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The reported truce follows the release of 360 villagers abducted during a Boko Haram attack in northeastern Nigeria.

The Nigerian government has been involved in a secret ceasefire with Boko Haram for the past three months, according to an investigation by The New Humanitarian, in a development that could mark a rare pause in years of fighting in northeastern Nigeria.

The reported truce began in June after negotiations that secured the release of 360 civilians abducted from Ngoshe village, in the foothills of the Mandara Mountains near Nigeria’s border with Cameroon, The New Humanitarian reported.

Three people with contacts among Boko Haram members, including some senior figures, independently told the organisation that the ceasefire had been in effect since June and was likely to be extended for another 40 days.

Two of the sources said attacks had stopped in communities around Ngoshe, which have repeatedly been targeted by the armed group.

Truce followed mass abduction

The 360 villagers were abducted in March during a Boko Haram attack on a nearby army base, according to The New Humanitarian.

The negotiations that led to their release reportedly included a payment of five billion naira ($3.7m) by the Nigerian government.

The alleged payment has become controversial in Nigeria, with the government denying that it paid a ransom.

The New Humanitarian said it contacted government, defence and army spokespeople to verify the reported ceasefire but received no response before publication.

Al Jazeera has not been able to independently verify the reported ceasefire or the alleged payment.

The reported agreement does not include Islamic State West Africa Province (ISWAP), a rival armed group that operates in northeastern Nigeria and the wider Lake Chad region.

Fighting between Boko Haram and ISWAP has continued, according to The New Humanitarian.

Government publicly rejects talks

The reported ceasefire comes despite the Nigerian government’s public rejection of negotiations with Boko Haram, which is designated as a “terrorist organisation” by the Nigerian authorities.

President Bola Tinubu has instead focused on expanding the military’s capacity to fight armed groups. In July, he announced plans to recruit 30,000 additional personnel and create four new army divisions.

Behind the scenes, however, there have been repeated attempts to establish dialogue with Boko Haram, according to The New Humanitarian, citing security officials, diplomats and mediators familiar with previous efforts.

Those efforts have included ceasefire arrangements that eventually collapsed.

Conflict researcher Malik Samuel told The New Humanitarian that the latest reported agreement should not necessarily be interpreted as the beginning of a lasting peace process.

“It could be just a temporary, tactical ceasefire that benefits both sides, but doesn’t really affect the trajectory of the war,” Samuel said.

The current arrangement could also allow Boko Haram to strengthen its position, with two sources warning that the group could use the pause to move equipment into the Mandara Mountains, The New Humanitarian reported.

Boko Haram has carried out attacks and kidnappings in northeastern Nigeria and neighbouring countries around the Lake Chad region since 2009. The group has since fractured into several factions, while ISWAP operates as a separate and rival armed group.

Greek teenage star Konstantinos Karetsas faced ‘circulatory problems’ and was stretchered off against Villarreal.

Borussia Dortmund teenage star Konstantinos Karetsas was being treated at the hospital after slumping to the turf 25 minutes into his Champions League debut, the German club said.

“Konstantinos Karetsas had to leave the field due to circulatory problems,” Dortmund said in a statement late on Tuesday. “Kosta is doing well under the circumstances and is on his way to the hospital for further tests.”

Facing Villarreal, the 18-year-old Greek prospect passed the ball to a teammate, then signalled his distress to the referee before sitting on the grass.

Karetsas was treated lying down and then taken away on a stretcher. The score was 0-0 at the time in what became a 3-2 win for Dortmund.

“I hope and I think that everything is OK, and I hope that he’s back and fit with us soon,” Dortmund goalkeeper Gregor Kobel told a broadcaster.

Karetsas and his Greek teammate Giannis Konstantelias were marquee signings for Dortmund in the off-season. Former Belgium youth international Karetsas joined for $34.9m from Genk and Konstantelias for $30.2m from PAOK.

Karetsas was reportedly a target for many clubs after impressing at Genk last season. He set up 11 goals in 28 Jupiler Pro League appearances. He signed a five-year contract through June 2031.

“With his creativity and game intelligence, Kos will enrich our team,” Dortmund sporting director Ole Book said. “He is technically very skilled and has the ability to find quick solutions in tight spaces, especially in the final third.”

Karetsas played for Belgium’s youth teams before opting to represent his parents’ country and making his debut for Greece in March 2025. He has scored three goals in 10 international appearances.

Meanwhile, 23-year-old Konstantelias’ season was likely ended last month by an ACL injury on his Bundesliga debut.

NEW YORK: Israel’s “decades-long ethnic cleansing” of the Palestinian people “has reached its height through the commission of genocide,” Palestine’s permanent observer to the UN told the Security Council on Tuesday.

Riyad Mansour cited a string of statements by senior Israeli officials that amount to open declarations of a plan to forcibly remove Palestinians from Gaza and the West Bank.

In a five-page letter to Security Council President Jerome Bonnafont, Mansour said Israeli officials “are proudly declaring their ethnic cleansing plan, enunciating their decades-long policy to remove the Palestinian people from their land, and rapidly and actively implementing their crimes on the ground.”

The letter, seen by Arab News, quotes Defense Minister Israel Katz telling an interviewer on Sept. 2 that “there’s no real solution for Gaza in the end without migration,” and that Israel is “organized and prepared to get them out — by sea, by air, by every way possible.”

Katz said “the plan hasn’t been cancelled; it’s being discussed all the time, even now, and I think there’s no other solution for everyone’s good.”

He added that “today, 70 percent of Gaza’s territory is a desert thanks to what the Israeli army has done; there are no longer any inhabitants or houses there,” and that Israeli forces have “reoccupied the refugee camps in the West Bank and expelled 40,000 Palestinians.”

Katz denied the existence of Jewish settler violence, saying: “There is no Jewish terror. I have cancelled that term. Terrorism is committed by those who act against the State of Israel.”

On Sept. 7, he said he and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had instructed the military “to prepare for the opening of a full-scale war” in the West Bank, including “the evacuation of residents from cities and villages … exactly as we did in the security zones in Gaza,” and announced plans for “targeted eliminations” of senior Palestinian Authority officials.

The letter cites Netanyahu filming himself at a military post in Gaza on Sept. 2 saying: “We are not withdrawing. We are staying on this line. We control 60 percent of the strip. And there is still more to come.”

The same day, it says, he visited a religious school in the city of Sderot and looked on as young settlers chanted: “And we will take vengeance, one eye for the two eyes of Palestine, may its name be erased.”

National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir unveiled a plan on Sept. 3 called “Disengagement 710,” which he said would “encourage the voluntary migration of 1.86 million Gazans within seven years.”

He said 250,000 Palestinians would be removed from Gaza in the first year and a million within three years, adding: “It is possible. It is realistic. It is in our hands. It is within our ability.”

Ben-Gvir said a survey found that “76 percent of Israeli society support encouraging immigration from Gaza.”

The letter references a video generated by artificial intelligence that Ben-Gvir posted showing Palestinian detainees entering what it described as a slaughterhouse-style conveyor system, and a separate video of him telling women detainees: “The good conditions in the prisons are over … I’m glad we lowered these conditions to the bare minimum.”

The letter links this rhetoric to reports of Israeli soldiers marking Palestinian detainees with numbers on their bodies, including a case in which a man identified as Ahmad Al-Hathnawi was released with the number 44 written on his forehead. The Israeli military acknowledged the practise, saying “lessons have been learned.”

Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, who also holds a ministerial post within the Defense Ministry overseeing settlement policy, announced a new settlement near Bethlehem on Sept. 3 and said: “We want to bring a million settlers.”

He repeated the assertion that “there is no such thing as a Palestinian people,” and on Sept. 7 said the PA “should be brought down,” declaring that the Oslo Accords are “null and void anyways.”

Israel’s Chief Rabbi David Yosef told a crowd on Aug. 22 that Palestinians “are not a people” and “have no rights here.” The crowd responded: “Amen. May the Holy One, blessed be He, destroy all of Gaza.”

The letter documents the “infrastructure of ethnic cleansing” on the ground, saying Israeli forces demolished the village of Khirbet Al-Tabban in the past week, displacing more than 70 people and bringing to 47 the number of Palestinian communities erased since October 2023.

It says Israeli settlers and soldiers killed teenagers Omar Al-Nassan, 17, and Khalil Abu Alia, 16, in the village of Al-Mughayyir the same day Israel’s president told CNN that his country was making a “major effort” to curb settler violence.

Citing a UN report issued on Sept. 4, Mansour said Israeli forces “killed civilians, destroyed hundreds of homes … and went door to door forcing residents to leave” in the Jenin, Nur Shams and Tulkarm refugee camps, and displaced families “were told by Israeli officers there would be no more refugee camps and that they should all go to Jordan.” More than 40,000 Palestinians remain displaced from the camps, the letter says.

In Gaza, 2.3 million people, including a million children, remain confined to less than a third of the territory’s area, with 1.9 million displaced and two-thirds of households living in tents.

More than 30,000 tents are being held at border crossings against a need for 130,000 before winter, and roughly two-thirds of Gaza’s population face crisis-level food insecurity or worse.

More than 30 Palestinians were killed in Gaza between Aug. 28 and Sept. 7, including 8-year-old Wafaa Akila and her father.

They were killed as he drove her to school, bringing to more than 270 the number of children killed since the ceasefire was announced.

Mansour welcomed recent moves by Britain, France, Canada, Spain, the Netherlands, Ireland, Norway and Belgium to restrict settlement products and sanction those financing the settlement enterprise, as well as similar steps under consideration in Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Poland, Portugal and Sweden.

He called on the Security Council to go further, urging states to halt arms transfers, close diplomatic missions in Jerusalem, and impose travel bans and asset freezes.

“Action, not statements, will help the Palestinian people to survive Israel’s ethnic cleansing campaign,” Mansour wrote, calling it “the most organized, methodic, and broadcasted ethnic cleansing campaign in modern history.”

The letter is the 892nd that Palestine has sent to the Security Council on the situation since September 2000, according to the Palestinian mission to the UN.

BRASILIA: A judge ordered the reinstatement of Brazil’s federal police chief on Wednesday after another judge ordered his suspension amid a deepening crisis in the nation’s top court.

