With water cuts looming in Arizona in US, locals fight data centres
Every morning Marisol Winfrey Herrera’s three-and-a-half-year-old daughter Jo reminds her to turn off the tap while washing her hands and brushing her teeth. When they leave home, she reminds her mother to keep a bottle of ice with them to offer it to homeless people, who they sometimes find wilting in the Tucson heat. At first, they press the ice-filled bottles on the homeless folks to help them revive, then they offer the water to drink and hydrate. At her daycare, Jo is taught water-saving habits to combat Tucson’s soaring heat. It is what prompted Herrera to join No Desert Data Center, a residents’ group that opposes two large data centres coming up on either side of Tucson – the $3.6bn project on the city’s southeast edge and a $5bn project on its northwest side in the town of Marana, together known as Project Blue. The group believes these would consume more water and power than the city set in the Sonoran Desert can afford. “We are in the middle of a 30-year drought, which is now an extreme drought,” says Lisa Shipek, co-executive director of the Watershed Management Group, a Tucson-based nonprofit. “Water was a unifying theme in our campaign. The Colorado River cuts are looming, and this project would take water away,” Herrera told Al Jazeera. Water flows in the Colorado River, which provides much of Tucson’s water through the Central Arizona Project canal system, have dropped by 20 percent since the year 2000 compared with water flows in the 20th century due to climate change, melting snow caps and warmer weather, making water cuts to Tucson imminent as the state could face as much as 77 percent water cuts. Advertisement “We say Not One Drop for data centres,” says Herrera, speaking of the campaign’s particularly emotive appeal for residents as water cuts get deeper and temperatures rise, with Tucson recording the warmest weather in 125 years last July and August. Beale Infrastructure, a San Francisco-based company that is owned by investment management company Blue Owl in New York, had asked the city of Tucson to acquire 290 acres that were outside city limits for Project Blue. That would make it the city’s largest water consumer and among its largest power consumers. Beale did not respond to an emailed request for comment. But at city council meetings, City Councillor Kevin Dahl began seeing hundreds of residents turn up to express their opposition to the project. “Not for many issues do we get so much response,” he said. Herrera was among those who went. Pitting environment against unions At council meetings, Beale executives proposed that Project Blue could be the economic engine the city needed. It would create a few thousand jobs for construction workers, ironmongers, plumbers and other such workers during the construction of the project and a few hundred after that. “Sometimes people travel as far as Phoenix for work,” Dahl said about Arizona’s largest city, which is nearly a two-hour drive from Tucson. The project could bring jobs closer. Beale also expected the project to generate nearly $250m in taxes for the city, county and state in the first 10 years. This left councillors with a difficult decision to make, weighing the project’s economic benefits against allocating it a share of the city’s increasingly scarce water and power. Tucson residents raised questions in a town hall about whether proposed rate hikes by TEP, their power utility, is due to capacity expansion for data centres [Photo Courtesy Kathleen Dreier] Activists also raised concerns about whether Tucson Electric Power (TEP), the power utility, would raise rates for consumers so it could expand capacity to provide power for Project Blue. After raising rates by 10 percent in 2023, TEP proposed a 14 percent rate hike in June 2025 for grid upgrades made in the previous year. Lee Ziesche, an activist from the Democratic Socialists of America who is campaigning to make TEP a public utility, said Project Blue could “lead to higher temperatures and higher rates” because of the heat island effect of the air conditioners and higher rates for power. She often hears from residents that a rate hike would make it hard to pay bills or put on air conditioning, even as the number of 100-degree Fahrenheit (37.8 degree-Celsius) days has increased in Tucson, which is among the hottest cities in the United States. Advertisement The same concerns of needing ramped-up air conditioning would plague data centres too, experts say. “The viability of data centres in Arizona will always be subject to climate change and heat risks,” says Kate Gordon, chief executive of California Forward, a think tank that works on a sustainable economy. “The heat in Arizona makes energy less efficient, and servers heat up, so projects will need higher amounts of water and cooling, which developers have to balance against a possibly lower real estate and labour cost,” she said. “I am always amazed at how climate does not figure in business plans.” Dahl and Andres Cano, a supervisor in Pima County, in which Tucson is located, had discussions with Beale representatives. “We thought they would go elsewhere if the city did not acquire the land” for the project, Dahl said. Cano also came away with the same impression. In August 2025, Tucson councillors voted unanimously not to acquire the land for the project or provide it with water and power. In December, Cano became one of only two supervisors in Pima County to oppose the project, and it was approved for construction in an unincorporated part of the county. “It will create short-term construction jobs for what will ultimately be a project with few wins,” Cano said. “This pitted the environment and unions, but industry is not for unions. This will have just about 100 jobs when it is done.” With no access to Tucson’s water supply, Beale decided to cool its servers with air conditioners rather than water and use a closed-loop water system, so it would recycle and reuse water. But
