British couple detained in Iran charged with spying
The couple admitted they had ignored warnings not to travel to Iran as part of their “slightly bonkers” round-the-world motorbike trip. Two British nationals detained in Iran have been charged with espionage, according to the Iranian judiciary’s Mizan news agency. The pair were laid with the charges on Tuesday after they allegedly gathered information in different parts of the country, the agency reported. Iran’s elite Revolutionary Guards have arrested dozens of foreigners and dual nationals in recent years, mostly on espionage and security-related charges. The British Foreign Office named the two as Craig and Lindsay Foreman, and their family said on Saturday they were engaging with relevant authorities to ensure their safe return home. “The detained individuals entered the country as tourists and collected information in several provinces of the country,” Mizan said, without giving further details. According to British media reports, the pair are a married couple in their early fifties. Mizan cited a judicial official as saying the two were connected to intelligence services and that investigations into the alleged links were ongoing. Advertisement The couple admitted that they had ignored warnings not to travel to the country as part of their “slightly bonkers” round-the-world motorbike trip. Lindsay said in a Facebook post that by late December they had “now done 12,499 miles across 13 countries”, having crossed places such as Italy, Albania, Greece and Turkey. A life coach with a doctorate according to her social networks, Lindsay said she had been having “an amazing time” while Craig, a carpenter, praised Iran’s “lovely people.” In their social media posts the couple said they had been carrying out a research project on what makes a “good life.” Lindsay said she had interviewed more than 360 people. Iranian authorities have accused the pair of having links with Western intelligence services and said they were found to be “cooperating with covert institutions linked to the intelligence services of hostile and Western countries”. The couple said they crossed into Iran from Armenia in December. On Friday, Britain’s Foreign Office said it was “providing consular assistance to two British nationals detained in Iran” and was in contact with Iranian authorities. Adblock test (Why?)
European leaders warn against Ukraine ceasefire without Russian peace deal
European leaders have said they are ready to give Ukraine security guarantees and warned that it would be dangerous for Kyiv to agree to a ceasefire without a negotiated peace agreement in place with Moscow, officials said. The offer of a European security commitment to Ukraine was made at a meeting in Paris on Monday, called by French President Emmanuel Macron after United States President Donald Trump excluded European allies and Kyiv’s leadership from negotiations, due to take place in Saudi Arabia, with Russia on a deal to end the war in Ukraine. “Ready and willing. That’s my take from today’s meeting in Paris. Europe is ready and willing to step up. To lead in providing security guarantees for Ukraine,” NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte said in a post on social media after the emergency meeting. “The details will need to be decided but the commitment is clear,” Rutte said. A European Union official said after the meeting that the leaders were “ready to provide security guarantees, with modalities to be examined with each party, depending on the level of American support”. Advertisement “We agree with President Trump on a ‘peace through strength’ approach,” the official said, summarising the result of the meeting. “We believe it is dangerous to conclude a ceasefire without a peace agreement at the same time,” the official also said. The three hours of emergency talks at the Elysee Palace in Paris followed US statements on Ukraine last week that threw a once-solid transatlantic alliance into turmoil. They also followed a call between Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin amid fears that Washington is ready to abandon Ukraine and embrace the Kremlin, while also giving the cold shoulder to the US’s traditional European allies. I just had a long conversation with President of France @EmmanuelMacron following his meeting today with other European leaders to discuss the global situation, the state of affairs in Europe, and security guarantees for Ukraine. We share a common vision: security guarantees… — Volodymyr Zelenskyy / Володимир Зеленський (@ZelenskyyUa) February 17, 2025 Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said late on Monday that he had spoken with Macron about security guarantees for his country, adding that a weak ceasefire with Russia would only serve as a ”prelude” to more Russian aggression against his or other countries in Europe. “We share a common vision: security guarantees must be robust and reliable,” Zelenskyy