John Esposito transformed how the West understood Islam
John L Esposito, a prominent scholar of religion and international affairs at Georgetown University, passed away on July 15, 2026, due to complications from heart surgery. He was a towering intellectual who published more than 55 books, mainly with Oxford University Press, which have been translated into dozens of languages. He uniquely shaped the modern study of Islam and Muslim societies during the late 20th and early 21st century, particularly in the area of Islam-West relations during key moments of friction following the 1979 Iranian revolution and 9/11. John was born into a working-class Italian-American family in Brooklyn, New York, in 1940. His worldview was shaped by his devout Catholic mother and his father’s commitment to social justice. He aspired to become a Catholic priest and, at a young age, joined the strict Capuchin Franciscan Order. John left the seminary before ordination and opted for graduate school instead. He earned a doctorate in religious studies at Temple University under the supervision of Ismail al-Faruqi, the late Palestinian-American scholar of religion. John’s family and friends questioned his career choice because they feared for his employability. When he entered the job market in 1974, there was only one advertised position in Islamic studies. The study of religion, particularly Islam, was absent in many institutions of higher learning, and international relations programmes at universities ignored the role of religion in global affairs. Telling stories was one of Professor Esposito’s many passions. Reflecting on his career, he frequently joked that he owed his livelihood to two famous “radical” Muslims, one Shia and the other Sunni: Ayatollah Khomeini and Osama bin Laden. Advertisement After the 1979 Islamic revolution in Iran, interest in the relationship between Islam and politics skyrocketed in the West. The same happened after 9/11. John’s expertise was suddenly in high demand. He responded by publishing several groundbreaking books on the relationship between Islam and politics, Islam’s normative ideals, Islam-West relations, and the diverse political and social structures of Muslim societies. He was frequently quoted in the media, and governments now sought his counsel. This story about John’s career, however, has a steep downside. The Western interest in Islam and Muslims emerged due to threats to United States national security. This meant the ability to understand this topic in a free, unbiased and independent way was absent for most Westerners. The enveloping context that shaped the policy and public debate on Islam and Muslims was themes of political revolution, mass violence and perceived threats to global order. John’s educational efforts were always an uphill battle. Establishment academics dominated the intellectual, policy and media debates. Bernard Lewis wrote about the alleged “Roots of Muslim Rage” at modernity that purportedly explained turmoil in the Middle East. Around the same time, Samuel Huntington advanced a popular thesis on the “Clash of Civilizations”. These views had a wide following, in part because they reinforced pre-existing Western biases about Islam and Muslims. They were further enhanced by US and Israeli national security narratives about an alleged Islamic threat in the aftermath of the Cold War. John was an early and courageous scholar who challenged Orientalist misrepresentations of Islam and Muslims in an era of deep polarisation. His scholarship created room for understanding in lieu of prejudice, and his intellectual insights allowed a younger generation of scholars to build on and expand upon his pioneering research. Professor Esposito advanced a new understanding of religion by criticising the dominant social science theories about political development. He astutely drew attention to a “secular bias” that informed mainstream intellectual debates in the West on the relationship between religion and politics. These modernisation theories purported to be universally applicable based on the assumption that religion was a relic of the past that no longer mattered in the modern world. In truth, these claims were ideologically biased, based on a set of specifically Western experiences. By contrast, John interpreted the politics of the Muslim world not from a Western normative framework but rather from the Muslim world’s own experience. In other words, not from the outside in, but rather from the bottom up, from the perspective of the masses, many of whom held onto a religious identity. In doing so, he advanced a historically grounded and sociologically compelling analysis of religious politics in the Islamic world. Critiques of the legacy of colonialism, authoritarianism and US foreign policy were central to his intellectual work. Advertisement Professor Esposito’s work on political Islam was pioneering. He wrote about the social conditions and collective aspirations that rendered political Islam appealing to diverse constituencies across the Middle East and the broader Muslim world. While most mainstream Western scholars and liberal intellectuals focused on the Islamist desire to implement “Sharia”, Esposito focused on the core aspirations that animated political Islam: dignity, justice, self-determination, and opposition to external domination. These same aspirations made political Islam a resilient and enduring force. In reflecting on John Esposito’s legacy, I’m reminded of an observation by Edmund Burke III. Commenting on the work of the late Marshall GS Hodgson, author of The Venture of Islam: Conscience and History of a World Civilization, Burke noted that Hodgson, like Esposito, refused to view Islam as the “other”. Instead, he understood the Islamic tradition as “a venture alongside others that marked human efforts to bring about a just and moral world”. We are unlikely to see a scholar in our lifetime again who can match John Esposito’s moral and intellectual caliber. His impact on our collective education and understanding of Islam-West relations is unique and immeasurable. Those who care about universal values rooted in international law, human rights, democracy, and cross-cultural understanding are deeply in his debt. John Esposito is survived by his wife of 61 years, Jean Esposito, his partner and primary supporter in all his endeavours, and the enduring love of John’s life. The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera’s editorial policy. Adblock test (Why?)
