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After visiting the West Bank, the group of public figures known as “The Elders” has concluded that Israel “aims to make Palestine disappear physically, economically, culturally and politically”.

Mary Robinson, former president of the Republic of Ireland and one of the leading members of The Elders, tells host Steve Clemons that the delegation was “shocked” at how the situation has deteriorated since 2023.

“It starts with hate speech, clear talk about Jewish supremacy and annexation of the West Bank,” says Robinson, adding that the Israeli government affords “complete impunity” for settlers and soldiers grabbing land and disrupting the lives of Palestinians across the territory.

‘We’re going backwards.’ Palestinians in Gaza say Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s rejection of the US-backed 15-point plan has deepened uncertainty over an end to the war. Hamas says it remains committed to the agreement.

Hundreds of people marched on Saturday in the town of Soller, in the island of Mallorca against mass tourism. Protesters exclaimed that tourism has had an impact on the cost of living for locals, and that access to housing has become more difficult.

Israel is trapped in a cycle it created. Occupation fuels resistance, and resistance is used to justify more occupation. Near Nablus, that cycle turned deadly yet again: five Palestinians killed as four new outposts were erected. Al Jazeera’s Leila Warah reports.

Published On 9 Aug 20269 Aug 2026

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Ahmed al-Jubouri and a close associate were arrested on charges of misusing contract funds in Saladin province.

The former governor of Iraq’s Saladin province, Ahmed al-Jubouri, also known as Abu Mazen, has been arrested on corruption charges, Iraqi media say.

Al-Jubouri was arrested in Baghdad on Saturday after allegedly embezzling funds from Saladin province contracts, a senior government source told the Iraqi News Agency said. The news was widely confirmed by other Iraqi media.

The politician served as governor of Saladin from 2013 to 2014, followed by a tenure as minister of state for provincial affairs between 2014 and 2015. He is currently secretary general of the National Masses Party, which holds three seats in Iraq’s parliament and is part of the ruling coalition.

Businessman Mohammed al-Hajaf, who has been described as al-Jubouri’s close associate, was arrested in Saladin province under the same charges.

The source did not reveal the amount of money that had been taken. Al-Jubouri and al-Hajaf have not publicly commented on the allegations.

The National Masses Party posted a photo of al-Jubouri on Facebook, captioned: “You can take pride in what you have done for sick and poor people.”

Both arrests come days after the State Administration Coalition, which consists of parties that form and support the government, reaffirmed the need to continue the anti-graft campaign and to support the prime minister’s efforts.

Earlier this year, new Iraqi Prime Minister Ali al-Zaidi assumed office amid growing United States pressure on Baghdad to tackle corruption and disarm Iran-backed armed groups that have targeted US facilities in Iraq.

Security forces arrested 47 prominent Iraqi politicians, lawmakers and officials in June, leading to the seizure of tens of millions of dollars and bringing renewed attention to the decades-long issue of corruption.

Al-Jubouri was previously arrested in November 2019 after his parliamentary immunity was revoked over alleged criminal activity related to the construction of student dormitories at Tikrit University. According to local media, he was later released on bail.

Aug. 9 (UPI) — Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Israel rejects a U.S.-backed 15-point plan to disarm Gaza.

Last month, President Donald Trump‘s Board of Peace created the plan for the gradual disarmament of Gaza and withdrawal of Israeli troops from the territory.

But in a cabinet meeting Sunday, a readout from Netanyahu’s office from a meeting of government ministers said, “I want to be clear here — Israel is ruling out the 15-point plan.”

He said he has told the Trump administration about his concerns.

The Israeli military “will not carry out any withdrawal until Hamas is genuinely disarmed and will continue to thwart threats against our forces and our citizens,” Netanyahu said.

“We are now discussing this with the Americans,” he said. “They have ideas, some of which are acceptable to us and some are not, and we know how to stand up to those things.”

He reiterated his opposition to a two-state solution.

“As long as I am prime minister, no Palestinian state will be established — not in Gaza and not in the West Bank,” Netanyahu said.

Netanyahu and his coalition are facing a difficult re-election vote in late October.

“Contrary to all those who preach to us, we do what must be done for Israel’s security and we can and will stand our ground even against our best friends when necessary,” Netanyahu added.

Hamas has said that handing over its heavy weapons was contingent on Israel ending “all forms of aggression” and withdrawing from Gaza.

“We expect the mediators and the American guarantor to pressure Netanyahu and his government to adhere to the roadmap and not obstruct the process for internal political and electoral reasons,” Bassem Naim, a member of Hamas’ politburo, said on X Sunday.

Since the cease-fire last October, Israel has continued to strike Gaza.

Israel’s military occupies more than half of Gaza, and Netanyahu’s far-right allies have implied that they want to expand the control. They lauded Netanyahu’s comments.

“The [Israeli military] cannot retreat one millimeter in the Gaza Strip,” Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich said.

