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Sean Penn Secretly Trying to Win Back Ex

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Sean Penn Secretly Trying to Win Back Ex


Sean Penn may have moved on from his marriage to Robin Wright years ago — but according to a source, the Hollywood heavyweight never fully got over the woman he once called his wife.

As Penn prepares to celebrate his 66th birthday on August 17, his complicated history with Wright is once again drawing attention, including claims that the Oscar winner tried to rekindle their romance long after their divorce was finalized.

Penn and Wright first began dating in the late 1980s and went on to become one of Hollywood’s most recognizable couples. They welcomed two children together, daughter Dylan Frances, now 35, and son Hopper Jack, 33, before tying the knot in 1996.

But their marriage was anything but smooth.

Wright filed for divorce in 2007, though the couple went through several attempts at reconciliation before finally ending their marriage for good in 2010.

Years later, Wright admitted their repeated breakups and reunions were largely driven by their desire to keep their family intact.

“Divorce in and of itself, and with children, is devastating,” Wright told The Telegraph in 2014.

She explained that the couple repeatedly tried to make things work because of their children, saying they would get back together, break up and then try again in hopes of preserving the family.

But according to a source, Penn wasn’t necessarily ready to close the door on their relationship even years later.

After Wright filed for divorce from her third husband, Saint Laurent executive Clément Giraudet, Penn allegedly saw an opportunity to grow close to his ex again.

“They’ve been hanging out a lot lately and, some friends say with a wink, enjoying occasional booty calls,” a source claimed in 2023.

Still, the insider said Wright had little interest in turning their renewed closeness into another full-blown romance.

“Robin’s more interested in co-parenting amicably and nothing much more,” the source claimed, adding that the situation was reportedly disappointing for Penn.

The source went even further, claiming Wright has remained the woman Penn has never truly been able to forget.

“Everyone will tell you he lurches from one bad romance to another because he’s still got Robin on his mind 24/7,” the insider alleged. “She’s absolutely the love of his life, no question.”

Wright, however, has publicly described their relationship in much less romantic terms.

Speaking to People in February 2023, the Forrest Gump actress said she and Penn had managed to rebuild a friendship after a period of estrangement.

“To be friends with the father of your children… I mean, it’s a gift, because we know divorce with children is one of the most difficult things in life,” she said.

Wright explained that no matter what happened between them romantically, she and Penn would always be connected because of their children.

“We’re always gonna be family, whether we’re together or apart, you know?” she said. “And I think that’s beautiful, and I wish that for everybody.”

Despite reaching a more peaceful place with Penn, Wright has also spoken candidly about the mistakes she believes they made while raising Dylan and Hopper.

Last year, the actress revealed she carries a “huge regret” over the way she parented their children, particularly when Penn was frequently away.

“He was gone so much of the time,” Wright explained. “He’d come back and be the policeman, and then he’d leave me with the residue.”

Wright said Penn tended to be the strict parent, while she would soften the rules after he left — creating two dramatically different parenting styles.

“We were both extremes,” she admitted. “They didn’t get that grey area in the middle, which is stern, and that is what they needed.”

Looking back, Wright said she wishes she had been tougher.

“I have a huge regret as a mother and have experienced the fallout of this regret for many years with my kids,” she said. “I wasn’t hard enough on them.”

More than 15 years after Penn and Wright officially ended their marriage, their relationship appears to have evolved into something calmer — a friendship built around their children and decades of shared history.

But if the source’s claims are accurate, Penn may have once hoped their renewed bond would become something much more.

Bird remains found aboard 737 engine from Ryanair Greek incident

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Bird remains found aboard 737 engine from Ryanair Greek incident


Bird remains were found in the engine of a Ryanair Boeing 737 NG plane where a ​passenger was partially sucked through a broken window shortly after takeoff from Greece in July, ‌the U.S. National Transportation Safety Board said.

The NTSB is investigating the incident where a piece of the engine broke off the plane and smashed the window, leaving one passenger with serious injuries. The plane, headed ​to Germany, lost pressure and was forced to make an emergency landing.

Read the NTSB Investigation Preliminary Report 

The NTSB said ​in its preliminary report into the July 10 incident that four suspected bird ⁠strikes to the airplane’s No. 2 engine were reported by flight crew in the 12 months ​preceding the accident.

“Bird remains were reportedly found in two of the cases,” although no damage was ​located during subsequent maintenance, it said.

A loud bang sound was recorded about nine minutes and twenty seconds after the start of the takeoff roll, according to the cockpit voice recorder cited in the report.