China’s Xi says AI ‘should not be a solo performance by a single country’
The Chinese leader called for more international cooperation in developing the technology at a conference in Shanghai. Published On 17 Jul 202617 Jul 2026 Artificial intelligence should not be dominated by one country, Chinese President Xi Jinping has said, urging international cooperation on development at a major conference in Shanghai. Xi also emphasised the importance of a “people-centred” approach to AI technology in his keynote address at the opening ceremony of the World Artificial Intelligence Conference on Friday. Recommended Stories list of 3 itemsend of list The conference showcases the cutting-edge technology Xi hopes will soon rival that of the United States. Chinese AI models are gaining ground on the most powerful offerings from the US, attracting global users with lower costs. But how to govern the booming sector has become a topic of debate amid concerns over the deployment of AI in military combat and its use by hackers or criminals. In his address, Xi spoke of China’s role in ensuring equitable access to AI capacity-building for developing countries to prevent the creation of “new historical injustices”. To that end, he announced China’s plans to cooperate with international bodies, including from Africa, Latin America, Asia and BRICS countries, to provide AI-related opportunities. “AI development should not be a solo performance by a single country, but a symphony of international cooperation,” Xi said. “We should jointly oppose overstretching the national security concept in the field of AI or placing one country’s security over that of others.” ‘Ensure AI is always under human control’ The US and European Union have imposed restrictions on Chinese tech imports, citing national security concerns, while recent tussles between Washington and American AI labs have raised questions about who controls access to top technology. Advertisement In May, the US Commerce Department issued a notice affirming its restrictions on shipments of semiconductors to subsidiaries of Chinese companies located outside China amid concerns about loopholes in Washington’s export control regime. The guidance said its licensing requirements for the export of advanced AI chips applied to all businesses with headquarters or a parent company in China. At Friday’s conference, Xi also stressed the need for a “people-centred” approach to AI with humans at the wheel. “We should put in place laws and regulations, technological monitoring, early warning, and emergency response systems, in order to … ensure AI is always under human control,” he said. AI has become a strategic pillar of China’s industrial policy, driven by state investment aimed at building a domestic ecosystem, from chip production to consumer use. Daily consumption in China of “tokens” – the industry unit of AI usage – has increased a thousandfold over the past two years, according to state media citing officials. As Al Jazeera reported earlier, China, while lagging behind the US in access to the most cutting-edge semiconductors, holds the edge in powering the huge data centres that run on AI chips. A typical data centre can consume as much electricity as 100,000 households, while next-generation “hyperscale” facilities can gobble up as much power as two million homes, according to the International Energy Agency (IEA). China’s access to an abundant supply of cheap electricity places it in the ideal position to meet such colossal energy demands. It already generates more than twice as much electricity as the US, a lead that is expected to widen amid an aggressive state-led investment in the country’s energy grid. Adblock test (Why?)
Why is Pakistan’s Sindh province facing a major child HIV outbreak?
