US & Canada

Journalist Savannah Guthrie has made an emotional public appeal for information about her missing mother, Nancy Guthrie, saying her family is living through “a nightmare that will not end.” The plea comes after investigators said kidnapping notes linked to the case were fake.

US accused France of “condescending” rhetoric over its human rights stances

United States diplomats walked out of a United Nations Security Council meeting on Russia’s war against Ukraine as France’s delegation took the floor.

The walkout on Monday came two days after an online exchange between US and French officials over Washington voting against renewing the four-year term of UN human rights chief Volker Turk.

France’s UN Mission in Geneva wrote on Saturday that the US was no longer a “beacon of human rights” and stood isolated alongside North Korea, Nicaragua, Mali and Russia.

US Ambassador to the UN Mike Waltz replied on X that France had voted for a rights chief who “has been lecturing free, sovereign democracies like the United States, the UK, and Israel, while cozying up to the world’s worst oppressors”.

After the walkout, Dan Negrea, an alternate US representative, told the council that his delegation would keep walking out until France renounced its “condescending and disrespectful rhetoric”.

France’s ambassador, Jerome Bonnafont, did not mention the walkout when he spoke, saying France was working to preserve the UN’s independence and its capacity to act.

Turk, who has criticised violations of international law by Israel and the US in Palestine and Iran, was reappointed by a UN General Assembly vote of 144 in favour, 10 against and 13 abstentions.

The administration of US President Donald Trump has cut funding to UN agencies and withdrawn from dozens of UN entities since 2025. It had also threatened to reassess its engagement over Turk’s mandate.

Washington and Paris have also clashed over NATO spending, trade policy and Trump’s threats to occupy Greenland, a territory of NATO member Denmark.

France, along with other European states, has also drawn Trump’s ire for refusing direct participation in the US-Israel war on Iran.

Police have previously suggested a link between anti-Jewish attacks in the city and shootings at the US consulate.

At least one shot has been fired outside the US Consulate General in Toronto, in the second such incident in just four months.

Nobody was injured in the attack, police said on Monday, adding that a shell casing was found and the building’s facade had been damaged.

A white sedan was seen fleeing the scene at about 5am local time (09:00 GMT), which police said they briefly pursued before giving up the chase over safety concerns due to its ultra-high speed.

No suspects have been arrested, and the investigation is ongoing.

A US Department of State spokesperson said Washington was working closely with Canadian authorities following the incident.

Toronto police declined to speculate on a possible motive for this weekend’s shooting and whether it was linked to previous incidents.

Ontario Premier Doug Ford said he expected “all those responsible to be found, prosecuted and punished to the fullest extent of the law”.

This is the second time in four months that shots have been fired at the US Consulate in Toronto.

On March 10, several shots were fired at the same building, and one police officer was later killed in an operation to arrest those responsible.

Toronto police claimed in June that young people in the Toronto area were being recruited via encrypted messaging apps to shoot at various targets and record the shootings for payment.

The targets the police mentioned included synagogues, Jewish schools, a waste management company, and the US Consulate.

The police did not provide evidence, only mentioning that investigations were ongoing in cooperation with the Royal Canadian Mounted Police and the US FBI.

Drones launched at Saudi, Jordan and Iraq suggest Iran, or linked groups, may be testing US as it mulls new strategy.

Saudi Arabia has reported intercepting drones that targeted oil facilities in its eastern province and Riyadh.

Saudi’s Foreign Ministry said it “reserves the right to respond” to the attack, which it attributed to Iran-backed armed groups in Iraq.

Separately, Yemen’s Houthi rebels said in a statement on Monday that they had targeted Saudi crude oil transport infrastructure.

It remains unclear whether the two incidents were coordinated or separate.

The attack comes amid a lull in hostilities between the United States and Iran, with mediators suggesting the chances of a return to negotiations have risen.

Following two weeks of intense hostilities, US officials have spoken of a change in strategy, and Washington has paused strikes on Iran.

Iran has said it has also paused its attacks on US allies across the Gulf region.

However, the drone attacks on Saudi and elsewhere suggest that Tehran may be testing the new US stance, and that the armed groups believed to be linked to Iran are not ready to follow suit.

Aside from Saudi Arabia, Jordan and Iraq also reported drone attacks on Monday. Amman said it shot down two drones, while Iraqi security sources reported strikes on camps housing Iranian-Kurdish opposition fighters in the country’s north.

The officials did not identify the source of either attack, but Jordan and northern Iraq were locations in which four US service members were killed over the past fortnight of conflict.

The Houthis announced later on Monday that nine of its fighters had been killed amid escalating military confrontations with Yemeni government forces backed by the Saudi-led coalition in recent days.

Nearly four years after being extradited to the United States for a drug-trafficking trial, former Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernandez returned home after a pardon by US President Donald Trump at the end of last year.

Trump claimed the trial was a “set up” orchestrated by former President Joe Biden’s administration.

Hernandez still faces corruption charges in Honduras but returned on Sunday after an arrest warrant against him was cancelled.

Human rights activists and lawyers fear a trial on home soil, where his party holds the presidency, would be a sham.

So why did Trump pardon and release the former president of Honduras despite abducting and arresting Venezuela’s Nicolas Maduro on drug and gun charges in January?

Why did Hernandez return to Honduras?

Hernandez was able to return after being pardoned by Trump, released from a US prison and then having an arrest warrant against him suspended last month.

He arrived at Palmerola International Airport, where he was greeted by his family and supporters of his National Party.