said on social media. “Any other decision without such guarantees – such as a fragile ceasefire – would only serve as another deception by Russia and a prelude to a new Russian war against Ukraine or other European nations,” he said. Advertisement Melinda Haring, a nonresident senior fellow at the Atlantic Council’s Eurasia Center, told Al Jazeera that Europe was “caught off guard” by Washington’s overtures towards Russia. “It is very strange that the aggressor is meeting with the United States without Ukraine. The longstanding policy of the United States has been, ‘nothing about Ukraine without Ukraine’,” Haring said. “So it’s definitely a change in policy. But it could also be – the most charitable interpretation is – that the United States is trying to see if Russia is finally serious [about peace],” she said. ‘We came to negotiate with American colleagues’ US Secretary of State Marco Rubio is in Saudi Arabia with the US National Security adviser, Mike Waltz, and Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff for talks on Tuesday with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and Kremlin foreign policy adviser Yuri Ushakov, according to reports. Ushakov said on Monday, upon arrival in Saudi Arabia’s capital, Riyadh, that talks on Ukraine would be strictly bilateral, Russia’s RIA state news agency reported. “We came to negotiate with American colleagues,” RIA cited Ushakov as saying. “These are bilateral talks, purely bilateral. There can be no trilateral talks in Riyadh.” Al Jazeera’s Heidi Zhou-Castro, reporting from Washington, DC said the Trump administration’s communication with Moscow and talks on a peace agreement mark a reversal of the previous US President Joe Biden’s administration’s approach to Ukraine. “With Biden, we heard so much affirmation about Ukraine’s standpoint in the war, and it’s only been the opposite since Trump took office,” Zhou-Castro said. Advertisement “Coming from [Trump’s] administration, from his secretary of defence, we’ve heard the US side really on Russia’s negotiating positions, saying that the US finds it now to be unrealistic for Ukraine to reclaim all of its lost territory to Russia, and no longer endorsing a NATO membership for Ukraine,” she said. “Both very bitter pills to swallow for Ukraine, which is saying that it won’t swallow them at all,” she added. “The US side has not telegraphed any expectations for tomorrow but the Russian Foreign Ministry has said that this would pave the way towards a meeting in person between Trump and Putin somewhere down the road.” United Kingdom Prime Minister Keir Starmer, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk and Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez attended the meeting alongside Macron in Paris. Also at the meeting were Dutch Premier Dick Schoof, Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen, NATO’s Rutte, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and European Council President Antonio Costa. Adblock test (Why?)
US man who shot Israeli visitors thought they were Palestinians, police say
Mordechai Brafman, 27, charged with two counts of attempted murder over shooting at Miami Beach in Florida. A man charged with attempted murder over the shooting of two Israeli visitors in Florida, the United States, believed the victims were Palestinians, police have said. Mordechai Brafman, 27, was on Sunday charged with two counts of attempted murder and booked after the shooting at Miami Beach the previous night, according to the website of Miami-Dade County Corrections. In an arrest report, police alleged that Brafman had “spontaneously stated that while he was driving his truck, he saw two Palestinians and shot and killed both”. Both victims, identified in local media as a Jewish father and son visiting Miami from Israel, survived. One of the men suffered an injury to his shoulder, and the other was wounded in his forearm, according to local news reports. In an interview with WPLG Local 10, one of the victims, identified as Ari Revay, said the shooter had opened fire at him and his father from a passing truck. “‘Boom, boom, boom’ and he randomly started shooting,” Revay was quoted as saying in an interview that was reportedly translated from Hebrew by his cousin. Advertisement “He put the window down, driver’s seat and just blasted,” Revay was quoted as saying. The shooting comes amid warnings by advocacy groups that incidents of anti-Muslim and anti-Semitic hate have surged since the start of the war in Gaza on October 7, 2023. “This is just the latest example of the hate targeting the Palestinian-American community in this country and Palestinians in their homeland,” Nihad Awad, the national executive director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, said in a statement on Monday. “Policymakers in our nation should stop fomenting the anti-Palestinian hate that led to the genocide in Gaza and to hate crimes in America.” Adblock test (Why?)