Supreme Court Justice Flavio Dino ordered police director-general Andrei Rodrigues to return to his duties, overturning a decision Tuesday by Justice Andre Mendonca, who had suspended him after accusing the police of illegally spying on him.

Scandal has engulfed the court ahead of October presidential elections after it emerged last week that a disgraced banker charged with fraud apparently asked one of its judges for help, days before his arrest.

The United States Republican Party – and its talisman President Donald Trump – is descending on Dallas, Texas, to host a rare convention before the midterm elections in November.

Usually reserved for presidential election cycles, Trump’s call to hold the high-cost event before the November 3 midterm vote has underscored both the president’s unorthodox campaign style and the urgency of the political moment for his Republican Party.

Trump’s approval rating has tanked in the lead-up to the midterm vote, with polls pointing to a panoply of factors, most notably the US-Israel war on Iran and its knock-on economic effects for US consumers.

The lack of enthusiasm threatens what are already considered long-shot odds in the Republicans’ effort to hold on to control of the House of Representatives. Shifting public opinion has also put control of the Senate increasingly in play, although Democrats still face an uphill battle to pull off an upset.

A loss of control in either chamber would serve as a major check on Trump’s authority in the final two years of his second term.

But not all Republicans have bought into Trump and the party’s claims that the convention will spur voter turnout.

Several, particularly those in the tightest races, have kept the event at arm’s length amid concerns that associating with the president could only further mobilise his detractors.

Here’s what to know:

When and where is the Republican midterm convention?

The convention will be hosted at the American Airlines Center in Dallas, Texas, on Wednesday, September 9 and Thursday, September 10.

The event is expected to run from 3pm to 9pm Central Time (20:00 to 02:00 GMT) on both days.

Trump is scheduled to speak on both nights, including a Wednesday address and the convention’s closing keynote on Thursday from 8pm to 9pm Central Time (01:00 to 02:00 GMT on Friday).

US Vice President JD Vance will close out night one with a speech.

Is this a typical political convention?

Not at all.

The Republican National Committee (RNC), the party’s official organising body, has billed the Dallas midterm convention as a “first in American political history”.

Both Democratic and Republican national conventions have historically capped the primary season before a presidential election. The emphasis has historically been on the presidential nomination process during the largely ceremonial events.

During those conventions, so-called “delegates” from every state pledge their votes for a candidate based on the primary election outcome from their home state.

A candidate who secures the required majority of delegates formally becomes the party’s presidential nominee at the convention.

Parties also typically hold several smaller meetings surrounding the event to establish and release the party’s official platform.

Why are Republicans holding a midterm convention in 2026?

To start with, there will be no nominating process – presidential or otherwise – during the event, as there is no presidential election in 2026.

Instead, the convention has taken the shape of a supercharged campaign rally and fundraiser.

It has been pitched as an opportunity to introduce candidates in punishing races to potential donors and to give a clear, if Trump-dominated, party message as the races enter their final stretch.

The RNC has promised “a primetime showcase for President Trump’s success, candidates, and causes that have propelled the 2026 midterms to unprecedented focus”.

What’s on the schedule?

There will be quite a lot. The official programme lists “53 items and speakers” on night one, followed by 56 more on night two.

The first night will focus on issues including tax cuts, healthcare affordability, immigration, border policy, trade and domestic manufacturing.

The second night will focus more on affordability and families, including policies related to taxes on tips, overtime and Social Security.

The subject areas hew closely to Trump’s wider political messaging.

The official programme gives relatively little attention to several other subjects. The US-Israel war with Iran and Trump’s aggressive tariff policy receive scant mention.

Who else is speaking?

Trump and Vance are the convention’s marquee speakers, but an array of prominent Republicans and candidates are expected to feature across the two-day programme.

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton is likely to get a healthy amount of stage time. Paxton is running for Senate against Democrat James Talarico, whose early lead in polling has raised alarm bells for Republicans. A Democrat has not won statewide office in Texas since 1994.

“We’re going to have a lot of speakers, and the ones we want to focus on will be obviously Ken Paxton,” Trump told reporters last week. “We gotta get him elected.”

The race is particularly personal for Trump, who endorsed MAGA-aligned Paxton over Republican Senator John Cornyn, a four-term incumbent seen by many as the surest challenger for Talarico.

Will Trump’s convention help Republicans in the midterms?

It remains to be seen whether the convention will help to turn out voters in a meaningful way.

Trump has proven a canny campaigner in the past, leveraging his eye for television spectacle to build support and turn out low-propensity voters. But several factors could limit the impact.

Trump’s Thursday night speech conflicts with the opening games of the National Football League (NFL) season. The event also runs up against several memorial events for the September 11, 2001 attacks throughout the week.

Some Republican officials have also reportedly criticised the hasty announcement of the event, which Trump called for in late June, raising questions over whether organisers will indeed be able to achieve the spectacle envisioned.

For his part, Trump enters the convention with his approval rating continuing to tank, hovering at a 38 percent average in major polls. Several of the most recent polls, including a Reuters-Ipsos poll and a Financial Times-Focaldata poll conducted in late August, reflected only a 33 percent approval.

Trump entered office in January 2025 sitting at about 52 percent approval.

Why are some Republicans skipping?

To be sure, several Republicans in key races have said they will attend the convention.

They include former Congressman Mike Rogers, who is running against Democrat Abdul El-Sayed for an open Senate seat in Michigan; Ohio Senator Jon Husted, who is facing an unnerving challenge from former Democratic Senator Sherrod Brown; and Georgia Congressman Mike Collins, who is seeking to unseat Democratic Senator Jon Ossoff.

Others have been wary.

Trump’s policies in his second term have cast a long shadow, leaving many candidates calculating whether attendance could backfire and instead energise voters opposed to Trump.

Democratic primary turnout in several key states – including Michigan, Wisconsin, Texas and Georgia – has soared this year, while Republican turnout has remained steady but unextraordinary, as reported by The Associated Press news agency. That has been a worrying sign for Republicans.

Maine Senator Susan Collins, a Republican incumbent seen as vulnerable in her race against Democrat Troy Jackson, has been among those who have said they will not attend.

Several candidates in key House races have pointed to prior commitments.

Representative Mariannette Miller-Meeks told The Bulwark she preferred to spend her time in her home district in Iowa, where she faces a challenge from Democrat Christina Bohannan.

“Because I have a district that I have to be in and take care of, so I’ll be in my district,” she explained about her decision.

Miller-Meeks eked out a victory over Bohannan in 2024, winning by a margin of just 0.1 percent.

Are Democrats countering?

Several left-leaning groups are organising protests.

House Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries has announced that four Democratic lawmakers will travel to Dallas for counterprogramming during the Republican convention.

However, the cash-strapped Democratic National Committee (DNC) has avoided holding its own midterm convention.

The committee went into debt in the wake of the 2024 presidential election, even putting up its Washington, DC-based headquarters as collateral for a $15m loan, the NOTUS news site reported in July.

The RNC has not yet released a final price tag for its convention.

Authors: Janvi Singhi and Kanav Sharma*

BRICS is moving into a more meaningful phase in its evolution. Its larger membership, considerable resources, population, and markets position it as a voice for the global south. Nevertheless, the fact that the BRICS is economically big does not guarantee that it will turn into a powerful organization. The difficult question is whether BRICS will be able to use the potential of its diversified members to create the institutions and means of collaboration that will meet the needs and interests of different countries, businesses, and banks.

This is where the next chapter of BRICS collaboration will be decided. It is definitely not in need of aspiration. The main question is not whether BRICS will develop a common geopolitical approach but whether BRICS will be able to simplify the issues of cooperation for countries with divergent economic interests and institutional capabilities.

The enlargement of BRICS has brought about both a chance and an enigma. An increased number of members boosts the economic and diplomatic power of the group, but it also entails the presence of more currencies, regulations, economic systems, and foreign policy priorities. States such as India and China may share a desire to amplify the role of developing economies while being in competition with regard to trade, technology, and geopolitics. Resource-rich countries may have their priorities with respect to the manufacturing countries. Financial centers may deal with payment integration differently from countries interested in getting more monetary independence.

The key challenge before BRICS is not about making all the members agree about everything; rather, it is about creating means for cooperation between different countries in the areas where their interests coincide.

This differentiation is essential because BRICS is frequently assessed based on scale indicators, including population, economic output, energy resource reserves, and trade. While these parameters demonstrate the affiliation, the affiliation is not the key to institutional power. BRICS is still functioning as an informal coordinating mechanism and not as a supranational institution due to the absence of an establishing treaty, budget, and secretariat. The conversion of its total economic capabilities into total actions should rely substantially on its members’ coordination. BRICS needs to change its approach, so instead of pursuing expansion, it should focus on implementation.

The issue of cross-border payments can serve as an example. The necessity to improve payment processes within BRICS may be easily explained. International transactions require correspondent banks, multiple currencies, currency exchange, and several commissions. Using local currencies and interoperable payment systems may help reduce some of these expenses and create additional ways of settlements for countries.

However, establishing a new financial structure is much more difficult than just talking about it. The real barriers are technical and institutional: interoperability between national payment systems, regulatory compatibility, foreign exchange liquidity, cybersecurity, anti-money laundering and know-your-customer norms, settlement systems, and trust among the entities participating in the payment system. A domestic payment system cannot simply be hooked up to a foreign payment system without addressing these problems. This leads us to a more practical goal for BRICS countries. Instead of concentrating on the joint BRICS currency, they should work on interoperability among national payment systems.

The example of India’s UPI-PayNow linkage to Singapore shows how this principle works. Two entirely different payment systems can be interlinked without destroying their own systems. The same gap can be figured out at the level of BRICS if all necessary regulations, settlements, and risk management conditions are fulfilled. In order to understand how this can be achieved, BRICS can refer to the examples of other countries that have already applied the same logic.

The same issue of coordination can be observed in trade and supply chains as well. BRICS countries have complementary assets such as resources in energy, agriculture, manufacturing, minerals, technology, and large markets for consumer goods. However, having complementary resources does not automatically result in integrated supply chains.

Businesses need predictable customs, standards that will fit one another, reliable logistics, availability of finance, and clarity of regulation. If countries have different certification systems, digital documents, and technical standards, the theoretical advantages of a large BRICS market will not be fully realized. Therefore, standards will probably prevail over declarations in the end.