Bosnia: The lilies and dragons of the World Cup
When Bosnia and Herzegovina qualified for the World Cup, contagious excitement spread through the country. It was more than just football fever. Three decades after the end of the war, after surviving genocide and the now-infamous Dayton Accords, we’re back on US territory to show we can finally start dreaming beyond that bad deal, which imposed on us harmful political structures and left our country in a straitjacket. Truly, football has brought out the core of what it means to be Bosnian: we are the softest and the hardest of souls, we do our best in adversity, but are tough on ourselves in peace. We are dragons, but we are also lilies. On June 24, when our team beat Qatar and qualified for the knockout stage for the first time in its history, the country was ecstatic. It was not just extreme happiness but a sense of freedom and unity. We Bosnians may excel in quarrels, disagreement and self-deprecation, but boy, do we love this headstrong country. And we love those blue boys. Huge blue-clad crowds took over not just the streets of Seattle and Sarajevo, but every single city and town in the world where Bosnians live. Even Bosnians on vacation in exotic places had watching parties in hotels and took other guests to the streets to sing in celebration. In Republika Srpska, those in power have supported the Bosnian team’s opponents in the past. But this time, many people did not fall for the hate and celebrated at home in front of the TV. Some even dared to display their joy publicly. Advertisement In neighbouring Serbia and Croatia, people also defied ethnic politics and openly celebrated with the Bosnians, posting on social media messages of support for our team. Images of Bosnian fans marching through the streets of Canadian and American cities made the news internationally. Ahead of the match with Switzerland, a crowd of Bosnian fans stunned locals as they moved through a notorious neighbourhood in Inglewood, chanting “Palestina! Palestina!”. In between the chants, fans sang. But these were not proud nationalistic songs like we often see in such contexts. Those were not songs prepared by big stars especially for the World Cup. No, those were old songs that organically attached themselves to the game, and that very much reflect the national psyche. The first one is a satirical song by the popular band Dubioza Kolektiv, “I am from Bosnia, take me to America,” a song that cuts deep into the illusion of the American dream and asks Bosnians who easily assimilate to dream another dream, a bigger dream, a dream of the motherland. Funny and nostalgic. Hilarious and sentimental. The second song, which is even bigger, is the love song by the late folk star Halid Bešlić, “Poljem se siri miris ljiljana.” This is a soft and beautifully intimate song, which in translation goes like this: “The smell of lilies is spreading across the field, and the flowers smell like my darling. And the small swallows are coming back from the south, as if carrying her love back to me. In this city, I have no one. Darling, I will die if you’re someone else’s.” Yes, our country was at war just 30 years ago but we are not singing the “we’re-the-best”, “crush-em-all” warrior songs. This is unheard of. This is so out of left field. Our choice of songs testifies to how we see ourselves: we are tough and we bear scars of war, but we make fun of everything (mostly, of ourselves) and we sing of love. We call ourselves the Dragons, a reference to the famous Bosnian military commander and rebel Husein Gradaščević (1802-1835). But we also call ourselves lilies, like in Bešlić’s song. We were meant to be wiped out, but we survived and turned into seeds. This is why, in addition to the official blue-yellow star-spangled flag, you are seeing white flags with a coat of arms with golden lilies. The white flag is that of independent Bosnia, the flag under which we survived, and under which we were accepted into the United Nations. The other flag was a compromise, another bad deal – just like Dayton, just like the national anthem, which was agreed to be without lyrics after our leaders who deal in ethnic politics could not come up with a unifying text. Advertisement But we are not a people without lyrics. And you see it in the World Cup. You hear us sing of lilies and you see them bloom on the football field. Aside from the seasoned stars like Edin Džeko, ours is a young team. Some of these boys were born to refugee parents far from the heart-shaped