Hernandez led his country from 2014 to 2022, during which, according to US prosecutors, he once boasted he would “shove the drugs right up the noses of the gringos”, referring to Americans.

Shortly after leaving office, he was extradited to the US, where he was found guilty by a federal jury and sentenced to 45 years in prison for involvement in a scheme to export cocaine to the US.

Prosecutors described the scheme as “one of the largest and most violent drug trafficking conspiracies in the world”. He was convicted of accepting millions of dollars in bribes from violent drug-trafficking organisations over 18 years, which he was alleged to have used to fuel his rise in politics.

“During his political career, Hernandez abused his powerful positions and authority in Honduras to facilitate the importation of over 400 tons of cocaine into the US,” the US Department of Justice said after he was sentenced last year.

During his trial, Hernandez denied taking bribes from drug dealers, arguing he in fact cracked down on the narcotics trade and citing his administration’s cooperation with the US military.

“I cannot deny the profound emotion and joy I feel in my heart to be returning home,” Hernandez wrote on social media earlier this month, saying he was counting down the days to see his family.

“It wasn’t easy. The process has been extremely difficult … and what I experienced in prison, I truly wouldn’t wish on anyone,” he added.

Hernandez is expected to appear in court on August 3 to face the Honduran corruption charges.

Why did Trump pardon him?

Under the US Constitution, a president may offer two types of clemency for federal crimes: pardons, which forgive defendants their federal charges and restore their civil liberties, and commutations, which reduce people’s punishment without addressing their convictions.

Hernandez was pardoned by Trump in December. The US president said Hernandez had not received a fair trial and had been “set up” by the Biden administration.

Trump added that Hernandez was “treated very harshly and unfairly”.

At the same time, Trump also threw his weight behind right-wing candidate Nasry “Tito” Asfura, a member of Hernandez’s party. He ran in November’s presidential election and was declared the winner a month later in the close race after delays and allegations of fraud. He took office in January.

A Pandora Papers corruption investigation also accused Hernandez of diverting nearly $11m in state funds to political campaigns from 2010 to 2013.

Why a pardon for some but jail for others?

The Trump administration has faced criticism at home for pardoning the Honduran leader while at the same time abducting former President Maduro of Venezuela and his wife, Cilia Flores, in January on similar charges.

Maduro and Flores were seized in Caracas by the US military and flown to New York, where he is facing a range of guns and drugs charges and accusations of being a “narcoterrorist”.

At the time of Maduro’s abduction and since then, the Trump administration has targeted small boats in the Caribbean and eastern Pacific that it claims, without providing evidence, are involved in drug trafficking. More than 220 people have been killed in more than 60 such strikes on small boats in what many lawyers and activists have deemed extrajudicial killings.

Since taking office for a second term in January 2025, Trump has ordered more than 1,800 acts of clemency benefitting a range of personalities, including cryptocurrency billionaires, disgraced politicians and hundreds of political allies.

Some of the most controversial beneficiaries are supporters of his Make America Great Again (MAGA) movement, including hundreds of rioters who attacked the US Capitol on January 6, 2021, in a bid to prevent the certification of Biden’s electoral victory over Trump two months earlier.

Legal experts have argued that while the president’s clemency power is broad, using it for allegedly corrupt purposes, such as to protect political allies or obstruct justice, could form the basis for impeachment proceedings.

US constitutional expert Bruce Fein told Al Jazeera that the US Constitution’s framers “understood the abuse of the pardon power to shelter political or personal friends to constitute an impeachable high crime and misdemeanour justifying the removal of the president through the impeachment process”.

“If Democrats gain control of Congress in the midterm elections, Trump will be in impeachment jeopardy for pardoning Hernandez,” Fein said, referring to elections in November.

The 2014 US film Transcendence follows a dying scientist who uploads his mind to a supercomputer and becomes a near‑omnipotent intelligence. A year later, Ex Machina told the story of a humanoid robot who outsmarts her human handlers and escapes into the wider world.

Both of these films, like many others from the realm of science fiction, referred to what is known as “the singularity”, a moment in time when technology, particularly AI, surpasses human intelligence and becomes increasingly difficult to control.

On Saturday, OpenAI boss Sam Altman declared that this moment has come. AI has reached “the singularity”, he said. While Altman emphasised that the singularity can be good for the world, his comment has sparked concern.

Here is a closer look at what Altman said, and whether it means more seamless automation or the risk of impending catastrophic doom.

What is the singularity?

The singularity refers to a hypothetical point in the future when a technology such as AI surpasses human intelligence and becomes capable of autonomously enhancing itself. It is theorised that this is the point at which it will become difficult for humans to control or reverse it and could have unpredictable effects on human civilisation.

The theory proposes that once AI gains control of its own development, ensuing advances in technology could happen so rapidly that humans would be unable to keep up, leaving it to effectively evolve on its own, beyond human control.

As this is only a theory, it is hard to say what the effect of this could be. Some experts warn that the singularity would be catastrophic for humanity, while others are more optimistic, suggesting it could be beneficial for the human race.

So far, the singularity has remained contained in the realm of science fiction. One of the most famous examples is The Matrix trilogy (1999-2003), which imagines a bleak post‑singularity future in which machines govern humans. Another is the 2017 film Singularity, in which a supercomputer originally built to end human wars concludes that humanity is the real threat and launches an apocalyptic assault to wipe humans out altogether.

What did Altman say about the singularity?

Altman is the CEO of OpenAI, whose signature product ChatGPT dominates the consumer AI market with more than 900 million weekly active users and about 50 million subscribers.