Islamabad, Pakistan – At least 130 people, most of them children, have tested HIV-positive in connection with an outbreak at a government-run hospital in Karachi, Pakistan’s largest city, with officials adding that the number has risen sharply in recent weeks. Sindh Labour Minister Saeed Ghani said earlier this week that more than 10,500 people were screened in and around Kulsum Bai Valika (KBV) Hospital, a Sindh Employees’ Social Security Institution (SESSI) run facility, where 120 tested positive. Recommended Stories list of 4 itemsend of list A separate screening drive at another SESSI facility in Karachi’s Landhi area identified 10 additional cases. SESSI is an autonomous provincial organisation that provides healthcare, medical facilities and financial assistance to industrial and commercial workers and their dependants across Sindh. The crisis at KBV Hospital first came to public attention in November 2025, when residents of Karachi’s SITE Town noticed a cluster of infections among children treated there. Officials, however, trace the outbreak to October 2025, when the first six HIV-positive cases were reported to the provincial health department. So what happened, what caused the outbreak, and why does Sindh continue to witness such episodes? What has happened this month? Chief Minister Murad Ali Shah was briefed on July 14 that two internal inquiries had found serious lapses, including poor adherence to infection prevention protocols, inadequate use of protective equipment and improper handling of single-use syringes. The first inquiry, submitted in November last year, identified 16 HIV-positive children, all linked to the KBV’s paediatrics department. Advertisement A second, more comprehensive inquiry, submitted to the provincial ombudsman on June 19, confirmed 78 infections and six deaths, holding named hospital staff responsible for administrative and supervisory failures. The number has since increased, with the latest infections confirmed at the SESSI facilities. Minister Ghani said all cases had been traced to exposure before October 2025 and that screening would continue “despite fears that additional cases may emerge”. Thirty-seven doctors and hospital staff were issued show-cause notices on July 3 and given 14 days to respond. Ghani said criminal cases and dismissals would follow for those found responsible. Asked about his own accountability, he said he had “accepted indirect responsibility” and would not object to resigning if it helped resolve the crisis. A HIV patient displays a new syringe and distilled water he received at Pakistan Society, a nongovernmental organisation (NGO) Drop-In Centre in Karachi, on November 30, 2013 [Akhtar Soomro/Reuters] Is Sindh’s outbreak an isolated case? Responding to questions after a Sindh High Court petition alleged the outbreak stemmed from reused syringes, Ghani told reporters on July 4 that the infections were not caused by syringe reuse. He argued that KBV Hospital uses auto-disable syringes that cannot be reused. The official inquiries, however, pointed to a broader breakdown in infection prevention, citing failures that included poor adherence to safety protocols, inadequate use of protective equipment and improper handling of single-use syringes. The petition before the Sindh High Court alleges the number of infections is significantly higher than officially acknowledged. This is not the first large HIV outbreak reported in Sindh. Last December, the World Health Organization (WHO) and UNAIDS identified the crisis in Pakistan as one of the fastest-growing HIV epidemics in the WHO Eastern Mediterranean Region, comprising of 21 nations, with annual infections rising 200 percent over 15 years, from 16,000 in 2010 to 48,000 in 2024. In a joint World AIDS Day statement issued on December 1, the agencies estimated that about 350,000 people in Pakistan are living with HIV, with nearly 80 percent unaware of their status. The statement also noted that HIV infections among children aged 0 to 14 increased from 530 in 2010 to 1,800 in 2023. Only 38 percent of children living with HIV are receiving treatment, while just 14 percent of pregnant women requiring therapy to prevent mother-to-child transmission receive it. Advertisement In June, physicians writing in British medical journal The Lancet HIV argued that Pakistan’s epidemic is now driven “in large part, by the health-care system itself”, pointing to repeated outbreaks linked to unsafe medical practices. That assessment, however, remains inconclusive. While repeated outbreaks have highlighted unsafe medical practices, researchers say Pakistan also lacks comprehensive surveillance to determine how many HIV infections nationwide originate in healthcare settings compared with sexual