motherland. These are the kids who were not meant to exist, whose parents were hunted down and driven away. They now move on the green field of Seattle as if they are playing in the Bosnian meadows. They fight, but they do not fight dirty. That goal in the game against Qatar by Kerim Alajbegović, who just made the list of the youngest goalscorers at the World Cup, was a work of art. It reminded me of the graceful but fierce penalty Esmir Bajraktarević scored to knock off four-time World Cup winner, Italy, in the qualifications. It is hard to rewatch that goal without thinking of how incredibly symbolic it was: the child of genocide survivors from Srebrenica, born and raised in the US, a member of the new generation of golden lilies. A Bosnian American boy who will now have to play against his second homeland, the US, on July 2. In one fell swoop, with a couple of goals, these boys crushed all the nasty political rhetoric that seeks to divide and secure the power of the corrupt elites. They are Edin, Esmir, Jovo, Ermin, Kerim, Martin, Osman, Sead, Dennis, Tarik, Nihad, Stjepan, Nidal, Amir, Benjamin, Armin, Dženis, Ermedin, Samed, Haris, two Nikolas, two Ivans, and two Amars. And the coach is Sergej. Most of
Hezbollah rejects Israel-Lebanon agreement as Israeli attacks hit south
Hezbollah supporters and many others in Lebanon view latest agreement with Israel as a ‘surrender of sovereignty’. Hezbollah leader Naim Qassem has rejected the framework agreement signed by Lebanon and Israel in Washington DC, calling it “humiliating, shameful and a surrender of sovereignty” for Beirut. In a statement released on Saturday, Qassem rejected linking Israel’s withdrawal from Lebanon to Hezbollah’s disarmament, which is a key part of the US-mediated agreement signed on Friday. Recommended Stories list of 4 itemsend of list “We will continue as a resistance in the field to defeat the occupation [Israel] … We did not leave the field under difficult circumstances and we will not abandon it,” Qassem said. The Hezbollah leader also accused Lebanon’s government of legitimising Israel’s occupation “for many years to come” by signing the agreement with Israel, saying that it “could lead to the annexation of these lands to the Zionist entity”. Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich and other officials have suggested that Israel might remain in Lebanon regardless of Hezbollah’s disarmament. “We are there until Hezbollah disarms and I think also beyond that, because we need defendable borders,” Smotrich said earlier this week. The agreement does not force Israel to withdraw from southern Lebanon. As Al Jazeera’s Lebanon correspondent Zeina Khodr noted: “The word withdrawal is not in [the] text”. Instead, Khodr said the text is a “path towards normalisation [between Israel and Lebanon] – the two states both recognise each other’s right to exist in ‘peace’, declare intention to formally end state of war, pursue direct negotiations under US mediation, establish permanent channels of direct communication and begin drafting a comprehensive peace and security agreement”. Advertisement After the signing, Hezbollah supporters in Lebanon made their anger known, taking to the streets of Beirut on Friday evening, burning tyres and blocking a road leading to the airport. They were protesting the agreement, as well as Israeli forces remaining in Lebanese territory and continuing Israeli air raids in southern Lebanon. Despite the agreement, Lebanon’s state-run National News Agency (NNA) said Israeli forces bombed near the southern towns of Markaba and Nabatieh al-Fawqa on Saturday morning. NNA said Israeli forces bombed overnight near the town of Markaba, 1.5km (1 mile) from the Israel-Lebanon border. Lebanon finally ‘acting like a state’ Lebanese officials seem optimistic about the deal and its potential for ending hostilities with neighbouring Israel, despite Hezbollah not being involved in the agreement nor the talks that preceded it. Lebanese member of parliament and former justice minister, Ashraf Rifi, praised the agreement, saying Lebanon was finally “acting like a state”. “It is no longer acceptable for Lebanese decision-making to remain hostage to the Iranian project, or for Hezbollah to continue its dominance over the state and its institutions,” he added. Lebanese MP and leader of the Free Patriotic Movement, Gebran Bassil, said the framework agreement between Israel and Lebanon “requires responsible engagement”. In response to the Hezbollah-led protests, Public Prosecutor Judge Ahmad Rami al-Hajj issued a judicial order, tasking the Lebanese security forces with preventing riots, NNA reported. The judge also requested that security agencies work to identify rioters so legal action can be taken. Alon Pinkas, an Israeli former ambassador and consul general in New York, told Al Jazeera that he’s “very doubtful and sceptical that this [agreement] will work out because the deal is between Israel and Lebanon with the US, and Israel and Lebanon do not really have territorial issues or any kind of issues; the issue here is Hezbollah”. Hezbollah MP Hassan Fadlallah told Al Jazeera that any attempt by the Lebanese army to enforce a Washington-brokered agreement would lead to “civil war”. Adblock test (Why?)
