Hundreds of millions of people around the world are celebrating the Lunar New Year. They’re welcoming in the Year of the Horse. Rob McBride reports from the Temple of Earth in Beijing, on the first day of the Chinese New Year.
Published On 17 Feb 202617 Feb 2026
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Nearly 3 out of 10 households in South Korea raise pets, mostly dogs, government data showed Tuesday. In this Sept. 28, 2025, photo, dogs wear traditional hanbok at a fashion show held in Seoul. File Photo by Yonhap
Nearly 3 out of 10 households in South Korea raise pets, mostly dogs, government data showed Tuesday.
A survey by the Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs showed that 29.2 percent of households were raising pets at home in 2025.
Of such households, 80.5 percent raised dogs, while 14.4 percent raised cats and 4.1 percent fish.
Pet owners spent an average of 121,000 won (US$84) per month for their pets.
The survey marked South Korea’s first nationally approved statistical survey on pet ownership.
In a separate survey on animal welfare, also conducted by the agriculture ministry, a little less than half of respondents said pet owners appear to be properly complying with pet-related requirements, such as using leashes and identification tags.
Still, there existed a wide perception gap depending on the respondents’ pet ownership, with 86.9 percent of those who own pets saying they comply with the rules, while only 39.9 percent of non-owners gave the same response.
Regarding the penalty for animal abuse, 93.2 percent of respondents agreed with a need for stronger punishment for those who abuse animals, including bans on animal ownership.
Copyright (c) Yonhap News Agency prohibits its content from being redistributed or reprinted without consent, and forbids the content from being learned and used by artificial intelligence systems.
About 1.4 billion people began marking the Lunar New Year on Tuesday amid fireworks as China enters the Year of the Fire Horse, one of 12 animals in the Chinese zodiac.
Known as the Spring Festival in China, the new year, based on the lunar calendar, also brings about the world’s largest annual human migration, called Chunyun, as millions travel across the country for family reunions.
It is also a huge opportunity to boost domestic consumption in the world’s second-largest economy, which has been driven by exports.
Monday night’s gala, one of the largest state-sponsored televised events, was marked by a stunningly synchronised kung fu performance by robots and children.
The Year of the Horse, said to bring optimism and opportunity, is following the Year of the Snake, which represented transformation and strategy.
Here is a quick snapshot of the festival.
It is the most important holiday in China and is celebrated by millions of people in the country and in East and Southeast Asia.
In the days leading up to it, people clean their homes and decorate with red lanterns, couplets, and paper cuttings that represent prosperity and good fortune.
On the eve of the Lunar New Year, families gather for a large reunion dinner, exchanging hongbao, red envelopes of cash as a symbol of blessings and good fortune.
The celebrations usually last about 15 days, ending with the Lantern Festival. Fireworks, dragon and lion dances, temple fairs across big cities and the hinterland are common during this period.
In the Chinese zodiac, each year is associated with one of the 12 zodiac animals, which is believed to influence the year’s character and fortune.
The animal from the Chinese zodiac is then paired with any one of the five elements: metal, wood, water, fire and earth.
This is the Year of the Fire Horse.
This year’s official holiday is nine days, rather than the typical eight, with New Year’s Day falling on Tuesday, February 17.
The Chinese zodiac system is incredibly complex, repeating every 12 years, each represented by an animal in this order: rat, ox, tiger, rabbit, dragon, snake, horse, goat, monkey, rooster, dog and pig.
The year of one’s birth decides their zodiac sign; meaning, the ones born last year were Snakes, this year’s children would be Horses and next year’s would be Goats.
A complex mechanism decides how the year will be paired with one of the five elements.
This year, the element is Bing, or big sun, paired with the Horse. This pairing occurs every 60 years, most recently in 1966.
For those who believe in the Chinese zodiac, the Year of the Fire Horse represents an explosion of energy and independence, with unpredictable realignments.
The Spring Festival in China is not just cultural but also economically significant, typically driving a spike in consumption across multiple sectors.
People spend heavily on food and festive goods, entertainment, and tourism, with retail and e-commerce platforms registering a surge in sales during the pre-holiday period.
The Chinese government is also expecting a record 9.5 billion passenger trips during the 40-day Spring Festival period, up from nine billion trips last year, as they travel for annual reunions.
The government has also issued consumer vouchers worth more than 360 million yuan ($52m) this month to boost consumption.
China is looking to boost domestic spending in its next five-year economic plan, where households save nearly a third of their income.
It is a global phenomenon extending beyond China. In East and Southeast Asia, several countries observe the Lunar New Year under distinct cultural pretexts.
For instance, Vietnam celebrates Tet Nguyen Dan, which emphasises family reunions and specific culinary traditions like banh chung. In South Korea, Seollal, or the Korean New Year, focuses on honouring ancestors and the consumption of tteokguk, a rice cake soup believed to grant people another year of age.
In Southeast Asian countries like Singapore and Malaysia, the holiday is a multicultural event marked by public holidays.
Diaspora communities in cities like San Francisco, London, and Sydney also host some of the largest celebrations in the world, featuring massive parades, dragon boat races and fireworks.
This Lunar New Year found its mascot in a rather unusual place: in the World of Harry Potter, a wildly popular British production. And that too in the franchise’s most popular villain, Draco Malfoy.
In Mandarin, the name Malfoy is written phonetically as “ma er fu”. The opening character, ma, signifies “horse” and the closing character, fu, represents “fortune” or “blessing”.
Islamabad, Pakistan – The sister of former Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan has told Al Jazeera that the family has rejected a government board’s claims that the cricketer-turned-politician’s eyesight has improved since a court report last week said he had lost most vision in one eye.
A government-appointed medical board examining the jailed ex-leader reported a significant improvement in his eyesight after weeks of controversy over his deteriorating vision. Its medical report, seen by Al Jazeera, claims that Khan’s vision in his right eye has improved from 6/36 to 6/9. His left eye remains at 6/6 vision with the use of glasses.
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In ophthalmic terms, 6/6 vision means the person’s eyesight is fine. A 6/9 reading means the person can see at 6 metres (20 feet) what someone with normal vision sees at 9 metres (30 ft).
The assessment was carried out on Sunday by a two-member board comprising doctors Nadeem Qureshi and Muhammad Arif Khan. The specialists conducted a detailed examination at Adiala jail in Rawalpindi, where the 73-year-old founder of the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party has been imprisoned since August 2023.
But Khan’s family said it had “no trust” in the authorities.
His sister, Aleema Khan, described it as “extremely concerning and unacceptable” that the government had resisted allowing Khan’s personal doctor and a family representative to be present during the examination and treatment.
“Without the physical presence of both his personal doctor and family representative, we categorically reject any claims made by the government regarding his examination, treatment or medical condition,” Aleema told Al Jazeera.