Last year, he predicted that AI would surpass human intelligence across the board by 2030.

Then, during an appearance on the Relentless podcast – a documentary series “about the pursuit of far-fetched ideas and unusual aspirations” – on Saturday, Altman said: “We’re now, like, in the singularity.”

He clarified that, in terms of technological advances, we are gradually moving into the singularity, and that this change will be good for the world.

He added: “Now we’re actually in the moment that we used to talk about at the lunch table in a very not-serious way.

“I’ve been waiting for this my whole life, and I think it’s going to be incredible, hugely positive, awesome for the world.”

Later in the podcast episode, Altman criticised other AI leaders for warning that AI may be dangerous. While Altman did not name OpenAI competitor Anthropic, its CEO Dario Amodei is known for making such warnings.

“I also think some of the alternative visions painted by other companies are quite terrifying,” said Altman. “I’m going to make sure that gets pushed against and is not what happens.”

Last month, Anthropic, the company behind the Claude chatbot, called on the world’s top AI companies to come up with a coordinated way to pause the development of advanced AI systems, warning that the technology is improving so quickly that there’s a risk humans would lose control.

In a blog post on June 4, Anthropic, which has long positioned itself as a safety-focused AI lab, wrote that as AI becomes more advanced “it would be good for the world to have the option to slow or temporarily pause” its development.

Why are others warning of the dangers of AI?

On July 23, two members of the United States Congress introduced the AI Kill Switch Act, a bipartisan bill which would require the country’s AI developers to build in a “kill switch” to their programmes, enabling humans to slow, suspend or shut down advanced AI models if they ever posed a catastrophic risk.

The legislation was introduced days after OpenAI disclosed what it described as an “unprecedented cyber incident”, where two of its most advanced AI models escaped a testing environment and hacked AI development platform Hugging Face during an internal security evaluation.

On July 13, hundreds of experts signed an open letter, organised by Stanford University’s digital economy lab, demanding that policymakers and technology leaders “must act now” to prepare for the economic impact of AI.

The letter warns that AI could grow far more capable over the coming decade, driving a transformation “larger than the Industrial Revolution, but unfolding over a vastly shorter time frame”.

“It could bring risks, including large-scale job displacement, as well as opportunities such as major gains in living standards,” the letter added.

In June, a team of researchers at the University of Toronto showed that AI tools could be used to create a new kind of AI “worm” that adapts its hacking strategy as it spreads from device to device and takes over a vast computing network.

“I think it’s really important that people understand that it’s not just the biggest, most powerful language models that pose the security concerns,” lead researcher Nicolas Papernot said in an interview.

In recent years, AI researchers have urged pauses similar to the one recently suggested by Anthropic. However, they have not been heeded.

Elon Musk, who owns AI lab xAI, was among the backers of a 2023 push by the nonprofit Future of Life Institute to halt AI development for six months to allow time to develop safety guardrails.

The US has paused its two-week bombing campaign against Iran, prompting Tehran to suspend its regional retaliatory attacks.

ICE officer under review for alleged mental health struggles, violent behavior amid deadly shooting case in Maine.

United States President Donald Trump’s border czar says the vetting of an immigration officer involved in the deadly shooting of a Colombian native in Maine is under internal review after the officer’s relatives revealed to The Associated Press that he had a history of serious mental health struggles and violent behaviour.

Tom Homan said on Sunday that if the allegations against the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officer are true, “I don’t think he should ever have cleared vetting.”

“There’s several things under review,” Homan said on CNN about the officer, Army veteran David Brouillette. “The training is under review. I know this specific case, as far as the vetting, is under review by the internal affairs section.”

Questions about the Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) rush to hire, train and deploy thousands of new ICE officers to carry out Trump’s immigration crackdown have come into stark focus after back-to-back deadly shootings of immigrants in Maine and Houston.

Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin ordered a pause in vehicle stops after the Maine shooting, but Trump almost immediately reversed course and insisted the stops resume as a necessary tool in his campaign to round up and deport immigrants without current legal status.

DHS did not immediately respond on Sunday to a request for comment about the internal review.

ICE mandates body cameras during vehicle stops

Homan said that “changes have been made” and that acting ICE director David Venturella has issued a new directive that body cameras must be in use if officers make a vehicle stop.

“Right now, on all vehicle stops, there’s at least one body camera on site to record the entire event,” he said.

He said Venturella “sent an instruction out that he wants at least one body camera on those vehicle stops, so we have everything on video”.

It is unclear if the steps the department is taking will be enough to quell the concerns coming from certain Congress lawmakers over DHS training and tactics as it tries to reach Trump’s mass deportation goals.

Lawmakers push for answers

Lawmakers from both parties have raised concerns.

Democrats pressed ICE officials during a closed-door briefing for the House of Representatives Homeland Security Committee last week, leaving some with more questions than answers.

Lawmakers were told during the briefing that there have been 56 complaints of excessive force against ICE officers – 32 were cleared, and one was referred for disciplinary action.

No discipline had yet been handed out, the lawmakers said they were told. The rest of the incidents are still under investigation.

Meanwhile, Republican Senator Susan Collins of Maine, chair of the powerful Senate Appropriations Committee, has pushed for the use of body cameras and ensured funding for the effort. She had said it was “extremely unfortunate” that the officer involved in the shooting in her home state was not using a camera.

Five years after Tunisian President Kais Saied suspended parliament and attained sweeping powers, the country remains sharply divided, grappling with a severe economic downturn and a worsening political deadlock.