Aug. 7 (Asia Today) — South Korean Unification Minister Chung Dong-young said Friday that broader public discussion should come before any government move to routinely use North Korea’s official state name, taking a cautious position on a proposal outlined during a recent presidential policy briefing.

Chung made the remarks during a meeting of the Peaceful Unification Advisory Council, an advisory body under the unification minister, at the government complex in Seoul.

“Because the policy briefing was compressed for time, the explanation that we would proceed only after public discussion was omitted,” Chung said.

He said the ministry had already explained at a media briefing before the presidential report that it did not intend to lead the change unilaterally and that any move should come only after public discussion and greater public acceptance.

President Lee Jae Myung also expressed caution during a government policy briefing Wednesday, saying a proposal for the two Koreas to use each other’s official state names remained open to debate.

South Korea ordinarily refers to the North as North Korea, or “Bukhan” in Korean. North Korea’s official name is the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, while it commonly refers to itself in Korean as “Joseon.”

The question has political and constitutional implications in South Korea because Seoul does not formally treat inter-Korean relations as conventional state-to-state relations. The two governments, however, have used their official names in numerous inter-Korean agreements over the past several decades.

Chung defended the rationale for discussing the change.

He noted that guidelines issued in 1995 by three South Korean media organizations – the Journalists Association of Korea, the National Union of Media Workers and the Korean Producers and Directors Association – recommended that each side use the other’s official name.

Chung said the guideline has not been consistently followed.

He also cited similar calls from South Korea’s seven major religious organizations, civic groups and the Peaceful Unification Advisory Council, saying broader acceptance by the media would be an important factor in determining whether the terminology becomes more widely used.

Former Unification Minister Jeong Se-hyun argued at the meeting that the government should move more actively toward using the official names.

“Since the Inter-Korean Basic Agreement, more than 100 summit agreements and other documents have used the official state names,” Jeong said.

He questioned why South Koreans should be reluctant to use the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea in speech when the same name has already appeared in formal documents.

Former Unification Minister Lim Dong-won said using the term “Joseon” may sound new to many South Koreans but is not historically unprecedented.

He said there was a need to gradually change public perceptions of the terminology.

Paik Nak-chung, professor emeritus at Seoul National University, also noted that since the two Koreas joined the United Nations simultaneously in 1991, presidential documents and numerous inter-Korean agreements have used each other’s official state names.

He described the proposal as essentially calling each side by the name already recorded in official documents.

The meeting was also attended by former Unification Minister Lee Jae-joung, National Museum of Korean Literature Director Lim Heon-young and Ham Se-woong, chairman of a memorial organization honoring Korean independence activist Ahn Jung-geun.

The Unification Ministry launched the Peaceful Unification Advisory Council in January as a ministerial advisory body bringing together senior figures and active experts to develop proposals for peaceful coexistence and shared growth on the Korean Peninsula.

— Reported by Asia Today; translated by UPI

© Asia Today. Unauthorized reproduction or redistribution prohibited.

Original Korean report: https://www.asiatoday.co.kr/kn/view.php?key=20260807010002452

Turkiye wants to expand its newly formed defence pact with Pakistan and Saudi Arabia to include more countries, says Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan, citing President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

“Under our president’s vision, we should not remain limited to three countries. We should grow and, if necessary, bring all countries under this umbrella,” Fidan told state news agency Anadolu, according to a report published on Saturday.

Turkiye, Saudi Arabia and Pakistan on Friday signed the Mecca Joint Deterrence Agreement, in what analysts say could be a step towards a new security architecture in the region.

So who could join the pact next, and what would an expanded alliance mean for regional security?

What does the pact do?

The Mecca defence pact builds on a previous agreement reached between Saudi Arabia and Pakistan a year ago.

Regional officials have suggested that the pact could eventually expand to include other countries, strengthening its role as a mechanism for collective security and deterrence.

The pact’s central feature is a NATO-like stipulation that an attack on any one of the three states would be treated as an attack on all of them although the details have yet to be fleshed out.

Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan said the allies will decide through consultations what degree, form and format of support they would ask for in the event of an attack but no country would be considered a threat as long as a member state is not attacked.

Turkish and Saudi officials have stressed that the pact is not meant to supplant any other strategic alliances or relationships while Turkiye, which is a member of NATO, has said the agreement does not target any country, including Iran.

Which countries could join next?

Egypt is the only country whose potential membership has been publicly raised by an official from one of the pact’s signatory countries.

Fidan described Egypt as a “natural partner” and said he expects Cairo to formally join once “technical issues” are ironed out.

“I believe that at the next stage, Egypt will also be among us in the alliance,” Fidan said. “We already act towards one another as if we were alliance members.”

Ali Bakir, professor of international relations, security and defence at Qatar University, said Egypt’s inclusion would “significantly increase the pact’s political weight, regional influence and operational effectiveness” if it materialises.

What might stand in the way of Egypt’s membership?