transmission, mother-to-child transmission or intravenous drug use. Syed Faisal Mahmood, professor of infectious diseases at Aga Khan University Hospital in Karachi, urged caution. “At this point in time, it is impossible to say which of the two are the dominant drivers of infection,” he told Al Jazeera. For sexual transmission, mother-to-child transmission and intravenous drug use, he said, “the numbers are somewhat more reliable, because a great deal of work has been done” through established surveillance. “There is no systematic surveillance looking at how many people have acquired HIV from visiting clinics, hospitals, or informal care providers,” he said. The pattern extends beyond KBV Hospital. Three other hospitals in Karachi have also reported increasing numbers of paediatric HIV patients, including one facility where admissions rose from 10 cases in 2024 to 70 in 2025. The Pakistan Medical Association warned in April that 329 of the 894 HIV cases recorded in Sindh during the first quarter of 2026 involved children, describing the figures as “merely the tip of the iceberg”. For Mahmood, these outbreaks point to a much broader problem. “For many of us working in this field, this is a systemic problem,” he said. “It is not linked to any one hospital or healthcare system. Poor injection safety protocols are pervasive throughout the entire country and across all levels of healthcare.” He added that children are not the only victims, pointing to outbreaks in dialysis centres linked to unsafe blood transfusions. Pakistan also has one of the world’s highest hepatitis C burdens, he said, “driven by the same mechanism and the same underlying reasons” as the HIV cases now emerging. What is being done? The Sindh High Court has given the provincial government until July 20 to respond to
UK urges FIFA to investigate Argentina over World Cup Falklands banner
The United Kingdom and Argentina fought a brief war over the British overseas territory in 1982. Published On 16 Jul 202616 Jul 2026 A British minister has called for FIFA to investigate after Argentina’s players at the World Cup held up a banner reading “Las Malvinas son Argentinas” (“The Falklands are Argentinian”) after their 2-1 semifinal victory over England. Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s Downing Street office backed the calls by Business Minister Peter Kyle on Thursday, a day after the semifinal. Recommended Stories list of 4 itemsend of list Kyle called the flag waving an “egregious violation” of FIFA rules, which ban political symbols on the field of play. “The World Cup might not be ours, but the Falkland Islands definitely are,” a Downing Street spokesperson said. Argentina invaded the British overseas territory in the South Atlantic in 1982. But the United Kingdom regained the archipelago in a brief war after then-Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher dispatched a naval force. Kyle urged football’s global governing body to “thoroughly” investigate the banner incident after Wednesday’s match in Atlanta in the US state of Georgia. “Politics needs to be separate from football. In fact, the World Cup has one of its central tenets that politics is separate from football,” he told BBC television. “That is now a matter for FIFA. … We expect FIFA to undertake an investigation into this,” he added. FIFA has not yet commented on the incident. Britain occupied the Falklands in the 19th century, but Argentina claims the islands are part of its territory. Argentinian Vice President Victoria Villarruel upped the tensions before Wednesday’s kickoff by calling the English “usurping pirates”. Advertisement The 1982 conflict ended with the deaths of 649 Argentinians and 255 Britons. After their World Cup semifinal victory, Argentina’s foreign minister said Buenos Aires had filed a formal protest over a British warship near the Falkland Islands. Pablo Quirno posted on X to express “the strongest rejection” of the UK’s HMS Medway’s “unconsulted and illegal” passage through Argentinian territorial waters, alleging a lack of proper notification. Quirno said the Medway, which is based in the Falkland Islands, was accused of violating bilateral agreements in a diplomatic note of protest dated on Monday and submitted to the UK embassy in Buenos Aires. Adblock test (Why?)
Air defences intercept drones over Erbil, Iraq
NewsFeed Verified eyewitness video captures multiple aerial interceptions over Erbil, Iraq where explosions were heard near the US consulate. Security sources said an explosive-laden drone was shot down, as Kurdish authorities reported coalition forces intercepted eight drones. Published On 16 Jul 202616 Jul 2026 Click here to share on social media share-nodes Share googleAdd Al Jazeera on Googleinfo Adblock test (Why?)
