Pope Leo laments 'diabolical intensity' of Middle East conflicts, World News
VATICAN CITY — Pope Leo said on Thursday (June 26) that conflicts in the Middle East were raging with an unprecedented "diabolical intensity" and appealed for greater respect for international law, in comments to Catholic bishops and aid agencies operating in the region.
At a meeting in the Vatican, the pontiff said countries in the region were being "devastated by wars, plundered by special interests, and covered by a cloud of hatred that renders the air unbreathable and toxic."
"Today, violent conflict seems to be raging... with a diabolical intensity previously unknown," he said, adding that the humanitarian situation in the Palestinian enclave of Gaza was "tragic and inhumane".
Leo, elected on May 8 to replace the late Pope Francis, appealed last month for Israel to allow more humanitarian aid to enter Gaza. He did not name Israel in his remarks on Thursday.
The US-born pope also did not directly address the recent 12-day war between Israel and Iran that also saw the United States bomb suspected Iranian nuclear facilities but he called for countries to show better respect for international law.
"It is truly distressing to see the principle of 'might makes right' prevailing in so many situations today, all for the sake of legitimising the pursuit of self-interest," he said.
"It is troubling to see that the force of international law and humanitarian law seems no longer to be binding, replaced by the alleged right to coerce others," Leo added.
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Business Times
an hour ago
- Business Times
Gold glitters as mistrust spreads
A DECADE ago, I asked officials at the New York Federal Reserve if I could peek at their gold reserves. They refused point blank. The reason? Fed officials have long taken pride in having the world's biggest gold vault, dug 80 feet down into Manhattan's bedrock. But they prefer to keep it discreet, partly because many of the vault's 507,000 bars belong to countries such as Germany and Italy. Silence was literally golden. Now, however, a discordant note has been sounded. In recent weeks, politicians in Germany and Italy have demanded the repatriation of their gold bars, worth an estimated US$245 billion. So have others. 'We are very concerned about (US President Donald) Trump tampering with the Federal Reserve Bank's independence,' explains the Taxpayers Association of Europe. Neither the Fed nor European governments seem minded to act, and there are no signs of bullion moving east. 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AsiaOne
2 hours ago
- AsiaOne
'She's not coming back': Alawite women snatched from streets of Syria, Asia News
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Suleiman is among at least 33 women and girls from Syria's Alawite sect - aged between 16 and 39 - who have been abducted or gone missing this year in the turmoil following the fall of Bashar al-Assad, according to the families of all them. The overthrow of the widely feared president in December after 14 years of civil war unleashed a furious backlash against the Muslim minority community to which he belongs, with armed factions affiliated to the current government turning on Alawite civilians in their coastal heartlands in March, killing hundreds of people. Since March, social media has seen a steady stream of messages and video clips posted by families of missing Alawite women appealing for information about them, with new cases cropping up almost daily, according to a Reuters review which found no online accounts of women from other sects vanishing. The UN Commission of Inquiry on Syria told Reuters it is investigating the disappearances and alleged abductions of Alawite women following a spike in reports this year. The commission, set up in 2011 to probe rights violations after the civil war broke out, will report to the UN Human Rights Council once the investigations are concluded, a spokesperson said. Suleiman's family borrowed from friends and neighbours to scrape together her US$15,000 ransom, which they transferred to three money-transfer accounts in the Turkish city of Izmir on May 27 and 28 in 30 transfers ranging from US$300 to US$700, a close relative told Reuters, sharing the transaction receipts. Once all money was delivered as instructed, the abductor and intermediary ceased all contact, with their phones turned off, the relative said. Suleiman's family still have no idea what's become of her. 