Egypt already has a solid working relationship with Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and Turkiye, with which it is part of a group called the R4, which consults on regional issues. Egypt has also recently developed stronger military ties with Turkiye despite previous tensions over the Egyptian military’s 2013 overthrow of President Mohamed Morsi, the conflict in Libya and the discovery of gasfields in the Eastern Mediterranean.

But analysts said Cairo may be wary of the potential military obligations that could come with a binding defence treaty with states whose interests do not always align with its own as well as the implications for its existing peace treaties.

“Egypt may join only if the language protects its aid relationship with Washington, doesn’t undermine existing alliances and peace treaties, and maintains its own freedom to decide when and where it fights,” Karim Elgendy, associate fellow at Chatham House’s Middle East and North Africa Programme, told Al Jazeera.

“If the pact stays a political framework with room to calibrate each response, Cairo can live with it and may eventually sign. If it hardens into an obligation that could pull Egyptian forces into someone else’s war, the answer is likely to be negative,” Elgendy said.

Technical issues holding Egypt back could be both “legal and operational”, Elgendy added. “On the legal side, Egypt needs to know exactly what it is committing to defend, and it will want assurances so that a signature never reads as a commitment against Israel or as taking Ankara’s side in Libya and the Eastern Mediterranean,” he said.

For Bakir, Cairo’s decision will come down to how it weighs the benefits of membership against the diplomatic complications.  Egypt’s decision on whether to join the pact will hinge on the level of “strategic value” it believes it brings as well as its ability to “manage relations with countries whose interests” contrast with or even “actively oppose” the alliance, he said.

Ahmed Aboudouh, an associate fellow with Chatham House’s Middle East and North Africa Programme, told Al Jazeera that while Egypt broadly shares the trilateral pact’s security concerns, it “does not share its underpinning threat perception” and may be resistant to “security commitments”.

“Cairo’s preference is to be part of overlapping regional security arrangements that are narrow in scope and are issue-related … rather than being entangled in defence commitments with elevated risks/cost,” Aboudouh said.

He added that Egypt may still opt to join the pact in the future but it would be a “complex decision”.

Which other countries could join?

Several officials have suggested other Gulf countries could eventually join the alliance.

In a post on X, former Qatari Prime Minister Sheikh Hamad bin Jassim Al Thani expressed hope that all members of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) would “take the initiative to join” the pact. In addition to Saudi Arabia, the GCC includes Qatar, Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman and the United Arab Emirates.

Fidan also spoke about the alliance bringing in more regional countries, saying some nations, which he did not name, had already expressed interest. “Under our president’s vision, we should not remain limited to three countries. We should grow and, if necessary, bring all countries under this umbrella,” Fidan said.

Among the Gulf states, Elgendy said, “the names to watch first are Qatar and Kuwait.”

Both countries are “close to all three signatories” and “have the strongest motive to buy extra insurance” after feeling “exposed” during the United States-Israel war on Iran and by Israel’s strike on Doha in September, he said.

Bakir similarly identified Qatar as the “most natural” Gulf state to opt in with Kuwait another possible candidate. He also said Azerbaijan, Syria and Jordan could also join “relatively quickly”.

Elgendy expressed scepticism about the pact transforming into a broader bloc. “This looks like a coalition of the willing that will grow on a case-by-case basis, shaped by each capital’s own risk calculus,” he said.

Statement comes after Infantino denies claims that UEFA paid off his alleged lover while he was the body’s general secretary.

FIFA warns against what ‌it calls a “concerted and ongoing effort” to undermine President Gianni Infantino, saying attempts to challenge his ⁠leadership must follow the ⁠governing body’s statutes and democratic procedures.

The statement on Saturday came amid an increasingly bitter standoff over Infantino’s leadership following the collapse of his proposal to raise about $4.2bn by selling a stake ⁠in the commercial rights of the World Cup and other tournaments.

The plan triggered criticism from UEFA, national associations and senior FIFA officials; led to calls for Infantino to resign; and prompted a crisis meeting in Morocco ⁠this past week, at which FIFA’s leadership reaffirmed its support for the president.

FIFA did not identify those it said were seeking to undermine Infantino or specify which reports or allegations it was referring to.

The statement followed reports by The Daily Telegraph about payments made by UEFA to a former employee with whom the newspaper said Infantino was having an intimate relationship during his time as the European governing body’s ‌general secretary.

He has denied those allegations, and FIFA has rejected them as unfounded.

When contacted by the AFP news agency, UEFA acknowledged that “a departure payment was made to the individual in question” at that time, “coupled with the payment of fees for an MBA course at a local business school”.

FIFA said recent reporting has included “unsubstantiated assertions and demonstrably false claims” concerning FIFA and its president, adding that it would challenge inaccurate or misleading reports “directly and vigorously”.

FIFA added it would not support, facilitate or tolerate any process concerning the election of its president ⁠that was inconsistent with its statutes, democratic procedures and governance framework.

“The FIFA president ⁠was democratically elected by FIFA’s member associations and continues to serve with their mandate,” it said.