Hamas leadership run-off expected between Meshaal and al-Hayya
Hamas is set to hold a decisive run-off election next week to choose its new political bureau chief. This will complete a complex transition process initiated to fill leadership vacancies left by Israel’s assassinations of some of the group’s top figures, such as Ismail Haniyeh and Yahya Sinwar. The highly anticipated vote represents a critical juncture for the Palestinian group as it attempts to renew itself, even as it faces the ongoing Israeli war. According to a Hamas source, the internal ballot to select a chairman has narrowed down to what is likely to be a close contest between former Hamas political leader Khaled Meshaal and former deputy chairman Khalil al-Hayya. The winner will replace the current transitional council, which took over following Sinwar’s assassination in Gaza in October 2024. The new leader will then continue until 2027, when new elections are due to be held. Under Hamas’s internal rules, a candidate must secure an absolute majority of 50 percent plus one of the votes within the Shura Council – the group’s consultative body – to win the leadership outright. Because neither candidate achieved that threshold during the initial rounds, a run-off election has been scheduled for next week to break the deadlock. The source explained that, according to a 2021 framework, the top two leadership positions must include a representative of the Gaza region – one of the three geographical areas Hamas is divided into, with the other two being the West Bank and the diaspora. Therefore, if al-Hayya, who represents Gaza, does not secure the leadership in the run-off, he is expected to be positioned as deputy political chief. Change in process A second Hamas source told Al Jazeera that the group has been forced to abandon its typical voting process, which involves participation from the entire grassroots base. Instead, only a narrower group has been able to vote in the political bureau elections, in order to complete the current electoral term, which began in 2021. Advertisement The source explained that security challenges imposed by the war, alongside the urgent priority of filling vacancies in the group’s Shura Council resulting from the deaths of several members, had delayed the leadership selection. Despite those challenges, the source dismissed reports of a shift towards a clandestine or collective leadership structure, asserting that the identity of the newly elected chief will be formally and publicly announced once the votes are finalised. Both the Hamas sources confirmed that regardless of next week’s outcome, preparations for a fully comprehensive, grassroots election across all three traditional regions are scheduled to begin next year, subject to prevailing security conditions. Palestinian political analyst Abdullah Aqrabawi told Al Jazeera that those internal dynamics can no longer be viewed as the closed-door affairs of a local group. Since the events of October 7, 2023, Hamas has emerged as a central regional actor whose decisions reverberate far beyond the Palestinian arena, directly shaping the geopolitics of the entire Middle East. Consequently, Aqrabawi noted, the transition of Hamas’s leadership has become a matter of intense regional and international scrutiny. Institutional resilience The current electoral framework stems from Hamas’s internal general elections in early 2021. Haniyeh was chosen as the overall head of the political bureau, while Sinwar was re-elected to lead the Gaza Strip and Meshaal was selected to head the movement’s diaspora wing abroad. This institutional structure faced unprecedented disruption following the outbreak of the war, which saw Israel target multiple tiers of Hamas’s political and military commands. In July 2024, political chief Haniyeh was assassinated in Tehran, prompting the group’s Shura Council to name Sinwar as his overall successor in August 2024. Following Sinwar’s death during a clash with Israeli forces in Rafah in October 2024, the group adapted by establishing a temporary, five-member ruling leadership council to handle wartime governance and negotiations. This transitional committee has since been nominally headed by Qatar-based official Mohammad Darwish. Despite Israel’s declared objective of dismantling Hamas’s command-and-control apparatus, the structured nature of this transition highlights the group’s deep organisational safety net. Palestinian political analyst Wissam Afifa told Al Jazeera that Hamas’s organisational structure operates akin to the biological process of “mitotic division” – where a single cell splits to create two identical cells. In times of crisis, pre-existing emergency procedures and backup plans automatically trigger secondary administrative and leadership layers to assume control. Advertisement Afifa emphasised that while iconic, charismatic figures are irreplaceable, the survival of the institution itself is never tied to a single individual, allowing the group to absorb unprecedented shocks. Agreeing with this assessment, Aqrabawi observed that the movement’s insistence on adhering strictly to its voting regulations and bylaws under the fire of an ongoing war reflects a deep-seated institutionalism. Rather than resorting to swift appointments or consensus decrees, he said, the group has chosen