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Nearly half have since returned home, though all of the women and their families declined to comment about the circumstances, with most citing security fears. Most of the families interviewed by Reuters said they felt police didn't take their cases seriously when they reported their loved ones missing or abducted, and that authorities failed to investigate thoroughly. The Syrian government didn't respond to a request for comment for this article. Ahmed Mohammed Khair, a media officer for the governor of Tartous, dismissed any suggestion that Alawites were being targeted and said most cases of missing women were down to family disputes or personal reasons rather than abductions, without presenting evidence to support this. "Women are either forced into marrying someone they won't want to marry so they run away or sometimes they want to draw attention by disappearing," he added and warned that "unverified allegations" could create panic and discord and destabilise security. A media officer for Latakia governorate echoed Khair's comments, saying that in many cases, women elope with their lovers and families fabricate abduction stories to avoid the social stigma. The media officer of Hama governorate declined to comment. A member of a fact-finding committee set up by new Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa to investigate the mass killings of Alawites in coastal areas in March, declined to comment on the cases of missing women. Al-Sharaa denounced the sectarian bloodshed as a threat to his mission to unite the ravaged nation and has promised to punish those responsible, including those affiliated to the government if necessary. Grabbed on her way to school Syrian rights advocate Yamen Hussein, who has been tracking the disappearances of women this year, said most had taken place in the wake of the March violence. As far as he knew, only Alawites had been targeted and the perpetrators' identities and motives remain unknown, he said. He described a widespread feeling of fear among Alawites, who adhere to an offshoot of Shi'ite Islam and account for about a tenth of Syria's predominantly Sunni population. Some women and girls in Tartous, Latakia and Hama are staying away from school or college because they fear being targeted, Hussein said. "For sure, we have a real issue here where Alawite women are being targeted with abductions," he added. "Targeting women of the defeated party is a humiliation tactic that was used in the past by the Assad regime." Thousands of Alawites have been forced from their homes in Damascus, while many have been dismissed from their jobs and faced harassment at checkpoints from Sunni fighters affiliated to the government. The interviews with families of missing women showed that most of them vanished in broad daylight, while running errands or travelling on public transport. Zeinab Ghadir is among the youngest. 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The 35-year-old spent 15 days in captivity while her abductors negotiated with the family who eventually paid US$1,500 dollars to secure her release, according to the family member who said when she returned home she had a mental breakdown. Days after Nayef was taken, 29-year-old Doaa Abbas was seized on her doorstep by a group of attackers who dragged her into a car waiting outside and sped off, according to a family member who witnessed the abduction in the Hama town of Salhab. The relative, who didn't see how many men took Abbas or whether they were armed, said he tried to follow on his motorbike but lost sight of the car. Three Alawites reported missing by their families on social media this year, who are not included in the 33 cases identified by Reuters, have since resurfaced and publicly denied they were abducted. One of them, a 16-year-old girl from Latakia, released a video online saying she ran away of her own accord to marry a Sunni man. Her family contradicted her story though, telling Reuters that she had been abducted and forced to marry the man, and that security authorities had ordered her to say she had gone willingly to protect her kidnappers. Reuters was unable to verify either account. A Syrian government spokesperson and Latakian authorities didn't respond to queries about it. The two other Alawites who resurfaced, a 23-year-old woman and a girl of 12, told Arabic TV channels that they had travelled of their own volition to the cities of Aleppo and Damascus, respectively, though the former said she ended up being beaten up by a man in an apartment before escaping. Dark memories of Islamic State Syria's Alawites dominated the country's political and military elite for decades under the Assad dynasty. Bashar al-Assad's sudden exit in December saw the ascendancy of a new government led by HTS, a Sunni group that emerged from an organisation once affiliated to al Qaeda. The new government is striving to integrate dozens of former rebel factions, including some foreign fighters, into its security forces to fill a vacuum left after the collapse of Assad's defence apparatus. Several of the families of missing women said they and many others in their community dreaded a nightmare scenario where Alawites suffered similar fates to those inflicted on the Yazidi religious minority by Islamic State about a decade ago. IS, a jihadist Sunni group, forced thousands of Yazidi women into sexual slavery during a reign of terror that saw its commanders claim a caliphate encompassing large parts of Iraq and Syria, according to the UN. A host of dire scenarios are torturing the minds of the family of Nagham Shadi, an Alawite woman who vanished this month, her father told Reuters. The 23-year-old left their house in the village of al Bayadiyah in Hama on June 2 to buy milk and never came back, Shadi Aisha said, describing an agonising wait for any word about the fate of his daughter. Aisha said his family had been forced from their previous home in a nearby village on March 7 during the anti-Alawite violence. "What do we do? We leave it to God." [[nid:717511]]
