21+ min ago (739+ words) Pope Leo XIV has reiterated the Vatican's insistence on a two-state resolution for the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, saying it's the "only solution" that can guarantee justice for both sides. Leo made the comments as he flew from Turkiye to Lebanon on Sunday for the second and final leg of his maiden international voyage as pope. On the flight, the pontiff was asked by reporters about his private talks with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan upon his arrival in Ankara, and whether they discussed the wars in Gaza and Ukraine. Leo confirmed they had and said Turkiye has an "important role to play" to end both conflicts. On Gaza, he repeated the Holy See's longstanding position supporting a two-state solution for Israel and the Palestinians. The creation of a Palestinian state in East Jerusalem, the occupied West Bank and Gaza has long…...

45+ min ago (301+ words) Trump is unpredictable, full of contradictions, breaks every rule and it is sometimes difficult to interpret what he means from what he says. I have made the effort. I listened to 20 interviews conducted with Trump by the journalist Bob Woodward while on mountain hikes in Greece and I may have gotten a feel of some patterns. But I still cannot claim to understand him. No matter. We in the Middle East do not share America's emotional extremes about Trump. As allies who depend on American partnership, the region's leaders have to adjust and build a working relationship with whoever is in power. What concerns us more is the polarization itself " when foreign policy swings dramatically with each administration for what seem like purely domestic reasons. What makes Trump revolutionary is his willingness to violate every convention. He dramatically says things…...

46+ min ago (855+ words) Sudan was teetering on the edge of crisis long before open war erupted in April 2023. Decades of authoritarian rule under Omar al-Bashir resulted in a fragile economy, fragmented security forces, and entrenched paramilitary structures. By mid-2023, Sudan was effectively split into contested zones, with major urban centres, such as Khartoum and Omdurman, transformed into battlefields, and millions of civilians displaced internally or forced across borders as refugees. Although geographically removed, the European Union played a consequential role in these developments. For nearly a decade, it pursued a strategy of "externalising" migration control, directing aid, training, and equipment to African states ostensibly to reduce irregular migration towards Europe. Between 2014 and 2018, the EU channelled more than 200 million euros ($232m at the current exchange rate) into Sudan via the EU Emergency Trust Fund for Africa (EUTF) and the Better Migration Management (BMM) initiative. These programmes…...

46+ min ago (894+ words) Yossi Mekelberg Combing through UN Security Council Resolution 2803, I began to question whether it is the case of the international community purposefully coming together to achieve the elusive objective of at last resolving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, or just another mirage? The proposal's first aim is to consolidate the ceasefire in Gaza and then outline [] Combing through UN Security Council Resolution 2803, I began to question whether it is the case of the international community purposefully coming together to achieve the elusive objective of at last resolving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, or just another mirage? The proposal's first aim is to consolidate the ceasefire in Gaza and then outline a path for ending the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, but it is vague on details and deadlines. Admittedly, the success of the mediators to "encourage" Israel and Hamas to agree to a ceasefire deserves praise, even…...

50+ min ago (357+ words) PARIS (AFP): France's interior minister on Sunday said he opposed a proposal put before parliament to ban young girls wearing the Muslim headscarf, saying such a move risked being "stigmatising" for the minors. The issue of tightening legal limits on the wearing of the hijab in public is being raised with increasing insistence in France, where the far-right is growing in strength but which has one of Europe's biggest Muslim communities. Laurent Wauquiez, the head of the parliamentary faction of the traditional right-wing Republicans (LR) party, submitted a bill to the lower house National Assembly last week to ban the wearing of the veil by minors in public. This proposal "is very stigmatising toward our Muslim compatriots who may feel hurt," Nunez, a former Paris police chief named as interior minister in October to succeed his hard-line LR predecessor Bruno…...