a voting process. According to Aqrabawi, the active competition between two distinct leaders shows a healthy internal debate on the movement’s political and strategic directions during a crucial moment. A shift in the decision-making hub The war has nevertheless forced structural adjustments in how Hamas governs itself. Afifa pointed out that the extensive targeting of Hamas’s long-time military commanders inside the Gaza Strip has led to an inevitable delegation of authority. To ensure continuity, the political leadership abroad has been granted broad mandates to make strategic decisions. This delegation of power allows external leaders to navigate diplomatic and political manoeuvres free from the immediate tactical pressures of the battlefield. This external pivot has persisted despite direct threats. Last September, Israel launched an attack on a residential complex in Doha targeting senior Hamas figures, though the leadership survived. Afifa noted that while collective leadership has been crucial for building internal consensus during this transitional phase, Hamas’s history suggests that strong, charismatic, individual leadership remains vital for taking decisive actions during major historical turning points. Diplomatic and post-war implications The outcome of the vote is expected to determine the organisational management of ceasefire negotiations. While al-Hayya has been deeply involved as Hamas’s main negotiator
Toronto engulfed by wildfire smoke as US cities threatened
Monitor ranks Toronto as having the worst air quality on earth, surpassing Kinshasa, DR Congo, and New Delhi, India. By AFP and Reuters Published On 16 Jul 202616 Jul 2026 Toronto’s air quality has ranked the worst among all major cities in the world as smoke from wildfires in northwestern Ontario blankets the skies and spreads into the northeastern United States, triggering multiple health warnings and evacuations. Wildfires continued burning through sparsely populated areas hundreds of miles from Toronto, Canada’s largest city, on Wednesday, sending smoke over a wide area, although cities in the area are not being threatened. Recommended Stories list of 3 itemsend of list Environment Canada reported an Air Quality Health Index reading of 10+, classified as “very high risk”, for Toronto. Forecasts suggested that hazardous conditions could persist through Thursday night. IQAir, a Swiss air quality technology company, ranked Toronto as having the worst air quality across the globe, surpassing the Democratic Republic of the Congo’s Kinshasa and India’s New Delhi. “The biggest contributor to Toronto’s spike in air pollution right now is wildfires, though the higher-than-average temperatures are also playing a role,” Armen Araradian of IQAir told the AFP news agency. While this year’s wildfire season in Canada has been fairly muted compared with recent years, there are more than 800 active fires nationwide. A video that went viral on social media showed a Canadian National train surrounded by fire near Armstrong, Ontario. Canadian National employees in the area and residents of Armstrong were evacuated on Monday night, the railroad operator said in a statement. It suspended rail operations near Armstrong as a precaution. Smoke from the wildfires also worsened air quality across the border in the US, with the states of Pennsylvania, New York, Connecticut, Massachusetts, Maine and New Hampshire particularly affected. Advertisement Authorities in New York City have issued an alert over unhealthy air quality, urging residents to reduce strenuous outdoor activity and take extra breaks if they are outside on Wednesday and Thursday. The National Weather Service said smoke could linger until the end of the week. “We probably haven’t seen the worst of it yet for New York City. We probably haven’t seen the worst of it yet for the Great Lakes and upstate, and New England yet either,” Dan Westervelt, Lamont associate research professor at Columbia University, told the Reuters news agency. More than 80,000 people are expected to attend the FIFA World Cup final at an open-air stadium in New Jersey on Sunday, with another 50,000 planning to watch the game from New York City’s Central Park, where skies appeared hazy. New York Governor Kathy Hochul urged people, especially those with health conditions, to exercise caution. A person puts on a mask as reflected in a souvenir shop mirror, as wildfire smoke from northwestern Ontario fills the sky, in Toronto on Wednesday [Carlos Osorio/Reuters] The Canadian government has said that wildfire season began more slowly this year than in 2023 or 2025 – the two worst seasons for wildfires – but warned that fires were likely, due to warmer-than-usual temperatures across the country. It said some 835 active fires were burning across the country on Wednesday, with 112 considered out of control, and most in the central provinces of Manitoba, Saskatchewan and Ontario. They have burned 1.9 million hectares (4.7 million acres) so far. Greg Evans, a professor of chemical engineering and applied chemistry at the University of Toronto, said the city had been simultaneously hit with severe heat and wildfire smoke. “I expect that this will occur more frequently over the coming decades, so cities and residents need to prepare for this in the future,” he said. Adblock test (Why?)