Aasim Yusuf, chief medical officer of the Imran Khan-founded Shaukat Khanum Memorial Hospital and one of Khan’s personal physicians, said in a video message that he had held a 40-minute conversation with the two doctors who examined Khan on February 15.
In the video, shared by the PTI on social media, Yusuf said the visiting doctors briefed him on the treatment and future plan of care, adding that according to their latest assessment, “Khan had shown significant improvement as a result of treatment and his vision had improved significantly as well”.
“I would be extremely happy if I was able to confirm that this was the case. Unfortunately, because I have not seen him myself and have not been able to participate in his care or to talk to him, I am unable to either confirm or deny the veracity of what we have been told,” Yusuf said.
The latest examination comes after reports last month that authorities had taken Khan late at night to a government facility for a medical procedure without informing his family. Following the outcry, Pakistan’s Supreme Court appointed Barrister Salman Safdar as amicus curiae to meet Khan and assess his condition.
In a seven-page report filed last week, Safdar painted a troubling picture. He wrote that Khan had suffered rapid and substantial vision loss over the past three months and that despite repeated complaints of persistent blurred and hazy vision, “no action was taken by the jail authorities to address these complaints”.
Safdar quoted Khan as saying that “only 15 percent” vision remained in his right eye.
PTI General Secretary Salman Akram Raja told reporters in Islamabad on Monday that the two doctors, one of whom was recommended after consultations with Yusuf, confirmed that Khan’s vision had improved.
“The two doctors who met him in jail said that Khan confirmed to them that he was unable to see the clock on the wall for a few weeks, [but] can now not only see that, but also the clock hands. According to doctors, this was an incredible improvement in his vision,” Raja said.
Aleema, however, insisted that the family could not accept any medical report until Khan’s physician examined him in person. She renewed the demand that he be transferred to Shifa International Hospital in Islamabad.
She accused the government of repeatedly misleading the family about Khan’s health.
“After our protest and Salman Safdar’s report, we were told that he would be taken to Shifa International Hospital, along with [the] presence of his physician as well as a family member, but then, abruptly, they [the government] changed the plan. How can we be suddenly denied?” she asked.
Aleema said authorities had asked the family to provide the names of doctors and relatives who could accompany Khan, only to reject each proposal.
“There have been repeated back-and-forth phone calls. We gave them the names of his personal doctors, including Dr Aasim. Another name we gave was our sister, Uzma Khan, to represent the family. But the response from the government was that no sister will be allowed to meet him,” she claimed.
She added that her brother had no underlying medical conditions, such as diabetes or high blood pressure, and described him as a political prisoner.
“Our hearts are breaking, and we are so frustrated. This is deliberate. When Salman Safdar went there and came back, he told us the story, and we cried hearing about Khan’s current situation. This is not just criminal negligence, this is outright criminal and deliberate,” she said.
The PTI and its allies, who are holding a sit-in outside parliament, have promised to continue their protest until their demands are met, including access to Khan and his transfer to Shifa International Hospital.
Sheikh Waqas Akram, the party’s central information secretary, said the demand was straightforward and focused on securing “specialised treatment” for Khan.
“When you deny the family access, or the physicians recommended by the family, and when you break promises, how can we trust? We don’t even know what they have done with him. We believe the government is certainly hiding something,” he told Al Jazeera.
Aleema said she would hold a news conference on Tuesday outside Adiala jail and added that the family had not sought any concessions from authorities beyond medical access.
“Imran’s sons have been trying to visit Pakistan since last year and have applied several times, but their visa has not been processed. It is in limbo, they do not get a denial, nor an approval,” she said, referring to Kasim and Suleman, Khan’s two sons, who are nationals of the United Kingdom.
The sons were born during Khan’s first marriage to Jemima Goldsmith. The couple divorced in 2004 after nine years of marriage. Both sons are based in London.
The government, meanwhile, has defended the medical board’s work. Law Minister Azam Nazeer Tarar said the treatment provided to Khan had led to improvement and that the specialist team had expressed satisfaction with his progress.
Speaking at a public event on Monday, Tarar said opposition leaders and Khan’s personal doctors had been briefed.
Minister for Parliamentary Affairs Tariq Fazal Chaudhry also said the examination inside the jail was conducted “in accordance with government directives and with complete transparency”.
“The government provided every necessary facility on site to ensure no question of any negligence arises,” Chaudhry wrote on social media, adding that Gohar Ali Khan, the PTI chairman in Khan’s absence, had been kept informed.
Imran Khan, a former Pakistan cricket captain who led Pakistan to its 1992 World Cup victory, became prime minister in 2018.
He was removed in 2022 through a parliamentary no-confidence vote, which he said was orchestrated by the military in collusion with Washington and his political rivals. Both the military and the United States have denied the allegations.
Since his ouster, Khan has blamed Army Chief Field Marshal Asim Munir for his legal and political troubles and has repeatedly urged supporters to protest.
In June 2024, a United Nations Working Group on Arbitrary Detention concluded that Khan’s detention “had no legal basis and appears to have been intended to disqualify him from running [for] political office”.
Barca miss a chance to move above Real Madrid in the Spanish league as Catalan neighbours Girona climb to 12th.
Published On 17 Feb 202617 Feb 2026
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Lamine Yamal missed a penalty as Barcelona lost to Girona 2-1, passing up a chance to overtake Real Madrid at the top of La Liga. The defeat was the second in less than a week for Barca and left them second in the table, two points behind Madrid.
A win on Monday would have taken the defending champions above their archrivals, but, instead, a crisis brewed for coach Hansi Flick, whose side lost to Atletico Madrid 4-0 in the Copa del Rey last week.
The second loss came even though Barcelona took the lead early in the second half.
Yamal hit the post with his spot kick on the stroke of half-time, but 14 minutes into the second period, Pau Cubarsi met Jules Kounde’s cross from the right and placed his header perfectly into the top corner.
The goal was Barcelona’s 100th in all competitions this season, making them the second club in Europe’s big five domestic leagues to hit the century mark after Bayern Munich.
However, Girona roared back into the game just three minutes later.
Barcelona’s Joan Garcia was already the busier of the two goalkeepers, but he could not stop Thomas Lemar side-footing home from close range after nice work from Vladyslav Vanat on the left wing.
Both sides pushed for a decisive second, and it was Girona who executed with three minutes remaining, substitute Fran Beltran scoring with a low shot from just inside the box.
Girona’s Joel Roca was sent off in the dying seconds, but there were no more goals.
The victory ended a three-game winless streak for Girona and lifted them by three places into 12th, equal on points with Getafe.
Only seven points separate the 11 clubs from eighth to 18th in La Liga.
