US State Department begins layoffs in Trump’s shake-up of diplomatic corps
Mass layoff came days after the Supreme Court cleared the way for US president to gut entire government positions. More than 1,350 US State Department employees have been fired in a major diplomatic shake-up ordered by President Donald Trump, in a move critics predict would curb the United States’ influence around the world. Friday’s mass layoff, which affect 1,107 civil service and 246 foreign service officers based in the United States, come at a time when Washington is grappling with multiple crises on the world stage: Russia’s war in Ukraine, the almost two-year-long Gaza conflict, and the Middle East on edge due to high tension between Israel and Iran. Diplomats and other staff clapped out departing colleagues in emotional scenes at the Washington headquarters of the department, which runs US foreign policy and the global network of embassies. Some were crying as they walked out with boxes of belongings. “It’s just heartbreaking to stand outside these doors right now and see people coming out in tears, because all they wanted to do was serve this country,” said US Senator Andy Kim, a New Jersey Democrat who worked as a civilian adviser for the State Department in Afghanistan during the administration of former President Barack Obama. The layoffs at the department came three days after the Supreme Court cleared the way for the Trump administration to begin carrying out its plan to gut entire government positions. The conservative-dominated top court lifted a temporary block imposed by a lower court on Trump’s plans to lay off potentially tens of thousands of employees. The 79-year-old Republican says he wants to dismantle what he calls the “deep state”. Since taking office in January, he has worked quickly to install fierce personal loyalists and to fire swaths of veteran government workers. Advertisement Trump’s Secretary of State Marco Rubio said the foreign policy department is too cumbersome and requires thinning out of some 15 percent. “It’s not a consequence of trying to get rid of people. But if you close the bureau, you don’t need those positions,” Rubio told reporters on the sidelines of his ASEAN meeting in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. “Understand that some of these are positions that are being eliminated, not people.” The American Foreign Service Association (AFSA) – the union representing State Department employees – condemned the “catastrophic blow to our national interests”. “We oppose this decision in the strongest terms.” The State Department employed more than 80,000 people worldwide last year, according to a fact sheet, with about 17,700 in domestic roles. The US Agency for International Development (USAID), long the primary vehicle to provide US humanitarian assistance around the world, has already been mostly dismantled. According to The Washington Post, State Department employees were informed of their firings by email. Foreign Service officers will lose their jobs 120 days after receiving the notice and will be immediately placed on administrative leave, while civil service employees will be separated after 60 days, the newspaper said. Ned Price, who served as State Department spokesman under former Democratic President Joe Biden, condemned what he called haphazard firings. “For all the talk about ‘merit-based,’ they’re firing officers based on where they happen to be assigned on this arbitrary day,” Price said on X. “It’s the laziest, most inefficient, and most damaging way to lean the workforce.” Adblock test (Why?)
Worker dies following immigration raids on California cannabis farms
A farmworker has died from injuries he sustained in immigration raids on two California cannabis farms, as United States authorities confirmed they arrested 200 workers after a tense standoff with protesters. The United Farm Workers advocacy group confirmed the death of Jaime Alanis, who was injured after a 30-foot (nine-metre) fall during one of the raids, in a post on X on Friday. “We tragically can confirm that a farm worker has died of injuries they sustained as a result of yesterday’s immigration enforcement action,” it said. Federal immigration authorities confirmed on Friday that they had arrested about 200 immigrants suspected of being in the US illegally in raids on Thursday at two cannabis farms in Carpinteria and Camarillo, Southern California. The Department of Homeland Security said in a statement that they also found at least 10 immigrant children during the raids who were rescued from “potential exploitation, forced labour, and human trafficking”. The statement said four US citizens had been arrested for their role in violent confrontations between agents and protesters. Authorities are also offering a $50,000 reward for information leading to the arrest of another person suspected of firing a gun at the federal agents. “During the operation, more than 500 rioters attempted to disrupt operations. Four US citizens are being criminally processed for assaulting or resisting officers. The rioters damaged vehicles, and one violent agitator fired a gun at law enforcement officers,” the statement said. Advertisement One of the raids saw immigration agents clad in military-style helmets and uniforms storm Glass House Farms – a licensed cannabis grower which also grows tomatoes and cucumbers – in Camarillo on Thursday. Agents faced off with the demonstrators outside the farm, as crowds of people gathered to seek information about their relatives and to oppose the raids. Andrew Dowd, a spokesperson for the Ventura County Fire Department, said at least 12 people were injured as a result of the raid and protest. Jaime Alanis inside Ventura County Medical Center after he was injured during an immigration raid on July 10, 2025, in Camarillo, California [AP Photo] During the raid, Alanis, who had reportedly worked at Glass House Farms picking tomatoes for 10 years, called his family in Mexico to say he was hiding from authorities. “The next thing we heard was that he was in the hospital with broken hands, ribs and a broken neck,” said Juan Duran, Alanis’s brother-in-law, according to The Associated Press news agency. In a statement, Glass House said immigration agents held valid warrants, and it is helping provide detained workers with legal representation. “Glass House