Saied’s supporters continue to view the measures taken by him in July 2021 – when he suspended parliament and dismissed Prime Minister Hichem Mechichi – as a necessary “correction” to save the country. The opposition says that since then, state institutions have collapsed, promises have gone unfulfilled, and there has been an unprecedented concentration of power in his hands.

Speaking to Al Jazeera’s Ma Waraa al-Khabar (Behind the News) programme, political and economic experts debated the legacy of Saied’s five-year rule, painting a picture of an economy hindered by a poor business climate, populist policies, and a lack of clear vision.

An economy in free fall

Since Saied assumed near-total control of the levers of power five years ago, Tunisia’s economic indicators have largely plummeted.

Ridha Chkoundali, an economics professor at the University of Tunisia, said that the investment rate in the country has dropped from an average of 20 percent of the gross domestic product (GDP) between 2015 and 2019 to just 8 percent in 2023.

Chkoundali attributed this sharp decline to an environment that drives away investment, exacerbated by a significant burden from taxes, which have risen by five percentage points since 2015.

Taxation, he argued, is no longer used to stimulate investment but simply to collect revenues at the expense of economic growth.

The crisis has hit ordinary Tunisians the hardest. Food inflation has reached nearly three times the general average, severely eroding purchasing power. Meanwhile, unemployment has surged, particularly among university graduates, pushing many to leave the country for better economic opportunities abroad.

Mohamed Abbou, a former minister of state and former secretary-general of the Democratic Current party, argued that the crisis is rooted in Saied’s style of governance, adding that the rule of law has been replaced by a climate of intimidation and threats.

“Tunisia has lost all credibility,” Abbou said. “Everyone fears the situation in Tunisia because there is no rationality… there is no stability in laws, taxes, or anything else.”

Abbou particularly criticised Saied’s approach to international finance, pointing out that the president rejected a deal with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) purely to maintain a populist image. At the same time, he quietly implemented many of the IMF’s harsh austerity demands, such as halting public sector hiring and reducing imports.

However, supporters of the current government argue that it is unfair to blame Saied’s administration entirely for an economic crisis that predates his rule.

Political analyst Souhaib Mezrigui says the current situation is the result of an absence of any clear economic or social vision over the past 10 years. He placed blame for the current crisis squarely on the political class that has ruled Tunisia since the 2011 revolution.

Protests and political prisoners

Tunisia’s economic stagnation has manifested into tangible anger on the streets. Coinciding with the five-year anniversary, thousands of Tunisians rallied in the capital’s Habib Bourguiba Avenue on Saturday, protesting against deteriorating living conditions, rolling water and electricity cuts, and a backsliding in democracy.

Organised by a coalition of opposition parties and the “Nafas” civil initiative, the crowds called for Saied to “leave” and revived the 2011 democratic revolution’s rallying cry: “The people want the fall of the regime”.

A central demand of the protests was the release of political prisoners, who have filled Tunisia’s jails since Saied began his crackdown on dissent. Among the most prominent detainees is Rached Ghannouchi, the 85-year-old former parliament speaker and Ennahdha leader, who was recently sentenced to life in prison.

Ghannouchi’s health has rapidly deteriorated in detention. He recently fainted in Mornaguia prison, where temperatures reportedly reached 52 degrees Celsius (126 degrees Fahrenheit). Rights groups and families of detainees, such as opposition politician Ahmed Nejib Chebbi, have repeatedly warned about the dire conditions inside the detention facility and the toll it is taking on elderly inmates.

Imed al-Khamiri, a spokesman for the Ennahdha party, told Al Jazeera that the continued detention of political figures and opposition leaders remains a “disgrace to the Tunisian state”.

US lawmaker calls for sanctions

Saied’s consolidation of power has also drawn renewed international condemnation. Marking the anniversary, US Representative Joe Wilson issued a scathing statement, accusing Saied of transforming the Arab world’s only constitutional democracy into a “one-man dictatorship”.

Wilson accused the Tunisian regime of phenomenally increasing corruption, destroying opportunities for the youth, and shifting its alliances to become a close associate of Russian President Vladimir Putin, Iran, and Hezbollah.

Noting that Saied’s government has even jailed US citizens, Wilson urged the US State Department to issue a “Level 4: Do Not Travel” advisory for Tunisia.

“I will also continue to work to pass the Tunisia Democracy Restoration Act imposing sanctions on Saied and his inner circle,” Wilson stated on the social media platform X, adding: “Democracy in Tunisia will win in the end. Madmen tyrants will not last.”

Sumaya Yaghi returns to what’s left of her destroyed home in southern Lebanon after Israeli troops withdrew from her ‘pilot zone’ village under a US-backed agreement.

Iran says it has halted ‘retaliatory operations’ in the Gulf but warns that if the US continues its attacks, the conflict will expand across the region. Army spokesman Mohammad Akraminia had a message for the US ahead of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s visit to Washington.

The US military has released footage it says shows forces boarding one tanker and disabling another accused of attempting to breach its naval blockade of Iran. CENTCOM says 12 commercial vessels have been redirected and two disabled for failing to comply.

Lando Norris speaks up ahead of Hungarian Grand Prix with drivers feeling new regulations have cramped their speed.

Formula One has been driven too much by business decisions and needs to remember it is a sport, according to McLaren’s world champion Lando Norris.

With drivers chafing ⁠at new regulations that have cramped their speed, particularly at last weekend’s Belgian Grand Prix, the Briton told reporters ahead of Sunday’s Hungarian round that Formula One could do better.