Cubans suffer under a US fuel blockade as President Donald Trump calls the Caribbean country a ‘failed nation’.
Published On 17 Feb 202617 Feb 2026
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The United States-imposed fuel crisis in Cuba is also turning into a waste and health crisis, as many collection trucks have been left with empty fuel tanks, causing refuse to pile up on the streets of the capital, Havana, and other cities and towns.
Only 44 of Havana’s 106 rubbish trucks have been able to keep operating due to the fuel shortages, slowing rubbish collection, as waste piles up on Havana’s street corners, the Reuters news agency reported on Monday, citing state-run news outlet Cubadebate.
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Other towns are also seeing rubbish pile up, and residents have taken to social media to raise the alarm over the risk to public health, according to Reuters, citing Cuban media.
“It’s all over the city,” said Jose Ramon Cruz, a resident of Havana.
“It’s been more than 10 days since a garbage truck came,” Cruz told Reuters.
The mounting rubbish crisis has added to the suffering on the tiny island-state, which US President Donald Trump described on Monday as a “failed nation”.
“Cuba is now a failed nation. They don’t even have jet fuels to get their aeroplanes to take off, they’re plugging up their runway,” Trump said.
“We’re talking to Cuba right now, and Marco Rubio is talking to Cuba right now, and they should absolutely make a deal. Because it’s really a humanitarian threat,” he said.
Cuba’s severe fuel crisis is a result of the US cutting off crucial oil supplies once imported from Venezuela. Washington’s move followed the bloody US military raid on Caracas and the abduction of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro and his wife in early January.
Trump has been threatening Cuba and its leadership for months, and increased his choke-hold on the Cuban economy by recently passing an executive order that allows the US to impose crippling sanctions on any country that supplies oil to Cuba.
Asked if the US intended to remove the Cuban government, akin to Washington’s abduction of Maduro in Venezuela, Trump said: “I don’t think that will be necessary.”
Last month, Trump warned Cuban leaders to “make a deal, before it is too late”, without specifying the consequences of not meeting his demand.
Amid the crisis, Mexico sent two navy ships carrying 800 tonnes of humanitarian aid to Cuba last week, and on Monday, Spain said it would use the Spanish Agency for International Development and the United Nations to channel aid to Havana.
The announcement was made as Spanish Minister of Foreign Affairs Jose Manuel Albares met with his Cuban counterpart, Bruno Rodriguez Parrilla, in Madrid on Monday, where the pair “addressed the current situation in Cuba following the tightening of the embargo”.
In a post on X, Rodriguez criticised “the violations of peace, security and international law and the increasing hostility of the United States against Cuba”.
The Cuban foreign minister’s stop in Madrid followed visits to China and Vietnam, where he has sought support amid the US’s de facto blockade.
The accident, near the town of Goppenstein, occurred as the region is under its second-highest avalanche warning, a level four out of five.
Published On 17 Feb 202617 Feb 2026
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A regional train has derailed in southern Switzerland, injuring five people, police said, as the risk of avalanches in the region has reached its second-highest level.
The accident on Monday near the town of Goppenstein occurred amid heavy snow and at an altitude of 1,216 metres (4,000 feet), according to the AFP news agency.
“According to initial findings, an avalanche may have crossed the tracks shortly before the train passed,” police said, adding that the public prosecutor’s office has opened an investigation.
“Five people were injured. One of them was taken to hospital,” police added.
The train accident follows a series of deadly avalanches across the Alps in recent days involving skiers.
On Friday, three skiers were killed after being swept away by an avalanche in the upmarket French Alpine resort of Val d’Isere.
Cedric Bonnevie, who oversees the resort’s pistes, said one of the victims was a French national while the others were foreign citizens.
He said one victim appeared to have been caught in the avalanche high on the mountain slope, while the other two were part of a group of five, including a professional guide, lower on the mountain face and did not see the avalanche approaching.
In Italy, rescuers said last week that a record 13 backcountry skiers, climbers and hikers had died in the mountains over the previous seven days, including 10 in avalanches triggered by an exceptionally unstable snowpack.
Fresh snowfall during recent storms, combined with windswept snow sitting on weak internal layers, has created especially dangerous conditions across the Alpine arc bordering France, Switzerland, Austria and Italy, Italy’s Alpine Rescue said.
“Under such conditions, the passage of a single skier, or natural overloading from the weight of snow, can be sufficient to trigger an avalanche,” Federico Catania, Alpine Rescue’s spokesperson, said.
The avalanche deaths have occurred on ungroomed mountain slopes, away from the well-maintained and monitored Winter Olympic sites in Lombardy near the Swiss border, Cortina d’Ampezzo in Veneto, and the cross-country skiing venues in Val di Fiemme, within the autonomous province of Trentino.
Thomas Pritzker, pictured in 2017 giving a speech in Tokyo, resigned as executive chairman of Hyatt Hotels Corporation over his relationship with Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell. Photo by Franck Robichon/EPA
Feb. 16 (UPI) — Thomas Pritzker, executive chairman of Hyatt Hotels Corporation, announced that he would leave his role at the company, weeks after his association with sex predator Jeffrey Epstein came to light.
Pritzker, who is the cousin of Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker, on Monday said in a letter to Hyatt’s board that he decided to leave in order to provide “good stewardship” to the company he has led for more than two decades, CBS News and CNBC reported.
In the letter, which was released by the Pritzker Organization, the 75-year-old said that he had “regret” over his connection to both Epstein and convicted sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell, who helped the pedophile in his schemes of abuse.
“Good stewardship also means protecting Hyatt, particularly in the context of my association with Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell, which I deeply regret,” Pritzker said. “I exercised terrible judgement in maintaining contact with them, and there is no excuse for failing to distance myself sooner.”
Hyatt’s board named Mark Hoplamazian, who already is the company’s president and chief executive officer, as chairman of its board effective immediately, the company said in a press release.
“Tom’s leadership has been instrumental in shaping Hyatt’s strategy and long-term growth, and we thank him for his service and dedication to Hyatt,” Richard Tuttle, chair of the company’s board’s nominating and corporate governance committee, said in the release.
Epstein pleaded guilty in 2008 to soliciting a minor for prostitution and was arrested in 2019 on federal child sex trafficking charges but killed himself in jail before being brought to trial.
Pritzker, who had been a member of Hyatt’s board and its executive chairman since 2004, was named in Epstein court documents released on Jan. 3 by the Department of Justice, which also named Britain’s now-former Prince Andrew, former President Bill Clinton and current President Donald Trump, none of whom were accused of wrongdoing in the filings.
The documents showed that Pritzker continued to communicate with Epstein after his 2008 plea deal.
In addition to being named in the documents, Pritzker had previously been accused by Epstein accuser Virginia Giuffre as one of several men she was trafficked to for sex, although Pritzker has denied the allegations, according to CBS News.