“Those who do not have the support of FIFA’s Member Associations should not seek to achieve through allegation, insinuation or misinformation what they cannot achieve through FIFA’s established democratic processes,” FIFA said.

FIFA split over Infantino

After the crisis meeting in Morocco on Wednesday, FIFA apologised to its 211 member associations for mistakes in the handling of the proposed World Cup spinoff and said its leadership had ⁠reaffirmed its full support for Infantino.

The fallout has cast a shadow over Infantino’s bid for a fourth term at the FIFA Congress in Morocco in March. ⁠No clear candidate to challenge him has yet emerged.

UEFA has said it no longer has confidence in Infantino while Norwegian Football Federation President Lise Klaveness called on Friday for him to resign, saying he no longer had the institutional trust required to govern FIFA.

But Infantino continues to enjoy substantial support among FIFA’s 211 ‌members. The Confederation of African Football (CAF) unanimously backed his leadership on Thursday while South America’s CONMEBOL rejected any attempt to oust him that did not involve a vote of all FIFA members.

Mexico’s football federation (FMF) also backed ‌Infantino ‌despite its regional confederation, CONCACAF, having called for a “comprehensive reckoning” with his presidency.

“The FMF will neither recognise nor approve any process convened outside of that institutional framework,” the Mexican federation said.

The International Criminal Court (ICC) is once again under attack from the United States. The reason behind Washington’s efforts to dismantle the institution is simple: an insistence that the US enjoys wholesale impunity.

In numerous contexts, there are credible allegations of US citizens being involved in international crimes. If the US weren’t exposed to accountability for its atrocities, it wouldn’t be seeking to destroy the court.

Now it’s the time for the ICC’s backers to stand up.

US aggression towards the ICC is nothing new. The US has been seeking to subvert the work of the court since before it was even a fixture of the global arena. Since the presidency of George W Bush, Republicans in particular have been obsessed with the court and its operations. From former national security adviser John Bolton to former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo to now-Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Republican officials have been fixated on the ICC even though it has never actually issued a warrant for any American citizen.

Ironically, the efforts of US officials to condemn the ICC have bestowed prestige and legitimacy upon the institution. To those across the globe who believe that the ICC is feckless in the face of US imperial ambitions, tantrums from successive Republican administrations are a powerful antidote. In a nutshell, the greater Washington’s hysteria over the ICC, the more powerful and persuasive the court appears to those who believe the US is not above the law.

The disdain from political quarters and any commitment to undermine the institution is a feature, not a bug, of international relations – and it always has been. Yet this time feels different. The US sanctions against the ICC’s staff and threats to sanction the court as a whole as well as to dismantle it “brick by brick”, per Rubio, smack of escalation and pose an existential threat to the ICC.

The only thing that can save the court is its members. If they fail to do so, it will not be President Donald Trump who kills the ICC, but their indifference.

The smattering of primarily European and South American expressions of support for the ICC is good. But it is not enough. There are concrete actions that states can take to not only defend the court but also to strengthen it.

First, members of the ICC should double down on cooperating with the court. They should reiterate that they support every situation currently under investigation and they will offer tangible cooperation in terms of evidence and any enforcement of arrest warrants issued by the institution. If they have already done so, they should do it again.

Second, the court’s backers should encourage more states to join the ICC. This is particularly important given the recent withdrawals of Venezuela and Chad from the court – both of which left after being asked to do so by Washington. If the Trump administration is seeking to damage the court by diminishing its membership, states supportive of the institution should respond in kind with a campaign to rally other states to join.

Many states have considered joining the ICC but have not committed to do so. Now is the time to convince them. Lebanon, for example, has toyed with becoming an ICC member state, which would give the court jurisdiction over alleged crimes committed by Israeli officials and Hezbollah commanders.

As it stands, Beirut has decided not to join the court, but states could be clear that they support it doing so. They could, for example, articulate how joining the ICC could offer Lebanon yet another multilateral venue to withstand pressure from external parties like the US and demonstrate to Lebanese civilians that the rule of law matters. More generally, ICC member states could do more to link bilateral and multilateral trade and economic negotiations with efforts to encourage states to join the court.

Third, states should offer additional financial backing to the ICC. Some say the court’s budget is too big for what it has accomplished. For 2026, it was about $210m – almost a fifth of the daily cost the US is paying to carry out the war in Iran. This is for a court that is seeking to hold perpetrators of war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide accountable in Ukraine, Palestine and Darfur.

Money speaks louder than words. Offering additional and flexible funding to the ICC would be a way to say: This is our court, and we will do whatever is necessary to ensure its operations have the resources they need.

Fourth, states must properly protect ICC staff sanctioned by the US. In August last year, numerous judges at the court were targeted with sanctions for doing nothing more than their part in impartially applying the law to hold perpetrators of atrocities accountable. As a result, they can’t use banks, book hotels or pay for a meal with their credit cards.

