Peace

The United States-led Board of Peace (BoP) has said the United Nations agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA) will have no role in Gaza – echoing a longstanding Israeli demand to sideline the organisation considered a lifeline for millions of Palestinians.

The board, which has been tasked with overseeing the “ceasefire” and Gaza’s reconstruction, said on Friday it would work only with partners it deems reliable and who it believes can meet the needs of Gaza’s population – a standard it says UNRWA does not meet.

The move comes as the BoP unveiled a multibillion-dollar plan on Wednesday aimed at beginning Gaza’s reconstruction, nearly a year after a so-called “ceasefire” came into effect in the devastated Palestinian territory.

The plan, presented on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly (UNGA), comes as key elements of the “ceasefire” remain stalled, including the withdrawal of Israeli forces and the disarmament of Hamas.

UNRWA was established in 1949 to cater to tens of thousands of Palestinians displaced from their homes by Jewish militias from areas that currently form part of Israel.

BoP’s stance on UNRWA comes as Israel’s genocide in the coastal enclave continues, with Palestinians facing nonstop attacks, severe restrictions on humanitarian aid and stalled reconstruction plans.

So what has BoP said about UNRWA, and does it keep toeing the Israeli line on the future of Gaza?

What did the Board of Peace say?

The BoP unveiled a 66-project reconstruction blueprint on the sidelines of the UNGA, with $2.4bn proposed for projects aimed at beginning Gaza’s recovery.

UNRWA was left off the list of UN agencies the board identified as partners.

“The Board of Peace’s policy as it relates to UNRWA’s involvement in Gaza is unchanged,” the BoP said in a post on X on Friday.

“We will only work with trusted partners who will deliver for the people of Gaza and contribute to a deradicalised Strip. UNRWA fails on those litmus tests.”

However, a BoP official, speaking to The Associated Press news agency on condition of anonymity, confirmed that board members had met UNRWA officials several times.

The official said the agency’s programmes could continue if they served Gaza’s residents well, but maintained that “UNRWA’s days are over”.

The BoP, which US President Donald Trump launched earlier this year, was conceived to oversee the rebuilding of Gaza after nearly three years of Israel’s genocidal war on the Strip.

What has UNRWA said?

In an indirect response, UNRWA acting Commissioner-General Christian Saunders said on Friday in Gaza, “UNRWA remains an institution of considerable humanitarian and strategic value, with capabilities and expertise that are difficult to replicate today.”

“To disregard these capabilities at a moment of such profound need is neither logical nor responsible,” Saunders said in a statement.

Former UNRWA chief Philippe Lazzarini on Thursday warned that removing the agency would have a “devastating” effect on Palestinians.

“They want to get rid of the agency, but on the other hand they know that if you get completely rid of the agency today, it might have a further … devastating impact on the population,” Lazzarini told AP on Friday.

In a separate statement on X, Lazzarini said, “grandiose plans are what the Board of Peace does best”, noting widespread suffering across Gaza amid Israel’s ongoing genocide.

The agency has about 11,000 Palestinian employees in Gaza and remains heavily involved in healthcare, education, water and sanitation services. Its exclusion is particularly significant given the scale of displacement and the continuing restrictions on aid entering Gaza.

UNRWA has for decades provided aid and education services to Palestinians in Gaza, occupied East Jerusalem and the West Bank as well as Jordan, Syria and Lebanon – the neighbouring countries where the Palestinian refugees have been living.

Palestinians see the agency as safeguarding their right of return to their homeland, while Israel wants it dismantled.

What has been Hamas’ response?

Hamas accused the BoP of adopting Israel’s position.

Spokesperson Hazem Qassem on Saturday called the decision to exclude UNRWA “a complete alignment with the Zionist [Israeli] position”, saying it was aimed at ending the agency’s operations, preventing it from delivering aid and undermining Palestinian refugees’ right of return.

Qassem said it was “strange for the peace council to adopt this hostile stance towards UNRWA while simultaneously failing to provide aid to Gaza or compel the occupation to abide by the ceasefire agreement and halt the daily killings of Palestinians in the Strip”.

Does the Board of Peace toe the Israeli line?