‘Serious concerns’ as new video emerges of Australian captured by Russia
The previously unseen footage of POW Oscar Jenkins shows him appearing emaciated, weak and complaining of a broken arm. The Australian government has said it has “serious concerns” about an Australian citizen captured by Russian forces while fighting for Ukraine after new footage emerged of him looking emaciated and complaining of a broken arm. Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese told public broadcaster ABC on Tuesday that he had seen the video posted on YouTube of Oscar Jenkins. Albanese said that while the footage “appears to confirm” Jenkins is alive, the government holds “serious concerns for Mr Jenkins’s welfare”. “We’ve made it clear to Russia that Mr Jenkins is a prisoner of war and that there are obligations that kick in accordance with international humanitarian law, and they must be observed,” he said. “We have called for Russia to release Mr Jenkins, so that he can come home to his family,” Albanese added. Jenkins, a 32-year-old schoolteacher from Melbourne, was captured by Russian forces when fighting with the Ukrainian military. It is unclear when he left Australia for Ukraine. In the footage, uploaded on February 8, Jenkins is dressed in cold weather camouflage clothing with a green wool hat. He looks uncomfortable, as a man behind the camera, speaking in English, says the date is January 17, 2025. Advertisement The unidentified man explains that earlier reports about Jenkins’s death were “not right”, before Jenkins tells the camera he “would like more freedom” and that he feels “a bit weak”. “I have lost a lot of weight. I have a broken arm still, I think, and my hand is not good,” he said. The date and authenticity of the footage could not be independently verified. In December, video footage first emerged of Jenkins on pro-Kremlin social media accounts being questioned and slapped in the face by a man speaking Russian. The man, claiming to be Jenkins, responded in both English and Ukrainian, saying he was a biology teacher who lived in Australia and Ukraine. Australian media, citing unnamed sources, then reported in January that Russian forces had killed Jenkins. Responding to those reports last month, Albanese said it would be “absolutely reprehensible” if it was confirmed that Russian forces had done so, and pledged to take the “strongest possible action”. Moscow then confirmed that Jenkins was still alive and being held as a prisoner of war, Australia’s Minister for Foreign Affairs Penny Wong announced in late January. The Russian government has provided no details on where Jenkins is being held or the conditions of his imprisonment. Relations between Canberra and Moscow have been tense ever since a Russian missile downed Malaysian Airlines flight MH17 over eastern Ukraine in 2014, resulting in the deaths of 298 people on board, including 38 Australians. Australia has also condemned Russia’s February 2022 full-scale invasion of Ukraine as “illegal and immoral”. Advertisement In the years since, Canberra has contributed more than 1.5 billion Australian dollars (about $950m) towards “important defence, economic, energy and humanitarian assistance” in Ukraine to support the country’s “sovereignty and territorial integrity”. Adblock test (Why?)
Pope’s hospitalisation extended to treat ‘complex’ condition, Vatican says
It remains unclear how long Pope Francis will remain in hospital as he seeks treatment for a respiratory tract infection. Pope Francis’s respiratory tract infection has presented a “complex clinical picture” requiring further hospitalisation, the Vatican says. Vatican spokesman Matteo Bruni said on Monday that the pope is suffering from a “polymicrobial respiratory tract infection” that has necessitated a change in his drug therapy. There was no timeframe given for his hospitalisation, which has already sidelined Francis for longer than a 2023 hospitalisation for pneumonia. Bruni said the complexity of his symptoms “will require an appropriate hospital stay” and the pope was “in good spirits”. Concerns about the 88-year-old pontiff’s health have increased since his admission to Gemelli Hospital in Rome, Italy, on Friday after a weeklong bout of bronchitis worsened. Pope Francis’s hospitalisation has already forced the cancellation of some events connected with the Vatican’s Jubilee Holy Year and put others in question. The Vatican said the pope’s planned weekly audience in St Peter’s Square on Wednesday had been cancelled due to his continued stay in hospital. Advertisement The pope’s doctors had earlier ordered complete rest, and Francis was unable to deliver his regular weekly prayer on Sunday to pilgrims in St Peter’s Square or lead a Mass for artists to mark the Catholic Church’s Jubilee Year. Pilgrims visiting the Vatican on Monday offered their hopes for the pope’s recovery. “We certainly wish for him to get better very quickly,” said Reverend Tyler Carter, a Catholic priest from the United States. “He is our father and our shepherd, and so we want his continued health and blessing.” Manuel Rossi, a tourist from the Italian city of Milan, said he was “quite worried” when the pope cancelled his appearance on Sunday. “I am 18 years old, so I have seen a few popes in my life and am very close to him,” Rossi said. “I hope he recovers as soon as possible.” Francis had part of one lung removed after a pulmonary infection as a young man. The Argentinian pope is a known workaholic despite his increasingly precarious health. In addition to his frequent bouts of respiratory infections in winter, he uses a wheelchair, walker or cane because of bad knees and suffers from sciatica nerve pain. Adblock test (Why?)