Examination of the engine revealed ​cases of fractured fan blades, while three loose fan blade fragments were recovered from the engine.

The ​NTSB said the CFM engine made by a venture between France’s Safran and U.S.-based General Electrichad been inspected ‌in ⁠May with no findings.

Ryanair declined to comment while a spokesperson for CFM said it was assisting with the investigation. Boeing deferred to the NTSB, citing the agency’s requirements and international rules governing air crash investigations.

The NTSB, an independent U.S. government agency that investigates civil transportation accidents, is leading ​the investigation into the ​Ryanair flight.

The agency said ⁠it is still looking at whether the incident is similar to other cases, such as an April 2018 engine failure on a U.S. Southwest ​Airlines flight that killed a passenger who was partially sucked out the ​window.

“The investigative team ⁠is aware of previous … events with similar engine models that resulted in damage to engine inlets or cowlings and fuselage structures,” the report said. “Determination of any relevant similarities or details between this accident and ⁠previous ​events remains under investigation.”

FAA Administrator Bryan Bedford told Reuters last ​month in an interview: “I don’t think the early indications are that (the recent Ryanair problem) mimics what the Southwest incident was.”

Source:  Reuters

Amnesty: Israeli state backs escalation of settler violence in occupied West Bank

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Amnesty: Israeli state backs escalation of settler violence in occupied West Bank

Amnesty International  has strongly condemned the ongoing siege of three Palestinian families’ homes by Israeli settlers in the village of Qusra, southeast of Nablus in the northern occupied West Bank

Erika Guevara Rosas, Amnesty International’s Senior Director for Research, Advocacy, Policy and Campaigns, said:

“The horrors unfolding in Qusra are far from an isolated incident. They reflect the relentless escalation and expansion of an accelerating and well-documented pattern of coordinated and strategic settler terror, enabled, backed and funded by the State of Israel, with the aim of displacing Palestinians across the occupied West Bank.”

The three families under siege have been threatened, harassed and attacked by Israeli settlers from nearby outposts for several months. They have been confined to their homes since Sunday 9th August, are running out of food, and lack access to basic necessities, including running water. The homes targeted in these attacks are located in Area B of the West Bank, supposedly under Palestinian administrative control and Israeli military control, according to the classification of the Oslo Accords.

The Amnesty official said: “For far too long, the world has ignored the immense, unfathomable suffering of Palestinians being uprooted and erased from land they have inhabited for generations. The international community must stop treating such incidents as ‘isolated’ and instead hold Israel accountable.”

Additionally, sources in Qusra told Amnesty International that the Israeli military forced two of the besieged families, in addition to six neighbouring families, to evacuate their homes for several hours on Thursday and used them as military outposts. One resident explained, “instead of removing the attackers, the Israeli forces removed the attacked families, while allowing the settlers to stay all this time.”

5 Years of Gender Erasure: Afghan Women Describe Forced Exile, Systematic Oppression Under Taliban Rule

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5 Years of Gender Erasure: Afghan Women Describe Forced Exile, Systematic Oppression Under Taliban Rule


Fariba Akbari, an Afghan women’s rights activist in exile, told TML: “As conditions worsen, the international community faces a critical choice: intervene or allow the quiet destruction of millions of lives to become the new norm”

[ISLAMABAD] Five years after the Taliban seized power on August 15, 2021, Afghan women and girls remain trapped at the center of a deepening human rights crisis, stripped of many of the rights, freedoms and opportunities that once shaped their lives.   

Since the collapse of Ashraf Ghani’s government, Taliban authorities have systematically pushed women and girls out of public life, dismantling their access to education, employment, movement, and civic participation.  

The United Nations says Afghan women and girls are entering their fifth year of near-total exclusion from public life, while girls remain barred from education beyond the sixth grade.  

What began as a series of restrictions has evolved into an increasingly entrenched system of control. Women face sweeping limits on employment, movement, and access to public spaces, while Taliban rules impose strict dress requirements and, in many circumstances, require women to be accompanied by a male guardian.  

UN human rights monitors warn against legitimizing the Taliban regime, saying its five-year rule has intensified oppression with no evidence of impending moderation.  

In a statement marking the anniversary, UN experts urged governments to refrain from normalizing relations with the Taliban until there is demonstrated, measurable, and independently verified progress on human rights, particularly the rights of women and girls.  

The statement was endorsed by more than two dozen UN-appointed independent experts, including Afghanistan rapporteur Richard Bennett and specialists on women’s rights, education, food, torture, freedom of expression, and enforced disappearances.  

Meanwhile, a new UN Women report says Afghan women face mounting restrictions on movement, education, and public life, while many report deteriorating mental health and little control over their futures.  