Cape Verde qualify for World Cup Round of 32, set up date with Argentina
Cape Verde’s third draw gives them second-place finish in Group H and pits them against world champions in knockouts. Published On 27 Jun 202627 Jun 2026 World Cup debutants Cape Verde will face reigning champions Argentina in the knockout rounds after drawing 0-0 with Saudi Arabia to extend their fairytale journey. The stalemate in Houston and Spain’s 1-0 win over Uruguay, both on Friday, meant the team ranked 67th coming into the tournament finished runners-up behind Spain in Group H. Unbeaten in their three group matches, the archipelago nation of just over 500,000 will play Lionel Messi’s Argentina in Miami on July 3 in another chapter of their remarkable story. Spain, held 0-0 by Cape Verde in the first round of games, finished with seven points, with the debutants on three and Uruguay and Saudi Arabia both on their way home with two. Spain face the team that comes second in Group J, which will be either Algeria or Austria. With history beckoning, Cape Verde coach Bubista changed half his starting side, some of it enforced, but retained his heroic goalkeeper Vozinha. The 40-year-old stopper single-handedly kept Cape Verde in it as they held out for a famous point against European champions Spain in their first-ever World Cup match. Cape Verde, which is off the west coast of Africa, then claimed a brave 2-2 draw with two-time former champions Uruguay. That gave them a scarcely believable shot at the knockout rounds coming into the encounter against Saudi Arabia, who themselves were still alive. At the same time, in Guadalajara, Spain and Uruguay met as an unexpectedly tight group that went down to the wire. Cape Verde had slightly the better of the first half in Houston against a Saudi side who drew 1-1 with Uruguay before being thrashed 4-0 by Spain. Advertisement The Saudis suffered a blow in the 33rd minute when experienced defender Hassan al-Tambakti was stretchered off injured. Cape Verde players celebrate their knockout stage qualification [Troy Taormina/Reuters] Spain took the lead towards the end of the first half in Mexico, the news greeted by cheers from Cape Verde fans in Houston. Willy Semedo fired not too far wide of the Saudi post, but neither side seriously threatened in a tense first half. At that point, Cape Verde were going through at Uruguay’s expense. Three minutes after the break, Jamiro Monteiro had a major chance from close range, but his finish was weak. Then Kevin Pina had an effort from distance that whistled just off target. The tension went up a notch as they entered the final quarter, but Saudi Arabia were strangely lacking in invention even though they were chasing the game. In the 75th minute, goalkeeper Mohammed al-Owais kept them in it with a vital stop from Laros Duarte. A point was enough for Cape Verde, but if anything, they were the more likely to score as the match ticked into the dying minutes. Adblock test (Why?)
Spain beat Uruguay 1-0 to clinch World Cup Group H top spot
Spain wins World Cup group, beating Uruguay 1-0 as Muslera’s error sends two-time champions home. Published On 27 Jun 202627 Jun 2026 Uruguay bowed out of the World Cup as goalkeeper Fernando Muslera’s howler gifted Spain a 1-0 win in Guadalajara to secure top spot in Group H. Alex Baena’s weak shot slipped through Muslera’s grasp for the only goal as Spain avoided a last 32 showdown against Argentina. Recommended Stories list of 4 itemsend of list The European champions will instead face Austria or Algeria next in Los Angeles on Thursday. Uruguay’s defeat allowed debutants Cape Verde to secure second place and a meeting with Lionel Messi and the defending champions, thanks to a 0-0 draw against Saudi Arabia. Two-time winners Uruguay become the highest-ranked side to crash out in the group stages as the defeat rounded off a miserable tournament for Marcelo Bielsa and his squad. After draws against Cape Verde and Saudi Arabia, reports of a revolt in the Uruguay camp emerged, with leading players, including Real Madrid’s Federico Valverde, clashing with Bielsa over his tactics. Spain’s King Felipe was among those in attendance, but the only clash between two former winners of the World Cup in the group stages was a huge disappointment. Lamine Yamal in the starting lineup had sparked the Spanish attack into life in a 4-0 thrashing of Saudi Arabia after La Roja began in underwhelming fashion with a goalless draw against Cape Verde. But another laboured attacking performance leaves Luis de la Fuente with plenty to ponder before the knockout stages begin on Sunday. A hero of Uruguay’s run to the semifinals in 2010, Muslera was at fault for both