The European Union and Canada each have laws on their books that could block the impact of US sanctions on judges. Yet inexplicably, the EU has not invoked its Blocking Statute, and Canada has refused to invoke the Foreign Extraterritorial Measures Act, leaving their citizens working at the ICC to twist in the wind.

Additionally and inexplicably, neither the EU nor Canada has backed the legal suit by some of the judges to challenge the sanctions in US courts.

Trying to get the US under Trump to stop attacking the ICC is like trying to nail pudding to the wall: It’s not going to happen. But that does not justify the dithering of the court’s purported supporters.

The US assault against the court is calculated to silence ICC supporters and isolate them from the institution. Why? Because the US knows its siege on the court cannot alone ruin the institution. To succeed, it needs others to abandon the ICC.

Instead, states should take the opportunity offered by these unprecedented times to back the ICC in unprecedented ways. However imperfect it is, the court is the only permanent institution capable of holding the world’s worst perpetrators of war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide to account.

For its flaws, the court should be reformed, not destroyed to allow those very perpetrators off the hook. Maintaining support for the ICC in the face of Trump’s attacks is about more than protecting the court – it’s about drawing a line and pronouncing that no one, no matter how powerful, is above the law.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera’s editorial stance.

No casualties were reported after the flames broke out early on Sunday, the Saudi Energy Ministry says.

A fire reported at a facility belonging to Saudi Arabian state oil giant Aramco has been extinguished, authorities say.

The blaze broke out early on Sunday at a site in the coastal city of Jizan, the Saudi Ministry of Energy wrote in a statement on X. No casualties were reported.

“The competent authorities are completing the necessary procedures to deal with the incident,” the ministry added.

It did not say what caused the fire.

Yemen’s Iran-backed Houthi armed group claimed it carried out an attack on the facility, located on the Red Sea near its border, the latest in a series of Houthi claims of strikes targeting Saudi oil sites.

A military spokesman for the Houthi led government in the capital Sanaa, Yahya Saree, wrote on X the group “succeeded in targeting the Aramco refinery in Jizan with a drone, and the strike was precise”.

He said the attack came in response to Saudi Arabia’s “breach of the airspace of the provinces of Saada and Hajjah” with drones.

There was no immediate comment on the claim from Riyadh. Al Jazeera has contacted the Saudi Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

The Houthis last month claimed attacks on Aramco facilities in Jizan. The Houthis also said they targeted oil installations in Yanbu, Saudi Arabia’s principal west coast export gateway.

Aramco chief Amin Nasser said last ⁠week that recent attacks on the company’s facilities had caused some production interruptions but that he was confident operations could be restored quickly. He said the attacks ‌had no material operational or financial impact.

The attacks have added to growing strains on a 2022 truce in the war between the Houthis and Yemen’s internationally recognised government, backed by Saudi Arabia.

The Houthis, which took control of the capital, Sanaa, in 2014, also declared a blockade on Saudi Arabia in the Red Sea last month, threatening shipping through the Bab al-Mandeb strait.

Saudi authorities have also blamed Iran-aligned armed groups in Iraq for attacks on its oil facilities.

On Friday, Riyadh signed a defence pact with Turkiye and Pakistan amid rising regional tensions from the US-Israel war on Iran.

New illegal settlement tender in West Bank deepens Israeli efforts to sever Palestinian ties to Jerusalem, officials warn.

Israeli authorities have issued a tender for 627 new housing units in the Kochav Yaakov settlement in the occupied West Bank, according to the Palestinian Colonization and Wall Resistance Commission (CRRC).

The Israel Land Authority on Thursday published the tender for the project, which will be built on land in the Ramallah and al-Bireh governorate, the commission said on Saturday.

Israel set November 30 as the deadline for construction companies to submit bids, moving the project from planning to construction just 15 months after it was first approved, it said.

CRRC slammed the expansion, saying it is designed to “deepen the separation between Jerusalem and its Palestinian surroundings”.

The illegal Israeli settlement of Kochav Yaakov sits between northern Jerusalem and the twin cities of Ramallah and el-Bireh, within a cluster of settlements Israel administers under the name “Binyamin”.

According to CRRC, the new project covers 253.7 dunams (25.37 hectares or about 63 acres) and was approved by Israeli authorities on April 27, 2025.

It says the tender marks the transition from planning to the “marketing and implementation” stage of settlement construction, with the new units expected to expand the illegal settlement’s built-up area and strengthen its links to nearby settlements and access roads. It added that the decision reflects growing investment in settlements’ economic infrastructure, not just housing.

The Israeli decision is one of several the commission has tracked this year aimed at tightening Israel’s illegal control and pressure on the Palestinian region.

According to CRRC, Israeli authorities have made 12 illegal settlement tenders in the first half of 2026, including 1,138 housing units concentrated in five main settlements, alongside a separate wave of tenders for industrial zones, offices, nursing homes and tourism facilities.

Illegal settlement expansion and settler violence have surged dramatically across the occupied West Bank this year. Palestinian monitors have recorded more than 11,000 attacks by Israeli forces and settlers across the West Bank since January 2026.