In a tragic incident reported in the last days of July 2026, a 16-year-old Afghan girl, identified by her family as Fariba, reportedly died by suicide after being denied the opportunity to continue her education under the Taliban’s ban on girls’ secondary schooling. According to reports, she left a note saying it was “too hard to be a girl in Afghanistan.”  

Fariba’s reported death is more than an individual tragedy; it highlights the devastating human cost of denying girls their fundamental rights and opportunities. Every girl deserves the chance to learn, pursue her dreams, and shape her own future.  

Working and highly educated women, along with their families, have faced severe harassment and pressure, forcing many to flee Afghanistan.  

Islamabad’s forced repatriation campaign has worsened the situation for those who fled to Pakistan alone.  

The Media Line spoke with Afghan women who fled their homeland alone, leaving behind families and futures as they sought safety from Taliban persecution. At their request, their identities and locations have been withheld for safety reasons.  

Marzia Imamzadeh, a Hazara Shia refugee, told The Media Line that she dreamed of becoming a lawyer after earning top academic honors at Kabul University.  

Recalling the loss of both parents in a suicide bombing, she described how her life was shattered. Following the Taliban takeover and restrictions on girls’ higher education, Imamzadeh recounted fleeing toward Pakistan and surviving an attack on her convoy by the Islamic State Khorasan Province that left her alone upon reaching a refugee camp.  

She says that her mental health has severely deteriorated amid profound insecurity and the constant fear of forced deportation.  

Speaking anonymously to The Media Line, a former Afghan women’s volleyball coach shared her painful reality as a refugee in Pakistan.  

Separated from her children and unable to afford food or medical care, she described a severe mental health crisis driven by pervasive insecurity, all while receiving no help from relevant authorities to halt her potential deportation.  

Zala Ahmadi, an Afghan woman living in the diaspora, told The Media Line that she was one semester short of a computer science degree at Kabul University when the Taliban takeover ended her plans to launch a software startup.  

A vocal critic of Taliban policies toward women and girls, Ahmadi said she sold her family’s remaining gold jewelry to pay smugglers to cross into Pakistan after being barred from education and employment.  

She now lives as an undocumented refugee in a crowded apartment, unable to work legally and fearing deportation, while watching her younger sisters lose access to education.  

The Afghan women who spoke to The Media Line said that words could hardly capture the hardships they have endured in exile, while their loved ones continue to face difficult conditions back home.  

The Media Line exclusively spoke with Tahmina Usmani, an Afghan journalist and former presenter with TOLOnews and Afghan International, who became TOLOnews’ first female news presenter and the first woman to return to television after the Taliban seized power in August 2021. She has relocated to Paris.  

Usmani continued to deliver news with courage, clarity, and professionalism, keeping vital issues such as women’s rights and freedom of expression in the public spotlight.  

In a video statement to The Media Line, she detailed the problems that arose once the Taliban assumed control and why she fled her homeland. By sharing her experience, she emphasized that Afghan women continue to inform, lead, and shape their country’s future despite extraordinary restrictions.  

Marwa Ali, a social activist and former Afghan national athlete living in Paris, told The Media Line that she grew up during a period when women’s and girls’ rights and freedoms were gradually improving.   

However, she said, the Taliban’s return to power in 2021 abruptly reversed those gains, stripping women of their autonomy, restricting their freedom of movement, and banning them from participating in sports. She added that women and girls who violate the restrictions reportedly face violence and are branded anti-Islamic.  

Tahmina Safi, a former judge of Afghanistan’s Supreme Court and co-founder of the Afghanistan Impact Network, told The Media Line that “five years after the Taliban takeover, restrictions on women have become a deeply entrenched system of gender-based exclusion affecting half of Afghanistan’s population.”  

Restrictions on women have become a deeply entrenched system of gender-based exclusion affecting half of Afghanistan’s population

In reply to The Media Line’s question, Safi underlined that the international community must keep Afghan women’s rights, dignity, and voices at the center of its Afghanistan policy, warning that humanitarian aid should not replace political pressure or normalize Taliban rule.  

Turning to foreign governments, she pointed to a clear policy contradiction: they condemn the Taliban’s systematic restrictions on women while continuing political and humanitarian engagement, arguing that such engagement does not constitute recognition.  

Safi emphasized that Afghanistan needs a legitimate, democratic political system in which all Afghans can freely choose their government, regardless of gender or ethnicity. True stability, she maintained, means not merely the absence of war, but dignity, education, healthcare, economic freedom, and a voice in the country’s future.  