Experts say the workings and demands of the BoP align closely with Israel’s vision of the Gaza Strip and the Palestinians.

UNRWA

Israel has for years sought to remove UNRWA from Gaza, accusing the agency of being infiltrated by Hamas.

The International Court of Justice, in an advisory opinion in October, said allegations that “a significant part of UNRWA’s employees are ‘members of Hamas … or other terrorist factions’” had not been substantiated.

The BoP’s position strengthens the Israeli efforts to dismantle the UN agency.

Hamas disarmament

Hamas and other Palestinian factions agreed in July to a roadmap under which weapons would be surrendered in stages as Israeli forces gradually withdrew. The two processes were explicitly linked.

But following an August meeting between Nickolay Mladenov, the BoP’s director-general, and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, the board said Israeli forces would not withdraw beyond the “Yellow Line” until Hamas’s decommissioning was complete, including “light weapons, heavy weapons, and the tunnels alike”.

Hamas maintains that it will not implement its obligations unless Israel fulfils its own.

Israel currently occupies more than 60 percent of Gaza while most of the territory’s 2.3 million people remain displaced.

Reconstruction

Article 17 of the BoP plan calls for “temporary reconstruction” beginning in areas designated free of Hamas control, including humanitarian compounds for unarmed civilians.

The proposed system would direct reconstruction, aid and shelter towards areas outside Hamas’s control while Israeli forces remain behind the so-called “Yellow Line”.

However, Israel has refused to allow the Palestinian technocratic committee into Gaza, open crossings or begin reconstruction until Hamas is completely disarmed.

After unveiling the reconstruction plan on the sidelines of the UNGA, BoP high representative Mladenov said once again the proposed plan depends on Hamas’s disarmament.

What is the situation in Gaza?

Almost a year after the October 2025 ceasefire, reconstruction has yet to begin on any meaningful scale and Israeli forces continue to occupy large parts of the Strip.

At least 1,451 Palestinians have been killed and 4,953 wounded in Israeli attacks since the “ceasefire” began in October 2025, according to Gaza’s Ministry of Health.

The healthcare system is on the verge of “total collapse”, the ministry said last week, while shortages of fuel, medical supplies and spare parts have disrupted hospitals, water and sanitation services.

The scale of destruction is also immense. More than half of Gaza’s hospitals and clinics remain nonfunctional, less than 1.5 percent of cropland is accessible and undamaged, and reconstruction needs have reached an estimated $71.5bn.

Nearly 84 percent of Gaza’s population – more than 1.76 million people – are living in displacement sites or damaged and inadequate shelters, the UN has said.

Caracas, September 25, 2026 (venezuelanalysis.com) –  Venezuelan Acting President Delcy Rodríguez outlined a foreign policy built on “peace” and “dialogue” in her address at the 81st session of the United Nations General Assembly in New York on Wednesday.

Speaking before world leaders, Rodríguez insisted on peace over conflict, thanked the Trump administration for diplomatic backing, and committed to international cooperation on environmental, energy, and AI regulation. She went on to urge young Venezuelan migrants to return home and laid out a proposal for structural “democratic transformation” of the Caribbean nation. 

Opening her address, Rodríguez underscored Caracas’ rejection of warfare, linking global stability to diplomatic resolution. 

“Venezuela, which today knows what it is to lift its children out from under the rubble, extends its deepest solidarity to all peoples who suffer from war, and reaffirms that peace […] is not a naive aspiration, but the only truly human path,” she declared.

Rodríguez explicitly addressed the diplomatic rapprochement with Washington after the January 3 US military strikes and kidnapping of President Nicolás Maduro and First Lady Cilia Flores. She expressed thanked Trump for aiding Venezuela’s reintegration into international forums following years of heavy economic sanctions and diplomatic isolation.

“I want to thank President Donald Trump and his government for their willingness to resume the path of diplomatic and cooperative relations with Venezuela,” Rodríguez stated, referencing the recent oil deal as “one of the largest ever signed” and pledging that it will contribute to regional energy stability.

