WORLD - The African Mirror

Sep

22

2025

UK and other Western nations recognize Palestinian state ahead of UN meetings – but symbolic action won’t make statehood happen

WORLD

RECOGNITION of a Palestinian state is likely to dominate proceedings at the U.N. beginning Sept 23, 2025, when world leaders will gather for the annual general assembly. Of the 193 existing U.N. member states, some 150 now recognise a Palestinian state. Ahead of the U.N. gathering in New York, Australia, Canada, and the United Kingdom have become the latest. And that number is expected to increase in the coming days, with several more countries expected to officially announce similar recognition. That a host of Western nations are adding their names to the near-universal list of Global South countries that already…

Sep

20

2025

By RASHA ABOU JALAL

“The steadfastness and will to stay broke”: Rasha Abou Jalal’s Gaza City diary, part two

WORLD

AFTER holding out in western Gaza City for as long as they could, Rasha Abou Jalal, her husband, and their five children joined hundreds of thousands of Palestinians being forced out of Gaza’s main metropolis by Israel’s intensifying invasion, and fled south on 16 September. With the Israeli military aiming to take control of Gaza City and displace its residents, perhaps permanently, “staying is no longer just a decision. It has become a battle of identity and existence,” Abou Jalal wrote on 1 September in an entry of the diary she has been keeping for The New Humanitarian. But by…

Sep

22

2025

By RORY MCCARTHY

Why Egypt is not bowing to pressure to accept Palestinian refugees

WORLD

AS the Israeli military advances its ground invasion of Gaza City, Egypt is coming under mounting pressure to accept a mass expulsion of Palestinians. The Israeli military has already confined Gaza’s 2.2 million Palestinians into a small area of the occupied strip. And the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, has now accused Egypt of choosing “to imprison residents in Gaza who would prefer to leave the war zone”. U.S. President Donald Trump has also supported the idea of forcing out the Palestinians. In February, he made the extraordinary proposal that Egypt and Jordan should accept all of Gaza’s population and…

Sep

20

2025

By JONATHAN ESTE

What will the UN’s Gaza genocide report achieve?

WORLD

THE report of the UN’s independent international commission of inquiry on Palestine, released this week, makes for gruelling reading. It found that Israel’s 23-month campaign in Gaza is being waged “with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial or religious group”. This, according to the commission, amounts to genocide under the Geneva Conventions. The detailed 72-page report has found that Israel’s military, under the direction of its political leaders, satisfies four of five acts specified by the convention as genocidal. This includes the genocidal act of “imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group”.…

Sep

20

2025

By FRANCESCA JACKSON

A ceremonial sword and ‘beating the retreat’: decoding the rituals of Donald Trump’s state visit

WORLD

STATE visits are always grand occasions, but Donald Trump’s second was unprecedented in terms of scale and spectacle. The president was treated to the most impressive ceremonial welcome ever laid on for any head of state. After enjoying a carriage ride through the grounds of Windsor Castle with the king, queen and prince and princess of Wales, the president was greeted by the largest guard of honour ever, comprising 1,300 troops and 120 horses. A lunch, private tour of St George’s Chapel and a Red Arrows flypast followed, before the day culminated in a lavish white-tie state banquet. All this…

Sep

19

2025

By RILEY SPARKS

EXCLUSIVE: Israel has killed nearly 3,000 Gaza aid seekers

WORLD

OVER the past 23 months, Israeli forces have killed nearly 3,000 people attempting to get aid in the Gaza Strip and wounded almost 20,000 others. For over a year, The New Humanitarian has been conducting an open-source investigation documenting these killings, which we are now publishing as a publicly accessible database and timeline. This story was originally published by The New Humanitarian.By Riley Sparks Since the end of May, when the US- and Israeli-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) began operating, the attacks on people seeking aid have dramatically escalated, drawing global attention and condemnation. But these attacks are not an…

Sep

19

2025

By The African Mirror

Why are state visits such powerful diplomatic tools? A constitutional expert explains

WORLD

THE US president and first lady, at the king’s invitation, are on a state visit to the UK and will stay at Windsor Castle. The event is laden with ceremony and glitz, but it also carries great political potential – for the host nation in particular. Formal visits by foreign heads of state are generally aimed at strengthening international relationships. The invitation for this visit was handed to Donald Trump in the Oval Office, on camera, by Keir Starmer at a time when the British prime minister was seeking to act as the bridge between the US and Europe over…

Sep

19

2025

By CANDICE NORWOOD

Women judges see rising threats to their work — and clear paths to defusing them

WORLD

FEDERAL judges rarely defend their work publicly. The typical mandate for those in the judiciary is to let their decisions speak for themselves. Commentary outside of that risks being criticised as biased or politically motivated. But as political violence rises against public figures, and as public confidence in the judicial system shrinks, current and former women judges are the leading voices weighing in. This story was originally reported by Candice Norwood of The 19th. Meet Candice and read more of her reporting on gender, politics and policy. U.S. Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson warned in May against what she…

Sep

18

2025

By The African Mirror

UN Human Rights Chief condemns Israeli strike on Hamas negotiators in Qatar

WORLD

UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk has called on the international community to condemn Israel's strike on Hamas negotiators in Qatar during an urgent Human Rights Council debate in Geneva, describing the attack as a flagrant violation of Qatari sovereignty and international law. The strike targeted Hamas delegation members who were in Doha to negotiate a ceasefire, according to Türk's remarks to the 60th session of the Human Rights Council. "The attack violated the right to life under international human rights law and the principles of international humanitarian law," Türk said during the urgent debate session. The UN…

Sep

18

2025

By MERAV AMIR and HAGAR KOTEF

Israeli doctors reveal their conflicted stories of treating Palestinian prisoners held in notorious ‘black site’ Sde Teiman

WORLD

AT the end of our conversation, Nathan (a pseudonym) kept repeating, almost to himself: “Perhaps we should have done more. Perhaps we could have done more. Perhaps there was something we could have done about the camp itself. About the dogs. We kept on hearing the dogs. Every night.” Nathan, a senior surgeon in one of Israel’s bigger hospitals, was talking about the Sde Teiman camp, an army camp in the Negev desert in southern Israel, which, following the October 7 2023, attack on Israel, was turned into a holding facility for detainees from Gaza. Initially, this camp served to…