United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has repeatedly said Israeli settlements have “no legal validity” and constitute a “flagrant violation” of international law.

A 2024 International Court of Justice advisory opinion deemed Israel’s continued occupation of Palestinian territory unlawful.

Aug. 7 (UPI) — The far-right lawyer Abelardo de la Espriella was sworn in as president of Colombia Friday amid tight security at a ceremony held in the auditorium of a private university in Cali, the South American nation’s third-largest city.

De la Espriella took an oath to “faithfully uphold the Constitution and laws of Colombia” as he received the presidential sash from Sen. Honorio Henríquez, president of Colombian congress and a member of the far-right Democratic Center party.

Once installed, the new leader then swore in his vice president, José Manuel Restrepo, while his guest of honor, 74-year-old farmer Luis Felipe Yagüé, looked on as a symbol of De la Espriella’s support for small business owners and entrepreneurs, the Spanish news agency EFE reported.

The event triggered tight security measures, with 11,000 members of the security forces mobilized to ensure safety in Cali and the surrounding areas, local media reported. The strict measures included a ban on alcohol sales, transportation restrictions and reinforcements of the National Police.

No incidents of violence or narcoterrorism were reported in Cali on Friday, officials said.

Former Colombian presidents such as César Gaviria, Álvaro Uribe and Iván Duque were in attendance for the ceremony, but 2016 Nobel Peace Prize winner Juan Manuel Santos, president from 2010 to 2018, was not invited, EFE reported.

Also in attendance at Santiago de Cali University were King Felipe VI of Spain, Argentine president Javier Milei and FIFA president Gianni Infantino, as well as host of other Latin American leaders.

Meanwhile, members of outgoing Colombian President Gustavo Petro’s leftist Historical Pact party, boycotted De la Espriella’s swearing in ceremony. Many of them claim the ally of U.S. President Donald Trump won through fraud in the June 21 runoff election and that his victory was illegitimate.

Petro last month barred De la Espriella from holding his inauguration at a military base, triggering an unprecedented institutional dispute highlighting the country’s deepening political polarization.

The then-president repeated his claim that the incoming government “was not elected by a majority of the people.”

During the ceremony, De la Espriella reiterated his “tough-on-crime” credentials by announcing he will publish a list of local narco-terrorist organizations and instruct police to battle them more forcefully in a further repudiation of Petro’s “Total Peace” strategy of negotiating with armed groups.

“The option of dialogue is completely exhausted,” he asserted, according to CNN.

Aug. 8 (UPI) — Greenland has issued a “strong warning” to an American oil company linked to President Donald Trump, as it prepares to drill on the territory despite lacking proper permits.

Local residents in the southeastern region of Jameson Land recently spotted a barge carrying drilling equipment, The Guardian reported.

The equipment belongs to Greenland Energy, a Texas-based oil company whose chairman, Larry Swets, is part of Trump’s inner-circle.

Two days after a rebuke from the Greenlandic government, the president posted on Truth Social an AI-generated image showing a giant Trump, looming over the island, with the words, “Hello, Greenland!”

Greenland Energy officials said they plan to spend $60 million to drill two wells in Jameson Land, the Guardian reported. The company believes there could be as much as $1 trillion of crude in the region.

“The Department of Industry and Minerals can, in connection with the above, state that the licensee did not have the necessary approvals from the mineral resources authority in place before initiating this operation,” Greenland’s government said in a statement.

The statement added the government was sending a “strong warning” to the operators behind the move.

Due to environmental concerns, the Greenlandic government has not issued oil licenses since 2021.

But Greenland Energy acquired exploration rights previously held by British company 80 Mile. In exchange for funding exploration, Greenland Energy would retain a majority of the proceeds from the venture, the Helsinki Times reported.

Transferring the rights still requires government approval, which Greenland Energy has not yet managed.

“The approval has since expired and has not currently been renewed, but is under processing,” the government said in the statement.

A spokesperson for Greenland Energy said the company has 300 containers of drilling equipment ready to be shipped from Canada in September, with the goal of launching operations in earnest in October, the Guardian reported.

Trump has, for years, been adamant in his desire to annex Greenland. He has claimed the United States needs it “for defense.”

In January, he told European leaders that one of the reasons he renewed his push to own the territory was because he did not win the Nobel Peace Prize.

Trump has been rebuffed by officials in both Denmark and Greenland.

Aug. 8 (UPI) — The Defense Department is pressuring U.S. military contractors to produce weapons and munitions “significantly faster” as the country’s stockpile dwindles due to the Iran war, it was reported Saturday.

In a memo obtained by The Washington Post, the Pentagon told industry leaders to “drive significantly faster, more aggressive delivery schedules and/or increased production for critical capabilities.”

Deputy Defense Secretary Steve Feinberg said contractors have 21 days to submit plans on how they plan to achieve that.

“Years-long development cycles are not acceptable,” Feinberg wrote in the Wednesday memo obtained by The Post. “We must dramatically accelerate our program schedules and expand our production capacity now.”