Paul Farley, a US-based former Senior Intelligence Service officer and an advisor and consultant on geopolitical risk and international relations, told The Media Line that “the trajectory of women’s rights in Afghanistan remains firmly negative, with little indication of significant improvement.”  

The trajectory of women’s rights in Afghanistan remains firmly negative, with little indication of significant improvement

Farley said the Taliban has rejected calls from fellow Muslim countries to ease restrictions on women. While pragmatists in Kabul recognize the need for international legitimacy, he said ultimate authority rests with Kandahar’s hardline clerical leadership, which considers the restrictions theologically non-negotiable.  

Farley warned that the long-term consequences could be severe, creating social misery for women, marginalizing an entire generation of girls, and depriving Afghanistan of professionals, particularly doctors and nurses. 

Combined with restrictions on female health workers, he said, the policies could produce a severe shortage of female doctors and midwives in Afghanistan’s strictly gender-segregated health system, potentially driving up maternal mortality.  

Without direct international leverage linking diplomatic recognition to human rights standards, Farley warned, the oppressive status quo could become deeply entrenched, undermining Afghanistan’s future development.  

Fariba Akbari, an Afghan women’s rights activist in exile, told The Media Line that Afghan women’s day-to-day struggle for survival and their severe mental health crisis remain critically underreported.  

She said women excluded from education, employment, and public life are facing severe poverty, food insecurity, forced marriage, and pervasive trauma, which she said are manifesting in alarming rates of depression, anxiety, and profound despair.  

Akbari said an entire generation of Afghan women had seen its aspirations systematically erased, while international media and public discourse increasingly treat the ongoing humanitarian crisis as a normalized status quo.  

She described the combination of poverty, security threats, domestic abuse, and forced deportations as a “brutal cycle” pushing Afghan women and children to the brink.  

“This is no longer just a political stalemate; it is a full-scale humanitarian crisis,” she said. “As conditions worsen, the international community faces a critical choice: intervene or allow the quiet destruction of millions of lives to become the new normal.”   

  

 

 

UPDATED: Nigel Farage returns as MP, winning Clacton by-election

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UPDATED: Nigel Farage returns as MP, winning Clacton by-election


Reform UK leader Nigel Farage regained his parliamentary seat on ​Friday in an election he triggered to bolster his position against allegations of financial impropriety, a strategy that was undermined when his ‌main challenger, a comedian dressed as a trash can, won more than a quarter of the vote.

Farage, one of Britain’s leading Brexit campaigners, in a highly unusual move did not turn up at count in the southern English seaside resort of Clacton because he said the police had advised him that there was a campaign to disrupt the result.

“I am damned if I am ​going to stand on a stage, having won a resounding victory…. and be demeaned and humiliated by nobodies,” Farage told supporters at a ​party before the result was announced.

The election was triggered after Farage resigned from parliament last month to seek a fresh mandate from ⁠voters in what he described as a war against an establishment bent on discrediting him over taking undeclared gifts from donors.

After Britain’s main parties pulled out ​of the race, calling it a self-serving stunt, Farage’s main challenger ended up being Count Binface, a figure created by comedian Jonathan Harvey, who has become a fixture ​of fun at British elections

While Farage took 62.8% of the vote, Count Binface, whose policies included capping the price of ice cream cones and conscripting anyone using a speakerphone on public transport, secured 26.7%.

REFORM’S MOMENTUM SHOWS SIGNS OF SLOWING

After enjoying a lengthy lead in the opinion polls, Reform has seen its popularity wane, driven partly by the funding accusations made against Farage, who ​is under investigation in parliament over whether he should have declared a £5 million ($6.75 million) gift from a cryptocurrency billionaire investor.

After declaring his decision to trigger the election ​in Clacton little more than a ploy to distract from those allegations, other British parties pulled out of the race, leaving even some of Farage’s strongest supporters questioning whether the veteran ‌politician had ⁠been wrong-footed.

Laura Richards-Gray, a politics lecturer at Birkbeck University in London, said the absence of major-party opponents undermined his attempt to turn it into what he called a “people versus the establishment” contest.

“This has backfired, particularly nationally, as Farage lost control of the narrative,” she said, adding some voters saw the election as “a waste of time and money”.

Farage’s position has not been helped by a rise in support for the governing Labour Party.

Since Andy Burnham became prime minister last month, Labour has been ​enjoying a bounce in ratings, with the ​party leading Reform 28% to 25%.

Burnham ⁠has dominated the airwaves and social media in his first few weeks in office, and while the next national election is expected in three years’ time, he appears to be consolidating a left-leaning bloc around Labour.

