Is NATO at breaking point as it meets in Turkiye?
NATO leaders gather in Ankara to tackle US-Europe tensions, defence gaps and support for Ukraine’s military resilience. The war in Ukraine and the fall out from the Iran conflict are high on the NATO summit’s agenda this week. But well before Secretary General Mark Rutte takes to the stage on Tuesday, NATO’s most powerful individual had already set the tone. “Ridiculous for the U.S.A. to continue along this one sided path when the relationship is not reciprocal,” US President Donald Trump wrote late last week. “They were not there for us!!!” Recommended Stories list of 3 itemsend of list As 32 leaders of the transatlantic body gather in Ankara for their two-day summit starting on Tuesday, the frosty relationship between the military alliance’s members and the United States has emerged as the single biggest challenge overshadowing its future. NATO says the summit will focus on three priorities: increasing defence investment, expanding Europe’s defence industrial base and ensuring long-term military support for Ukraine. The meeting comes after allies pledged last year to spend the equivalent of five percent of GDP on defence, with European allies and Canada increasing defence investment by $139bn in nominal terms in 2025 alone. But talks will be overshadowed by Trump’s threats to pull the US out of NATO and his plan to move troops and weapons out of Europe. On May 1 , the Pentagon announced the withdrawal of about 5,000 troops from Germany, following a “thorough review of the Department’s force posture in Europe”. “I don’t think the alliance is at a breaking point,” said Ian Lesser, distinguished fellow at the German Marshall Fund of the United States. “But it is entering a period of profound adjustment.” Advertisement Trump’s scepticism towards NATO is not new, but the recent conflict with Iran has deepened tensions within the alliance. He has repeatedly criticised European allies for refusing to back Washington militarily, particularly by declining to participate in efforts to reopen the Strait of Hormuz. Another major source of friction is military spending. On Thursday, Trump again criticised the defence alliance saying it was “ridiculous” that Washington spends more money on NATO than any other country to protect them “without getting any benefit from doing so”. Experts say that while the US has changed its posture towards NATO, a US pullout from it is unlikely considering the legal and political challenges in doing so, especially as the country is preparing for key midterm elections which will determine who retains control of Congress. To formally withdraw, Trump would need a two-thirds majority in the US Senate or an act of Congress – scenarios that are unlikely to come to pass any time soon, with NATO still enjoying broad support among many legislators in both major parties in Washington. “It’s in the US interest to stay engaged in Europe’s security and maintain a key role in NATO – and this is a view shared on both aisles in Washington,” said Lesser. Europeans have given up on restoring the alliance-based trust of decades past, but hope this summit will be an occasion for some planning, said Sophia Besch, a senior fellow in the Europe Programme at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. “The one thing they still dare hope for is greater predictability. They have accepted that the American commitment to Europe is changing; what they want is a more orderly version of the transition,” said Besch. “The fear behind this is well-founded: A botched handover from a US-led to a Europe-led NATO opens up a deterrence and defence gap.” Despite concerns over the potential reduction in US support, European allies would not be left defenceless. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine exposed both the fragility of Europe’s defence industrial base and the extent to which many NATO members depend on Washington for critical military capabilities. At the same time, repeated strains in transatlantic relations – from disputes within NATO to Trump’s threats to seize Greenland – have reinforced the push for greater European strategic autonomy. As a result, defence spending among European allies rose by 62 percent between 2020 and 2025. Yet major capability gaps remain. According to the International Institute for Security Studies (IISS), European countries continue to rely heavily on the US for long-range strike capabilities, intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance, satellite-based assets, logistics and integrated air and missile defence. Advertisement Closing those gaps will be a long-term challenge. The IISS estimates that replacing the most critical US conventional military capabilities would require roughly $1 trillion and could take a decade or more. Europe’s defence industry also faces difficulties expanding production fast enough, while many armed forces continue to struggle with recruitment and retention. Adblock test (Why?)
US president Trump defends FIFA’s Balogun red card reversal
NewsFeed US President Donald Trump defended FIFA’s decision to overturn Folarin Balogun’s red card suspension, saying the striker’s dismissal was unfair and describing the referee as ‘suspect.’ FIFA suspended the one-match ban after a call from Trump, allowing the striker to face Belgium in the World Cup last 16. Published On 6 Jul 20266 Jul 2026 Click here to share on social media share-nodes Share googleAdd Al Jazeera on Googleinfo Adblock test (Why?)