Cape Verde’s goals in a 2-2 draw. Advertisement And in Guadalajara, Spain had barely threatened the Uruguay goal before the 40-year-old allowed Baena’s shot to dribble over the line from Marcos Llorente’s cross on 42 minutes. To rub salt into Uruguayan wounds, Manchester United midfielder Manuel Ugarte was injured in the buildup to the goal and stretchered off with what appeared to be a serious knee injury. Bielsa replaced Muslera at half-time with Sergio Rochet, and the Uruguay boss made an even bolder call when Valverde was taken off on the hour mark. De la Fuente also turned to his bench, and the introduction of Dani Olmo and Fabian Ruiz finally injected some life into the Spanish performance. Olmo should have done better when he spooned a shot over from a rare flash of Yamal’s brilliance to tee up his Barcelona teammate. Yamal was replaced 15 minutes from time as his minutes continue to be managed after a hamstring injury ended his club season prematurely. His replacement, Ferran Torres, should have doubled the lead five minutes from time but hit the bar with just the goalkeeper to beat. Uruguay’s miserable tournament was summed up when Agustin Canobbio was shown a straight red card in stoppage time for a wild lunge on Pau Cubarsi. Hyped as one of the pre-tournament favourites, Spain are now 34 competitive games unbeaten and are yet to concede a goal at the World Cup. But in stark contrast to some of the scintillating attacking play on show from the likes of France, Argentina and the Netherlands, La Roja are yet to convince in their quest for a second World Cup triumph. Adblock test (Why?)
Rescue efforts turn to recovery as aftershocks shake Venezuela
NewsFeed Rescue workers in one Caracas neighbourhood say no help has arrived, two days after twin quakes tore through the city. Al Jazeera’s Noris Soto says aftershocks are making the search for survivors harder and rescue efforts are turning to the recovery of bodies. Published On 27 Jun 202627 Jun 2026 Click here to share on social media share-nodes Share googleAdd Al Jazeera on Googleinfo Adblock test (Why?)
Morocco jails 29, including politicians and sports figures, in drug trial
Casablanca court delivers landmark verdict in ‘Escobar of the Sahara’ case: up to 12 years for top figures. By AFP and AP Published On 26 Jun 202626 Jun 2026 A Moroccan court has handed prison sentences of up to 12 years to 29 individuals – including prominent politicians and sports figures – concluding a major international drug trafficking and corruption trial. The verdicts, delivered late on Thursday in Casablanca following a two-year trial, mark one of the largest anti-corruption operations in Morocco’s history. Recommended Stories list of 3 itemsend of list Among those convicted were Abdennebi Bioui, a construction tycoon and former regional council president, Said Naciri, former president of Casablanca’s Wydad AC football and sports club and former MP Belkacem Mir – all senior members of the governing PAM party. Naciri received 10 years, Bioui 12 and Mir 10. Besides the three main defendants, sentences for the remaining ranged from two to nine years, depending on their individual role in the network. The wide-ranging case was triggered by courtroom testimony from El Hadj Ahmed Ben Brahim, a notorious Malian drug trafficker nicknamed the “Pablo Escobar of the Sahara”. Currently serving a 10-year sentence in Morocco, Ben Brahim told judicial investigators that his former Moroccan political and business associates had betrayed him, seizing millions of dollars worth of his luxury real estate and vehicles following his arrest in 2019. The trial involved more than 20 defendants, 18 witnesses and two civil parties which centred on a sophisticated network that transported tonnes of Moroccan cannabis resin across North Africa to Europe, alongside Latin American cocaine shipments. Family members of Moroccan public figures Said Naciri and Abdennabi Bioui react as they are given 10 and 12 year prison sentences for a major drug trafficking scheme [Abdel Majid Bziouat/AFP] Defendants were convicted on charges including drug and gold trafficking, corruption, forgery and money laundering. Advertisement The court also ordered the seizure of assets and levied hundreds of millions of dollars in customs and exchange fines against the principal ringleaders. Moroccan media reported that families of the convicted, present without legal representation due to a lawyers’ strike, were left in shock, with some collapsing in the courthouse. The scandal reached the highest levels of state, prompting King Mohammed VI to demand a legally binding code of ethics aimed at “moralising” parliamentary life. Adblock test (Why?)