Rodríguez refrained from condemning the US attack, calling it a “difficult moment” that resulted from the “exhaustion of domestic policies and heightened confrontation with the US.” She likewise made no mention of Maduro and Flores, presently detained 10-15 miles away from the UN headquarters and facing trial for charges including drug trafficking conspiracy.

The Venezuelan acting president had conveyed similar gratitude in a face-to-face meeting with Trump on Tuesday that she labeled as “historic.”

Turning to domestic affairs in her UN address, Rodríguez spoke of the severe wave of migration triggered by past political and economic crises, and vowed to the Venezuelan youth residing abroad that there will be improved conditions for their return.

“To the young people, who have grown up seeing a fractured country and who often decided to leave seeking what they could not find here: I tell you that it is worth believing again,” the acting leader affirmed. “This is the moment to build the country that many want to return to, and not just the one that many wanted to flee.”

This message was framed as part of what Rodríguez termed a “democratic transformation for a rebirth,” which she described as an institutional, orderly, and verifiable process.

“In Venezuela, there will be elections. We have already initiated a political dialogue with sectors of the opposition that leads to a process on equal terms for all,” she noted.

Though Rodríguez did not explicitly name unilateral sanctions from Washington and its allies, she stated that the country needs to be “free from economic restrictions” and pledged to “guide Venezuela toward an era of full democracy, recognized by its people and the world.”

The acting president’s UN speech came amid a flurry of diplomatic activity in New York, including meetings with International Monetary Fund (IMF) Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva, World Bank President Ajay Banga, and Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) President Ilan Goldfajn.

On the sidelines of the UN assembly, Rodríguez also held bilateral meetings with Chilean far-right president José Antonio Kast to discuss regional trade and stability, as well as with a delegation from Trinidad and Tobago, led by Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar, initiating a “new stage in bilateral relations” centered on joint offshore natural gas exploration and maritime security.

Venezuela had suspended cooperation with neighboring Port of Spain after Persad-Bissessar backed the US’ military build-up on the country’s shores in late 2025.

Rodríguez’s New York trip coincided with a second round of US-backed talks between government negotiators led by National Assembly President Jorge Rodríguez and a sector of the opposition led by former deputy Dinorah Figuera.

The latest negotiations reportedly focused on electoral guarantees, freedom of expression, institutional reform, including renewing the Supreme Court, and efforts to secure the unfreezing of Venezuelan assets abroad, including gold reserves worth approximately US $4 billion. The gold held by the Bank of England is set to be transferred to the US, to be released for post-earthquake recovery efforts under White House oversight.

Edited by Ricardo Vaz in Lisbon, Portugal.

Iran’s top security official says Tehran has sent its conditions for ending war to the US via Qatari mediators.

Four days before they’re set to play the first-ever concert by their new band, Dhani Harrison and Nigel Godrich sit down to enjoy a post-rehearsal libation in the parking lot of a North Hollywood practice space.

“Is there an opener?” asks Godrich, who holds a bottle of fancy root beer. Harrison, who’s clutching a Sapporo, grabs his friend’s drink and neatly pops the top off using his own bottle.

“I went to Brown,” he says with a little smile. “That’s what they teach you in the Ivy League.”

Harrison, 48, is the son of the late Beatles legend George Harrison; long before college, he got a priceless musical education from his father, whose final solo album — 2002’s Grammy-winning “Brainwashed” — Dhani helped complete after George’s death in 2001. Godrich, 55, made his name working in the studio with Radiohead on game-changing records like “OK Computer” and “Kid A”; he’s also produced for Beck, Paul McCartney and Roger Waters and played with Thom Yorke and Flea in Atoms for Peace.

Now the two have teamed up in Dragonflies, a spacey and atmospheric art-rock duo with a self-titled debut album due Friday from Dark Horse Records, the label George Harrison founded in 1974 and Dhani Harrison relaunched in 2020. This weekend, Harrison and Godrich will celebrate the LP’s release with two shows at Hollywood Forever’s Masonic Lodge, where they’ll be joined by guitarist Nick Valensi (of the Strokes) and drummer Joey Waronker (who’s played with Beck, R.E.M. and Oasis).