Multiple news outlets reported this week that the United States had depleted much of its stockpile of long-range precision missiles in Iran.

In just the first month of the conflict, the military launched more than 850 Tomahawk cruise missiles, alarming some Pentagon officials, The Post reported.

Officials have said the U.S. military has been launching the missiles faster than manufacturers can replace them.

President Donald Trump on Thursday dismissed the reports, saying the United States has “massive amounts” of munitions.

“Additionally, large amounts are being manufactured and shipped to the U.S. as needed,” he wrote on Truth Social. Defense companies are building the largest number of plants and factories in our country’s history.”

“The ‘leakers’ of these treasonous statements are being hunted down,” Trump added. “Long-term jail sentences will be sought!”

Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell said the military “has everything it needs to execute at the time and place of the president’s choosing.”

“We have executed multiple successful operations across combatant commands while ensuring the U.S. military possesses a deep arsenal of capabilities to protect our people and our interests,” he added in a statement to CBS News.

Three Colombian tourists from same family are among the victims of Saturday’s crash on mountainside forest of Tijuca National Park.

At least four people have been killed in a helicopter crash in the Brazilian city of Rio de Janeiro, according to a statement from the Colombian consul in the country.

Saturday’s crash involved a pilot and three Colombian women who were members of the same family.

They were reportedly on a sightseeing flight over Tijuca National Park, a densely forested, mountainous area on the edge of the city.

In the aftermath of the crash, Rio de Janeiro Mayor Eduardo Cavaliere called for more oversight of helicopter flights, a popular tourist activity. He even suggested such flights could be suspended “for a week or two”, as new safety measures are implemented.

“My solidarity to the families of the victims of the helicopter accident that happened today near Vista Chinesa within the Tijuca National Park,” Cavaliere said in a social media post.

He added that he had been in contact with Brazil’s National Civil Aviation Agency, ANAC.

“City Hall has requested that ANAC take immediate action to intensify oversight and ensure safety in helicopter flights that are circulating with increasing frequency in our city,” Cavaliere explained.

“We place the entire apparatus of City Hall at the disposal of ANAC to support the measures and actions that may be necessary.”

The crash took place near Vista Chinesa, a lookout point crowned by a small bamboo pagoda. Tijuca National Park is a top destination in Rio de Janeiro, famous for its Christ the Redeemer statue and sweeping vistas of the coastal city.

Diana Paez, the Colombian consul general in Rio de Janeiro, told the news agency AFP that the three women on Saturday’s flight were part of a family that had travelled to the city to celebrate a girl’s 15th birthday.

The group of six had split up since the helicopter could only fit three people. The girl’s grandmother, aunt and cousin died in the crash.

Helicopter rides have become a popular way for tourists to see the city and its various monuments from above, a practice that has attracted growing concern over safety.

Six people were recently killed when two helicopters collided in midair over the city. That incident took place over the western suburb of Recreio dos Bandeirantes on June 14.

Palestinians near Bethlehem describe daily settler attacks as violence rises across the West Bank. Al Jazeera’s Nour Odeh reports that with elections looming, Israel’s right-wing government has an incentive to keep settlers happy, with their votes crucial to its re-election.

Aug. 8 (UPI) — Thousands of people were ordered to evacuate their homes as a massive wildfire spread through western Canada on Saturday.

The Bald Range fire in British Columbia has doubled in size since it was first reported on Friday, the BBC reported.

Power went out in the district of Summerland, whose 12,000 residents were ordered to evacuate.

Another 8,000 people have been ordered to evacuate in nearby areas, The Independent reported.

The blaze remained uncontrolled as of Saturday.

British Columbia Premier David Eby declared a state of emergency on Saturday.

“Throughout the night and into this morning, first responders, BC Wildfire Service crews, RCMP officers, emergency management teams, and local communities worked tirelessly to keep people safe and fight the fire near Summerland,” he said in a statement on X. “They continue to do everything possible to protect people and communities.”

But, Eby added, “If you’re under an evacuation order, leave now.”

Authorities said there were some 100 wildfires burning across the province.

The pact includes an Article 5-style mutual-defence clause, but questions remain over how it would operate in practice and how Tehran will respond.

Turkish leaders have insisted that the new trilateral defence pact with Saudi Arabia and Pakistan is not directed at Iran.

Turkiye’s Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan said on Saturday that the pact does not identify Iran, or any other country, as a common threat.

The Mecca Joint Defence Agreement was signed on Friday by Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, stating that an armed attack on one of the three countries would be considered an attack on them all.

“There is no common threat that we have put in writing,” Fidan told Turkey’s state-run Anadolu agency, adding that countries that do not attack the signatories would not be considered targets.

An Article 5-style commitment

Fidan described the pact as “technically” similar to NATO’s Article 5 collective-defence clause, under which an attack on one member is treated as an attack on all.

But the response would depend on the circumstances.