Straits Times
3 hours ago
- Straits Times
Centrifuges at Iran's Fordow site ‘no longer operational': UN nuclear watchdog head
A satellite image provided by Maxar Technologies shows the damage at the Fordow enrichment facility in Iran after US strikes on June 22. PHOTO: MAXAR TECHNOLOGIES/NYTIMES PARIS – Centrifuges at the Fordow uranium enrichment plant in Iran are 'no longer operational' after the United States attacked the site with bunker-busting bombs, Mr Rafael Grossi, the head of the United Nations' nuclear watchdog, said on French radio on June 26 . Inspectors from the watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency, have been unable to gain access to the nuclear sites since the strikes. Mr Grossi told Radio France Internationale in an interview that while evaluating the damage from the strikes using satellite images alone was difficult, given the power of the bombs dropped on Fordow and the technical characteristics of the plant, 'we already know that these centrifuges are no longer operational'. The centrifuges – giant machines that spin at supersonic speeds to enrich uranium – require a high-degree of precision and are vulnerable to intense vibrations, he said. 'There was no escaping significant physical damage,' Mr Grossi said. 'So we can come to a fairly accurate technical conclusion.' He said, however, that it would be 'too much' to assert that Iran's nuclear programme had been 'wiped out' after the Israeli and American bombing campaign. Mr Grossi noted that not all of Iran's nuclear sites had been struck and said Iranian officials had told him that they would take 'protective measures' for the uranium they had already enriched. Still, he said, the nuclear programme has definitely suffered 'enormous damage'. He declined to say how far Iran's nuclear programme had been set back. 'Perhaps decades, in relation to what? In relation to what type of activity or objectives?' Grossi said when asked about comments made this week by US President Donald Trump at a Nato summit in the Netherlands. 'It's true that with these reduced capacities,' he added, 'it will be much more difficult for Iran to continue at the same pace as before.' The comments from Grossi, director-general of the atomic agency, came amid questions over the effectiveness of the US strikes on Iran's nuclear sites. Mr Trump has insisted that the bombing 'obliterated' the Fordow site, a position that some in his administration have continued to defend after the leak of a classified, preliminary US intelligence report that found the attack had set back Iran's nuclear programme by only a few months. The CIA director, Mr John Ratcliffe, later said that the strikes had 'severely damaged' Iran's nuclear programme . On June 26 , Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth and General Dan Caine, the chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, gave more details about the planning and execution of the US strikes. But they offered no new assessments of the damage inflicted on the sites or on the state of Iran's nuclear programme. One of the main purposes of the UN watchdog is to monitor nuclear activity in Iran and other countries, including those that have signed on to the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty. But the agency's relations with Iran were at a low point even before Israel attacked the country on June 13. UN inspectors remained in Iran throughout the war but were not able to gain access to the nuclear sites amid the fighting. And it was not clear when or even if they would be allowed to do so again now that a ceasefire has taken hold. On June 26 , Iran's Guardian Council, which has veto power over legislation in the country, approved a bill passed by parliament that suspends cooperation with the UN watchdog and bars its inspectors from the country. But the fate of the new law – which would effectively block the international community from having oversight of Iran's nuclear programme – was still unclear. The decision to enact it lies with Iran's moderate president, Mr Masoud Pezeshkian, who was elected on campaign promises to engage with the West and who has publicly signaled his willingness to return to the negotiating table. As a signatory of the nonproliferation treaty, Iran is 'required to have an inspection system,' Grossi noted in the interview. He urged Iranian authorities not to 'unilaterally' reject inspections 'because otherwise we'd be on the brink of another major crisis.' Grossi, who said Iran's cooperation with the UN watchdog before the war was 'limited,' said that he had reached out to Iran's foreign minister to discuss a potential return of agency inspectors to Iranian nuclear sites but had yet to receive a response. NYTIMES Erika Solomon contributed reporting from Berlin. Join ST's Telegram channel and get the latest breaking news delivered to you.