Asked how exactly the group came together, Godrich and Harrison look at each other across a picnic table and shrug. “The real reason we did it was as a vehicle to hang out,” Godrich says of the two, who’ve been pals since both were living in Los Angeles in the early 2000s and who both found themselves back home in England a few years ago.

Yet “Dragonflies” has plenty to offer the rest of us: Built around Harrison’s high, sighing vocals, the music moves with a funky rhythmic propulsion rooted in Godrich’s signature tape loops; lush string arrangements by David Campbell (also known as Beck’s dad) add a touch of slightly spooked romance to songs about nature and friendship.

Harrison describes the band’s sound as “a bit creaky” and compares it to the feeling of being out on the water. “I always thought that’s a cool place to start — like you’re on a sinking ship,” he says.

Godrich laughs and adds, “Well, I hope not.”

For Harrison, working with Godrich provided a kind of full-circle moment nearly two decades after he caught one of Atoms for Peace’s first gigs at downtown L.A.’s Orpheum Theatre in 2009.

“I remember it made me want to quit music,” he says, which draws a frown from his bandmate.

“That’s not a great review,” Godrich says.

“No, that concert blew me away,” Harrison replies. “I went home and I was like, Oh, they’ve already done all the things I want to do. So I just went and sulked for a few days.”

Dragonflies began after Harrison returned to England, where he’d grown up on his father’s Friar Park estate, following the death of his grandmother, who famously raised George Harrison’s widow, Olivia Harrison, in Hawthorne. “I was still here basically to be around her,” says the musician, who formed the bands Thenewno2 and Fistful of Mercy while in L.A. “When she passed, that was the last of my grandparents. My mom was living in England, and so I just thought, Well, time to go.”

Harrison sought out Godrich for help on his 2023 solo album, “Innerstanding”; later, he lent the producer one of his dad’s old tape machines — “They did ‘Shankar Family & Friends’ on it,” he points out — which led to a series of casual jam sessions at Godrich’s studio in London’s Brixton neighborhood.

“It was like, ‘Hey, you want to get some Japanese food and make some tape loops?’” Harrison recalls.

Godrich notes proudly that “the way the record was made was completely mechanical,” meaning nothing was programmed on a computer but instead recorded “live on the fly” using older equipment.

“Fortunately, we both own a ridiculous amount of analog gear,” Harrison adds. “Because we’re nerds.”

“I’m not a nerd,” Godrich says. “I hate gear chat.”

“That’s true,” Harrison says. “He doesn’t nerd out about that stuff — I’m the nerd. He won’t even let me use six Kaoss Pads onstage.”

What’s a Kaoss Pad?

“You don’t want to know,” Godrich replies.

Gearhead or no, the producer was adamant that Dragonflies not rely on prerecorded backing tracks when it starts playing live.

“No computers were harmed in the making of this show,” Harrison says — thus the extra players.

(Brian Feinzimer / For The Times)

Waronker is an old friend of Godrich’s who played drums in Atoms for Peace and on Beck’s “Sea Change” and “Morning Phase” (not to mention Beck’s brand-new “Ride Lonesome,” which Godrich mixed); the producer has known Valensi since he “didn’t work with the Strokes,” as he puts it, in 2003, when Godrich tried a couple of sessions with the New York garage-rock band before deciding it wasn’t a good fit.

Godrich says he plays bass in the live group because it’s easy. But also: “Bass is such an important part of the sound that if somebody else was doing it, they would never do it the same as me, and it would annoy me.”

Top three bass players of all time, according to Dragonflies?

“McCartney’s good, isn’t he?” Godrich asks.

“Les Claypool,” says Harrison. “I’m a huge Primus fan.”

“I like David J from Bauhaus,” Godrich says. “He’s an incredibly innovative bass player — always did very interesting things. Stylistically, he’s someone that I probably copy a lot from. It’s just the root notes, but whoever’s in control of the root notes is in control of everything.”

“It really is a power move to be the bass player,” Harrison says.

“I don’t want to be at the front — that’s not my thing,” says Godrich. “I don’t want to be the guy.”

Does Harrison?