Reform, on the other hand, is ​competing for a divided right-wing vote with the Conservative Party and the anti-immigration party Restore Britain gaining in support.

GIFT ​FROM BILLIONAIRE CRYPTO INVESTOR

Despite ⁠winning this vote, the parliamentary watchdog is expected to continue its investigation into his financial declarations once he returns to parliament.

At the heart of the investigation is whether he should have declared the gift from a Thailand-based billionaire before the 2024 national election. Under parliamentary rules, members of parliament must declare any donations received in the year preceding ⁠an election ​within one month of taking office.

Farage has admitted receiving the money, but not declaring it, saying he ​has done nothing wrong because it was a personal gift.

If the parliamentary authorities, who are investigating, conclude that Farage breached declaration rules, he could face a suspension from parliament, and another vote to retain ​his seat, where the main parties would probably field candidates.

A Reform spokesperson said there was a “credible threat” against Farage.

The police did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

While Farage aimed to ​demonstrate his strong ​local support to ⁠bolster his position against the accusation of financial impropriety, the decision by major parties not to put ​up candidates left him facing more than 30 rivals, ​including ⁠comedians and independents, in what was the longest ballot paper in British political history.

His main rival is likely to be Count Binface, a ⁠silver ​cape-clad character created by comedian Jonathan Harvey, ​who has run against three prime ministers over the last decade to poke fun at ​them.

Source:  Reuters

Baseball Legend Dies Suddenly from Blood Clot

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Baseball Legend Dies Suddenly from Blood Clot


Former New York Mets slugger Butch Huskey has died at just 54 years old, leaving the baseball world mourning a player forever linked to one of the most historic nights in Major League Baseball.

The Mets announced Huskey’s death Friday, with reports confirming that the former fan favorite died from a blood clot in his lung.

“I just want to acknowledge this solemn day with the passing of Butch Huskey this morning,” Mets interim manager Andy Green said. “Just want to send prayers and thoughts to his family. I know all of our Mets family is thinking of him and the people who love him today.”

Huskey spent parts of five seasons in Queens and became one of the most recognizable Mets players of the 1990s.

The team selected him in the seventh round of the 1989 MLB Draft straight out of high school. He made his major league debut four years later and eventually appeared in 414 games for the Mets.

During his time in New York, Huskey hit .264 with a .740 OPS while playing both the infield and outfield.

His biggest offensive season came in 1997, when he belted 24 home runs.

Huskey also once held the Mets record for the most RBIs in a single inning after driving in five runs during the sixth inning of a 1998 game against the Florida Marlins.

After the 1998 season, the Mets traded Huskey to the Seattle Mariners. He would later suit up for the Boston Red Sox, Minnesota Twins and Colorado Rockies before his MLB career came to an end.

But for many Mets fans, Huskey will always be remembered for the number on the back of his uniform.

Huskey wore No. 42 on April 15, 1997, the night Major League Baseball permanently retired Jackie Robinson’s number across the sport.

The emotional ceremony took place during a Mets game against the Los Angeles Dodgers and included Robinson’s widow Rachel, MLB commissioner Bud Selig and then-President Bill Clinton.

Huskey later revealed that he had no idea beforehand just how historic the night was going to become.

He remembered seeing Clinton and the massive presidential security presence at Shea Stadium, but said he did not fully understand what was happening until the announcement was made during the fifth inning.

“That’s one of the best memories I had in my lifetime,” Huskey recalled during a Mets broadcast in 2024, adding that the moment would always stay with him.

When MLB retired Robinson’s No. 42, players already wearing the number were allowed to keep it for the remainder of their careers.

That meant Huskey could continue wearing the number despite initially believing he might have to give it up.

The connection was especially meaningful for Huskey.

He later revealed that while still in high school, he had written an essay about Robinson after an English teacher who knew about his love of baseball suggested the topic.

Decades later, Huskey said he still owned the No. 42 jersey he wore on the historic retirement night — complete with Rachel Robinson’s autograph.

“It meant the world to me and not just myself but a lot of other kids, people of color,” Huskey said in 2024 while discussing Robinson’s impact.

“He went through things that paved for us to have it not as hard as he did, and I just don’t think I could’ve done what he did.”

Huskey was the second-to-last Mets player ever to wear No. 42.

Mo Vaughn, another player who had been grandfathered in before the league-wide retirement, became the final Met to wear Robinson’s legendary number.

Now, Huskey’s sudden death has left the Mets family remembering not only a powerful hitter from the 1990s, but a player who found himself permanently connected to one of baseball’s most unforgettable moments.