So far BRICS has spoken about cooperation of national standard organizations and overcoming technical barriers between trade. Further work is getting cooperation of national standard organizations transferred into standards that will be in demand in real business. Common standards for digital trade documents, selected product certification, customs data, payment systems, and technical standards can connect BRICS economies without full harmonization of their economies.

This method would make it easier to justify politically. There would not be a need for members to give up their power when it comes to buying a wider range of economic policies. The only thing left is for countries with technology to agree on their particular rules where technology will help provide measurable benefits.

The same goes for agricultural projects, as the BRICS countries share similar problems in the fields of food supply, climate, water conservation, and productivity. The BRICS has started pushing for agricultural research and cooperation. So, the question is not whether the BRICS countries have recognized these areas; they already have. The larger question is whether anything can be implemented across borders.

In a situation where one country has effective technology to grow crops and another one has a good way of bringing the crops to a field, BRICS has to find a way to transfer that knowledge or have an organization that can help in that transfer. There should be a value on the moves made regardless of whether formal treaties have been produced or not. This points towards a different institutional model for BRICS: modular cooperation.

BRICS needs to develop a model that allows all members to be part of the major framework and subgroups of interested members cooperating with each other in specific areas that require deep integration. Countries interested in making payments and settlements between them could organize a coalition in charge of finding and implementing technical solutions for that. Those ready to work jointly in the field of agriculture can proceed with agricultural cooperation, while others can focus on critical minerals, logistics, AI technologies, energy, and development finance.

This model recognizes one uncomfortable truth: diversity is BRICS’ asset, but it also acts as an obstacle in its functioning. In a highly heterogeneous grouping, it is impossible to expect rapid integration in view of the differences among its members. Compliance with the needs of all BRICS states only produces long negotiations and ambitious statements that do not work. Modular cooperation, in its turn, enables countries to pursue their own policy while being part of the larger framework.

Moreover, it could also establish a more trustworthy framework for testing. A limited number of members would be given the opportunity to run an initial test of payment or trading procedures, determine any legal or technological obstacles, and welcome other participants once the system is successful. The outcome would be a lowering of the chances of running into challenges that would be involved in the launch of a full project for all members simultaneously. BRICS should also reconsider its parameters of success.

Rather than concentrating on the number of members or the quantity of agreements accepted, BRICS should focus on the outcomes of its activities. There are political benefits to this strategy as well. BRICS will find it difficult to forge sustainable alternatives simply by selling them as counters in the geopolitical confrontation with the West. Governments and businesses respond not just to geopolitical signals but also to incentives. If the BRICS mechanism is cheaper, quicker, safer, and more efficient, then the chances of adoption increase.

This point is especially important for the discussion of de-dollarization. The reduction of dependence on dollar-based systems may in itself be a rational objective for some members; however, viewing de-dollarization as a success in and of itself can overshadow the distinction between geopolitics and economic efficiency. A payment mechanism can only gain credibility if banks and companies use it to solve a problem at hand.

India’s BRICS presidency in 2026 is an excellent opportunity to work on the practical implementation of the above approach. New Delhi can focus on enhancing cooperation based on interoperability and standards, collaboration of sectors, and measurable results. Instead of trying to create a homogenous group, India can create a framework where willing participants will devise their solutions for implementation by others.

Instead of striving to make BRICS like other supranational bodies, we should acknowledge the fact that, given its diversity of membership composition and structure, it is not realistic nor necessary. BRICS differentials provide a comparative advantage of allowing a mix of countries with both different political and economic systems that nevertheless share aspirations for greater policy autonomy and a voice in international affairs.

BRICS does not need to reach consensus on every issue to become successful. What it requires is to be able to determine areas where cooperation can be beneficial economically and create institutions able to do that.

Thus, the biggest problem is not the absence of power. The problem is how to convert power into capacity and capacity into institutions. If BRICS succeeds in this task, its economic capacity will transform from empty statistics into collective power. If it does not, then enlargement might improve visibility of the group, but its effectiveness would stay at the same level.

*Kanav Sharma is a Public Policy Researcher from Jammu & Kashmir with a postgraduate degree in English Literature from the University of Jammu. His interests include public policy, governance, parliamentary and strategic affairs.

LONDON: The algae bloom that clogged intake pipes at Israel’s Mediterranean desalination plants in late August exposed the fragility of a water system that supplies not only Israel, but also Gaza.

Five of Israel’s six coastal desalination plants, which convert seawater into drinking water, shut down after microscopic algae clogged their intake systems, CNN reported on Sept. 4, citing Mekorot, Israel’s national water company.

The plants produce more than 80 percent of Israel’s drinking water, according to Israeli media.

Some privately owned plants have since resumed partial operations. But as of Sept. 3, only one was operating at full capacity. By Sept. 7, two plants remained closed and three others were operating at limited capacity for a ninth consecutive day, The Times of Israel reported.

Authorities responded by restricting water use, increasing withdrawals from reservoirs and the Sea of Galilee, and limiting supplies to agriculture, Haaretz reported.

Mekorot spokesperson Lior Gutman called the disruption unprecedented, according to CNN.

Scientists believe the bloom formed near Egypt’s Nile Delta before Mediterranean currents carried it north along Israel’s coast. The algae extended at least a dozen kilometers, said Edo Bar-Zeev, an associate professor of water research at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev. 

“This is the first time I saw something of this extent,” Bar-Zeev, who has tested coastal water for two decades, told CNN.

Environmental experts say untreated sewage from Gaza may be worsening the nutrient-rich conditions in which algae thrive. Gaza’s six wastewater treatment plants have been damaged or destroyed during the war, allowing untreated sewage to flow into the Mediterranean for months. 

Zalul Environmental Association, an Israeli nonprofit, said in a statement that satellite imagery suggested that pollution feeding the bloom came from both Gaza and the Nile Delta. 

But for Palestinians in Gaza, the crisis did not begin with an algae bloom, but with the destruction of water and sewage infrastructure during the war, compounded by Israeli restrictions on supplies and movement. 

Maysa Yousef, an artist and mother in central Gaza, said she first noticed green algae forming in bottles filled with Mekorot water, which is piped from Israel into Gaza through a network of transmission lines.

“Before Israel announced that the water had become contaminated, we already knew,” Yousef told Arab News. “Every morning, I filled the water bottles, then when I went to wash them in the evening, I found them all covered in algae.”

She said her husband initially dismissed her concern because the water came from Mekorot.

“I told my husband, ‘The water coming to us from Israel is contaminated. It is not clean,’” she said. “He said, ‘No, it is Mekorot water — it is desalinated and treated.’ I told him, ‘No, there is algae in it. Look inside the bottles.’”

Other Gaza residents have shared similar accounts on social media, reporting algae and small worms.

When Israel announced the desalination shutdowns in late August, Mekorot supplies to Gaza were cut off, Yousef said. For many families, the water had been one of the few comparatively safe sources available.

“Gaza relied on Mekorot water because it is close to drinking-water quality,” she said. “Some people drink it although it tastes awful.”

Her family used it for cooking and tea because safe drinking water was already scarce.

The World Health Organization said on Sept. 1 that microbiological contamination in Gaza water samples had risen from less than 6 percent in January to nearly 20 percent in August.

Since 2024, Gaza residents have faced severe water shortages. In many areas, people have reportedly resorted to makeshift latrines as sanitation systems failed.

Nearly 90 percent of Gaza’s water infrastructure, including desalination and wastewater treatment facilities, has been destroyed, according to UN agencies and media reports. Damaged sewage lines have also contaminated the aquifer on which many residents depend.

In February, the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said its partners reported that the Mekorot supply line was fully shut. The line had already been operating at reduced capacity because of two identified leaks, and repairs near a reservoir had not been completed.

Humanitarian groups have increased water trucking to affected neighborhoods, but access remains uneven. In Al-Mawasi, residents have complained that available water is visibly contaminated.

“If you put it in front of a donkey, it would refuse to drink it because it is so filthy and full of worms,” one local woman, whose name is being withheld at her request, said. “But we had no alternative. Otherwise, you die of thirst.” 

The WHO warned in early September that Gaza’s deteriorating water quality was raising the risk of disease outbreaks. Winter rains could further spread sewage and contaminated water through overcrowded displacement sites, the agency said.

Reinhilde Van de Weerdt, the WHO representative for the Occupied Territories, said microbiological contamination found in water samples had nearly tripled since the beginning of 2026.

Cases of acute watery diarrhea nearly doubled, from about 30,000 in March to more than 58,000 in August, she told a weekly briefing in Geneva. 

Yousef said her husband was among those who became ill after drinking contaminated water.

“About two weeks ago, my husband started having stomach pains,” she said. His condition worsened and he needed to go to the hospital. With no transportation available, the family walked to Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in Deir Al-Balah. 

At the hospital, she said, care was being delivered in tents and essential services were scarce. After running tests, they discovered that he suffered from an inflammation of the stomach lining caused by consuming contaminated water. 

“Now he is forbidden from drinking water except imported bottled drinking water,” Yousef said. “No coffee, no soft drinks, and only limited vegetables and fruit, and so on.” 

Gaza’s health system has been devastated by the war, with hospitals and other medical facilities damaged or destroyed and restrictions limiting the entry of medicines, medical supplies and fuel.

For Gaza’s residents, the algae bloom was not an isolated environmental disruption but another sign of a broader collapse: a water system already battered by war, damaged infrastructure and the loss of basic public health protections.

Yemen’s more than a decade-long civil war has flared up once again after the Houthi rebel group launched an offensive in several locations against Saudi Arabian-backed government forces. The conflict has already spilled over beyond the country’s borders with the Houthis launching an attack on southern Saudi Arabia, targeting oil facilities and wounding dozens of people this week.

The renewed hostilities are the most serious since a United Nations-brokered truce halted large-scale fighting in 2022, after eight years of a full-blown conflict that killed tens of thousands of people in one of the world’s poorest countries.

So who is involved in this conflict? Here’s a look at the main actors:

The Houthis

The Houthis, also known as Ansar Allah (supporters of God), are an armed group controlling most parts of Yemen, including the capital, Sanaa, and some of the western and northern areas close to Saudi Arabia.