Which countries are the top military spenders and where does Europe rank?
EXPLAINER The US, the largest military spender in the world, allocates $880bn to its defence – more than the next eight countries combined. European leaders are meeting in Paris for an emergency summit to discuss how to respond to United States President Donald Trump’s decision to hold talks with Russia to end the Ukraine war without European involvement. Monday’s meeting in the French capital follows the Munich Security Conference, which ended on Sunday, where US Vice President JD Vance reiterated Trump’s stance that Europe must increase its defence spending. In January, Trump called on NATO’s European members to allocate 5 percent of their gross national products (GDPs) to defence. NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte has also encouraged member states to increase their defence spending. How much is global military spending? Global military spending hit $2.44 trillion in 2023, or $306 per person, marking a 6.8 percent increase from the previous year, according to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI). This was the largest year-on-year rise since 2009. By comparison, in 2000, global military expenditures were $798bn, or $130 per capita – less than a third of the amount spent today. Advertisement Global military spending is the total money spent by countries on their military forces and related activities. This includes costs for soldiers, operations, weapons, equipment, research and military infrastructure. Which countries spend the most on their militaries? The US is the largest military spender in the world. In 2023, it paid out $880bn – more than the next eight countries combined, according to SIPRI. China is the second highest spender with $309bn, followed by Russia at $126bn, India at $83bn and Saudi Arabia at $74bn. The table below shows the total military spending for each country worldwide as well as their per capita spending and spending as a share of their GDPs and government budgets. Click on the columns to sort the table from highest to lowest. Which nations spend the most on their militaries as a share of GDP? Due to its ongoing war with Russia, Ukraine allocated $62bn to its military in 2023, the highest share of GDP at 36.7 percent. Lebanon ranked second, spending 8.9 percent of its GDP, followed by Algeria at 8.2 percent, Saudi Arabia at 7.1 percent and South Sudan at 6.3 percent. How much does each NATO member spend? NATO, established in 1949 by 12 founding member states, is the world’s most powerful military alliance. Its original purpose was to limit Soviet expansion and promote political unity in Europe. Over the past 75 years, its membership has grown to 32 members with Finland and Sweden becoming the latest countries to join in 2023 and 2024, respectively. (Al Jazeera) In 2006, the alliance’s defence ministers agreed to commit a minimum of 2 percent of their GDPs to defence spending to ensure the military readiness of the alliance. Advertisement Currently, two-thirds of its members (23 of 32) have fulfilled this commitment, raising the money spent on defence by all NATO members to $1.47 trillion in 2024. This is up from just 10 countries meeting the 2 percent guideline in 2023 and three countries meeting the commitment in 2014. The table below shows NATO members’ defence expenditures as a share of GDP, based on NATO’s 2024 report. Adblock test (Why?)
US, Russia confirm high-level Ukraine talks without Kyiv
[unable to retrieve full-text content] Ukraine’s president says he “knew nothing about” high-level talks between the US and Russia to end Moscow’s war.