From Gaza to Iran, Washington’s wars are becoming an electoral liability

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From Gaza to Iran, Washington’s wars are becoming an electoral liability

A political rally in Florida should not, by itself, tell us much about the direction of American foreign policy. This one might.

With only three days to go before Florida’s Democratic primary, a Fort Lauderdale venue cancelled an event featuring Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib and congressional candidates Angie Nixon, Elijah Manley and Oliver Larkin. The decision came after Democratic state representative Michael Gottlieb attacked the gathering as an “anti-Jew” event. The venue cited security concerns and the organisers moved elsewhere.

Reuters reported the story on Saturday, 15th August.

There is something familiar about the episode. American politicians who question Washington’s support for Israel have spent years being told that their position sits beyond the limits of respectable politics. What is less familiar is what is happening around them. Candidates are continuing to run on those positions, voters are sometimes rewarding them and the argument over Palestine is starting to merge with a much older American anxiety: the fear of being dragged into yet another war in the Middle East.

That is what makes 2026 different.

The war with Iran, begun in late February by the United States and Israel, has made foreign policy harder to keep at a comfortable distance from everyday American life. Nearly six months on, there is still no persuasive sense of where the conflict is meant to end. There is, however, a much clearer sense of what it costs.

Reuters reported this week that the average US petrol price had climbed to about $4.08 a gallon, roughly 29 per cent higher than a year ago. Donald Trump’s answer was essentially that Americans should accept the increase as the price of continuing the fight.

That is a remarkable political proposition from a president who built so much of his appeal around cheaper living and a promise to avoid the “endless wars” of earlier administrations.

And voters have noticed.

Pew Research Center found that around six in ten Americans believe the United States made the wrong decision to use military force against Iran. The numbers are especially stark among Democrats.

This is the context in which “No War on Iran” needs to be understood. It is no longer only a chant at demonstrations or the language of foreign-policy activists. It is becoming part of an electoral argument about what Washington does with American money, American military power and the authority voters hand to their government.

Abdul El-Sayed understood that earlier than most candidates.

After Trump ordered the first strikes in February, El-Sayed argued that the president had promised to end endless wars only to begin another one. He questioned both its purpose and its lack of congressional authorisation.

Five months later, Michigan Democrats nominated him for the US Senate.

That result deserves attention not because every voter who supported El-Sayed did so over Iran or Palestine. Elections are never so tidy. Michigan voters were also thinking about healthcare, prices, Trump, jobs and the usual mix of local and national grievances.

But foreign policy was not incidental to the contest either.

AIPAC and affiliated groups poured an extraordinary amount of money into the race. The Associated Press documented more than $30 million in spending connected to the pro-Israel lobby’s effort to shape the primary. El-Sayed nevertheless defeated Haley Stevens.

The lesson is not that AIPAC suddenly ceased to matter. It plainly does. The more interesting lesson is that spending on that scale was unable to turn El-Sayed’s criticism of Israeli policy and American militarism into the disqualifying liability it once might have been.

Something in Democratic politics has moved.

The change is visible in public attitudes towards Israel as well. Pew found in April that 60 per cent of Americans held an unfavourable view of Israel, rising to eight in ten among Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents. Meanwhile, 59 per cent of Americans expressed little or no confidence in Benjamin Netanyahu.

Those figures would have looked extraordinary not very long ago.

They also help explain why Palestine and opposition to war with Iran increasingly sit within the same political conversation. The common thread is not Iran. It is Washington.

For many voters, the question is becoming whether the United States should continue treating military escalation as its default response to crises in the Middle East and whether support for an Israeli government should remain largely insulated from the ordinary scrutiny applied to every other recipient of American weapons and money.

Members of Congress are beginning to test that argument.

Ilhan Omar, another politician whose opposition to Israeli policy has repeatedly been used against her, supported the Iran War Powers Resolution in March. Its demand was hardly revolutionary: the president should obtain congressional authorisation before committing the United States to further hostilities.

That principle should not be controversial in a democracy. Yet decades of presidential wars have made it seem almost unusual.

This brings us back to Florida.

The three candidates appearing with Tlaib will face voters on 18th August. Their individual races are different and none should be treated as a guaranteed victory for an emerging progressive bloc. But the attempt to stigmatise the event before voters even reach the polls tells us something about the stakes.

For years, criticism of Israel was often dealt with by raising the political cost of expressing it. Candidates learnt which subjects were safer to avoid. Donors learnt which challengers could be overwhelmed with spending. Members of Congress learnt how quickly criticism of Israeli military policy could become a controversy about the critic rather than the policy.