Pritzker is the latest person to face consequences for a relationship with Epstein and Maxwell since the Jan. 3 release and the Jan. 30 release of more than 3 million more investigative and court documents related to the two sex offenders.
Among others, ex-Prince Andrew vacated the Royal Lodge, Britain’s former ambassador to the United States is being investigated for links to Epstein, lawyer Brad Karp has resigned and Davos CEO Borge Brende is also being investigated for his links.
Pritzker steps down as Hyatt executive chairman, effective immediately, due to his relationship with the late sex offender.
Published On 17 Feb 202617 Feb 2026
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Billionaire Thomas J Pritzker has announced that he is retiring as executive chairman of Hyatt Hotels Corporation over his long association with sex offenders Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell, which came to light in recently released US Justice Department files.
Pritzker, 75, who has served in the role of Hyatt Hotels’ executive chairman since 2004, also said on Monday that he will not seek re-election to the company’s board at its 2026 annual stockholder meeting.
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In a letter to the Hyatt board and a related statement, Pritzker expressed deep regret over maintaining contact with Epstein, who took his own life in prison in 2019, and Maxwell, describing it as “terrible judgement”, with no excuse for not distancing himself sooner.
“Good stewardship also means protecting Hyatt, particularly in the context of my association with Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell which I deeply regret,” he said in the statement.
“I exercised terrible judgement in maintaining contact with them, and there is no excuse for failing to distance myself sooner.”
Newly released documents by the Justice Department show that Pritzker had ongoing and regular contact with Epstein for years after the financier’s conviction on sex crime charges in 2008, according to The New York Times.
Pritzker is the latest powerful figure facing repercussions after the release of millions of pages of documents showing the depth of Epstein’s network of business, political and cultural elites in the US and around the world.
Goldman Sachs chief legal counsel Kathryn Ruemmler resigned last week over her ties to Epstein. Norwegian police said they had conducted searches of properties owned by former Prime Minister Thorbjorn Jagland as part of a corruption investigation into his connections with the late sex offender.
The head of DP Ports World, the world’s largest port operator, Sultan Ahmed bin Sulayem, was also replaced over his close friendship with Epstein, while economist Larry Summers resigned from the OpenAI board late last year.
Former United Kingdom ambassador to Washington, Peter Mandelson, has been asked to submit himself for an interview and answer questions as part of a US congressional investigation into Epstein.
In a letter sent to Mandelson by Democratic Representatives Robert Garcia and Suhas Subramanyam, both members of the US House of Representatives Oversight Committee, the lawmakers said it was “clear” that the former ambassador “possessed extensive social and business ties” to Epstein and requested that he make himself available for a transcribed interview.
Mandelson took up the prestigious post as the UK’s ambassador to the US in February 2025. He was removed from the role in September 2025 after UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s government said new information had come to light showing the much deeper nature of his longstanding ties with Epstein.
The Mandelson controversy has led to calls for Starmer to stand down as prime minister, with critics questioning his judgement in appointing him to the ambassador’s role.
Starmer’s chief of staff and cabinet secretary have also stood down due to the scandal .
Feb. 16 (UPI) — Ryan Routh, who was convicted of attempting to kill then-former President Donald Trump, has filed an appeal of his life sentence and his conviction.
Routh, 60, was convicted of hiding in the bushes at Trump International Golf Club in West Palm Beach in September 2024. He pointed a military-grade SKS rifle toward Trump, who was then a candidate running for his second term, and a Secret Service agent.
He defended himself in the trial that ended in September. When the verdict was read, he stabbed himself in the neck with a pen.
Routh was given an attorney for the sentencing portion of his trial. That attorney, Martin L. Roth, filed a notice Friday with the U.S. Court of Appeals stating that Routh will fight the conviction and his sentence, ordered Feb. 4. Routh was sentenced to life plus seven years.
He was convicted in October of all five charges of attempting to assassinate a major presidential candidate, assaulting a federal officer, possession of a firearm in furtherance of a crime of violence, being a felon in possession of a firearm and ammunition, and possessing a firearm with an obliterated serial number.
Secret Service agent Robert Fercano testified that Routh hid behind a shrub-covered fence near the sixth hole of the course, aiming an AK-style weapon at Trump. Routh was found with a handwritten note that stated his intention to kill Trump.
Routh argued that he had a right to peacefully protest at the golf course.
“This is as far [from] peaceful assembly as you can imagine,” Assistant U.S. Attorney John Shipley responded. “Peaceful protest is one thing. An assassination attempt is another.”
Prosecutors said in a court filing that Routh deserved a life sentence.
“Routh’s crimes undeniably warrant a life sentence — he took steps over the course of months to assassinate a major presidential candidate, demonstrated the will to kill anybody in the way, and has since expressed neither regret nor remorse to his victims.”
Routh’s attorney argued that his conviction was faulty.
“Defendant recognizes that he was found guilty by the jury but asserts that the jury was misled by his inability to effectively confront witnesses, use exhibits, or affirmatively introduce impeachment evidence designed to prove his lack of intent to cause injury to anyone,” Roth wrote.
Feb. 16 (UPI) — Several civil rights groups are suing the Trump administration to prohibit it from misusing voter information that it seized from Fulton County, Ga., last month.
The Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, Georgia Coalition for the People’s Agenda, the NAACP and Atlanta and Georgia State Conference branches of the NAACP filed the lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Georgia on Sunday.
They seek to block the Trump administration from using the voting records to purge voters from the rolls, improperly disclose information, dox or intimidate voters.
“We have very serious concerns about what the Trump administration could do with the voting records of thousands of people from Fulton County,” Robert Weiner, director of the voting rights project at the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, said in a statement.
“When people registered to vote, they did not sign up for the release of their private information and social security numbers, especially not to politicians and their loyalists bent on advancing debunked conspiracy theories.”
The FBI raided the Fulton County elections office in Union City, Ga., on Jan. 28, and commandeered sensitive voter information from the 2020 general election. The lawsuit alleges that this included personal data and documents that could identify who voted for a particular candidate.
About 700 boxes of ballots were taken from the elections office as well as other materials related to the election.
FBI agents executed a warrant at the direction of the White House, a warrant affidavit revealed.
President Donald Trump has maintained that the 2020 presidential election was “stolen” and he was the true winner, despite numerous court decisions striking down his claims.
Trump’s claims have continued since his return to the White House, as well as broader claims of election fraud. He has called for elections to be “nationalized” in recent weeks, saying Republicans should “take over” elections in “at least maybe 15 places.”
Nearly a year since the Palestinian-Israeli film No Other Land won an Academy Award, its co-director, Hamdan Ballal, says Israeli settler attacks on the cluster of occupied West Bank villages known as Masafer Yatta have only gotten worse, as those involved in the documentary bear the brunt of Israeli reprisals.