has never knowingly violated applicable hiring practices and does not and has never employed minors,” the statement said. United Farm Workers said in a statement that some US citizens who worked at the firm are not yet accounted for. The raid is the latest to take place as part of the Trump administration’s controversial all-out campaign cracking down on immigration in the US. Since returning to the White House, Trump has unleashed groups of immigration agents to round up undocumented migrants and sent accused gang members to a maximum-security prison in El Salvador without due process. But in the wake of Thursday’s raids, Federal Judge Maame E Frimpong ordered a temporary halt to the Trump administration’s indiscriminate immigration stops and arrests in seven California counties, including Los Angeles. The Friday ruling comes in response to a lawsuit filed by immigrant advocacy groups in the US District Court last week, accusing the Trump administration of systematically targeting brown-skinned people during immigration raids in Southern California. The filing asked the judge to block the administration from using what they called unconstitutional tactics. In her ruling, which remains in place for 10 days, Judge Frimpong agreed that “roving patrols” of immigration agents without reasonable suspicion violated the Fourth Amendment, protecting individuals from unreasonable searches and seizures, and the Fifth Amendment, ensuring due process of law. Advertisement Frimpong directed agents to stop racially profiling people and ordered the federal government to ensure detainees have access to legal counsel. Al Jazeera correspondent in Washington, DC, Shihab Rattansi, said the case gets to the “heart of whether we can have these marauding sort of gangs of ICE agents without any identification” sweeping people up. “[The plaintiffs argue there is] no probable cause to suspect they’re breaking any kind of immigration laws. And we know a lot of people who are citizens are being swept up too,” Rattansi said. Adblock test (Why?)
US sanctions Cuban president, ‘regime-controlled’ luxury hotels
State Department head Rubio said he had sanctioned several senior officials and their ‘cronies’ for their ‘brutality toward the Cuban people’. The US State Department has imposed sanctions on senior Cuban officials, including President Miguel Diaz-Canel, Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced as he marked the fourth anniversary of a brutal crackdown on historic antigovernment protests. In a post on X, Rubio said the State Department would be “restricting visas for Cuban regime figureheads”, including President Diaz-Canel, Defence Minister Alvaro Lopez Miera, Interior Minister Lazaro Alberto Alvarez Casas, and their “cronies” for their “role in the Cuban regime’s brutality toward the Cuban people”. Rubio, the son of Cuban immigrants, also announced that the State Department has added the Torre K hotel to its restricted list of entities in order to “prevent US dollars from funding the Cuban regime’s repression”. The Cuban government has promoted the luxury high-rise Torre K in central Havana as a symbol of modernisation. But the government has faced criticism for its large investment in luxury hotels amid a severe economic crisis in the nominally socialist one-party state. “While the Cuban people suffer shortages of food, water, medicine, and electricity, the regime lavishes money on its insiders,” Rubio said. Ten other “regime-linked properties” were also added to the State Department’s List of Prohibited Accommodations, it said in a statement. The statement said the sanctions were being enacted in “solidarity with the Cuban people and the island’s political prisoners”, citing the Cuban government’s brutal crackdown on the July 2021 demonstrations – the largest since the Cuban revolution in the 1950s. Advertisement The police crackdown resulted in one death and dozens of wounded protesters. “Four years ago, thousands of Cubans peacefully took to the streets to demand a future free from tyranny. The Cuban regime responded with violence and repression, unjustly detaining thousands, including over 700 who are still imprisoned and subjected to torture or abuse,” the State Department said. Rubio also accused Cuba of torturing pro-democracy activist Jose Daniel Ferrer, whose bail was revoked as he was taken into custody alongside fellow dissident Felix Navarro in April. “The United States demands immediate proof of life and the release of all political prisoners,” Rubio said. Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno Rodriguez slammed the latest measures as part of a “ruthless economic war” being waged by the administration of US President Donald Trump. “The USA is capable of imposing migratory sanctions against revolutionary leaders and maintaining a prolonged and ruthless economic war against Cuba, but it lacks the ability to break the will of these people or their leaders,” he said on X. In January, then-US President Joe Biden had removed Cuba from the blacklist of countries sponsoring terrorism. But Trump returned the country to the blacklist immediately after returning to the White House as he resumed his “maximum pressure” campaign against Cuba that typified his foreign policy during his first term. Adblock test (Why?)
Why has the PKK ended its armed struggle?
Members of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party lay down their arms after decades of war with Turkiye. It’s one of the longest-running conflicts in the Middle East – and it’s about to come to an end. Members of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) have started laying down their arms at a ceremony in northern Iraq. It comes two months after the group said it would end its armed struggle against Turkiye and shift to democratic politics. Reaction has been mixed: Some Kurds think it could pave the way to peace. Others argue it’s a concession with no gains. So how will this process play out in Turkiye and in the wider region? Presenter: Adrian Finighan Guests: Galip Dalay – nonresident senior fellow at the Middle East Council on Global Affairs David L Phillips – director of the Program on Peace-building and Human Rights at Columbia University Mohammed Salih – nonresident senior fellow at the Foreign Policy Research Institute who specialises in Kurdish affairs Adblock test (Why?)