Israeli soldiers used 80-year-old Palestinian as Gaza human shield: Report
Israeli army forced elderly man to scout buildings with an explosive cord tied around his neck, before he was later shot dead along with his wife. The Israeli military forced an 80-year-old Palestinian man to act as a human shield in Gaza by tying an explosive cord around his neck and threatening to have his head blown off, an investigation by the Israeli outlet The Hottest Place in Hell has found. A senior officer from the army’s Nahal Brigade tied the explosive cord around the man’s neck before he was ordered to scout houses. After eight hours, soldiers ordered the man to flee with his wife from their home in Gaza City’s Zeitoun neighbourhood in May, said +972 magazine, which reported the piece in partnership with The Hottest Place in Hell. But when another Israeli battalion spotted the elderly couple on the street, they were shot dead on the spot, according to Israeli soldiers present at the scene. The Israeli soldiers had initially encountered the couple in their home. They told Arabic-speaking soldiers that they were unable to flee to southern Gaza due to mobility difficulties. But even in his condition, the soldiers forced the unnamed 80-year-old to walk ahead of them with his cane, while his wife was detained in their house. Advertisement A soldier told the investigation that the commander had decided to use the Palestinian couple as “mosquitoes”, referring to a procedure where the Israeli army forces Palestinian civilians to serve as human shields to protect the Israeli forces from being shot or blown up. “He entered each house before us so that if there were [explosives] or a militant inside, he would [take the hit] instead of us,” one soldier said. “He was told that if he did anything wrong or didn’t follow orders, the soldier behind him would pull the cord, and his head would be torn from his body.” The man was forced to act as a human shield for eight hours, before he was ordered, along with his wife, to walk towards the so-called “humanitarian zone” in southern Gaza. But the soldiers did not care to tell nearby Israeli divisions that the couple was going to pass through the area, according to the testimonies. “After 100 metres, the other battalion saw them and immediately shot them,” a soldier said. “They died like that, in the street.” Al Jazeera has reached out to the Israeli army for comment on the reported incident. Israeli forces’ use of Palestinian civilians as human shields has been extensively reported on, despite it being forbidden under international law. In August, the Israeli daily Haaretz published an expose revealing that Israeli troops had abducted Palestinian civilians, dressed them in military uniforms, attached cameras to their bodies, and sent them into underground tunnels as well as buildings in order to shield Israeli troops. Advertisement “[I]t’s hard to recognise them. They’re usually wearing Israeli army uniforms, many of them are in their 20s, and they’re always with Israeli soldiers of various ranks,” the Haaretz article said. But if you look more closely, “you see that most of them are wearing sneakers, not army boots. And their hands are cuffed behind their backs and their faces are full of fear”. In the occupied West Bank in June, Israeli forces tied a wounded Palestinian man to the hood of their military jeep, in an apparent use of a human shield. Francesca Albanese, the United Nations’ special rapporteur to the occupied Palestinian territory, slammed the incident, calling it “human shielding in action”. And in January 2024, Palestinian shop owner Bahaa el-Din Abu Ras, 36, recounted how Israeli soldiers used him as a human shield for nearly two hours in Dura, in the occupied West Bank. “So many questions went through my mind: Will I get to go back to my family? Will I be shot or would a rock hit me? Will I be arrested by these soldiers for whatever reason? When or how can I be released, in the middle of this warzone?” Abu Ras said. “I spent about an hour and a half like that, not sure when I would be killed and whether I would ever rest again.” Adblock test (Why?)
At least 9 dead, including 8 in Kentucky, as winter storms batter the US
Dead include mother and seven-year-old daughter swept away in rains in Kentucky. At least nine people have died after harsh winter weather struck the United States, including eight people in Kentucky as a result of heavy rains. The state’s governor, Andy Beshear, said on Sunday that hundreds of people stranded by flooding had to be rescued. Beshear said many of the deaths, including those of a mother and a seven-year-old child, were caused by cars getting stuck in high water. “So folks, stay off the roads right now and stay alive,” he said. “This is the search-and-rescue phase, and I am very proud of all the Kentuckians that are out there responding, putting their lives on the line.” Beshear said the storms have knocked out power to about 39,000 homes, but he warned that harsh winds in some areas could increase outages. Elsewhere, the Northern Plains faced life-threatening cold, and tornado watches were issued for parts of Georgia and Florida. In Kentucky, Hart County Coroner Tony Roberts said earlier that the mother and child were swept away on Saturday night in the Bonnieville community. Advertisement In southeastern Kentucky, a 73-year-old man was found dead in floodwaters in Clay County, County Emergency Management Deputy Director Revelle Berry said. Parts of Kentucky and Tennessee received up to 6 inches (15 centimeters) of rain during the weekend storms, said Bob Oravec, a senior forecaster with the National Weather Service. “The effects will continue for a while; a lot of swollen streams and a lot of flooding going on,” Oravec said on Sunday. In Atlanta, Georgia, a person was killed when an “extremely large tree” fell on a home early Sunday, according to Atlanta Fire Rescue Captain Scott Powell. Meanwhile, heavy snowfall was expected in parts of New England and northern New York. Meteorologists said the US was about to get its 10th and coldest polar vortex stretching event this season, with the northern Rockies and northern Plains first in line. Weather forces in the Arctic are combining to push the chilly air that usually stays near the North Pole into the US and Europe. Adblock test (Why?)