The latest bout of violence came on Sunday, when Israeli settlers stormed Ballal’s hometown of Susya, despite an Israeli court ruling designating the area around his home as closed to non-residents. Israeli army officers called by the family to enforce the ruling, issued two weeks prior, sided with the attackers.
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“The ruling was supposed to make things better for us, but the opposite happened,” Ballal told Al Jazeera on Monday. “Israeli authorities did nothing to enforce the decision, but joined the settlers in the attack.”
One of his brothers was held in a chokehold by an army officer and later hospitalised with breathing difficulties. Four other relatives – two brothers, a nephew, and a cousin – were detained for several hours as they arrived at the scene. They have all since been released.
The Palestinian film director said his family was ambushed by the same Israeli settler who led an attack against him as he returned from the Oscar ceremony in Los Angeles last March. Then, he had been taken away in a blindfold by a group of Israeli settlers and army officers and released a day later with injuries to his head and stomach, leading to global condemnation.
Ballal said the retaliation for the documentary has since been directed against his family, rather than himself, to avoid media attention. His relatives have been routinely prevented from grazing sheep and ploughing the land. At times, they have been arrested, questioned about his work and whereabouts, or intimidated to vacate their homes.
“My family is paying because of me; because I shared the movie and I shared the truth,” he said.
The film, which won the Oscar for best documentary on March 2, follows Palestinian journalist Basel Adra and Israeli journalist Yuval Abraham as they try to protect Palestinian homes amid tensions with settlers in Masafer Yatta in the South Hebron Hills. Israeli filmmaker Rachel Szor also shares directing credits.
Israeli settlers in the area often graze their animals on Palestinian land to assert control, signal unrestricted access, and lay the groundwork for establishing illegal outposts, cutting Palestinians off from their farms and livestock.
The Israeli army argues that it has to demolish the Palestinian villages to convert the area into a military “firing” or training zone. It did not respond to Al Jazeera’s request for comment on Sunday’s incident.
Across the occupied West Bank, Israel’s far-right coalition government, led by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, has been openly promoting new measures to expand Israeli control over the Palestinian territory.
Most recently, it announced the resumption of the land registration processes for the first time since 1967, which Israeli rights groups say will accelerate the dispossession and displacement of Palestinians in violation of international law.
Ballal’s family has not been the only one to pay the price for the acclaimed documentary.
Adra, the Palestinian protagonist in the film, had his home in at-Tawani raided by the Israeli army in September, after clashes broke out with a group of Israeli settlers that trespassed in his olive grove.
In July, Awdah Hathaleen, an activist, football player and a consultant for No Other Land, was shot dead, in the chest, in the village of Umm al-Khair. The father of three was a key figure in non-violent resistance against settler violence in Masafer Yatta. His assailant, Israeli settler Yinon Levi, later said, “I’m glad I did it,” according to witnesses.
Ballal said he does not hesitate to describe these attacks as being “terrorist”, as they leave the Palestinian community in Masafer Yatta constantly fearing for their safety.
“It’s a simple right for Palestinians to feel safe in their homes,” he told Al Jazeera. “We are scared; we are in danger, and it’s been like this for a long time.”
“International law doesn’t work for Palestinians,” he continued. “But we are human, and we have a right to live.”
Feb. 16 (UPI) — Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. plans to take action on a petition calling for increased regulations on ultra-processed foods.
Kennedy said in an interview on CBS News’s 60 minutes on Sunday that he wants to address concerns raised by a citizen petition to the Food and Drug Administration. The petition seeks to limit exposure to ultra-processed foods and ingredients to prevent the risks of obesity, diabetes and cardiovascular disease.
“There is no way for any American to know if a product is safe if it is ultra processed,” Kennedy said.
The petition seeks to make changes to the “Generally recognized as safe” exemption that allows food companies to verify the safety of foods and ingredients independently. Changes would include revoking the allowance of processed refined carbohydrates in food processing and removing such products from the shelves unless specifically authorized.
Kennedy said the exemption is a loophole that has allowed food companies to introduce “thousands upon thousands of new ingredients into our food supply.”
“This agency does not know how many ingredients there are in American food,” Kennedy said.
Kennedy clarified that it has not been determined that the Trump administration will regulate ultra-processed foods. The term “ultra-processed food” has not been defined by federal regulators.
Former FDA Commissioner David Kessler authored the petition. Kessler served under presidents George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton and was involved with “Operation Warp Speed” during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Kessler defined ultra-processed foods as refined sweeteners, refined flours and starches, and added fats and oils and salt. However, his petition is focused on refined sweeteners, flours and starches, which are processed refined carbohydrates.
Refined sweeteners include ingredients like high fructose corn syrup, glucose syrup and dextrose.
“These processed refined carbohydrates are central to the widespread availability of ultraprocessed foods,” Kessler writes. “This petition focuses on processed refined carbohydrates that are primary causal determinants of metabolic harm.”
“Decorations and lanterns from cola cans.” Despite Israel’s restrictions on materials, many Palestinians are using creative ways to decorate Gaza for the holy month of Ramadan.
Published On 16 Feb 202616 Feb 2026
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The legendary US actor was nominated for seven Oscars and won for his role as a washed-up country singer in Tender Mercies.
Published On 16 Feb 202616 Feb 2026
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Oscar-winning actor Robert Duvall, best known for his work in The Godfather and Apocalypse Now, has died aged 95, his wife has announced in a Facebook post.
“For each of his many roles, Bob gave everything to his characters and to the truth of the human spirit they represented,” Luciana Duvall said in a statement on Monday.
Duvall was best known for playing forceful roles such as his depiction of Tom Hagen, consigliere to the Corleone Mafia family in The Godfather.
He also played Lieutenant Colonel Bull Meechum in The Great Santini and the title character in Stalin, as well as broken-down and fallen characters in Tender Mercies and The Apostle.
Duvall, the son of a US Navy admiral and an amateur actress, grew up in Annapolis, Maryland in the United States. After graduating from Principia College in Illinois and serving in the US Army, he moved to New York City, where he roomed with Dustin Hoffman and befriended Gene Hackman when the three were struggling acting students.
After working on a variety of television shows, Duvall made a strong impression in his first forays onto the big screen, such as his first movie part as the mysterious recluse Boo Radley in To Kill a Mockingbird.
Duvall got the part at the suggestion of the film’s screenwriter, Horton Foote, who had liked Duvall’s work in one of his plays. Foote later wrote Tender Mercies, a 1983 film for which Duvall won the Academy Award for best actor as a washed-up country singer.