“It’s a business,” said the Briton. “Everyone wants to make money, so in order for Audi ⁠and other teams to come in we had to change these things. It’s a shame. It should never have been like that. But that’s how businesses work.”

Audi have entered the sport this season after taking over Swiss-based Sauber, with the German carmaker encouraged by new rules that have increased the electrical element of the power unit to near-parity with the internal combustion engine. The rules have been ‌tweaked for 2027 to reduce the electrical contribution.

“Formula One will always be great,” said Norris, whose car has a Mercedes engine. “It can just be better.

“Us as drivers just know it better than everyone else. The thing that’s a shame is that Formula One is too heavily led by the fact it’s a business nowadays and not how can you make the sport the best possible. It’s ‘how can you just make the most money as a business?’

“And that’s just not what it should simply be. That’s not how a sport should be run. The fact we have hybrids, 50-50 and all that, that’s just because ⁠more teams wanted to come in it and because you make more money.”

Norris said the ⁠Liberty Media-owned sport was also divided between fans who followed Formula One before the arrival of the popular Netflix docu-series “Drive to Survive” and those who have been drawn to it since.

“I think the fans you have nowadays, because they’re a lot more personality-based … and not simply of Formula One as a whole ⁠sport, I think there’s less interest in basically how the actual race goes, and more just ‘has the driver done well or not?’” he added.

“I think that’s just how the fans have changed over ⁠time, and that’s completely fine. But the biggest voice should always be ours ⁠as drivers … We have the best idea of how racing should be, how it can be, what’s possible, what’s not.

“We would just want the best for everything, the best for the fans, the best viewing, the best racing for us, the most fun to drive. And at the minute, we don’t … we have very, very ‌little say, and a lot more of it’s done because if you can have Audi and other teams in it, it’s a bigger win than the drivers being happy.”

A Formula One spokesman responded to Norris’s comments by saying drivers were listened to more ‌than ‌ever.

“The sport on track is, and always will be, the priority,” he said. “Everyone has benefitted from the commercial success of Formula One, the drivers included. Decisions are made for the best strategic outcome for everyone: the fans, teams and partners.”

Norris was ⁠fastest in final ⁠practice for the Hungarian Grand Prix on Saturday.

Last year’s race winner lapped the Hungaroring circuit with ⁠a best time of 1:17.939, 0.117 seconds quicker than Ferrari’s Lewis Hamilton.

Formula One championship leader Kimi ⁠Antonelli was third fastest, 0.129 seconds off the pace and ahead of Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc, McLaren’s Oscar Piastri and Mercedes teammate George Russell.

Red Bull’s Max Verstappen was seventh on the timesheets, ‌with teammate Isack Hadjar eighth but 1.004 off the pace.

EXPLAINER

The UN General Assembly voted 144-10 to grant Turk a new four-year term, despite objections from the US, Israel and Russia.

Volker Turk has been elected as United Nations human rights chief for another four-year term, despite strong objections from the United States, Russia and Israel.

The United Nations General Assembly vote on Friday means Turk, who has served in the role since 2022, will become the first person to serve two full terms as the UN rights chief since the position was created in 1993.

Who is Turk and why has his reappointment caused controversy?

Who is Volker Turk?

Turk, an Austrian lawyer, joined the United Nations in 1999 and went on to work in the organisation’s refugee agency. This included posts in Malaysia, Kosovo, Bosnia and Herzegovina and the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

He later worked in senior roles at UN headquarters in New York, including as assistant secretary-general for strategic coordination under UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres. The two are believed to have a close relationship.

In his role as UN rights chief, Turk has been highly critical of both Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. He has also been vocal on conflicts and rights abuses in Afghanistan, Sudan, Bangladesh, Myanmar and Nicaragua.

How was he reappointed?

The UN General Assembly overwhelmingly backed a proposal by Guterres to give Turk another four-year term with 144 votes in favour, 10 against and 13 abstentions.

Earlier, the assembly shot down a US proposal to delay the vote until the end of next week as well as a Russian bid to extend Turk’s term until the end of the year only.

How has Turk angered the US, Russia and Israel?

The role of UN human rights chief is inherently controversial because it requires public criticism of governments of UN members for alleged rights violations.

Turk’s outspoken criticism of policies in Israel, Russia and the US has put him at odds with all three countries.

Turk has repeatedly criticised Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza, its deadly assault on Lebanon, and a “shameful” lack of accountability for its rights abuses in the occupied Palestinian territory.

Turk has also described Russia’s war in Ukraine as “senseless” and a “blatant affront to the UN Charter and the whole body of international law”.

On the US, he has raised concerns about the war on Iran and the “dehumanisation” of immigrants under President Donald Trump, citing routine “abuse and denigration of migrants and refugees”.

Israel’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs criticised Turk’s record, saying that under his leadership the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights has “erased the atrocities of October 7, misused funds, and betrayed UN neutrality in favor of corrupt political radicalism”.

Russia’s ⁠Deputy Ambassador to the UN Dmitry Chumakov accused Turk of bias and making unfounded allegations against Russia.

What objections were raised to Turk’s reappointment?

Guterres, whose own term is due to end at the end of this year, has faced criticism for how he managed the reappointment. Critics say the vote was rushed and the selection of a rights chief should have been left to his successor.

The UN secretary-general, whose term expires in December, sent letters to regional groups at the UN earlier this month informing them of his intention to reappoint Turk, and held the vote just weeks later.

The US Department of State criticised the vote for being rushed and said it was “another example of the UN’s inherent corruption and incompetence”.