UN discusses prevention of genocide: Six times it failed to do just that
The United Nations General Assembly is holding a plenary session on Monday to discuss nations’ responsibility to prevent genocide, war crimes, ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity. But the meeting on Monday at UN headquarters in New York comes amid Israel’s genocide in Gaza, the Rapid Support Forces’ and allied militias’ ongoing genocide in the Darfur region of Sudan, and other humanitarian crises around the world, which many critics say the international community has done very little to address. Recommended Stories list of 3 itemsend of list While the UN meeting may result in protocols that countries need to follow to prevent future genocides, observers are sceptical that these will make much difference to victims on the ground. What is the UN’s definition of genocide, and which are some of the genocides the UN has ultimately failed to act on? Here, Al Jazeera takes a look. How does the UN define genocide? In 1944, Polish lawyer Raphael Lemkin used the term “genocide” for the first time in his book Axis Rule in Occupied Europe. The prefix of the word is “genos” and means “race” or “tribe” in Ancient Greek. The suffix “cide” is Latin and means “killing”. In 1946, the UN General Assembly recognised genocide as a crime for the first time. According to the world body, the term genocide was then “codified” as an independent crime in the 1948 Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, or the Genocide Convention, which came into effect in 1951 and has been ratified by 196 countries. The UN’s Geneva Conventions define genocide as any act committed “with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group”. Advertisement This includes “killing members of the group, causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group, deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part, imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group, [and] forcibly transferring children of the group to another group”. Which are some of the genocides the world has failed to act on? Genocide in Rwanda In 1994, members of the majority Hutu ethnic group in Rwanda massacred an estimated 800,000 minority Tutsis, moderate Hutus and members of a third ethnic group, the Twa, in one of the darkest episodes in world history. A combination of colonial-era favouritism towards the Tutsis, which had angered other groups, a media landscape that was ripe for spreading hate, and the slowness of the international community to respond to the crisis all combined to fuel the genocide, which began in April 1994 and continued for 100 days. Before the genocide, the 1991 census counted the Tutsi population at 657,000, or 8.4 percent of the overall population, although some have alleged without proof that Rwandan President Juvenal Habyarimana’s government undercounted Tutsis to limit their access to education and other opportunities. Human Rights Watch estimated at least 500,000 Tutsis – 77 percent of their 1991 population – were killed. Global leaders were aware of the genocide, but did not intervene. For a long time, the UN actually avoided using the word “genocide” under pressure from the United States, which had been reluctant to send troops to Rwanda. Former UN chief Ban Ki-moon said on the 20th anniversary of the killings that the organisation was still “ashamed” of its failure to prevent the genocide. The UN did, however, establish the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda in November 1994 in Arusha, Tanzania. The court has since tried several high-profile leaders of the massacres, including caretaker Prime Minister Jean Kambanda, who was handed a life sentence for inciting, aiding, abetting and failing to prevent genocide. He was also sentenced on two counts of crimes against humanity. The tribunal has convicted 61 people so far. A bouquet of flowers tied with a ribbon showing the message ‘Genocide Never Again’ is pictured in the Kigali Genocide Memorial grounds in Kigali, Rwanda [File:Noor Khamis/Reuters] Israel’s genocide in Gaza It has been more than 1,000 days since Israel launched its genocidal war on Gaza in October 2023, killing at least 73,066 Palestinian people in the enclave following the Hamas-led assault on southern Israel in which more than 1,100 people were killed. Since then, more than 90 percent of the Gaza Strip has been destroyed, with infrastructure and healthcare facilities almost completely obliterated, and Israeli forces remain in control of 80 percent of the besieged territory, authorities in the enclave have said. Advertisement The genocide began in response to attacks on southern Israel by fighters from the Qassam Brigades, the armed wing of Hamas, and other Palestinian groups, during which 1,139 people died and about 240 were taken into Gaza as captives. While a ceasefire came into effect in October 2025, Israeli attacks on Palestinians in the enclave have continued. According to Gaza’s Ministry of Health, Israeli army violations of the ceasefire have killed over 1,000 people and wounded over 3,000 others since the truce took effect. Under the ceasefire deal, the parties were also expected to move to a second phase after Hamas released the remaining captives covered by the first-stage deal in exchange for Palestinians held in Israeli prisons. That phase was meant to include disarmament by Hamas and a gradual Israeli military withdrawal from Gaza. However, negotiations remain stalled. As during the war itself, world leaders have done little to prevent Israel from continuing its attacks in Gaza. Furthermore, each time the UN Security Council has held a vote to enable a ceasefire in Gaza, the US has vetoed and blocked all ceasefire resolutions. In March 2024, the UN Special Rapporteur on the occupied Palestinian territories, Francesca Albanese, said there were clear indications that Israel was violating three of the five conditions listed under the UN Genocide Convention. She said she had found “reasonable grounds to believe that the threshold indicating the commission of … acts of genocide against Palestinians in Gaza has been met”. “The overwhelming nature
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Newlywed Delhi Woman’s Death Case: Police arrest husband after body found under mysterious circumstances
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Will Nirav Modi be extradited soon? European Court rejects fugitive businessman’s final appeal, loses legal challenge
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