Duvall was nominated for another six Oscars, including for his work in Frances Ford Coppola’s 1979 Vietnam epic Apocalypse Now. Duvall played the off-kilter, surfing-obsessed Lieutenant Colonel Bill Kilgore.
The character’s famous line, “I love the smell of napalm in the morning”, became legendary.
In all, Duvall appeared in almost 100 movies. And when he grew weary of Hollywood, he made his own films. He wrote, directed and won an Oscar acting nomination for The Apostle, the story of a conflicted preacher.
Duvall did the same with Assassination Tango, a movie that allowed him to exhibit his passion for the tango and Argentina, where he met his fourth wife, Luciana Pedraza.
In later life, Duvall split his time between Los Angeles, Argentina and a farm in Virginia, where he converted the barn into a tango dance hall.
Feb. 16 (UPI) — California Gov. Gavin Newsom announced an agreement with Britain on Monday that will bring $1 billion in investments into his state.
The climate agreement sets a framework for British companies to expand their access to California’s market and for cooperation on decarbonization and clean energy technology.
British energy company Octopus Energy is among the companies that will expand its access in California. It has committed nearly $1 billion to clean energy companies and projects based in California. Newsom announced the partnership after meeting with British Energy Secretary Ed Miliband in London.
“California is the best place in America to invest in a clean economy because we set clear goals and we deliver,” Newsom said in a statement.
“Today, we deepened our partnership with the United Kingdom on climate action and welcomed nearly a billion dollars in clean tech investment from Octopus Energy. California will continue showing the world how we can turn innovation and ambition into climate action.”
Newsom visited Octopus Energy’s headquarters in London during his trip.
California has climate agreements with several countries around the world. During the 2025 United Nations Climate Change Conference, it entered new partnerships with Chile, Colombia, Nigeria and Brazil.
President Donald Trump criticized the new agreement between California and Britain on Monday, saying it was “inappropriate” for the two sides to be working with each other.
“The worst thing that the U.K. can do is get involved in Gavin,” Trump told POLITICO. “If they did to the U.K. what he did to California, this will not be a very successful venture.”
The Trump administration has rolled back federal climate-focused initiatives, most recently eliminating greenhouse gas emissions standards.
Nissanka’s unbeaten century batters former cricket champions Australia, who now need other results to go their way to survive.
Published On 16 Feb 202616 Feb 2026
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Sri Lanka’s opener Pathum Nissanka scored the first century of the T20 World Cup to put his side into the Super Eights of the cricket tournament and leave Australia on the brink of elimination.
Nissanka scored 100 not out off 52 balls with five sixes and 10 fours as Sri Lanka, chasing Australia’s 181, reached 184-2 with two overs to spare in Kandy to win by eight wickets on Monday.
“We’re in the lap of the gods now, I think,” Australia captain Mitchell Marsh said after the match.
“Lot of emotions in the room right now,” he said of the 2021 champions. “Haven’t been at our best. Disappointed bunch at the moment.”
Nissanka was involved in a 97-run stand off 66 balls with Kusal Mendis for the second wicket, with the wicketkeeper-batsman posting his third fifty in the competition.
Nissanka became the first Sri Lankan to score two hundreds in T20 internationals.
After Mendis’s dismissal, Nissanka and Pavan Rathnayake put on 76 off 34 balls to see Sri Lanka to victory.
Nissanka played some glorious cover drives off the spinners and played some elegant flicks against the quicks.
Rathnayake hit the winning runs straight after Nissanka reached his century off 52 balls and was greeted by massive cheers in Pallekele International Stadium.
The packed crowd roared again one delivery later when Rathnayake finished the match with a boundary to deep square.
Sri Lanka came into the World Cup after a 3-0 drubbing at the hands of England, but have gained momentum and have won all three games so far.
Australia’s campaign has been plagued by injuries.
Their captain Marsh, who missed the first two games, returned and gave them a rollicking start by scoring 54.
Marsh and Travis Head (56) scored 104 runs off 51 balls for the first wicket.
With Australia eyeing a total in excess of 200, Sri Lanka’s slow bowlers kept them to 181 with leg spinner Dushan Hemantha picking up 3-37.
Australia collapsed as they looked for quick runs, losing their last six wickets for 21 in 24 balls.
A victory by Zimbabwe over Ireland in Group B on Tuesday, or against Sri Lanka on Thursday, would eliminate Australia.
If Zimbabwe lose both matches, Australia will need to beat Oman in their final game on Friday by a big margin to get through on net run rate.
Meanwhile, Australia could fail to get out of the group stage for the first time since 2009 if unbeaten Zimbabwe beats Ireland on Tuesday.
England have also reached the Super Eights after surviving a scare from Italy in Kolkata. England came back from 105-5 to post 202-7. Italy were cut short on 178.
In New Delhi, Afghanistan shrugged off back-to-back defeats to finally register a win after beating the United Arab Emirates by five wickets. That helped them stay in the tournament and saw South Africa secure a spot in the Super Eights.
Feb. 16 (UPI) — U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio reiterated President Donald Trump‘s support for Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán on Monday ahead of what is expected to be a close election.
Rubio said during a news conference with Orbán in Budapest that Trump is “deeply committed” to his success, adding that it is key to the United States’ interests in Central Europe.
“That person-to-person connection that you’ve established with the president has made all the difference in the world in building this relationship,” Rubio said.
Trump has endorsed Orbán, who has transformed Hungary’s government into what he calls an “illiberal state.” Orbán has peeled away at Hungary’s system of checks and balances, moving closer to an autocratic government.
Orbán has also maintained close ties to Russia, relying on Russian energy. The United States has granted Hungary a one-year exemption from U.S. sanctions for continuing to use Russian oil and gas because of Orbán’s relationship with Trump.
“If you have financial struggles, if you face things that are impediments to growth, if you face things that threaten the stability of your country, I know that President Trump would be very interested because of your relationship with him and because of the importance of this country to us,” Rubio told Orbán.
Orbán is being challenged in Hungary’s election by Peter Magyar, a former member of his Fidesz party.
During his comments on Monday, Orbán said the United States has agreed to 17 “investments” in Hungary since Trump took office.
Iran launched naval drills in the Strait of Hormuz, Persian Gulf and Oman Sea, state TV reports, ahead of US-Iran nuclear talks in Geneva on Tuesday. Video shows Gen. Mohammad Pakpour, the head of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, overseeing the drills.
Published On 16 Feb 202616 Feb 2026
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Feb. 16 (UPI) — Warner Bros. Discovery is considering reopening talks with Paramount Skydance after Paramount sweetened its offer to buy the company last week, sources say.
Bloomberg News first reported Sunday that WBD was considering the offer.