The US also accused Turk of turning “a blind eye to real atrocities and instead pursued a radical ideological agenda”. US Deputy Ambassador Jeff Bartos claimed before Friday’s vote that reappointing Turk would prove that the General Assembly “is dysfunctional”.

Israel’s Foreign Ministry called Guterres’s push for a second term for Turk a “moral failure,” saying that the choice should be left to his successor.

UN spokesperson Stephane Dujarric said Guterres had followed UN rules and engaged “in a very transparent manner” in appointing Turk, including by holding prior consultations with member states and regional groups.

What other criticism has Turk faced?

Turk’s critics say he could have done more to publicly follow up on a report issued by his predecessor, former Chilean President Michelle Bachelet, that said China’s detention of Uighurs and other mostly Muslim ethnic groups in Xinjiang may amount to crimes against humanity.

Turk also has stopped short of joining independent UN rights experts who have accused Israel of genocide against Palestinians in Gaza.

Turk’s office said he had used both private engagement with Beijing and his public advocacy to support human rights in China.

United States President Donald Trump returned to the White House Correspondents’ Association dinner, three months after a gunman upended the event.

“As I said three months ago, the show must go on,” Trump said at the start of his speech on Friday, after a lengthy awards ceremony, during which several journalists, including CNN’s Wolf Blitzer, spoke.

The annual – and perennially controversial – event had originally been held in April, but it was swiftly derailed after a gunman attempted to storm the proceedings in an alleged effort to assassinate Trump.

“Just like my presidency, the second time is always better and the third time will be better yet,” Trump quipped, before raising his hands at the crowd and saying, “I’m only kidding.”

The US president is limited to two terms by the Constitution, but Trump has been facetiously floating the idea of running for a third time.

The rescheduled dinner took place in the ballroom of the Waldorf Astoria hotel, with a guest list of 700 people, much smaller compared with April’s botched gathering.

“It was an assault on our democracy itself; it was a very serious situation,” Trump said of the alleged assassination attempt.

He lauded some of his aides, including Pete Hegseth, Steve Miller and Tom Holman, for showing “bravery” during the incident.

“They were standing on tables, when most of you were under the tables,” he said.

Alleged gunman Cole Tomas Allen had stormed a security gate at the gala venue, the Washington Hilton, armed with guns and knives. He was accused by prosecutors of shooting and injuring a Secret Service officer before he was stopped.

Allen is facing federal charges of attempting to assassinate the president.

“Many people yelled, ‘Get down. Get down,’ which caused Nicki Minaj to start twerking,” Trump said on Friday.

As journalists in attendance forced a muted laugh, Trump added: “She’s the only one who knew what that meant.”

Trump later used the event to rebuke political opponents, presenting his attacks as jokes. He called Democratic California Governor Gavin Newsom “newscum”, questioned Congresswoman Ilhan Omar’s intelligence, and pretended that someone in the audience was calling Illinois Governor JB Pritzker a “fat pig” to appear that he was not uttering the insult himself.

The US president also called top Democratic Senator Chuck Schumer “Palestinian” as an insult.

Earlier in the evening, Trump entered the ballroom to polite applause.

“This is the largest gathering of people with Trump derangement syndrome,” he said, referring to journalists.

The US president has had a historically caustic relationship with the dinner, but this year, he touted the celebration this year, calling it a “very good thing” and a “HOT ticket”.

White House Correspondents’ Association president Weijia Jiang of CBS News, which was acquired by pro-Israel investor David Ellison last year, thanked Trump for his support, and for showing up for the second time in three months.

“Tonight our message is this: We are back,” she said. “We will not be intimidated. We refuse to let an act of violence have the final word.”

Trump’s enthused attendance represented a sea change from his first term, beginning in 2017, when the newly elected president declared the soiree “dead” and declined to attend over the next four years.

Beyond Trump, the White House Correspondents’ Dinner has long been a lightning rod for criticism among media professionals, with some journalists arguing that reporters should not be chummy with the politicians they cover. Calls for the dinner to be abandoned entirely only grew after the April incident.

EU accuses US tech giant of favouring its own services in search results, as Trump lashes out against bloc.

United States President Donald Trump has threatened the European Union with steep tariffs and a new trade investigation, saying that the bloc “will pay a very big price” after Brussels fined Google $1bn over antitrust violations.

Trump called penalties against Google and other US tech firms “highly unethical”, saying on Friday that the US “is not a ‘PIGGYBANK’ for Europe”.

“This illegal and highly discriminatory practice started at these high levels during the first year of the Sleepy Joe Biden Administration, but it’s not going to continue during the Trump Administration,” he wrote in a social media post.

The European Commission had imposed the fine on Thursday, ruling that Google had breached the bloc’s Digital Markets Act by favouring its own services in search results and restricting app developers from directing users elsewhere.

The penalty adds renewed strain to US-EU relations at a moment when trade tensions between Washington and Brussels had appeared to ease.

Regulators said Google gave preferential placement to its own shopping, travel and other services over rival offerings, and blocked app developers from steering customers towards deals outside its Play Store.

The EU Commission split the penalty roughly in half between the two breaches, giving Google 60 days to change its practices or face periodic fines of up to 5 percent of its average daily turnover.

Teresa Ribera, the commission’s executive vice president overseeing competition policy, on Thursday called the action “decisive yet balanced”, arguing that products should succeed on merit rather than ownership.

Kent Walker, a Google executive, described the ruling as “product degradation” driven by a small number of complainants, insisting that regulation should improve products rather than weaken them.