The Houthis emerged in the 1990s but rose to international prominence in 2014, when the group rebelled against Yemen’s government, forcing it to step down and causing a crippling humanitarian crisis.

The group then spent years, with Iran’s backing, fighting a military coalition led by Saudi Arabia. The two warring sides have also repeatedly tried to hold peace talks.

Seen as part of a regional alliance known as the “axis of resistance” backed by Iran, the Shia Zaidi group nevertheless has its own base, its own interests – and its own ambitions.

The Houthis have demonstrated their missile and drone capabilities during the Yemen war in attacks on Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, targeting oil installations and vital infrastructure. They have also proven resilient, defying more than 10 years of bombing by the Saudi-led coalition, as well as US and British strikes in recent years.

The group has gained international prominence for its attacks on Israel and shipping in the Red Sea since the start of Israel’s genocide in Gaza in October 2023.

Saudi Arabia

Riyadh entered the Yemen war when it led a military coalition against the Houthis in March 2015, seeking to restore the government of then-President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi. Back then, Saudi Arabia and Iran were at the peak of a regional competition, both deeply distrusting each other. An Iran-supported group expanding control at the kingdom’s southern border was unacceptable, hence the military action.

This was before a China-brokered rapprochement between Saudi Arabia and Iran in 2023 marked the beginning of a more practical and less confrontational relationship.

Presidential Leadership Council

The PLC was established in 2022 when the former president, Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi, formally transferred his powers to the new eight-member body.

It represents the internationally recognised government of Yemen, with a mandate to manage the country’s political, security and military affairs, and to steer negotiations towards a permanent ceasefire. It is chaired by Rashad al-Alimi, an adviser to Hadi and former interior minister with the government of the late president, Ali Abdullah Saleh.

Its membership is drawn from a mix of northern and southern politicians and military-linked leaders in a bid to unite major anti-Houthi forces under one roof.

The PLC is backed by Saudi Arabia and the alliance that Riyadh leads.

Islah party

The Yemeni Congregation for Reform, better known as Islah, is a Sunni Islamist movement with historic ties to the Muslim Brotherhood. It is a faction within the recognised PLC-led government but has long had an independent identity. Its major stronghold has long been Marib, the country’s sole gas-producing region with one of its largest oilfields.

National Resistance Forces

The National Resistance Forces is a government-aligned military faction led by Tareq Saleh, nephew of the late former President Ali Abdullah Saleh.

The force has maintained ties to Saudi Arabia and, like the Islah party, is part of the PLC. It aims for a unified Yemen, positioning itself as a counterweight to both the Houthis and southern secessionists.

The Strait of Hormuz has become the central pressure point in the escalating confrontation between the United States and Iran. Before the conflict, roughly 20 million barrels of oil moved through the narrow waterway each day, equivalent to about one fifth of global oil consumption. For years, traders could therefore rely on relatively consistent estimates of the volumes passing through one of the world’s most important energy corridors.

That certainty has now disappeared.

The use of “dark crossings,” in which tankers switch off their identification and navigation systems, has made vessel movements increasingly difficult to monitor. Satellite imagery, port records, tanker drafts, loading schedules and shipping data are being used to reconstruct movements, but the information remains incomplete. Recent estimates of Hormuz flows have differed dramatically, leaving traders and governments uncertain about the true scale of oil moving through the waterway.

The uncertainty comes as Brent crude has moved above the $100 a barrel threshold for the first time since July, driven by renewed military escalation and concerns over Middle Eastern oil supplies.

The Hormuz Information Gap

The most unusual feature of the current oil crisis is not simply that supplies may have fallen. It is that markets cannot confidently determine how much oil is actually moving.

U.S. Energy Secretary Chris Wright said more than 17 million barrels crossed the strait on August 31 under U.S. Navy supervision. Shipping intelligence firm Kpler, however, estimated that only around 6 million barrels crossed that day. Kpler put average August flows at approximately 4.3 million barrels per day, with flows rising to nearly 5 million barrels per day during the first days of September.

The difference could partly reflect different methodologies, including whether shipments using alternative routes outside Hormuz are included. Tankers that remain invisible to tracking systems for days or even weeks make the picture even harder to reconstruct.

This means that traders are attempting to price global oil supplies without reliable visibility over one of the world’s most important supply arteries.

Why the Strait of Hormuz Matters

Hormuz is strategically important because of the enormous concentration of energy exports that normally pass through it. Any sustained disruption can affect crude supplies, tanker availability, insurance costs and shipping times, eventually feeding into fuel prices and broader inflation.

The current situation is different from a straightforward blockade. The strait has not necessarily become completely impassable. Instead, its reliability has been severely compromised.

That distinction matters because a tanker does not have to be physically prevented from crossing for markets to react. The possibility that vessels may be delayed, attacked or unable to cross safely is enough to increase the cost of transporting oil.

As a result, the market is responding not only to actual supply losses but also to the risk of future disruption.

Iran’s Strategic Leverage

Iran’s ability to disrupt maritime traffic remains an important source of leverage despite indications that its military capabilities around Hormuz have been weakened.

U.S. demining operations and a growing U.S.-protected shipping corridor along Oman’s coast have allowed more vessels to enter and leave the Gulf. At the same time, Iran-linked forces continue to threaten commercial shipping, meaning Tehran retains the ability to create uncertainty even if it cannot completely shut down the waterway.

This gives Iran a form of asymmetric leverage. Tehran does not necessarily need to close Hormuz completely to impose economic costs. Sporadic attacks, warnings or restrictions can increase insurance premiums, delay shipments and encourage traders to price in a greater possibility of supply disruption.

The renewed attacks on Saudi energy infrastructure have added another layer of risk by threatening alternative routes that have become increasingly important as traffic through Hormuz has declined.

Impact on Global Oil Markets

The immediate consequence is a higher geopolitical risk premium on crude.

Oil prices normally respond to measurable fundamentals such as production, consumption, inventories and transportation. But when the market cannot establish how much oil is moving through Hormuz, uncertainty itself becomes part of the fundamental picture.

This can keep prices elevated even if actual physical supply losses are smaller than feared.

Brent has already moved above $100 a barrel, while analysts and major financial institutions have raised their oil price forecasts as concerns about prolonged disruption increase.

For oil-importing countries, sustained high crude prices could translate into higher fuel and transportation costs, increased inflationary pressure and greater economic uncertainty. Airlines, manufacturers and businesses dependent on energy-intensive supply chains would also face higher operating costs.

Economic and Geopolitical Implications

The crisis demonstrates how vulnerable the global energy system remains to a single strategic chokepoint.

For the United States, maintaining freedom of navigation through Hormuz is not simply a military objective. It is also essential to preventing a regional conflict from becoming a wider global energy crisis.

For Gulf producers, the challenge is equally significant. Even countries with substantial production capacity cannot fully compensate for disrupted shipping if export routes remain vulnerable.

For major Asian importers, the risks are particularly serious because much of the energy normally passing through Hormuz is destined for Asian markets. A prolonged disruption could therefore create significant pressure on import bills, currencies and inflation across energy-dependent economies.

The crisis also highlights the limits of alternative routes. Pipelines and routes outside Hormuz can reduce some of the pressure, but they cannot immediately replace the enormous volumes that normally pass through the waterway.

What’s Next?

The key variable is whether the confrontation between Washington and Tehran moves toward negotiations or further escalation.

A diplomatic breakthrough could rapidly reduce the geopolitical risk premium by restoring confidence in shipping and improving visibility over oil flows. A further escalation, however, could produce additional attacks on tankers, restrictions around the Gulf or renewed pressure on alternative shipping routes.

The oil market will therefore be watching tanker movements as closely as military developments.

If shipping activity becomes more visible and flows recover, some of the current premium could disappear. If the information blackout continues, traders may continue pricing the possibility of a much larger supply disruption.

Analysis

The deeper significance of the Hormuz crisis is that information itself has become a strategic commodity.

Modern energy markets have traditionally depended on the ability to monitor ships, cargoes and supply chains with increasing precision. Satellite imagery, tracking systems and port data created an assumption that physical oil flows could be observed and measured with reasonable accuracy.

That assumption is now being challenged.

The result is a market where perception can influence prices almost as powerfully as physical shortages. If traders believe Hormuz is becoming less reliable, they will pay more for crude today even without definitive evidence of a catastrophic supply loss.

This gives Iran an important form of strategic leverage. The threat of disruption can generate economic consequences even when actual disruption remains limited.

At the same time, Washington faces a difficult calculation. Greater military protection may help keep shipping moving, but prolonged confrontation can also increase the geopolitical risk premium that the United States is trying to contain.

The central question, therefore, is no longer simply how much oil is passing through the Strait of Hormuz. It is how long the global market can function without knowing the answer.

If that uncertainty persists, the oil market could continue carrying a substantial security premium even if physical supplies prove higher than current estimates suggest. The longer the uncertainty lasts, the more deeply it can become embedded in prices, inflation expectations and global economic planning.

With information from Reuters.

SACRAMENTO — Gov. Gavin Newsom’s pending defamation case against Fox News could go to trial in early 2028, around the same time the governor could be running a 2028 campaign for president.

Newsom sued the news network last year over its coverage of a phone call that took place between the governor and President Trump in June 2025, as unrest simmered over federal immigration raids in downtown Los Angeles. The governor accused the news outlet of intentionally manipulating its coverage to give the appearance that he lied about the call.

Despite an on-air apology from Fox News host Jesse Watters and attempts from the network to have the lawsuit thrown out, a Delaware Superior Court judge late last month set a trial date for March 6, 2028. Newsom filed the lawsuit in Delaware, where Fox News and its parent company, Fox Corp., are incorporated.

Newsom’s final term in office ends in early January and he is considering a run for president. The lawsuit seeks $787 million in damages, the same amount the network paid to settle a defamation suit brought by voting machine company Dominion. The company accused Fox News of airing false claims that voting machines were manipulated to help Joe Biden win the 2020 presidential election.

Lawyers for Fox News sought to have the case dismissed and Newsom ordered to pay attorneys’ fees. Judge Sean P. Lugg denied both motions this year, a ruling upheld by the Delaware Supreme Court.

