suffering economic difficulties while building up its nuclear weapons capabilities.

Friday’s events follow Kim’s visit to Beijing last month for China’s 80th anniversary of its World War II victory, standing with Chinese President Xi Jinping and Russian President Vladimir Putin at a massive military parade in his first public appearance on the multilateral diplomatic stage.

United States President Donald Trump suggested that Russian, Chinese and North Korean leaders were conspiring against the United States as they gathered in Beijing, saying “no one even had this in their thoughts”.

In a post on Truth Social, Trump wrote to China’s leader Xi Jinping at the time: “Please give my warmest regards to Vladimir Putin and Kim Jong-un, as you conspire against The United States of America.”

KCNA did not name the guests attending Thursday’s events. Chinese Premier Li Qiang, Vietnamese leader To Lam and Russian Security Council Deputy Chairman Dmitry Medvedev had arrived in Pyongyang to attend anniversary celebrations, state media had reported.

Mass games and art performances were held at the stadium, with Kim accompanied by guests whom the large crowd gathered greeted with cheers “that shook the capital’s night sky”, KCNA said.

Al Jazeera’s Jack Barton, reporting from Seoul, said according to a South Korean government adviser, North Korea was “no longer the most isolated state in the world”.

“The message here is also … that he has consolidated his power at home and now increasingly on the international stage,” Barton added.

Kim talks tough on US and promises to build a ‘socialist paradise’

Kim said that North Korea has been pushing for the simultaneous development of nuclear weapons and the economy to cope with “growing nuclear war threats by the US imperialists”, according to state media.

“Our party and government are still coping with our adversaries’ ferocious political and military moves of pressure by pursuing harder-line policies, holding fast to firm principles and employing brave, unflinching countermeasures,” Kim said.

“This is powerfully propelling the growth of the progressive camp against war and hegemony.”

Last month, Kim Jong Un had suggested that he is open to talks with the US if Washington stops insisting that his country give up its nuclear weapons.

“If the United States drops the absurd obsession with denuclearising us and accepts reality, and wants genuine peaceful coexistence, there is no reason for us not to sit down with the United States,” Kim said in late September.

Kim on Friday also expressed confidence in overcoming difficulties and drastically improving the economy in the near future. “I will surely turn this country into a more affluent and beautiful land and into the best socialist paradise in the world,” Kim said.

The North Korean leader also held talks with Chinese Premier Li Qiang on Thursday, praising the two countries’ “friendly and cooperative relations”.

Kim praised Li’s visit as “showing the invariable support and special friendly feeling towards the WPK and the government and people of the DPRK” as well as Beijing’s efforts to maintain “traditional DPRK-China friendly and cooperative relations and further develop them”, KCNA reported.

On a recent Friday afternoon in London, Jarvis Cocker, 62, is musing over the suit he’s just picked up from the Portobello Road Market: “I’m quite pleased with it,” he says.

He’s also grabbed some clogs — not to wear but to look at — and he notes that his wife “hates them,” but he’s happily in awe of the pair.

The outing represents a blissful break for Pulp’s leading man; it’s been a little more than two months since the group’s eighth studio effort, which debuted at No. 1 on the U.K. album charts. “More” comes more than two decades after their last project, “We Love Life,” released in 2001.

“I’ve come to realize over 24 years that I enjoy making music,” Cocker says. “It’s a main source of enjoyment. I mean, I enjoy being with my wife and stuff like that. But in terms of creativity, it’s my favorite thing to do.”

When Cocker first started making music — around “15 or 16” — he saw forming a band as a way for him to “navigate the world at a safe distance.”

“I was always quite a shy kid, so it was difficult for me to talk to people,” he recalls. “To talk to people from a stage, rather than to their faces… that worked to a certain extent.”

Though generally considered the “underdogs” of Britpop, Pulp produced some of the most intriguing sounds of the ’90s.

(Tom Jackson)

But the band’s early attempts to make the grade had fallen flat on its face. Unlike some of the group’s Britpop peers, Pulp had been around since the ’80s — Blur, Oasis, and Suede all released their debuts in the first half of the ’90s.

“It” came out as a mini-LP of sorts, under Red Rhino Records, with a short 31-minute run time over eight tracks.

“It was a deafening silence,” Cocker says of its reception. “It really didn’t sell anything at all … We played a few concerts, and then the band fell apart.”

He adds that at that point, he was considering giving up music, shipping off to Liverpool and studying English. He’d been offered entry into a program there, but two months before he was due to start, he got a call from Russell Senior.

“[He] asked me what I was doing, and I said, ‘Oh, I’m giving up music, it’s not working out’” he says. “We had a rehearsal just him, me, and Magnus Doyle [brother of Candida Doyle, Pulp’s eventual keyboardist], and it was exciting.”