That arrangement becomes harder to sustain when voters themselves are changing.

It becomes harder still when the consequences of Middle East wars turn up on petrol station signs and household budgets.

Americans are being asked to accept higher prices while Washington spends billions sustaining another conflict. They are watching a president who campaigned against endless wars defend one that has already lasted nearly half a year. At the same time, they are being told that questioning military assistance to Netanyahu’s government remains politically suspect.

Eventually those contradictions reach the ballot box.

There is no reason to pretend that an anti-war majority has suddenly taken control of American politics. It has not. Nor will the victories of a handful of progressive candidates undo decades of bipartisan interventionism.

But the old political calculation is becoming less reliable.

A candidate can now oppose another war with Iran and win a major Senate primary. A member of Congress can demand limits on presidential war powers and survive attempts to remove her. Candidates can challenge unconditional military support for Israel without automatically ending their political careers.

For Washington’s foreign-policy establishment, that may be the development worth worrying about.

The question facing American politicians is slowly changing from “What will it cost me to oppose this war?” to something much more uncomfortable: What will it cost me to support it?

The views expressed in this article belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Middle East Monitor.

Zhu Rongji left Asia a blueprint — and it still works

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Zhu Rongji left Asia a blueprint — and it still works

When Zhu Rongji died in Beijing on August 12 at the age of 97, Asia lost one of the finest public servants of its modern era. He was the premier who opened China to the world, the plain-spoken technocrat who took his country into the World Trade Organization in December 2001 after almost 15 years of talks.

The tributes have reached for the big numbers, and the numbers are extraordinary. But the most valuable thing he left behind is smaller and more useful than any of them: a method any government in Asia can copy. Make a binding promise to the outside world, then use it to win the arguments you cannot win at home.

Zhu trained as an electrical engineer at Tsinghua University, and he governed like one. He did not preach ideology. He asked what was broken and what would hold.

As vice premier from 1991, he beat back inflation by cutting off credit to money-losing state firms. In 1994, he rebuilt the tax system so that revenue reached Beijing. As premier from 1998, he pushed banks, airlines and oil companies to run as real businesses without selling them off, and built a private housing market almost from scratch.

None of it came from free-market faith. He simply wanted a machine that would not break down. The WTO fit the same instinct. One of Beijing’s own negotiators later compared the talks to bargaining in a vegetable market. But the real prize was always at home.

Membership turned openness into a national promise, written into international law. That gave Zhu the leverage he needed against officials who protected favored firms and a state sector that would not otherwise move. Reformers expected the WTO to force changes in banking, company law and the courts that were too hard to attempt alone. Call it reform by treaty: borrow pressure from outside to do the hard things inside.

What makes the example worth following is that he chose it knowing what it would cost, and said so. His restructuring left an estimated 40 million state workers without jobs — critics called it surgery without anaesthesia.

Import tariffs on cars and much else came down to no more than 25% from 100% or higher, and officials at home accused him of giving away the country. On taking office, he vowed to go forward whether what lay ahead was “a minefield or an abyss.” He meant it.

Nor did he leave those workers to fend for themselves. As state jobs disappeared, state apartments were sold to their occupants for next to nothing, cheap mortgages followed and basic welfare and unemployment insurance arrived alongside them. It was imperfect, and he would have been the first to say so. But a generation that lost its jobs gained, for the first time, something of its own.

Then there was the quality rarest in any political system anywhere: he apologized. After floods killed 4,150 people in 1998, he said dikes built with embezzled money were no stronger than bean curd. Three years later, he went on national television to take responsibility for a school explosion that killed at least 42 people, most of them children.

A leader who owns a failure in public is telling citizens and markets the same thing: the numbers will not be massaged. Trust is built that way, and very little else builds it.

An honest accounting has to note what came later, and most of it came after him. The fiscal system he designed left local governments leaning on land sales, which in time helped feed the property crisis that broke in 2021.

The financial opening promised at accession was never completed, and the government procurement market pledged in 2001 remains closed. But Zhu retired in 2003: treaties set the boundaries, and successors decide what happens inside them.

For his neighbors, the gains were never going to be equal, and he never promised they would be. World Bank economists predicted before accession that the biggest benefits would flow to China and to the countries supplying its factories with parts, machines and raw materials, while those competing head-to-head with Chinese manufacturers would feel the squeeze.

That is roughly what happened. Preparation, not membership, decided who came out ahead — a lesson within reach of every government here.

Today’s arguments over overcapacity and a record trade surplus of nearly $1.2 trillion are real enough. But they belong to choices made in the decades since he left office, not to the bargain he struck.