“We will continue to vigorously defend against Governor Newsom’s meritless claims, which directly implicate core First Amendment protections for free speech, political commentary and a free press,” the network said in a statement to The Times.

“No media empire, no matter how rich and powerful, should get to lie to the American people with impunity,” said Michael Teter, the attorney representing Newsom in the case. “Governor Newsom is holding Fox accountable — and looks forward to proving this case in court. The truth matters.”

The case stems from a phone call between Trump and Newsom in early June 2025 as unrest brewed in Los Angeles over federal immigration raids and hours before the president took control of state National Guard troops, ordering them to protect federal buildings and immigration agents.

Newsom’s lawsuit accuses Fox hosts Watters and John Roberts, along with two senior news staffers, of misrepresenting Trump’s statements and asserting that Newsom lied about whether the call had happened.

The governor had previously publicly spoken about a late-night phone call he had with Trump on June 6 in California, which was early June 7 for Trump on the East Coast. He said that the National Guard was never discussed during that call and that the two did not speak about the immigration raids and protests again.

Trump told reporters on June 10 that he had spoken with Newsom “a day ago.”

“Called him up to tell him, got to do a better job, he’s doing a bad job,” Trump said.

Newsom disputed Trump’s timeline, writing on social media, “There was no call. Not even a voicemail.”

Roberts then said on social media and on air that Trump sent him evidence that the call took place. Newsom’s lawsuit accused Roberts of leaving out key details about the time of the call.

Roberts “did not provide the critical fact that on June 10, President Trump had stated that he had spoken to Governor Newsom ‘a day ago.’ Nor did Mr. Roberts note that June 6 — or June 7 at 1:23 am — is not ‘a day ago’ when one is speaking on June 10,” the complaint states.

The lawsuit also accused Watters’ show of playing a clip of Trump’s remarks that was edited to remove the president’s reference to “a day ago.”

“Newsom responded, and he said there wasn’t a phone call,” Watters said after showing the clip. “He said Trump never called him. Not even a voicemail, he said. But John Roberts got Trump’s call logs, and it shows Trump called him late Friday night and they talked for 16 minutes. Why would Newsom lie and claim Trump never called him? Why would he do that?”

A caption at the bottom of the screen during the report read, “Gavin lied about Trump’s call.”

Weeks later, Watters acknowledged the mistake and apologized, saying Newsom “wasn’t lying. He was just confusing and unclear.”

Newsom declined to drop the suit and in court documents demanded a jury trial.

Getting a trial date doesn’t necessarily mean a trial will take place, Loyola Law School professor Jessica Levinson said.

Fox’s “motion to dismiss was denied. That means the case is continuing,” she said. “But what’s also happening throughout all of this is the sides are probably talking about some sort of settlement.”

The case now enters the discovery phase, where each side collects evidence to build their case.

Court records show Fox News lawyers last month sent subpoenas to Newsom’s political action committee and several top advisors, including his chief of staff, Nathan Barankin; communications director Bob Salladay; legal affairs secretary David Sapp; and political consultants Ace Smith, Lindsey Cobia, Jason Elliott and Nathan Click.

The subpoenas ordered them to produce documents related to the network’s coverage of Newsom, the phone call with Trump and the governor’s response strategy.

If a trial does happen, Levinson said, the timing could either help or hurt Newsom’s potential presidential campaign.

“He can use it as a talking point and say, ‘I don’t leave any stone unturned. I’m seeking to vindicate my reputation. I believe in the truth, and the other side does not believe in the truth. That’s why I’m bringing this case.’ So, he can use it as a part of his stump,” she said.

But if the trial proceeds and Newsom believes it would take time away from his campaign, he could ask for it to be moved to a different date.

“Trial dates get changed all the time for much less,” Levinson said.

The United Kingdom has announced a ban on the import of all goods produced in illegal Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank, Foreign Secretary Ed Miliband said in Parliament on Tuesday.

It comes in response to an intensifying wave of Israeli settler pogroms and settlement expansions in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem.

The ban, set to come into effect within six to nine months, would target settlement exports such as dates, olive oil and agricultural products, with Miliband saying he did not believe “the British people want us supporting the occupation by accepting products from settlements in our shops”.

The International Court of Justice in July 2024 called Israel’s occupation of Palestinian territory “unlawful”. Months later, the United Nations passed a resolution calling for an end to the Israeli occupation within a year.

Israel’s response was furious, as it announced four “counter-measures”, including banning 12 British MPs from entering Israel and closing the British consulate in Jerusalem.

After Miliband’s speech, 11 more countries: Canada, Denmark, Finland, France, Iceland, Ireland, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Spain and Sweden, shared a joint statement supporting the so-called two-state solution and announcing their own intentions to impose restrictions on trade with illegal Israeli settlements.

Spain and Ireland had already announced their own national bans earlier this year, alongside the Netherlands and Belgium.

How much do these countries trade with Israel?

Aside from Canada and the UK, the rest of the countries considering or already banning settlement goods are European Union members.

The EU is Israel’s largest trading partner, accounting for 31.7 percent of Israel’s total trade in goods in 2025 (43.3 billion euros, or $50.4bn), according to the European Commission. The EU supplied 33.1 percent of Israel’s imports (28 billion euros, or $32.6bn) and received 29.4 percent of Israel’s exports (15.3 billion euros or $17.8bn).

Israel is the EU’s 27th largest trade partner, with Ireland, the Netherlands and Germany being its biggest individual trade partners.

According to a 2026 report by Global Echo Litigation Center, a Palestinian rights legal advocacy group, roughly 5,900 shipments from Israel were headed to Europe, with more than 17 percent containing products originating from settlements.

While no specific figures for settlement trade alone are known, it is understood to be a tiny fraction of total EU-Israel trade, meaning the ban’s impact is much more symbolic than economic.

The table below shows each country’s total trade with Israel for the European countries that have banned, or are introducing bans on, illegal Israeli settlement goods.

The top five European trading partners with Israel either enforcing or set to introduce settlement bans are Ireland, the Netherlands, the UK, France and Spain.

Ireland

Ireland-Israel bilateral trade totalled $5.36bn in 2025. Ireland is Israel’s second-largest export market for goods after the United States, driven largely by tech, particularly semiconductors and integrated circuits.

The Netherlands

Netherlands-Israel bilateral trade totalled roughly $4.8bn in 2025. The Netherlands is also Israel’s largest single foreign investor, accounting for roughly two-thirds of all EU investment in the country.

United Kingdom

According to UN Comtrade, UK-Israel bilateral trade totalled $3.73bn in 2025. An Al Jazeera investigation found at least 17 companies linked to illegal Israeli settlements hold more than 2.1 billion pounds ($2.85bn) in UK public-sector contracts.

France

France-Israel bilateral trade totalled $3.62bn in 2025. A large part of France’s trade with Israel constitutes export licences for surveillance and military technologies.

Spain

Spain-Israel bilateral trade totalled $2.79bn in 2025. In September that year, Spain banned the import of goods from illegal Israeli settlements in the occupied Palestinian territory, as well as the trade of arms.

What are Israeli settlements?

Israeli settlements are Jewish-only communities built illegally on Palestinian land.

Settlements are illegal under international law as they violate the Fourth Geneva Convention, which bans an occupying power from transferring its population to the area it occupies.

Illegal Israeli settlements continue to grow, decades after the 1993 Oslo Accords, which established limited Palestinian self-rule and were meant to lead to a permanent peace settlement.

At the time, about 270,000 settlers lived across the occupied territory. Today, that figure has more than doubled to between 600,000 and 750,000 people, about 10 percent of Israel’s Jewish population, living across some 250 illegal settlements in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem.

Military operations in Yemen intensified on Wednesday with clashes expanding across several fronts, according to reports by Saudi-owned news channels Al Arabiya and Al Hadath.

The Yemeni armed forces reported that fighting with the Iran-backed Houthi militia has been continuing on the Taiz fronts of Toil and Al-Barah, and claim to have inflicted heavy losses on the group.

Al Arabiya and Al Hadath have reported that Yemeni government forces have captured areas in southern Mahreb, as well as several positions in the northern and southern sectors.

The forces have also reportedly captured new positions and villages on the Al-Kaddah front west of Taiz during an operation against the Houthis.

The offensive was accompanied by heavy clashes, artillery fire and airstrikes targeting Houthi positions, gatherings and reinforcements in the area.

Al Arabiya and Al Hadath sources also said the Yemeni armed forces had launched a counterattack against Houthi positions on the Meris front north of Al-Dhale Governorate.

The sources also reported that Yemeni military aircraft had carried out several airstrikes on the Houthi-held Helan Mountains west of Marib.

DUBAI: A late-night craving for dessert led Hasan Sarwar to leave investment banking and build Peekabox, a Dubai-founded app that sells fresh unsold food from cafes, bakeries and grocery stores at discounts of 50 to 70 percent.

Sarwar was in a Dubai cafe at about 11 p.m. when he noticed the pastry shelves were still full.

“I simply asked them, I said: ‘What do you guys actually do with these items?’ And they said, ‘We make it in the morning, and then throw it the same day,’” he told Arab News. “All of these sort of very high-end pastries are getting thrown every single day.”

He went on to develop the idea, comparing it to Too Good To Go, a model he had used while at university in the UK. “We’ve grown up in Dubai. We know the UAE. We know the F&B space,” he recalled telling his parents.

He started alone. Three months in, he asked his brother Omair to join him as co-founder. “It was way too much work for one person,” Sarwar said.

The first brand to sign was Tim Hortons, part of Dubai’s Apparel Group, after a pitch that ran three months with no app and no demo. “I didn’t leave them alone for three months,” he said. Once the contract was signed, he used the name to bring other brands on, and boxes now come from coffee chains, bakeries, restaurants, grocery stores and hotel buffets.

Customers do not choose what they get. “If you say I have this exact item that you want, people are never going to buy full price,” Sarwar said, describing the surprise box as a way to gamify the purchase without cannibalizing full-price sales. His own highlight came from The Grey, an independent Dubai cafe — a strawberry tart, his favorite dessert, with croissants and pain au chocolat.