Iran launches strikes on Gulf, even as FM visits Qatar
[unable to retrieve full-text content] Iranian FM Araghchi visits Qatar to pay respects following the death of the Father Emir, Sheikh Hamad bin al Thani
South Korea’s international adoptees seek justice, not homecoming
Seoul, South Korea – In 2023, Marie Wang began digging into her past for the first time. Growing up in Denmark, she had always known she had been adopted from South Korea in the early 1990s. Recommended Stories list of 4 itemsend of list And for decades, she believed the story contained in her adoption records: her birth mother, a university student, had been forced by circumstances to give up her baby. But as South Korean adoptees around the world uncovered a pattern of fabricated records and irregularities in their original country’s overseas adoption system, Wang decided to request her own file. What she found upended everything she thought she knew. “It said my birth mother believed I was dead, and that it was the doctor at the birth clinic who facilitated my adoption,” Wang told Al Jazeera. “I think Korea Social Service [KSS], my adoption agency, sent me that document by accident because they’ve refused to provide any additional information since. Every time I ask, they say privacy laws prevent them from releasing anything.” Wang is among a growing number of overseas adoptees who have discovered evidence suggesting their adoptions were built on fabricated information. “My adoptive parents would never have adopted me if they’d known I had been separated from my family simply because everyone believed I was dead,” she said. Now 33, Wang has never returned to South Korea. A photo of Mia Lee Hansen that was included in her adoption file [Courtesy of Mia Lee Hansen] Mia Lee Hansen’s story follows a strikingly similar pattern. Also adopted to Denmark through KSS, Hansen spent years believing the account in her adoption papers until a visit to South Korea in 2011. Advertisement “My adoptive parents and I met with a representative from KSS, who told us my files had somehow been fabricated,” she told Al Jazeera. “They said these kinds of errors happened because record-keeping wasn’t very good back then.” Receiving little help from the agency, Hansen turned to commercial DNA testing in 2020. Months later she matched with a cousin in the United States. In 2022, she reunited with her birth family in South Korea. “My father thought it was a joke when he got the phone call telling him I was alive,” she said. “Everyone believed I had died.” According to one of her siblings, when Hansen was born prematurely in the southwestern city of Gwangju in 1987, doctors told her mother she had not survived. “My grandmother returned the next day because she wanted to give me a proper funeral,” Hansen said. “Instead, hospital staff became angry and told her to leave.” Her adoption file offers conflicting explanations for why she was given up, including poverty and her sex. Even the hospital listed differs from the one where her family says she was born. “When you’re adopted, you experience one separation after another,” Hansen said. “You’re separated from your birth mother and moved to the other side of the world. People think babies are too young to remember, but the body remembers.” Overdue recognition For years, overseas adoptees and advocacy groups accused South Korea’s adoption agencies and government of enabling fraudulent overseas adoptions. But last year marked a turning point. In a public statement, South Korean President Lee Jae Myung offered a “heartfelt apology and words of comfort” to overseas adoptees and their birth and adoptive families, saying he felt “heavy-hearted” thinking about the “anxiety, pain and confusion” many had endured after being sent abroad as children. His apology followed findings by South Korea’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC), which concluded last year that the government had played a central role in facilitating overseas adoptions through widespread human rights violations. South Korean President Lee Jae Myung addresses the media in Seoul, on June 19, 2026 [Jung Yeon-je/AFP] After a nearly three-year investigation into 367 cases, the commission uncovered fabricated records, identity tampering, fraudulent registrations portraying children as abandoned orphans, and failures to obtain legal consent from birth parents. Its conclusions echoed a landmark 2024 investigation by The Associated Press news agency and TV documentary series PBS Frontline, which found South Korea’s government, adoption agencies and Western partners had helped send about 200,000 children overseas despite mounting evidence that many had been separated from their families through deception or coercion. Advertisement The investigation also found adoption agencies paid hospitals and orphanages for newborns and young children. South Korea’s overseas adoption programme began after the 1950-53 Korean War as a welfare initiative for war orphans. As the country’s economy developed during the 1970s and 80s, however, international adoptions accelerated dramatically, earning South Korea the reputation of being the world’s leading “baby-exporting” nation. The government has since begun confronting that history. Following Lee’s apology, South Korea formally joined the Hague Convention on Protection of Children and Co-operation in Respect of Intercountry Adoption, transferring responsibility for overseas adoptions from private agencies to the state. It has also pledged to end intercountry adoptions by 2029. Yet many adoptees say the government’s actions have not been accompanied by accountability. Advocates say tens of thousands of overseas adoptees remain without answers because many lack the documentation needed to pursue their cases. That tension was in the background of this year’s Overseas Korean Adoptees Gathering (OKAG). The annual conference, organised by the governmental Overseas Koreans Agency, brings adoptees from around the world to South Korea to reconnect with their birth country. Anne Kim Loesch, who lives in Luxembourg, returned this year as one of the programme’s community leaders. “I’ve always wondered what my birth mother looks like,” Loesch told Al Jazeera. “When I see parents with their children, they resemble each other. I wonder whether I look like her. Is she tall? Is she small like me?” The gathering has also become one of the few places where adoptees feel fully understood. “My closest friends back home aren’t adopted,” she said. “They care about me, but they can’t fully understand what we’ve lived through. Among adoptees, we don’t have to explain.” Anne-Kim-Loesch attends the