EU targets Somalia with visa curbs as president pushes back on returns
President says his country will readmit genuine nationals but insists Europe must first verify deportees’ identities. Published On 26 Jun 202626 Jun 2026 Mogadishu, Somalia – The European Union has imposed visa restrictions on Somali citizens, escalating a dispute with Mogadishu over the return of Somalis living in Europe illegally. The bloc’s member states approved the measures on Thursday, acting on a report that Somalia was not doing enough to take back nationals who had been refused the right to stay. Recommended Stories list of 3 itemsend of list Somalia’s President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud pushed back, saying his government would readmit its citizens, but said that many returnees were not Somali nationals. “We haven’t rejected our people; they own this country. And we cannot reject them,” the president said at an Independence Day event on Thursday, adding that Somalia had “questions about how those people would be returned.” People across the Horn of Africa share a similar appearance, he said, and some present themselves as Somali to claim asylum in Europe. He pointed to past cases in which individuals sent back as Somalis turned out not to be, including some who “don’t know the Somali language.” “If they are Somali, then we’ll take them. If they aren’t, we’ll help you find out where they are from, and you can send them there,” Mohamud said. The pressures driving people to leave are rooted in decades of upheaval. Somalia is still rebuilding after the collapse of its central government in 1991 and the long civil war that followed. Recovery efforts have been stifled by the ongoing armed rebellion of al-Shabab, an al-Qaeda-linked armed group that has waged deadly attacks since 2006. Advertisement Those conditions have pushed many young Somalis to attempt the dangerous journey to Europe, often through Libya, where migrants have faced detention, extortion and violence. The prime minister regularly handled such cases, Mohamud said, adding that Somali embassies had been instructed to help citizens return. Magnus Brunner, the bloc’s migration commissioner, said countries of origin had to meet their commitments “otherwise, there can be consequences.” A European Commission assessment concluded that Somalia’s cooperation on readmission was insufficient. Under the new rules, member states can no longer issue multiple-entry visas to Somalis, and the fee waiver for holders of diplomatic passports has been removed. The standard processing time for visa applications has also been extended from 15 to 45 days. The suspension has no fixed end date and is intended as leverage to push Mogadishu towards closer cooperation. Somalia now joins a short list of countries hit with such measures. The EU imposed similar restrictions on The Gambia in 2021 and Ethiopia in 2024, lifting the Ethiopian curbs in May after deciding cooperation had improved. The visa restrictions add to a run of setbacks for Somali travellers. The United States imposed a sweeping travel ban in 2025, after President Donald Trump returned to office, covering citizens of a dozen countries, including Somalia. The policy drew attention this month when Omar Abdulkadir Artan, named Africa’s referee of the year in 2025, was denied entry to the US and couldn’t officiate at the World Cup, despite holding a valid visa. The standoff comes as the EU tightens its wider approach to migration, pursuing return centres beyond its borders and faster deportations for people refused the right to stay. Adblock test (Why?)
Why has the UN paused plans to evacuate sailors from the Strait of Hormuz?