A country under attack would have to request assistance and specify what kind of support it needed, Fidan said. That could range from intelligence and logistics to ammunition or the deployment of military units.

The alliance will also establish political and military committees, bringing together foreign and defence ministers and military chiefs, as well as a secretariat in Saudi Arabia.

Fidan said the three countries would work on joint training, intelligence sharing, logistics, threat assessments and military interoperability.

Defence-industry cooperation is also expected to be a notable part of the pact. Fidan said it was one of the main issues discussed by the three leaders in Mecca, including how the countries could benefit from each other’s military technologies.

The Turkish minister said preparations for the agreement had been under way for nearly two years and eight months, suggesting it was not drawn up simply in response to the current tensions involving Iran.

Iran pushes back

Despite Ankara’s assurances, some Iranian officials have questioned the agreement and warned Saudi Arabia against relying on its new partners for security.

Mahmoud Nabavian, a member of Iran’s parliamentary National Security and Foreign Policy Commission, said Saudi leaders should understand that cooperation with Turkiye and Pakistan would not guarantee their security.

Another commission member, Ebrahim Rezaei, similarly dismissed the pact as a “paper agreement”.

Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi did not directly mention the agreement in a message on X on Friday, but he called on regional states to rely on themselves and pursue what he described as “true brotherhood”.

At the same time, he stressed the strength and readiness of Iran’s armed forces.

Egypt could join next

Fidan portrayed the agreement as part of a broader effort to give regional countries greater responsibility for their own security.

“External hegemons coming into the region do not solve the problems; they make them more acute,” he told Anadolu.

He described Turkiye, Saudi Arabia and Pakistan as the “core countries” of the initiative and made clear that Ankara wants the arrangement to expand.

“Under our president’s vision, we should not remain limited to three countries,” Fidan said. “We should grow and, if necessary, bring all countries under this umbrella.”

Several countries have already expressed interest, according to Fidan, who said he expected Egypt, which he described as a “natural partner”, to join once outstanding technical issues were resolved.

For now, many of the practical details remain to be worked out, including how the three militaries would coordinate in a crisis.

But the planned committees, permanent secretariat and focus on interoperability and defence-industry cooperation suggest the pact is intended to develop beyond a simple mutual defence declaration.

US Vice President JD Vance claims Washington has “destroyed” Iran’s nuclear programme and degraded its military, as Tehran demands US compensation and an end to the naval blockade before reopening the Strait of Hormuz.

Aug. 8 (UPI) — The U.S. Department of State announced Friday that the United States intends to give $1 billion to the new government of Colombia, which is now in the control of Abelardo de la Espriella, the right-wing candidate backed by U.S. President Donald Trump.

In a press release, the State Department said the government sent a delegation led by now-confirmed Attorney General Todd Blanche to Colombia to attend the inauguration of de la Espriella in Cali, Colombia, on Friday.

“The delegation demonstrates U.S. commitment to reinvigorating the U.S.-Colombia relationship and deepening of our shared security and economic partnership,” the press release from the office of the State Department’s spokesperson said. “As a cornerstone of this renewed partnership, the United States, working with Congress, intends to announce $1 billion in assistance as part of a security package to support President de la Espriella’s administration in achieving our shared goals.”

The goals center around de la Espriella’s promise of an “all-out war” on drug cartels.

De la Espriella, 48, is a lawyer and businessman and has worked to gain a reputation as a maverick outsider who plans to battle crime with an “iron fist,” the BBC reported. He promised to crack down on armed groups, shrink the government by up to 40% and rejuvenate the oil and gas sector.

“I have come to close a long chapter of national resignation and, together with the people, embark on the most profound transformation ⁠of our destiny,” De La Espriella said at the Pichincha Battalion military base in Cali, Colombia, Friday.

“I send a firm message to the Colombian people: The time has come to restore order, authority and freedom,” De La Espriella said. He pledged to crush armed insurgents, rebuild Colombia and defend democracy “by reason or by force.”

The new president comes to power during a time of deep political polarization in the country. He defeated leftist Sen. Iván Cepeda in a runoff election by 250,000 votes out of more than 26 million cast.

De la Espriella said he is bringing “the age of the Tiger,” when the state would be forceful and decisive against crime. His self-chosen nickname is “El Tigre.”

“There will not be a single place in our territory where criminals can feel safe,” he said.

He vowed to “definitively eradicate the scourge of illicit crops,” saying he would use aerial herbicides that did not harm human health or the environment to destroy coca, the plant used to make cocaine. In one of his first acts as president, Colombia would join Trump’s Shield of the Americas program, he said.

His campaign is very different from his predecessor Gustavo Petro. Pedro pushed for a “total peace” strategy to end an ongoing fight between guerrilla groups, the state and cartels.

Sadly, the program failed, critics have alleged. Membership of armed groups has expanded in recent years.

De la Espriella is a citizen of the United States as well as Colombia. He lived and worked in Miami for many years and became a U.S. citizen in 2023.