“It takes me a while to get warmed up,” he says. “I don’t really look at people when I’m playing a show. I’m not sure if that means I’m mildly spectoral. I took the test, actually — I scored highest in my old band. I know a lot of neurodivergent people who perform.” He shrugs. “Sometimes you don’t get to choose if you’re the guy, but you’re the guy.”

In addition to his father, one of Dhani’s mentors was George’s friend and latter-day creative partner Jeff Lynne, who for all his musical genius has never seemed particularly comfortable onstage.

“He’s brilliant at what he does, but you talk about in-ear monitors or the sound onstage or the lighting or something, and it’s over,” Harrison says. “It’s too much input. That’s why Jeff wears the Spider-Man goggles,” he adds, referring to the ELO frontman’s ever-present aviator shades. “He has too much Spider-Sense. My dad was the same way. He definitely was like, ‘Look at him — don’t look at me!’”

After Dragonflies’ Hollywood Forever shows, Godrich and Harrison have dates scheduled in Europe for November and hope to play more in the future, depending on when Godrich finishes a couple of records he’s producing. (To give a sense of the stress he’s under, he mimes putting a gun to his head.) The duo already has enough material for a second album too.

How much time does Harrison intend to dedicate to the project?

“As much as I can, really,” he says. “How much do you want to hang out with your mate? I got bored of being Dhani Harrison anyway — I like being Dragonflies now.”

WASHINGTON — Philippine President Corazon Aquino, given a rousing reception, told a joint meeting of Congress today that if she fails to negotiate peace with communist guerrillas threatening her government she will not flinch from “taking up the sword of war.”

“I will not stand by and allow an insurgent leadership to spurn our offer of peace and kill our young soldiers and threaten our new freedom,” Aquino said.

Aquino was greeted in the House chamber by enthusiastic applause and cheers from the members of Congress, many of whom sported yellow flowers in their lapels. Aquino wore her trademark yellow suit, like the ones she wore so often during her campaign for the presidency earlier this year.

Many visitors in the gallery, and several members as well, chanted “Cory, Cory, Cory” for half a minute as she entered the chamber.

Several members later said her speech had been so well received that it could mean more U.S. aid for her nation. Speaker Thomas P. (Tip) O’Neill said it was the best he had ever heard on Capitol Hill.

‘Hit a Home Run’

Senate Republican leader Bob Dole said he told Aquino she had “hit a home run” with Congress, and said she replied: “I hope the bases were loaded.” Impressed senators and House members called her speech “brilliant,” “eloquent,” “magnificent” and “moving.”

She opened her speech with a tribute to her husband, Benigno S. Aquino Jr., a human rights activist whose murder in Manila in 1983 after years of exile in the United States swelled the widespread disenchantment with the government of Ferdinand E. Marcos and eventually led to his downfall.

Her husband’s death “was my country’s resurrection in the courage and faith by which alone they could be free again,” she said. “And so began the revolution that has brought me to democracy’s most famous home, the United States.”

Aquino’s speech underscored her policy of negotiating with the communist New People’s Army guerrilla movement and, if the talks fail, waging a vigorous war against the insurgents.

“I must explore the path of peace to the utmost, for at its end, whatever disappointment I meet there, is the moral basis for laying down the olive branch of peace and taking up the sword of war,” she said.

“Still, should it come to that, I will not waver from the course laid down by your great liberator,” a reference to Abraham Lincoln and his determination to fight the Civil War.

‘Whatever It Takes’

“Like Lincoln, I understand that force may be necessary before mercy,” she said. “Like Lincoln, I don’t relish it, yet I will do whatever it takes to defend the integrity and freedom of my country.”

She said the aim of the negotiations is “to bring the insurgents down from the hills and, by economic progress and justice, show them that for which the best intentioned among them fight.” Persuading the guerrillas to stop fighting will be accomplished by “political initiatives and local reintegration programs.”

She said her predecessor, Marcos, set aside democratic rights to wage a war against “a communist insurgency that numbered less than 500.

“Unhampered by respect for human rights, he went at it with hammer and tongs. By the time he fled, that insurgency had grown to more than 16,000.

“I think there is a lesson here to be learned about trying to stifle a thing with the means by which it grows.”