So the tribute he would have wanted is not nostalgia. It is use. Asia’s next great bargains — deepening the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP), widening the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP), writing rules for digital trade, green goods, subsidies and data — all turn on the same question.

Do governments have the nerve to do what Zhu did, and sign an agreement abroad precisely because it breaks a deadlock at home? That works in Jakarta, Delhi, Hanoi and Seoul as surely as it worked in Beijing.

His quietest legacy points the same way. As founding dean of Tsinghua’s school of economics and management, he trained the economists and finance officials who served China for decades afterward. People and institutions outlast tariff schedules.

He once joked that an official photograph made him look like a dead man. The man is gone now, and the region is poorer for it. His idea is not. It is still there on the table, waiting for the next reformer with a fraction of his courage to pick it up.

Y. Tony Yang is an Endowed Professor at the George Washington University in Washington, D.C.

IDF Kills Radwan Force Commander After Hezbollah Drone Wounds 3 Soldiers 

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IDF Kills Radwan Force Commander After Hezbollah Drone Wounds 3 Soldiers 


The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) struck Hezbollah targets across southern Lebanon overnight and into Saturday, killing a Radwan Force battalion commander and several other terrorists after what the military described as Hezbollah action against Israeli troops operating in the Ali Taher Ridge security zone. 

A Hezbollah explosive drone seriously wounded three Israeli soldiers on the Ali Taher Ridge on Saturday morning, according to Israeli reports.  

The IDF said it targeted Hezbollah infrastructure in the Nabatieh and Ansar areas following action against soldiers stationed in the Ali Taher Ridge area. Lebanese reports initially said seven people were killed and two wounded in strikes in Ansar, with additional strikes reported around Ali Taher Ridge and al-Nabatieh al-Fawqa. 

Lebanon’s Health Ministry later said seven people were killed in Ansar, claiming three children and two women were among the dead. 

The IDF subsequently said a central Hezbollah command center in the Kafr Ansar area was among the targets. Ali Samir al-Haj Hassan, a battalion commander in Hezbollah’s Radwan Force, was killed along with several other terrorists, the military said. 

Hassan’s family was inside the command center and was reportedly harmed, but the IDF said they had not been targeted. 

“It should be emphasized that they were not the target of the strike,” the IDF said. “The terrorist used his family as human shields and hid with them inside the military command center.” 

Another Israeli strike was reported in Deir ez-Zahrani in the Nabatieh region. Lebanese authorities later put the death toll there at four, with 17 people wounded. Lebanese reports said the combined toll from the strikes during the day reached 11 dead and 19 wounded. 

Lebanese Prime Minister Nawaf Salam called the Israeli strikes a “dangerous” escalation that threatened efforts to establish stability. He said responsibility for addressing military structures on Lebanese territory belonged solely to the Lebanese state, army and legitimate institutions. 

Hezbollah accused Lebanese authorities of making concessions to Israel and demanded an end to direct negotiations. The terrorist organization also threatened retaliation, saying Israel’s “aggression, violations and attempts to impose a fait accompli” would be met with “an appropriate response.” 

 

 

 

Air India to test all pilots for banned substances

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Air India to test all pilots for banned substances


Air India is to test all of its pilots for banned substances, starting immediately.

It comes after an incident last week in which its Phuket to Delhi flight suddenly lost altitude, with a preliminary report saying the senior pilot had to retake their substance test. Reports say they had tested positive for marijuana.

Pilots at the airline’s budget arm, Air India Express, will also be subject to the tests from Thursday.

Existing rules require at least 10% of pilots to be tested at random.

Seventeen passengers and crew were injured when the Airbus lost about 91 metres (300 feet) in height shortly after departure on 4 August.

It is being investigated by Indian authorities working alongside Airbus and France’s air safety agency.

Both pilots of the flight have been removed from duties until the investigation is complete.

In a memo seen by the BBC, Air India said it was “important to go further” in its testing.

“This initiative, which goes beyond regulatory requirements, reflects our determination to uphold the highest standards of safety and professionalism, and to provide reassurance to our passengers, stakeholders and the community at large,” it said.

The airline has already been under scrutiny after a June 2025 flight from Ahmedabad to London crashed shortly after take-off, killing 241 people on board and 19 on the ground. Only one passenger survived.

The tests – for substances as well as medications prohibited under aviation regulations – are being carried out alongside training sessions at Air India’s academy, as well as other locations including briefing centres and offices.

Last week, former Ethiopian Airlines boss Tewolde Gebremariam became Air India’s new chief executive.

Via BBC

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