Getting there meant fighting the same objection on two fronts. Premium brands worried that discounting would dilute their brand equity, so he pointed them to luxury department store Harrods in London, which runs similar schemes, while customers had to be persuaded the food was fresh rather than left over. Both concerns were successfully countered, he said, pointing to the app’s 45 percent repeat order rate.

Peekabox is now in talks with Ne’ma, the UAE’s national food loss and waste initiative, under the Ministry of Climate Change and Environment.

It plans to open in Riyadh and Jeddah next year with franchise partners that have already committed to the launch. “In terms of Saudi (Arabia) as a market, people are more price sensitive for sure, and also the density of stores is greater,” he said.

London, United Kingdom – In a wheat field near High Wycombe in the rolling English countryside, Alex Nelms watched the harvest on his farm die in a matter of days.

His crop had looked strong until the first heatwave came in May, when temperatures surpassed 35 degrees Celsius (95 degrees Fahrenheit) just as his milling wheat entered its grain-fill phase, the critical weeks when the plant fattens its kernels.

“It just killed everything stone dead,” he told Al Jazeera. “Everything was finished really early, and when we were sort of full of optimism and hope, it was scuppered almost overnight.”

Nelms farms just over 2,000 acres (809 hectares) of arable land in south Buckinghamshire, on a business his grandparents founded in 1955. His uncle, who has worked the farm for more than 40 years, has just suffered the worst harvest of his career.

Last month, the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) said almost three-quarters of England, 71.3 percent, remained in drought. Rainfall in August reached just 34 percent of what would normally be expected by that point in the month, Defra said, and reservoir levels were 18.2 percentage points below where they should be for the time of year.

“We’re totally reliant on Mother Nature,” Nelms said, and nature did not deliver this year.

After a historically dry spring and a run of summer heatwaves, the farm is down roughly 1,000 tonnes on its average harvest, a shortfall of some $270,000 in revenue.

The farm, tucked in the Chiltern Hills, a steep, long ridge of white limestone rock, has no irrigation and never will.

“That has serious knock-on effects on our cash flow,” he said. A third consecutive difficult year would mean hard conversations with his bank and landlord, and farming to minimise risk rather than maximise output, “consequently, probably producing less food”.

‘Financial crisis point’

The National Farmers’ Union (NFU) says farmers are at a “financial crisis point” after the worst drought in 50 years, with historically low harvests, stunted grass growth, rising fuel and fertiliser costs, and a severe outbreak of bluetongue disease in livestock.

The union puts the gross production value loss of wheat at approximately $499m and the cost of replacing a shortfall in forage at roughly $45m.

NFU president Tom Bradshaw has said farmers now lack “breathing space” and are “increasingly exposed to geopolitical shocks, as well as repeated weather extremes, animal disease and global wars”.

He believes action is needed now to ensure the future of British farming “and enable the next generation to keep producing the nation’s food”.

To manage the risk, Nelms is diversifying, planting oilseed rape again on about 350 acres (142 hectares) for the first time in 20 years. He says that the crop’s usual insecticide protection, neonicotinoid seed treatments, is now banned, leaving it exposed to cabbage stem flea beetle and to game birds that can “absolutely nibble, eat, and destroy a crop”.

Growing it also means breaking a continuous wheat rotation that has kept a soil-borne disease called “Take-all”.

Tax allowances would make investing in grain storage and diversified income worthwhile, he said, as well as government-backed bridging loans, modelled on COVID-era support, to survive a bad year without permanent damage.

It is the kind of relief the NFU is pressing the government to provide nationally.

The union wants an interest-free “Keep Britain Growing” loan tied to drought losses, help covering the cost of disposing of livestock lost to bluetongue, faster planning permission for on-farm reservoirs, and clearer rules letting farmers access water as soon as levels allow, echoing Nelms’s case for storage on his farm.

“Drought conditions will continue to worsen until we receive sustained rainfall across the country and we still all have a role to play in conserving precious water supplies,” according to Philip Duffy, the Environment Agency’s chief executive, in a statement shared by Defra.

The Environment Agency has applied for a drought order to restrict abstraction from the River Severn, and 10 water companies, serving 30 million customers, now have restrictions in place.

“A few days or even weeks of wetter weather cannot reverse the impacts of several months of exceptionally dry conditions,” added Duffy.

Defra noted that the first meaningful rains since June have fallen but they have been patchy, so reservoirs and groundwater are still declining even as a handful of rivers see brief upticks in flow.

Despite the losses, Nelms is hopeful about farmers pulling together – sharing labour, machinery and market routes. He points to the Central Chiltern Farmer Cluster, where growers meet to talk through their problems and find solutions together.

“We’re working together, not competing with each other,” he said.

For a farm like Nelms’s, with no irrigation and no water in reserve, that patchiness is the problem. Soil parched from months without rain needs to absorb sustained rainfall before groundwater can even begin to recharge, let alone refill the reservoirs a future harvest might depend on.

“Our climate has changed,” Water Minister Emma Hardy, who chairs the National Drought Group, said late last month, “and we will continue to take all action necessary.”

Just hours ago, the Saudi Aramco refinery at Jazan on the Red Sea was engulfed in flames after a Houthi missile and drone attack. Strikes at the heart of the Saudi’s energy infrastructure on the Red Sea, which acts as the remaining primary lifeline of energy exports out of the region, threaten to drastically impact global oil prices further, a concern we have been raising for some time. In the wake of the attack and additional fighting in the Persian Gulf, oil prices surged toward the $100 per-barrel mark.

“The Yemeni Armed Forces carried out a qualitative, large-scale military operation, targeting the Aramco company in Abha, Najran and the Economic City, Aramco in Jizan, and Khamis Mushait Air Base with dozens of ballistic missiles and drones,” Houthi spokesman Brig. Gen. Yahya Saree stated on Telegram. “The strikes were precise, by God’s grace, and direct, causing major damage to those facilities.”

Saree claimed that the strikes were “in response to the Saudi aggression that targeted our people and our country with 121 air strikes over the past three days.”

Saudi officials confirmed Houthi attacks and said they would retaliate.

“The terrorist Houthi Militia’s senseless attacks, the latest of which targeted civilian and economic sites in the cities of (Abha, Khamis Mashait, Jazan and Najran) resulting in injuries to (73) civilians, including women and children, constitute a blatant violation of the Kingdom’s sovereignty and a direct threat to the security and safety of its citizens and residents,” anti-Houthi coalition spokesman Maj. Gen. Turki Al-Maliki stated on X. 

“The Joint Forces Command of the Coalition will take all necessary operational measures to deter this Terrorist Militia and resolutely confront its hostile approach, in defense of the Kingdom’s sovereignty, the preservation of its national assets and the safety of its citizens and residents,” Al-Maliki added. “The Command will also take all necessary measures and actions to respond to the sources of the threat and neutralize its danger.”

NEW YORK: Carlos Alcaraz tumbled out of the US Open quarter-finals at 3:34 am Wednesday, falling to Ben Shelton in an epic five-set thriller that broke the record for latest finish ever at Flushing Meadows.

The big-hitting Shelton claimed his first career win over Alcaraz, 6-7 (5/7), 6-1, 6-3, 1-6, 7-6 (10/7), ending the Spaniard’s hopes of retaining his title in his first tournament back after a four-month injury absence.

Nepal is demanding “climate justice” and $20m in compensation after the recent devastating floods in the country and China’s Tibet region, which led to the deaths and disappearances of thousands of people.

The catastrophe, which scientists say was caused by the effects of climate change, was triggered when part of a mountain glacier collapsed and a torrent of water and mud flooded down into Nepal’s Rasuwa and Nuwakot regions, as well as into China’s Tibet region on August 26. More than 1,300 people have been confirmed dead and more than 5,000 remain missing.

“We are paying the ultimate price for a global crisis we did not create,” Nepal’s Foreign Minister Shisir Khanal said last week.

“Support for Nepal should not be seen from an angle of aid or charity, but should be seen from the perspective of climate justice,” he told the AFP news agency.

On Monday, the country’s President Ramchandra Paudel made a similar demand during an address to the nation.

“I make a heartfelt appeal to the international community not only to listen to the voices of ecologically vulnerable countries, including Nepal, but also to take concrete and effective steps to ensure climate justice for them,” he said.

Nepal’s Ministry of Finance and Ministry of Environment have written a joint letter to the United Nations, which set up a fund to respond to loss and damage caused by climate change in 2022 in line with the 2015 Paris Agreement on climate, with a request for $20m in damages.

The UN’s Loss and Damage Fund is, however, facing a $2.8bn funding gap as it prepares to approve its first climate recovery projects.

‘Collective frustration’

Nepal’s leaders may have a point.

Nepal contributes less than 0.1 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions and generates most of its electricity from renewable sources of energy. Yet its geographical location in the Himalayas makes it particularly vulnerable to severe climate and weather events.

Last month’s catastrophic flooding in the country comes against a backdrop of rapid global warming and glacial loss across the Himalayas.

Glaciers across the Hindu Kush Himalaya mountain range – which spans Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, China, India, Myanmar, Nepal and Pakistan – lost ice 65 percent faster between 2011 and 2020 than during the previous decade.

Nepal’s glaciers, which are sandwiched between two major carbon emitters – India and China – have lost close to one-third of their ice volume in roughly three decades due to global warming, the United Nations said in 2023.

Tanuja Pandey, a Nepal-based climate activist and lawyer, said there is collective frustration behind Nepal’s demand for climate justice.

“People here feel the world often pays attention to Nepal only when a climate disaster becomes impossible to ignore. It is deeply painful to people here that global attention intensifies when headlines report thousands of people dead or missing and in the end, their suffering does not generate any urgency to fight climate change,” she told Al Jazeera.

Shreya KC, a 28-year-old Nepali climate activist, said there is profound anger and sadness among people in Nepal who say that they must no longer continue to suffer the impact of climate change, which, as they see it, other countries are responsible for.

“My hometown is in Solukhumbu in eastern Nepal,” the activist told Al Jazeera. “It is a district of mountains and is also home to the world’s highest mountain, Mount Everest, and my home is also downstream. After the glacial collapse happened two weeks ago, people in my region have realised that this can now happen anywhere in Nepal since the Himalayas are warming and glaciers are melting faster.”