In October, Warner Bros. said it was open to offers, and on Dec. 5, after a bidding war between Netflix and Paramount, WBD agreed to Netflix’s offer. Then Paramount launched a hostile bid to buy WBD, but the board wasn’t budging. Then Paramount announced that Oracle creator Larry Ellison was backing the deal with $40 billion in equity. On Jan. 20, Netflix changed its offer to all cash, then on Feb. 10, Paramount did the same and added some sweeteners.
The sweetened deal included paying the $2.8 billion termination fee that WBD would owe Netflix and an agreement to back WBD’s debt costs. It also agreed to pay a ticking fee of 25 cents per share for each quarter the deal is delayed, starting in 2027, totalling about $650 million in cash per quarter.
Paramount and Netflix have both said they would be willing to raise their bids, Bloomberg reported. This is the first time, though, that WBD has given serious consideration to Paramount’s offer. It has until Feb. 25 to respond to Paramount’s offer.
Some WBD shareholders, including the investment firm Ancora, have expressed concerns with Netflix’s deal. One main issue is whether it would pass federal scrutiny. Paramount’s connection with Larry Ellison is a bonus because he’s friendly with President Donald Trump, who has said he would get involved with the process.
Last week, Paramount appointed Rene Augustine as its senior vice president of global public policy. Augustine is a former lawyer in the Trump administration, further bolstering Paramount’s regulatory clout.
Netflix has said it’s confident it can pass regulatory scrutiny. Its co-CEO Ted Sarandos faced a Senate hearing on Feb. 4 about the deal. Paramount didn’t participate.
Warner Bros. is waiting for the Security and Exchange Commission to approve its filings, which would allow it to schedule a shareholder vote on the Netflix offer.
The Israeli government has approved a plan to begin land registration in the occupied West Bank, meaning it will be able to seize land from Palestinians who cannot prove ownership.
For the first time since Israel’s occupation of the West Bank in 1967, it will register such land as property of the state – also known as settlement of land title – in Area C of the occupied West Bank.
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Area C is the part of the West Bank that remains under direct Israeli control. It covers about 60 percent of the West Bank.
According to Israeli media, Israeli Minister of Finance Bezalel Smotrich, who submitted the proposal to restart land registration with Minister of Justice Yariv Levin and Minister of Defence Israel Katz, said the move was a continuation of “the settlement revolution to control all our lands”.
The Palestinian Authority presidency said the decision amounts to “de facto annexation” of the West Bank. It is the formalisation of the ongoing process of building settlements in the West Bank in violation of international law over the past several decades.
Here’s what we know about how this could be implemented:
During Jordanian control of the West Bank from 1949 to 1967, the administration primarily followed the British Mandate of land ownership, under which land was registered as state or private property.
But only about one-third of the land in the West Bank was formally registered under this process. Large numbers of Palestinians living in the region had no documentation or other means of proving they owned their own land. Many of them had also lost documents or they had been destroyed during the 1967 six-day Arab-Israeli war, which resulted in the Israeli occupation of the West Bank.
When Israel took control of the West Bank, it discontinued the process of land registration.
Now, the government has decided to restart the land registration, a move that many Israeli human rights groups and political analysts have condemned.
Xavier Abu Eid, a political analyst based in the West Bank, described the Israeli government’s move as a “de facto annexation of Palestinian territory”.
“What they are doing is the implementation of annexation, packaging it as a mere bureaucratic process,” he told Al Jazeera.
He added that it reaffirms the idea that “there is a colonial power that sets two different sets of legislation depending on ethnic and religious identity, defined also as apartheid.”
In 1993 and 1995, the Oslo Accords were signed between Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organization. They laid out administrative control of the West Bank and Gaza and divided the occupied West Bank into three areas – Area A, Area B and Area C.
The new Palestinian Authority (PA) was granted full administrative control of 18 percent of the land – Area A – and joint control with Israel over 22 percent – Area B. Area C remained under complete Israeli military control. These areas were meant to be in place for five years, after which full administrative control would be handed to the PA. However, this transfer never took place.
The land registration that will now be restarted will apply to Area C, which is home to more than 300,000 Palestinian people.
According to the Israeli anti-settlement group Peace Now, in Area C, about 58 percent of the land remains unregistered. In a statement on Sunday, the group warned that the Israeli government’s land settlement process will now facilitate full Israeli control of this unregistered land.
Israeli authorities have provided few details about how the process will unfold, but essentially, it will likely involve transferring legal ownership of land to the Israeli state and issuing evictions to Palestinian communities, as has been happening in East Jerusalem in recent years, experts told Al Jazeera.
Michal Braier, an architect and the head of research at Bimkom, an Israeli human rights organisation that focuses on land and housing rights, said it is likely Israeli authorities will take the same approach in the West Bank as they have taken in East Jerusalem since 2018. In East Jerusalem, only 1 percent of settled land has been registered to Palestinians from 2018 to 2024, according to Bimkom.
Braier said Israel will begin by selecting the areas of land it wants to register. The government has set a goal of registering about 15 percent of the unregistered land within the next four years, she added.
“Now we can pretty clearly guess that this 15 percent will be lands where they assume that they can prove the state ownership easily or they can easily reject Palestinian ownership claims because a lot of these unregistered lands don’t have clear records and the records go a very, very long time back. So it will be very hard to prove Palestinian ownership,” she told Al Jazeera.
In theory, she said, Palestinians will be able to file land claims as part of the new process, but in practice, it is likely that they will be prevented from successfully doing so.
“Even if they do file claims, the legal bars they need to meet are very difficult to obtain. On top of this, there is the problem of Absentee Property Law, which moves land into the state’s hands and is yet unclear how exactly it will be practised in the occupied West Bank. So Palestinians are highly likely to lose their individual property rights,” she said.
The Absentee Property Law is an Israeli law enacted in 1950 that states that Israel has the right to seize property of “absentees” – people who were expelled, fled or who left the country after November 29, 1947, the day the United Nations General Assembly passed a resolution to end the British Mandate and recommend the creation of a Palestinian and a Jewish state. Israel was founded less than six months later.
Braier said land registration “will be used as another mechanism to grab land that they could not grab until now for different reasons and to build more settlements and push out Palestinians from Area C”.
According to a Times of Israel report, an Israeli government resolution linked to the land registration bill has allowed for an initial budget of $79m for the land registration process in Area C from 2026 to 2030. The report added that during this process, Israel, which already has civilian and military control of the area, will establish 35 ministerial positions and set up state agencies to begin the process of registering land.
Peace Now described the Israeli government’s decision to restart land registration in the West Bank as “a mega land grab of Palestinian property”.
“Land registration will result in the transfer of ownership of the vast majority of Area C to the state, leaving Palestinians with no practical ability to realise their ownership rights,” the group said in a statement on Sunday.
Abu Eid said the land registration process the government intends to undertake amounts to a “full-fledged ethnic cleansing policy” and added that it is a moment that will be “remembered as a turning point in Israeli attempts at erasing the Palestinian cause”.