50+ min ago (556+ words) MINNA (AFP): Armed men have kidnapped 26 people including a pastor and a bride in two separate raids in Nigeria, the latest in a string of mass abductions to rock the west African country. A gang of criminals abducted the clergyman along with 11 worshippers on Sunday after storming an out-of-the-way rural church in Ejiba, in central Nigeria's Kogi State, the state's information commissioner told AFP. And in Sokoto State in the northeast a bride and 10 of her bridesmaids were among the 14 abducted in the night of Saturday to Sunday from the village of Chacho, a resident said. In recent weeks, gangs have kidnapped hundreds of people for ransom across Nigeria, which has struggled to respond to the threat posed both by jihadist groups and criminals known locally as "bandits. The unrest has heaped pressure on the Nigerian government, with US President…...

50+ min ago (430+ words) ZAGREB (AFP): Several thousand people rallied in Croatia's capital on Sunday in an anti-fascist march protesting against the rise of World War II revisionism and far-right views in the country. In recent months, Croatia has been seeing right-wing nationalists increasingly trying to impose their agenda, with subsequent incidents targeting the ethnic Serb minority and the use in public of the country's World War II pro-Nazi regime salute. In early November, masked men disrupted a Serb cultural event in Croatia's second-largest city of Split, replicating the Ustasha salute. Relations with ethnic Serbs have remained fragile since Croatia's 1990s war with Belgrade-backed rebel Serbs who opposed its independence. Hundreds of thousands gathered in Zagreb at a July concert of ultra-nationalist singer Marko Perkovic, known by his stage name Thompson, One of Thompson's most popular songs starts with the Ustasha salute and his fans…...

52+ min ago (689+ words) HALLANDALE: Ukrainian negotiators met US officials in Florida to thrash out details of Washington's proposed framework to end Russia's war in Ukraine, as Kyiv faces pressure on military and political fronts. The secretary of state, Marco Rubio, the special envoy Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, Donald Trump's son-in-law, sat down with a Ukrainian delegation on Sunday before planned US talks this week in Moscow with Vladimir Putin. Diplomats focused on revisions to a proposed 28-point plan developed in negotiations between Washington and Moscow. That plan has been criticised as being too weighted toward Russian demands. As the meeting began Sunday, Rubio focused on reassuring Ukraine. "The end goal, obviously, is not just the end of the war. But it's also about securing an end to the war that leaves Ukraine sovereign and independent and with an opportunity at real prosperity,…...

52+ min ago (487+ words) KANDIL (AFP): A senior Kurdistan Workers" Party commander told AFP the group will take no further steps in the peace process with Turkiye, urging it to advance negotiations and free PKK founder Abdullah Ocalan. "All the steps the leader Apo has initiated have been implemented" there will be no further actions taken," commander Amed Malazgirt told AFP on Saturday in a bunker in the Qandil mountains in northern Iraq. "From now on, we will be waiting for the Turkish state and they have to be the one taking steps," he said. The group has two demands, he added. "First, the freedom of leader Apo" without this, the process will not succeed. The second is the constitutional and official recognition of the Kurdish people in Turkiye." Female senior commander Serda Mazlum Gabar told AFP that "as long as the leadership is…...

53+ min ago (252+ words) DHAKA (Reuters): Bangladesh's former prime minister Khaleda Zia remains in "very critical" condition at a Dhaka hospital, her party said on Sunday, as her self-exiled son and acting party chief Tarique Rahman signaled uncertainty over his return. Khaleda, 80, who is the leader of the Bangladesh Nationalist Party, was admitted to a private hospital on November 23 with a severe chest infection affecting her heart and lungs, doctors and senior party officials said. Her party has regained prominence after Sheikh Hasina, Bangladesh's long-serving former prime minister, was ousted in a student-led uprising last year. Rahman, who has lived in London since 2008, wrote on Facebook on Saturday that his return to Bangladesh was "not entirely" in his control, fueling speculation over political or legal hurdles. The interim government led by Nobel laureate Muhammad Yunus later said it had "no restrictions or objections" to…...