While Nepal has been actively fighting climate change, Shreya KC said she herself has been involved in projects in the country that focus on clean hydropower generation, forestry and other such climate advocacy programmes.

“Because of other countries,” she said, “today Nepalis are the ones most impacted by climate change. So people want justice.”

Is there such a thing as ‘climate justice’?

According to preliminary estimates from Nepal’s National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Authority, the country’s property, housing and infrastructure losses in the floods amount to some $2.56bn.

But claiming compensation under a notion of “climate justice” won’t be straightforward, according to Joyeeta Gupta, a professor of Environment and Development in the Global South at the University of Amsterdam.

According to the United Nations, “‘climate justice’ is the moral and ethical principle that seeks to address the disproportionate impact of climate change on vulnerable communities and future generations”.

“I define it as a system of justice where others’ perspectives are taken into account, and no harm is caused to others,” Gupta told Al Jazeera.

Nepal is a country that has very low emissions, she said, but is facing the brunt of climate issues which it never created. “That is reason enough for Nepal to claim climate justice,” she noted.

But, practically speaking, can it? In the pre-1990 period, there was a lot of discussion among nations about the need for large emitters to compensate those that would be harmed, Gupta noted. But soon after that, the term “compensation” disappeared from the agenda of international climate treaties, which turned more to discussions about providing assistance to developing countries that need to tackle climate change instead.

In a July 2025 advisory opinion on climate change, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) declared that “all nations have binding legal duties under international law to prevent significant climate harm”.

The ICJ’s advisory opinion on climate change also says that states breaching their international climate obligations can be required to make full reparations, including financial compensation to “injured states” or countries impacted by climate change caused by the actions of other countries.

While the ICJ’s opinion is not legally binding, Gupta said, it is a statement in international law that could support Nepal’s government’s international appeal for climate justice and compensation.

‘No climate justice without internal justice’

Nepal’s rapper-turned-prime minister, Balendra Shah, is scheduled to travel to New York on September 22 to address the 81st session of the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) on September 24. His country’s appeal for climate justice is expected to be a key part of his address.

For climate activist Shreya KC, while UN meetings and international conferences on climate change may hold some weight when it comes to discussing climate disasters, right now, what Nepal needs is money.

“So much of our money allotted for healthcare, education and to transition into a more developed nation is now being spent on fighting climate change. So countries who are causing emissions, especially from the global north, need to commit more money to the UN’s Loss and Damage Fund,” she said, adding that money from that fund should be disbursed to vulnerable communities in need, not as a loan but as compensation for bearing the brunt of climate change.

Pandey noted that this is not the first time a climate disaster has occurred in Nepal and said that the new government, which came into power in March this year on the back of Nepal’s Gen Z protests last year, has also failed to make climate a priority in its budget.

While it is a good sign that Nepali politicians are appealing for international climate justice, she said, they also need to address the country’s internal development model to fight climate change in the first place.

“There is no climate justice without internal justice within the country itself,” she said.

“I hope that even in our development, partners and investors stop treating climate resilience as an optional addition to development in Nepal just because we are economically vulnerable.

“Investing in Nepal without investing in sustainability is simply a bad investment.”

On Monday, Nepal declared a national day of mourning to remember the more than 1,300 people who are known to have died in last month’s catastrophic floods. Thousands more are still missing.

The country’s President Paudel used the opportunity to call on people to unite.

“This is not a time for division. Nor is it a time to blame one another or become entangled in political disputes and confrontation,” he said.

“This is a time to demonstrate national unity and solidarity. It is also a time for reconstruction, rehabilitation and economic recovery.”

But Gupta says Nepal’s biggest challenge right now is establishing a precedent for compensation for climate change-related disasters.

“It was recently a glacial collapse in the country, but soon, it will become a bigger issue as time goes on because the monsoon patterns will change, the sea level will rise,” she said.

As many other developing countries – notably island states that face being submerged altogether – are also likely facing similar climate change challenges, the damage could become huge.

“That is going to be a very big reason why many rich countries will probably be unwilling to pay compensation, because that would set a precedent for future issues,” Gupta said.

“But the issues countries like Nepal are facing are a very strong argument to try and convince the whole world to accelerate action to phase out fossil fuels and fight climate change.”

The U.S. Navy has lost an advanced uncrewed underwater vehicle (UUV), and it is now in Iranian hands. Here’s what we know about the Dive-LD drone and its apparent seizure, and its implications.

Authorities in Iran said earlier today that they had retrieved a U.S. Dive-LD uncrewed underwater vehicle (UUV) largely intact near the Strait of Hormuz. The regime in Tehran subsequently released pictures and video clips of the UUV being lifted out of the water, seen at various points below. This looks to be the first known instance of an operational deployment of the Dive-LD. This is still a relatively new capability for the U.S. Navy that only began entering service a little more than a year and a half ago. American officials have previously confirmed the use of UUVs, in general, to help keep the Strait of Hormuz free of Iranian naval mines, one of many threats that have dramatically slowed maritime traffic through this critical waterway.

İran, ele geçirdiği ABD’ye ait insansız denizaltının görüntülerini yayınladı

Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) “captured one of the most modern, unmanned, and smart submarines … at the entrance to the Strait of Hormuz in a complex intelligence and operational action at dawn today,” according to a statement shared earlier today via Iranian state media. The exact circumstances surrounding the seizure remain unconfirmed.

“An underwater drone operated by U.S. forces malfunctioned more than a day ago,” a U.S. official said in response to our queries about the Iranian claims. “It was surveying regional waters in support of ongoing operations. The defective drone was an older model that neither collected sensitive data nor carried any classified sonar or radar equipment. U.S. operations in area waters continue.”

The official did not confirm or deny the type of UUV in question, or that Iran had retrieved it. They also did not elaborate on the nature of the malfunction. TWZ also reached out to Anduril, which initially deferred any questions to U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM). However, they subsequently confirmed the loss of a Dive-LD operating in the region.

“Dive-LD is an attritable autonomous system, meaning it is designed from the outset to operate in dangerous environments where loss of the vehicle is an expected possibility. Its purpose is to keep warfighters out of the most dangerous parts of the undersea mission,” an Anduril spokesperson told us in a statement. “This vehicle had already delivered significant value operating thousands of hours in months-long operations in CENTCOM.”

Categorized as a large UUV, the Dive-LD is 19 feet (approximately 5.8 meters) long, four feet (around 1.2 meters) in diameter, and has a gross weight of close to three tons. The design features a 3D-printed exterior, but is said to be capable of diving down to depths of some 19,685 feet (3.7 miles or 6,000 meters). The UUVs can also remain at sea for around 10 days at a time, depending on their exact configuration, and do so with a high degree of autonomy. Dive-LD was originally developed by U.S.-based Dive Technologies, which was founded in 2018 and then acquired by Anduril in 2022.

Anduril Welcomes Dive Technologies

Anduril announced the delivery of the first Dive-LD to the U.S. Navy’s Unmanned Undersea Vehicle Group One (UUVGRU-1) in April 2025. The Navy had already released a picture of personnel training with one of these UUVs five months earlier. How many Dive-LDs are now in U.S. service is unclear.

The Dive-LD has a highly modular design. Anduril’s website says that the UUV can be configured for various military missions, including so-called intelligence preparation of the operational environment (IPOE); general intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR); mine warfare; and precision placement of objects underwater. IPOE refers to the collection of various types of intelligence on a specific area as part of planning for upcoming operations.

As mentioned, U.S. officials have previously stated that UUVs have been supporting mine-clearance operations in and around the Strait of Hormuz. Broadly speaking, uncrewed underwater platforms offer a way to find and record the location of naval mines using sonars, cameras, and other sensors, while helping keep friendly forces further away from potential threats. Afterward, depending on the type of mines that are found, various methods can be employed to neutralize them. Mine sweeping is time-consuming and dangerous, even in permissive environments, let alone when conducted under the threat of enemy attack.

This past weekend, the Financial Times newspaper in the United Kingdom published a story saying U.S. forces have been using UUVs in exactly this way to help clear Iranian mines, citing “people familiar with the operation.”

“Mostly at night, it [the U.S. military] sent Navy Seal [sic SEAL] divers, robot boats and specialised underwater craft into the perilous strait for a four-month mine-clearance mission,” according to FT‘s report. “U.S. Navy divers worked in small teams using inflatable-hulled craft. They located Iranian mines with the help of robot boats and submersibles – such as the U.S. Navy’s Common Uncrewed Surface Vessel – operating towed sonar arrays.”

The Common Uncrewed Surface Vessel (CUSV) is a speedboat-sized drone boat that has been in Navy inventory since the early 2020s, explicitly for counter-mine operations. FT‘s story does not say where any USVs, UUVs, and/or boats full of divers were launched from as part of these operations in and around the Strait of Hormuz, but it posited that the Navy’s Expeditionary Sea Base ship USS Miguel Keith could have been involved.

CUSV®

A trio of Independence class Littoral Combat Ships specifically configured for mine-sweeping duties, including using CUSVs, had been forward deployed in Bahrain before the start of the conflict with Iran in February. At least two of those ships, USS Santa Fe and USS Tulsa, emerged thousands of miles away in Southeast Asia in March, something TWZ was the first to report on. At the time of writing, those ships currently appear to be in Singapore. The exact disposition of the third of these LCSs, the USS Canberra, is unclear, but USNI News reported today that it is sailing in the South China Sea.

The Navy has a host of other warships in the Middle East that could support counter-mine missions. With a 10-day endurance, Dive-LDs, specifically, could potentially have been launched from locations away from the Strait of Hormuz, including friendly ports.

Dive-LDs could also be used for other missions beyond mine clearance in the region. As mentioned, the U.S. official told TWZ the UUV had malfunctioned while “surveying regional waters.” While this would be a relevant task in the context of a larger mine-sweeping operation, underwater surveys would be valuable for other purposes, too. For months now, U.S. forces have been facilitating the movement of ships in and out of the Persian Gulf via a route that hugs the Omani coastline, keeping them as far from Iranian threats as possible. Having up-to-date and highly accurate maps of the seafloor in these areas would be critical to ensuring they are deep enough for large commercial vessels to pass through safely.

IPOE and general ISR support, above and below the waves, would be part of any current or future U.S. activities in the region. This includes a new campaign of strikes targeting Iranian tanker ships that began last month and monitoring general port activity in Iran as part of the ongoing blockade.