Notably, he remembers thinking, “I don’t want to go read English. I’m going to stay in Sheffield and see what happens.”

Though the group would inch closer to what we now know as Pulp’s lineup, the musicians faced similar problems: They “didn’t sell anything” and were “quite ignored.” In fact, it wasn’t until Cocker went off to college to study filmmaking at Central Saint Martins — taking a sabbatical from Pulp and then returning in 1991 — that the band was asked to play a concert in ’92 and gained some traction.

Later that year, Britpop fame followed, as they were asked to play a Parisian festival alongside some would-be familiar faces: Blur and Lush.

“It was like we had some friends at last,” he jokes.

A historic run of releases came in the following decade, with “His ‘n’ Hers,” “Different Class” and “This Is Hardcore” all concocted in a period of four years.

“Having been a real … wilderness for a long time, and feeling very out on a limb … to be considered part of a movement, at least at first, was exciting,” he recalls.

“Once we actually got a chance to become popular, especially after ‘Common People’ had been a hit … then we had to record ‘Different Class’ very quickly to kind of capitalize on that.”

But the grind began to slow down to a halt. He confesses that after Pulp released “This Is Hardcore” in 1998, he began contemplating whether he “should still be in a band.” In the face of growing popularity, Cocker’s image became more well known, and the lens began to close in.

“It just put me into a different kind of social situation that I didn’t really enjoy,” he remembers. “So, I was conflicted.”

Around 2002 — one year after the release of “We Love Life” — the group quietly disbanded. In the more than two decades in between, Cocker positioned himself as a bit of a renaissance man, while pulling away from the Pulp lifestyle and delving into a solo career.

He waded into broadcast media, serving as a host on BBC Radio 6 Music’s “Jarvis Cocker’s Sunday Service,” wrote a memoir titled “Mother, Brother, Lover,” and made a cameo in “Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire” in 2005 as part of the fictional band the Weird Sisters. His bandmates? Jonny Greenwood, Jason Buckle and Pulp bass guitarist Steve Mackey.

“I have written a book, and I presented radio shows, and I enjoy those. But music, to me … it’s a way of me making sense of what has happened to me in my life,” he says. “I write about things that have happened, and I, in a way, dramatize them by putting music to it.”

“I fell in love with music at a very early age, and so it feels like a magical thing to be able to make something that you like so much,” he adds.

In this lengthy love affair with music, it was inevitable that he would return to his first love: Pulp.

“More” returns to the band’s sonic roots, with thoughtful tunes such as “Grown Ups” and “A Sunset.”

(Tom Jackson)

When the band began working on “More,” Cocker’s main concern was that his bandmates would have thought they were “being sentenced to three years’ jail time.”

“I was loath to say to the band, ‘Let’s make an album,’ just because the last two Pulp albums that we’ve done, ‘This Is Hardcore’ and ‘We Love Life,’ had taken so long to record,” he explains.

For further context, “This is Hardcore” took around three years to record. “More” would only take three weeks and was released on June 6.

“There were songs that I knew could be good, but we’d never managed to realize them properly,” he says. “And then there were newer songs, and some songs that I’d done that I tried to play in the band, “Jarvis,” but hadn’t quite worked out.”

“The thing that makes a song good … You can’t control it, and sometimes it works easily, and sometimes it doesn’t work at all … we were just lucky, maybe because we’d left it for a long time.”

He also credits the album’s swift completion to working with music producer James Ford, who previously refined tracks for a seemingly endless list of artists. Some recent highlights include Blur’s “The Ballad of Darren,” Fontaines D.C.’s “Romance” and “Forever, Howlong,” by Black Country, New Road.

“He created a really good environment for us to record in, and everybody felt quite relaxed,” Cocker says. “It seemed like it was ready. So, it was just, ‘OK, it’s ripe. Just pick it from the tree and eat it.’”

Fresh off the June release, Cocker also kick-started a tour with dates across the U.K. and Ireland. In September, he landed in Atlanta for its North American leg, which features two shows in Los Angeles.

In particular, these stand out because Pulp will play alongside LCD Soundsystem at the Hollywood Bowl on Thursday and Friday. Simply put, Murphy said, “We’re playing at the Hollywood Bowl, would you like to come play with us?” — to which Cocker replied, “That would be good.”

It’s all been going relatively swimmingly for him, who simply sticks to his ways. But who is Jarvis Cocker in 2025?

He pauses a moment before speaking.

“It’s hard to put it into words, but I came to the realization that I wanted to live, or attempt to live, more in a world of feelings than in a world of ideas,” he says, thoughtfully. “So yeah, that’s my experiment at the moment. I’ll let you know how it goes.”

Marking 80 years of the United Nations, Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said its principles are “under assault as never before”. Gaza’s devastation, along with wars in Sudan and Ukraine, was cited as proof of the urgent need for unity.