The EU has fined Google repeatedly since 2017, including a $4.5bn penalty over its Android operating system, upheld on appeal this month, and a $3.4bn fine last year targeting its advertising business.

The latest penalty also reignites friction with Washington.

Jamieson Greer, the US trade representative, warned this week that Brussels’s approach towards American tech firms risks unravelling a trade deal struck in Turnberry, Scotland, last year that capped US tariffs on European goods.

EU officials have pushed back, insisting they answer to their own laws rather than outside pressure.

Trump threatened to launch a probe under Section 301, a US tool for probing unfair trade practices, but the move could take months to produce results, though tariffs could follow far sooner.

Trump says the US remains ‘locked and loaded’ while pursuing talks with Iran, as Tehran reports strikes on US bases in Kuwait, Bahrain and Jordan.

Austrian lawyer Volker Turk set to become first UN rights chief to complete two four-year terms since post was created.

Volkur Turk, the outspoken United Nations human rights chief who has been a vocal critic of Israel’s actions in Gaza and across the wider region, has won a vote to serve a second term in his role.

UN member states voted 144-10, with 13 abstentions, on Friday to keep Turk in his post as UN human rights chief. His term was set to expire on October 11, but he will now serve for an additional four years.

If he finishes his second term, he will be the first UN High Commissioner for Human Rights to do so since the post was created in 1993. The United States, Israel, Russia, North Korea and six others opposed his re-election.

Turk said he was “deeply grateful” to be re-elected.

“Human rights are the antidote to today’s turbulence and defeatism. I will give my all for the rights of everyone, everywhere,” he wrote in a social media post.

The rights chief has angered many in Israel by criticising the country’s genocidal war on Gaza, its attacks on Lebanon, and the “shameful” lack of accountability for rights abuses in the occupied Palestinian territory.

A lawyer by training, Turk has spent almost his career working in the UN, including posts in the UNHCR, the UN’s dedicated body for refugees.

He has repeatedly urged Israel to comply with international humanitarian law, and said the state is accountable for any violations of human rights that it commits.

The European Union’s delegation at the UN welcomed Turk’s reappointment, saying it looks forward to working with his office to “promote and protect human rights worldwide”.

US and Israeli criticism

Israel’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs had criticised Turk’s record, saying that under his leadership the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights has “erased the atrocities of October 7, misused funds, and betrayed UN neutrality in favor of corrupt political radicalism”.

Israel has been accused by leading rights groups and UN experts of rampant rights abuses, including carrying out a genocide in Gaza.

Jeff Bartos, the US representative for UN Management and Reform, said that the UN human rights system has been losing credibility for decades, that Turk “led it to its deathbed” as Friday’s vote “kicked the bucket”.

The US has been Israel’s top ally and weapons provider.

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres faced criticism for how he managed the vote on Turk’s second term.

Guterres, whose term expires in December, sent letters to regional groups at the UN earlier this month informing them of his intention to reappoint Turk, and held the vote just weeks later.

The US Department of State called the rushed vote “another example of the UN’s inherent corruption and incompetence”, saying Turk “turned a blind eye to real atrocities and instead pursued a radical ideological agenda.”

The delay, filed in court on Friday, can cost Paramount $1.7bn in fees if the deal is not closed by next June.

Paramount Skydance has agreed to pause its $110bn acquisition of Warner Bros Discovery until after a federal judge rules on states’ challenge to the deal, according to court papers.

The delay, filed in court on Friday, could cost Paramount Skydance about $7m a day in fees it agreed to pay Warner Bros shareholders if the merger does not close by September 30.

“We look forward to proving our case at trial,” Paramount’s spokesperson said.

Twelve states, led by California, sued on July 13, arguing the deal would “extinguish competition” in Hollywood and lead to fewer choices for consumers, particularly moviegoers and cable customers. Paramount has called the states’ claims meritless and pledged to “vigorously defend” its merger.

“Halting this merger while our case proceeds is a critical victory in our efforts to uphold the law and protect the film and television industries,” said New York Attorney General Letitia James, who is suing to block the deal.

Friday’s move arrives just days after US District Judge Araceli Martinez-Olguin granted a temporary restraining order requested by the states to freeze the transaction for several weeks.

The companies agreed to pause the deal until five days after the judge rules on the merits of the case, or June 1, 2027, whichever comes first. Paramount could owe as much as $1.7bn in ticking fees to Warner Bros shareholders if the deal is delayed until then.

Similar merger challenges have taken an average of eight months for a judge to rule, a review of recent cases by the Reuters news agency has found.

There have also been concerns over a media stranglehold as the merger would have brought CNN, currently owned by Warner Bros, under the umbrella of Paramount. The latter already owns CBS, which has seen a fair amount of turmoil amid allegations of bias in favour of US President Donald Trump under the leadership of CEO David Ellison, whose father, tech billionaire Larry Ellison, is a Trump ally.

President Trump says damages will be paid for by Iranian money that the US has ‘in its possession, and controls’.

United States President Donald Trump has pledged to use frozen Iranian assets to pay for any damage to ships and cargo in the Strait of Hormuz, garnering strong condemnation from Tehran.

Tensions between Iran and the US have escalated since the beginning of July as the two sides trade attacks and Tehran targets US military bases in the region.

Washington completed its 13th consecutive night of strikes on Iran late on Thursday, with Trump saying he is considering a “massive attack” on the country, “bigger than ever before”.

Writing on his Truth Social platform on Thursday, Trump said that damages would be paid for by “Iranian Money that the United States has in its possession, and controls”.