Employing Dive-LDs in operations against Iran also provides a valuable real-world opportunity to prove out new UUV capabilities and associated tactics, techniques, and procedures, which could prove critical in a future high-end fight against a peer opponent like China. Dive-LD has been feeding into Anduril’s development of an even more capable large UUV called Ghost Shark, the first customer for which is the Royal Australian Navy. Ghost Shark is a militarized version of a design called the Dive-XL that followed the Dive-LD. In March, Anduril announced it was among those selected for the Combat Autonomous Maritime Platform Project (CAMP), an extra-large uncrewed underwater vehicle rapid prototyping effort being run by the Pentagon’s Defense Innovation Unit (DIU) and the Navy. Anduril did not say what platform it would be supplying for that project, but used a picture of Ghost Shark to illustrate the announcement.

Introducing: Dive-XL

The U.S. military is already known to have taken advantage of the ongoing conflict with Iran to demonstrate new weapon systems and other capabilities, including uncrewed maritime systems. In June, a Saronic Corsair drone boat conducted a first-of-its-kind at-sea rescue of the crew of a U.S. Army AH-64 Apache attack helicopter that had gone down in the Gulf of Oman. The following month, U.S. forces launched their first known kamikaze USV attack on Iran’s Bandar Abbas Naval Base using explosive-laden Corsairs.

With all this in mind, it is worth noting that the apparent loss of a Dive-LD intact to Iran is still significant, even if the core design is not brand new and if it does not have any especially sensitive mission systems onboard. It is not necessarily ‘exquisite,’ bleeding-edge technology as it is designed to be optionally attritable, but is still an advanced modern system in operational U.S. service now. Insights into its capabilities and limitations would certainly be of interest to Iran and others. What attempts the U.S. military made to recover the Dive-LD are also unknown. However, the fact that it was not destroyed before or while the Iranians were retrieving it points to American forces having completely lost any sense of its location beforehand.

For its part, Iran has long been a collector of foreign military hardware, primarily U.S. and Israeli, including drones of all types. The capture of a largely intact RQ-170 Sentinel in 2011 is the most famous (or infamous) example. The regime in Tehran also regularly works to reverse engineer what it recovers to varying degrees, and has promised to do the same with the Dive-LD. It could also share its latest prize with its own international partners, including Russia and China, for further analysis and exploitation. The Chinese People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) notably has its own very active UUV programs.

On top of all this, the seizure offers propaganda benefits for the Iranian government, which is already making heavy use of the information space to push back against U.S. military and economic pressure.

Countries seizing foreign USVs and UUVs is certainly not new at this point, even in ostensible peacetime periods. TWZ pointed out that this was only likely to become commonplace, and that steps would need to be taken to address these risks, after a pair of incidents involving Iran in 2022. On August 29 of that year, the Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) attempted to capture a U.S. Navy Saildrone USV in the Persian Gulf. Just days later, the IRGC briefly commandeered a pair of American Saildrones in the Red Sea.

Iran tries to seize U.S. sail drone

The current conflict with Iran has only further underscored the important roles that uncrewed maritime platforms are playing in U.S. operations now, which are only set to keep growing as time goes on. As those same operations expand, so will the risks of capture and other losses.

Contact the author: joe@twz.com

Miami: The two pilots of an Amazon cargo plane that overran the runway while landing at Miami International Airport, striking a van and killing five people, have been released from hospital, officials said Tuesday.

Three people are in hospital, two in critical condition and one stable, following Sunday’s accident, Miami-Dade Sheriff Rosie Cordero-Stutz said at a news conference.

Cordero-Stutz said the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) was leading the investigation into the accident while the Miami-Dade Sheriff’s Office would conduct its own inquiry into the deaths on the ground.

NTSB chief Jennifer Homendy said officials were reviewing flight data and cockpit voice recorders from the plane.

Flight data released by investigators on Tuesday suggests the plane tried to abort a landing, before it tore through a perimeter fence and slammed into two vehicles.

NTSB investigator Chihoon Shin said the plane attempted to perform a “go-around” — a routine safety maneuver where a pilot stops a landing attempt and returns to the air to safely make another approach — before abandoning it.

The pilots then applied the brakes to try to stop the plane and put the throttle into idle, Shin said.

Homendy said the plane’s pilot and co-pilot, aged 55 and 37, would be interviewed on Wednesday.

The plane came to a halt about 1,300 feet (400 meters) past the end of the paved runway surface, Homendy said. The five fatalities were in a cleaning-services van.

Hundreds of flights were delayed at Florida’s busiest airport following the crash.

Homendy said the plane was a Boeing 767-300 built in 1994 and operated by 21 Air LLC, based in Miami and contracted to Amazon.

It was on its third flight of the day, and arriving from San Juan, Puerto Rico.

LJUBLIJANA: A chill has set in between much of Europe and Israel recently over its treatment of Palestinians, but the Alpine nation of Slovenia is bucking the trend.

Under nationalist Prime Minister Janez Jansa Slovenia is launching a diplomatic reset of its relationship with Israel, which will send its foreign minister to open its first embassy in Ljubljana on Wednesday.

It is an about-face from the policies of the previous centre-left government, which had been one of the EU’s most critical voices on Israel’s military offensive in Gaza, which it described as “genocide”.

And it comes a day after the United Kingdom and other European countries provoked Israeli fury by banning imports from settlements in the occupied West Bank — the latest move by European governments grappling with growing international condemnation of Israeli policies towards Palestinians.

But in Slovenia, Jansa – who took office for the fourth time earlier this year, and who is often at loggerheads with the European Union – has instead received Israeli accolades for defying the EU over the West Bank settlements.

“Thank you PM Jansa for your courage and clarity amidst EU hypocrisy,” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu posted on X late last month, after Slovenia vetoed an EU statement condemning the settlements.

Under Jansa, Slovenia has also reversed its own ban on imports from the settlements, lifted its arms embargo on Israel and scrapped entry bans on Netanyahu and two of his ministers.

In his first official visit to the country, Israel’s top diplomat Gideon Saar will inaugurate the embassy Wednesday, with his ministry describing Jansa as a “friend of Israel”.

Jansa has said his government was “only normalising Slovenia’s foreign policy and fixing the damage” caused by liberal ex-prime minister Robert Golob.

“To fulfil its priority of improving the well-being of Slovenians, the government will carry out pragmatic policies,” Jansa said in another post earlier.

‘Instrument’

Not all Slovenians are on board, however.

A poll conducted by the daily newspaper Delo in June found that 56 percent of Slovenians opposed closer ties with Israel, while 14 percent supported them.

Several rights groups have announced protests against the embassy’s inauguration, which has also drawn sharp criticism from the opposition.

Golob’s party has described the new embassy as “a return of the favour” for Israel’s alleged support of Jansa during the March election.

The last days of campaigning ahead of the March 22 vote were overshadowed by claims of foreign interference, with authorities probing whether Israeli company Black Cube was behind secretly recorded videos alleging graft in Golob’s government.

Jansa – who faced accusations his party was linked to the videos – has admitted to having met a Black Cube official, but denied being behind the videos.

Daily Dnevnik’s columnist Darijan Kosir in a weekend commentary said Jansa was serving “as the US-Israel’s Trojan horse” in the EU, taking the place of Viktor Orban, Hungary’s long-time premier who lost April elections.

Former president Danilo Turk told AFP that Slovenia has “become an instrument of Israeli policy”.

“This is a very uncomfortable situation,” said Turk, an International Law professor at Ljubljana University.

BRUSSELS: European cities will gain more leeway to curb short-term rentals such as Airbnb under plans to bring down housing costs in tourism hotspots that the European Union is to unveil Wednesday.

The European Commission is to lay out conditions under which local authorities can limit short lets, as part of an “affordable housing” package that seeks to address what EU chief Ursula von der Leyen has called a “social crisis”.

“Nurses, teachers, and firemen cannot afford to live where they serve. Students drop out because they cannot pay the rent. Young people delay starting families,” she said in a speech last year highlighting the issue as a priority for Brussels.

Though hugely popular with visitors, short-term lodgings are blamed by residents in many popular travel destinations for depriving locals of apartments for long-term rent and pushing up prices.

From New York to Tokyo and Barcelona, a growing number of cities worldwide have imposed or considered restrictions on tourist flats in recent years.

But curbs have often been followed by court challenges from rental providers and tourism operators, resulting in legal uncertainty.

The commission’s Affordable Housing Act aims to provide cities with legal cover, clarifying when authorities can take action without falling foul of EU single market rules.

Cities and other relevant authorities will be allowed to limit holiday rentals as well as the purchase of property for short-term letting purposes in areas deemed “under housing stress”, according to a draft seen by AFP.

The document laid out a series of parameters that needed to be met for an area to be defined as under stress, such as the ratio between house prices and incomes there.

“Population dynamics” and future housing supply and demand will also need to be taken into account, the draft said, adding any measure should be non-discriminatory, necessary and proportionate.

‘Structural solutions’

The legislation will not affect landlords that rent out their own primary residence for short periods of time.

Housing affordability has become a growing issue across the 27-nation bloc in recent years.

Property prices have surged by 60 percent, while rents have climbed by 20 percent over the past decade, leaving millions struggling to find a home they can afford, according to Brussels.

The EU says this is mainly driven by insufficient housing supply but short-term lets add extra pressure in certain areas.

Short rentals account for only about 1.2 percent of the European Union’s housing stock but the share can reach as much as 20 percent in popular districts of some tourist destinations, according to EU data.

Holiday lets “can generate important economic and social benefits, especially for households struggling to make ends meet” but “they may also aggravate housing demand pressures in some constrained local housing markets,” the EU draft read.

Yet, that’s something rental providers dispute.

“For the great majority of cities, the claim that short-term rentals are driving housing stress does not survive contact with this evidence,” tech lobby group CCIA wrote in a letter to the commission this month.

In some cities with restrictions, rents and hotel prices have gone up, the letter added, noting Lisbon recently overturned some of the curbs it had previously imposed.

“Europe’s housing crisis needs structural solutions, and the implementation of this Act should focus on increasing the supply of homes,” said an Airbnb spokesperson.