The United Nations’ International Maritime Organization (IMO) has suspended plans to evacuate more than 11,000 sailors stranded in the Strait of Hormuz after a cargo ship transiting the waterway was struck by a projectile. IMO Secretary-General Arsenio Dominguez said several crews had already been evacuated, but the agency had decided to pause the operation until there were “necessary safety guarantees” for those involved. Recommended Stories list of 4 itemsend of list The United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations (UKMTO), a Royal Navy maritime security agency, said on Thursday that a cargo vessel had been struck by “an unknown projectile” about 7.5 nautical miles (14km) southeast of Dahit, Oman. No casualties were reported. The incident comes despite a memorandum of understanding (MoU) signed by the United States and Iran last week that ended hostilities and included provisions aimed at reopening the strategic waterway. Iran had restricted passage through the strait in early March after the US and Israel attacked it on February 28. In April, the US imposed a naval blockade on Iran-linked vessels trying to pass through the waterway. Since the MoU was signed, commercial traffic has restarted through the strait, but key disagreements remain over which shipping routes vessels should use — and whether Iran gets to charge a toll or fee. Oman and the IMO have proposed a new shipping corridor that would partially bypass waters under Iran’s direct control. Tehran has rejected the plan, saying it was announced without consultation and raises safety concerns while demining operations are still under way. While Iran has not claimed responsibility for Thursday’s attack on the ship off Oman, it has not denied any role, either. Advertisement The latest attack has heightened concerns that tensions over navigation through the strait remain unresolved. Here’s what we know. Why is the UN evacuating sailors? Following the outbreak of the US-Israel war on Iran on February 28, Tehran and Washington imposed counter restrictions on the passage of ships through the Strait of Hormuz, leaving thousands of seafarers unable to leave vessels trapped in the waterway. More than a dozen sailors have also been killed in attacks on ships — some from American missiles, others from Iranian projectiles. Most of those killed were from India. Even with last week’s agreement between Washington and Tehran to end the conflict, more than 11,000 sailors remain stranded in the strait. Announcing the evacuation plan on Tuesday, the IMO’s Dominguez said the operation would be conducted in “close cooperation with Iran, Oman, all other coastal states in the region, the United States and the maritime industry”. Oman’s Ministry of Defence said the operation, which had been under discussion for months, would be carried out in phases. Denmark also announced on Tuesday that it would join a multinational maritime mission led by France and Britain to help restore safe navigation through the strait. Why was the ship attacked? The Singapore-flagged cargo vessel Ever Lovely was struck by what authorities described as an “unknown projectile” while transiting the Strait of Hormuz on Thursday. Ship-tracking data from MarineTraffic showed the vessel had been following the southern shipping route proposed by the IMO earlier that day, a corridor that passes closer to Oman’s coastline and has been rejected by Iran. Singapore’s Maritime and Port Authority (MPA) said the vessel had since completed its transit through the strait and was continuing its voyage, adding that all 21 crew members were safe. The authority said it was “deeply concerned” by an attack it described as “unprovoked, unjustifiable, and a breach of international law”. “All actions affecting international shipping must fully comply with international law, in particular the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, and not endanger the safety of seafarers and ships at sea,” the MPA said. The incident prompted the IMO to suspend its planned evacuation of stranded sailors. Dominguez said the Ever Lovely “did not transit under IMO’s evacuation framework”. “I have always reiterated that the safety of the seafarers remains paramount. Therefore, to ensure a coordinated approach and navigational safety, the evacuation plan will be paused until further clarity is obtained,” he said. Advertisement What has Iran said? While it remains unclear if the attack was carried out by Iran, the country’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps had criticised the new shipping corridor announced by Oman and the IMO, while also warning that passage through the strait, “is only possible via routes announced by Iran,” the state broadcaster IRIB reported. Kazem Gharibabadi, Iran’s deputy foreign minister, has said safe passage through the Strait of Hormuz cannot be guaranteed for vessels transiting “with ambiguous arrangements, parallel routes, or decision-making outside of Iran’s considerations as the coastal state”. “Any credible framework must be based on coordination with Iran and the provisions of paragraph five of the Islamabad Memorandum of Understanding,” he said in a statement on X. “Otherwise, the outcome will be the suspension of the designated parallel route.” Iran first published its own map of approved navigation routes in April, directing ships to sail much closer to the Iranian coastline than before the conflict. The IRGC’s latest warning came after a Liberian-flagged oil tanker transited the strait on Thursday using a route closer to Oman’s coast. On Friday, a further three foreign oil tankers that attempted to cross the Strait of Hormuz “without authorisation” were turned back after a warning from the IRGC, Iranian state TV reported. Analysts say control over the Strait of Hormuz has long been one of Tehran’s most important sources of strategic leverage, allowing it to exert pressure on the US, whose economy is inextricably tied to global markets. Why was the evacuation suspended? Reporting from Tehran, Al Jazeera’s Resul Serdar Atas said the attack appeared to show Iran was prepared to enforce its warnings over navigation through the Strait of Hormuz, after Tehran insisted vessels using either the Iranian or Omani route must coordinate with its authorities. “Yesterday, Oman announced new routes for the passage of the ships. But then the IRGC released a statement, saying that
Venezuela quake leaves La Guaira in almost total devastation
NewsFeed La Guaira, the region hardest hit by two earthquakes in Venezuela, has been left devastated. Families are searching for loved ones trapped beneath collapsed buildings. Residents say rescue efforts are too slow and resources are insufficient. Published On 25 Jun 202625 Jun 2026 Click here to share on social media share-nodes Share googleAdd Al Jazeera on Googleinfo Adblock test (Why?)