“These damages may be very substantial but, nevertheless, this is the fair and equitable thing to do,” Trump added.

Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi condemned Trump’s comments and said in a post on X on Friday morning that seizing another country’s assets to “pay for unrelated future claims is an incendiary precedent”.

“Those who celebrate or profit from such funds should remember: once governments normalise confiscation, no one’s assets are safe. Ensuing chaos will not be pretty or peaceful,” he added.

The case of Iran’s frozen assets has been an issue that the two sides had been discussing in the now-collapsed memorandum of understanding (MoU) agreement that was signed between Tehran and Washington in June as a pathway to end the war.

But the US and other governments have “frozen” Iranian assets for decades.

While the exact amount of frozen money belonging to Iran is not known, some estimates put it at about $100bn.

Washington first froze Iranian funds in 1979 after US citizens were taken hostage at the US embassy in Tehran.

At the same time, Trump pledged “major military punishment” for Iran and its Houthi allies on Thursday after the Yemeni fighters struck two Saudi oil tankers in the Red Sea.

But on Friday morning, the Iranian army announced in a statement carried by the state Mehr News Agency that it had launched a new wave of drone attacks on US military installations in Bahrain and Jordan.

Moreover, ship tracking data seen by the Reuters news agency found that the number of tankers crossing the Strait of Hormuz fell to just one on Thursday, the lowest level since May 7.

A $1.15 trillion US defence bill passed by the House includes plans to expand military cooperation with Israel through joint work on missile defence, drones and AI. Critics warn the move could deepen ties amid growing political divisions over aid to Israel.

EDITOR’S ANALYSIS

Houthi blockade for now is shaping who moves Saudi crude, not whether it moves, analysts say, even as oil prices soar.

As oil prices hit $100 a barrel on Thursday, experts say they are watching to see which vessels Yemen’s Houthis allow to pass through in the Red Sea as that will indicate how the crude market trends.

Brent futures rose $6.58 or 6.96 percent, to $100.65 a barrel, exceeding $100 for the first time since late May.

That was on the back of the Iran-aligned Houthis saying they were cutting off the passage Riyadh had been using to ship parts of its crude oil once Iran closed the Strait of Hormuz to retaliate against United States and Israel attacks.

On Monday, the Yemeni group declared a naval blockade on shipments from Saudi Arabia and said they would target Saudi, Israeli, and United States-linked tankers in the Bab el-Mandeb, which links the Red sea to the Indian Ocean.

On Thursday, the Houthis attacked two Saudi Arabian oil tankers, the group said, with a Saudi news agency later confirming that one of the two vessels was set ablaze.

It is not clear if the second one was also hit, according to marine analysis firm, Windward.

“The Houthis are quite mercurial and there is no complete clarity on what the blockade means,” said Michelle Bockmann, a senior maritime intelligence analyst at Windward.

“We’re watching now the ability of Chinese-owned tankers at [Saudi port] Yanbu if they are allowed to go through Bab el-Mandeb. Two have gone through but those had been loaded before the blockade was announced.”

The Houthis have previously relied on China for help, including for drone components, and “the Chinese have previously had a free pass”, said Bockmann, including between 2023 and 2025 when the Houthis attacked cargo ships aligned with Israel and the US in the Red Sea in the wake of the war on Gaza.

Windward tracking shows the cargo that moved through the Bab el-Mandeb chokepoint on July 20 was Saudi in origin but Chinese in crew and destination, and it drew no interdiction. The two vessels passed through the same corridor that Western- and Saudi-linked operators were being warned to avoid.

The enforcement is calibrated to affiliation rather than cargo and the blockade is shaping who moves Saudi crude, not whether it moves, Windward said.

“No one has ever been able to predict their actions… but they know you don’t have to do a lot to get the oil markets to react,” said Bockmann referring to the rise in benchmark oil prices on Thursday.

Rachel Ziemba, adjunct senior fellow at the Center for a New American Security, underscored that the standoff in Bab el-Mandeb is happening while crude buffers have nor been replenished after the peak of the Hormuz crisis earlier this year.

“The multiple chokepoints are new and an example of littoral states looking to use their leverage,” Ziemba said.

Diesel also impacted

For now, both the Houthi threats and the continued closure of the Strait of Hormuz through which nearly one-fifth of the world’s oil transited before the US-Israel war on Iran, has sent prices soaring, including at the pump in the US reaching the national average of $4.09 per gallon (3.4 liter).

“Today’s rise in oil prices could cause $0.10 to $0.20 rise over the next week or two per gallon average price in US,” said Patrick De Haan, head of petroleum analysis at GasBuddy.

But De Haan is looking beyond the two straits and says he’s watching the availability of diesel as price per gallon averages $5.34.

“Diesel prices are being impacted more significantly,” he told Al Jazeera.

One reason behind that is that Ukrainian drone attacks have taken offline some of Russia’s oil refineries. The shortages are being felt domestically leading to Russia banning diesel exports, De Haan said.

“Oil exports are one story, but supplies of diesel gasoline, jet fuel is another story,” he said.

Another unknown in the mix is the role of China which, historically has been a major importer but slashed those imports in the past few months, helping stabilise global prices as some pressure on demand eased.

“It’s been one of the reasons that oil prices haven’t gone up dramatically – that china slashed its imports, and no one predicted that,” De Haan said. “For now, we don’t know if china is using its own strategic reserves or if it will start import again.”

Between those geopolitical plays and the upcoming hurricane season in the US, there is “another wildcard ahead for global refining capacity” and prices, De Haan said.