My Twitter, not X
Nothing much stays with me from the first days of Twitter, which was publicly launched 20 years ago, on July 15, 2006. I had discovered the internet back in 1995 and early on, I started thinking about how to get my voice heard by the world. I created a couple of websites through Angelfire and 8m, but there was no real ecosystem to nurture the idea. It’s like opening a shop to sell a certain product in a remote area – somewhere nobody really knows, at a time when there’s no interest – compared with opening that same shop in a mall, or on a street full of other vendors. MySpace was another opening, but the idea was not yet ripe. Facebook came with a spark – and then we got Twitter. “It’s like having your own breaking news platform, you’ll set your own agenda,” I remember one of my colleagues at the BBC, where I used to work, saying at the time. It didn’t take me long to sign up. I cannot recall whether I tweeted immediately or not, yet what happened afterwards helped frame my future as an international journalist. Twitter’s first defining moment for me was 2009’s Green Revolution in Iran, when I and others followed how the platform shaped the discourse in a way that differed completely from traditional media. We were not new to citizen journalism; a few years earlier, Salam Pax emerged as the first ever famous war blogger, presenting his distinctive view of the US-led invasion of Iraq through his individual blog. A few years later, tens of thousands of Salams have appeared – and I’m one of them. Advertisement Going through my early timeline, I see that I was tweeting randomly – an earthquake in Japan, an election in Lebanon, an explosion in Somalia, and so on. Then came the Arab Spring. Just as with many in the world, this was the moment that shaped my Twitter presence, and as I got involved in the coverage, I became well-positioned to post and attract followers. My coverage of the Libyan revolution in March 2011 introduced me to many people and gave me a better understanding of what was happening. I was based in Sallum, a village on the Egyptian side of the Libyan border, without a connection of my own. I fed a colleague back in Cairo a sentence at a time over a crackling Thuraya satellite phone, and he typed my words into the account that I could not reach. Its password lived on my friend’s head until days later, when I finally got my hands on a satellite dish. Trips to Libya, Egypt, Syria, Somalia – all of it made Twitter part and parcel of my journalistic journey, and it also helped me build a parallel path writing for international outlets including Al-Monitor and The Sunday Times. Yet still, there was something else that changed my direction. Until 2013, I was a journalist covering stories without specialisation – I used to report from Iran, like I do today, yet it was not my career the way it currently is. But then I became a bureau chief in Tehran and my knowledge began growing – and here, Twitter gave me another layer, widening my network day after day. Personally, that specialisation gave the platform its finest hour for me. I broke developments out of Iran’s nuclear talks with world powers before the news agencies had finished their first draft, filing in Arabic and English within minutes of each other and announcing the agreement itself while other newsrooms were still working on their bulletins. The war against ISIL (ISIS) followed, then a January 2020 morning near Baghdad airport when my sources told me the commander of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps’s Quds Force, Qassem Soleimani, and the deputy chief of Iraq’s Popular Mobilisation Forces, Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, were in a convoy hit by a US air strike – and I was among the first to say so. Twitter was never only a wire service for other people’s wars. I’ve “met” heads of state and celebrities on this platform – and for a moment we felt equals. I have made my scoops there, and I have made my hugest gaffes there, too. You act and you interact and you see the result immediately, backlash or praise. It’s like a daily journal, one that outlives you. I know of many, some friends, some colleagues, some people I only happened to follow, who left our world while their accounts are still there – for us, and for me – to return to for the memory or to get a piece of information. Advertisement It was also where, on the 100th anniversary of World War I, that I told the story of my great-grandfather, Ali Hashem, who went to the war and never returned; and of my grandfather Hussein, who was three when his father was summoned to the Ottoman army and never saw him again. It was where colleagues at Al Jazeera, stationed in the north of Palestine, went looking for my family’s village on my behalf, for a cemetery nearly in ruins, for a great-grandmother’s grave that has never been found. It became, eventually, the subject of my own academic work too, a master’s thesis on Twiplomacy, examining how a platform built for gossip and jokes quietly rewired the choreography of nations, with Iran’s nuclear diplomacy as my case study. In the summer of 2023 – sensing where things were headed, as new owner Elon Musk decided to change Twitter’s name to X, and to tragically, if I may so, kill the famous and lovely blue bird that accompanied the journey many made with the platform, including myself – I posted five words. “Someone buy Twitter and save the bird.” Alas, nobody did, and the bird disappeared from the icon, and the name went with it, replaced by a single letter that still sits wrong in my mouth. In Arabic or in English, the