But he noted that the Israeli government’s decision has not arisen in a vacuum as Israel has “allowed for a wave of terror attacks by Israeli settlers and the expansion of colonial settlements all over the West Bank” for years.
“Palestinians in general are not just dispossessed of their land and natural resources but come under attacks that are dealt with utter impunity both by the Israeli regime and by the international community,” he said.
“In al-Auja, for example, near Jericho, from 100 Palestinian families that used to live in the place a few months ago, now there is not a single family left,” he added.
He said it is likely that Israel will expect thousands of displaced people from the West Bank to go to Jordan.
“You should not forget the incitement coming out from members of the Israeli government claiming that Jordan should be turned into Palestine while Palestine should be left for the Zionist project,” Abu Eid said.
The West Bank is home to about 3.3 million Palestinians. It is divided into 11 governorates with Hebron being the most populous at 842,000 residents. Jerusalem follows with 500,000, Nablus with 440,000, Ramallah and el-Bireh with 377,000 and Jenin with 360,000.
Since the Israeli occupation in 1967, the Palestinian people have been subject to land seizures and illegal settlement expansion.
Today, about 700,000 Israelis live in the West Bank and East Jerusalem in settlements and outposts that are Jewish-only communities built on Palestinian land. These range in size from a single dwelling to a collection of high rises. Last year, the Israeli government approved the construction of new settlements in the region, seeking to advance “de facto sovereignty” in the region.
In all, the number of settlements and outposts in the West Bank and East Jerusalem has risen by nearly 50 percent since 2022 – from 141 to 210 now.
Besides eroding Palestinian people’s land rights, Israel has also carried out frequent raids in the West Bank, where Palestinians are also subject to checkpoints, arbitrary arrests, home demolitions and settler attacks.
The Israeli human rights organisation B’Tselem estimated that settler attacks against Palestinians have forcibly displaced 44 communities across the West Bank in recent years. These attacks have also resulted in the deaths of Palestinian people. Since Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza began on October 7, 2023, settler attacks have also intensified.
At least 1,054 Palestinians were killed in the West Bank by Israeli soldiers and settlers from October 7, 2023, to February 5 of this year, according to the latest United Nations figures.
Braier said Sunday’s approval of Israel’s land registration in the West Bank will result in a rise in violence in the region.
“Area C is being cleared out by what is usually regarded as settler violence, but this violence is actually state violence, backed by state mechanisms, so this is all working together to expand Israeli control over Area C and expand settlement in Area C,” she said.
In 2024, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) ruled that Israel’s “expropriation of land and properties, transfer of populations, and legislation aimed at the incorporation of the occupied section are totally invalid and cannot change that status”.
The ICJ has also ruled that Israel’s long-term occupation of Palestinian territory is illegal and must be terminated “as rapidly as possible”.
Braier said the Israeli government’s latest decision on land registration also contravenes international law.
“International law is clear: As an occupying power, Israel cannot exercise sovereign powers, including final determination of land ownership, in an occupied territory,” she told Al Jazeera.
“This position was reinforced by the International Court of Justice’s 2024 advisory opinion, which found that similar settlement of land title proceedings in East Jerusalem violate the laws of occupation,” she said.
“Furthermore, the decision to authorise Israeli civilian authorities to manage the land registration procedures likewise constitutes a clear indication of the annexation of the area,” she added.
On October 26, 1994, Israel and Jordan signed the Wadi Araba Treaty, which formally ended the state of war between the two nations that had existed since the creation of Israel in 1948.
Under the agreement, Israel and Jordan established diplomatic ties, agreed to exchange territory and opened the way for cooperation in trade, tourism, transport links, water resources and environmental protection. Jordan also signed the agreement seeking to ensure a two-state solution between Israel and Palestine would be established.
But the public in Jordan, opposition groups and human rights groups have repeatedly called on the government to sever relations with Israel due to its continuing aggression in Palestine.
In 2014, many Jordanians took to the streets, calling on the government to scrap its peace treaty with Israel after clashes between Israeli police and Palestinians at Al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem.
In 2024, a similar call was issued by Jordanian activists as Israel conducted its genocidal war in Gaza, which has killed more than 70,000 Palestinians.
On Sunday, Jordan, which shares a 482km (300-mile) border with Israel and the West Bank, condemned Israel’s decision to reinstate land registration in the West Bank. Jordan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs described Israel’s move as a “flagrant violation of international law”.
While Jordan’s peace treaty with Israel still holds, Abu Eid said Sunday’s decision by the Israeli cabinet is a serious and sensitive matter for Jordan, particularly if thousands of people are forcibly displaced from the West Bank.
Furthermore, he said, Israel has been acting against the principles of the Jordan-Israel peace agreement for years.
“If peace agreements are aimed at creating the conditions to enhance cooperation and establish a two-state solution, Israel goes against all of such principles, seeking the expansionist ‘Greater Israel’ agenda,” he said.
“Jordan takes such matters seriously and will certainly seek to have collective action with other regional and international allies,” he added.
The latest tranche of the Epstein files contains more than three million documents – the largest release of its kind. In what appears to be a clumsy attempt at a cover-up by the US Department of Justice, the sloppily redacted names of high-profile perpetrators have failed to conceal the intricate web of global elites spanning politics, royalty, Hollywood and tech.
The fallout in Europe has resulted in a string of resignations, but in the US, there has been limited accountability for the politicians named in the files, including Donald Trump.
Contributors:
Mehdi Hasan – Editor-in-chief and CEO, Zeteo News
Chris Hedges – Host, The Chris Hedges Report
Nikki McCann Ramirez – Politics reporter at Rolling Stone
Danielle Moodie – Host, The Danielle Moodie Show
It’s been a month since Iranian authorities imposed a total internet blackout during a violent crackdown on antigovernment protesters. Since then, the state has ramped up the targeted repression of journalists and progressive politicians in Iran.
The limited information that has managed to make it out of the country, via Elon Musk’s Starlink, is now struggling against what experts say are internet filtering technologies from Chinese companies.
Tariq Nafi reports on Iran’s nationwide internet shutdown.
From choreographed flyovers to flags stretching the length of the field, no other sports league has marketed patriotism as aggressively or successfully as the United States’ National Football League, the NFL.
Militarism is embedded in sports and entertainment in the US, but, under the Trump administration, more state institutions are trying to get in on the act.
Ryan Kohls reports on the power and the spectacle of the Super Bowl.
Featuring:
Howard Bryant – Sports journalist and author
Kavitha Davidson – Podcast host, Sportly
Gregory Daddis – Professor of history, Texas A&M University; retired colonel, US Army
Published On 16 Feb 202616 Feb 2026
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