Trump says he could meet Putin ‘soon’ as Ukraine, Europe reel from outreach
United States President Donald Trump has said he could meet Russian President Vladimir Putin “very soon” as officials from the countries prepare to meet in Saudi Arabia for talks on ending the war in Ukraine. “There’s no time set, but it could be very soon,” Trump told reporters on Sunday ahead of talks between US and Russian officials in Saudi Arabia. “It’ll be soon; we’ll see what happens,” Trump added when asked if a meeting could happen this month. Addressing reporters after US Secretary of State Marco Rubio earlier sought to temper expectations of a swift end to the conflict, Trump expressed confidence that Putin wants to end the war. “They have a big powerful machine, you understand that. They defeated Hitler and they defeated Napoleon. They’ve been fighting a long time,” Trump told reporters after a flight on Air Force One. “They’ve done it before. But I think he would like to stop fighting.” Asked if he believes Putin wants to seize all of Ukraine’s territory, Trump said he had asked his Russian counterpart the same question and it would be a “big problem for us” if so. Advertisement Earlier on Sunday, Rubio said that Putin had expressed his desire for peace in his phone call with Trump last week even as the top US diplomat cautioned that the conflict would not be resolved overnight. “Now, obviously, it has to be followed up by action. So, the next few weeks and days will determine whether it’s serious or not,” Rubio said in an interview with CBS’s Face the Nation. “Ultimately, one phone call does not make peace. One phone call does not solve a war as complex as this one.” Rubio said the specifics of the talks, including the makeup of the Russian delegation, had not been finalised. “I don’t have any details for you this morning, other than to say that we stand ready to follow the president’s lead on this and begin to explore ways, if those opportunities present itself, to begin a process towards peace,” Rubio said. Trump’s outreach to Russia has raised concerns in Ukraine and Europe that Washington could be racing to secure a peace plan that concedes some Ukrainian territory with little input from Kyiv or its European allies. Neither Ukrainian nor European officials are participating in the talks in the Saudi Arabian capital Riyadh, though Rubio on Sunday stressed that Ukraine and Europe would both have to be involved in any “real negotiations” that result from the meeting. In an interview with NBC’s Meet the Press that aired on Sunday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said he would “never accept” any agreement reached without his country’s involvement. Advertisement “This is the war in Ukraine, against us, and it’s our human losses,” Zelenskyy said while attending the Munich Security Conference on Friday. Addressing the Munich conference on Saturday, European foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas drew parallels between the Trump administration’s approach and the failure of appeasement in the run-up to World World II. “As I stand here in Munich tonight, I cannot help but ask, have we been here before? Czechoslovakia,1938,” Kallas said, referring to the Munich Agreement endorsing Nazi Germany’s annexation of the Sudetenland in exchange for a pledge of peace. “We have an aggressor at our door intent on taking the land that isn’t his. And the negotiators, not us, are already giving away their bargaining chips before the negotiations have even begun.” European leaders are set to gather in Paris on Monday for an emergency summit to discuss the conflict and future security of Ukraine. Ahead of the summit, United Kingdom Prime Minister Keir Starmer said on Sunday that he is “ready and willing” to send British troops to Ukraine to help keep the peace in the event of a deal to end the war. “I do not say that lightly,” Starmer said in an op-ed published in the Daily Telegraph. “I feel very deeply the responsibility that comes with potentially putting British servicemen and women in harm’s way.” “But any role in helping to guarantee Ukraine’s security is helping to guarantee the security of our continent and the security of this country,” Starmer said. Advertisement “The end of this war, when it comes, cannot merely become a temporary pause before Putin attacks again.” Adblock test (Why?)