Lebanon says Israeli strike kills one as Beirut rules out normalisation
Lebanon’s President Joseph Aoun says his country seeks peace with Israel, but is not ready to normalise ties. Lebanon’s president says his country wants peace but not normalisation with Israel, as health authorities said an Israeli air strike killed one person in the south of the country. As well as causing one death on Friday, the drone attack on a car in Nabatieh district wounded five other people, according to Lebanon’s Ministry of Health. It comes as Israel continues to launch regular strikes against sites in Lebanon, particularly in the south, despite a November 27 ceasefire agreement between it and the Lebanese armed group Hezbollah. Under the terms of the truce, Hezbollah had to retreat to the north of the Litani River, which is about 30km (20 miles) from the Israeli border, while Israel had to fully withdraw its troops, leaving only the Lebanese army and United Nations peacekeepers in the area. However, Israel still occupies five strategic locations in southern Lebanon. Speaking on Friday, Lebanese President Joseph Aoun expressed a desire for peaceful relations with his country’s neighbour. But he stressed that Beirut was not currently interested in normalising ties with Israel, something mentioned as a possibility by Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar last week. “Peace is the lack of a state of war, and this is what matters to us in Lebanon at the moment. As for the issue of normalisation, it is not currently part of Lebanese foreign policy,” said Aoun, who urged Israel to withdraw completely from Lebanon. Smoke billows from the Nabatieh district, following Israeli strikes, as seen from Marjayoun, in southern Lebanon, on June 27, 2025 [File: Karamallah Daher/Reuters] In a reference to the US’s ongoing call for Lebanon to fully disarm Hezbollah, the Lebanese president also expressed Beirut’s desire to “hold the monopoly over weapons in the country”, but he did not give further details. Advertisement Hezbollah, which is considerably weakened after more than a year of hostilities with Israel, has dismissed questions about disarmament. “We cannot be asked to soften our stance or lay down arms while [Israeli] aggression continues,” its leader Naim Qassem told crowds in southern Beirut on Sunday. On Wednesday, the Israeli military confirmed that some of its troops had entered southern Lebanon, with the army saying they sought to dismantle Hezbollah infrastructure and to stop the group from “reestablishing itself in the area”. The following day, a man was killed by an Israeli drone strike on a motorbike in the village of al-Mansouri near Tyre, the Lebanese Ministry of Health said. Two others were injured in the attack, it added. Adblock test (Why?)
Haiti death toll hits nearly 5,000 in nine months as gang violence spreads
The United Nations has appealed to the international community to bolster its support for Haiti after a report revealed that gang violence has claimed 4,864 lives from October to June. More than 20 percent of those deaths unfolded in the departments of Centre and Artibonite, indicating that intense violence is spilling into the areas surrounding the capital, Port-au-Prince. In a report released on Friday, the UN explained that the growing presence of gangs like Gran Grif in those areas appears to be part of a broader strategy to control key routes connecting the capital to Haiti’s north and its border with the Dominican Republic. “This expansion of gang territorial control poses a major risk of spreading violence and increasing transnational trafficking in arms and people,” the report said. Among its recommendations was for the international community to better police the sale of firearms to Haiti and to continue to offer support for a Kenya-led security mission aimed at strengthening Haiti’s local law enforcement. In a statement, Ulrika Richardson, the UN’s resident coordinator in Haiti, explained that propping up the country’s beleaguered police force is key to restoring security. “Human rights abuses outside Port-au-Prince are intensifying in areas of the country where the presence of the State is extremely limited,” she said. “The international community must strengthen its support to the authorities, who bear the primary responsibility for protecting the Haitian population.” Advertisement The report indicates that the violence in the regions surrounding Port-au-Prince took a turn for the worse in October, when a massacre was carried out in the town of Pont Sonde in the Artibonite department. The Gran Grif gang had set up a checkpoint at a crossroads there, but local vigilante groups were encouraging residents to bypass it, according to the UN. In an apparent act of retaliation, the gang launched an attack on Pont Sonde. The UN describes gang members as firing “indiscriminately at houses” along the road to the checkpoint, killing at least 100 people and wounding 16. They also set 45 houses and 34 vehicles on fire. The chaos forced more than 6,270 people to flee Pont Sonde for their safety, contributing to an already dire crisis of internal displacement. The UN notes that, as of June, more than 92,300 people were displaced from the Artibonite department, and 147,000 from Centre — a 118-percent increase over that department’s statistics from December. Overall, nearly 1.3 million people have been displaced throughout the country. The massacre at Pont Sondé prompted a backlash, with security forces briefly surging to the area. But that presence was not sustained, and Gran Grif has begun to reassert its control in recent months. Meanwhile, the report documents a wave of reprisal killings, as vigilante groups answered the gang’s actions with violence of their own. Around December 11, for instance, the UN noted that the gangs killed more than 70 people near the town of Petite-Riviere de l’Artibonite, and vigilante groups killed 67 people, many of them assumed to be relatives or romantic partners of local gang members. Police units are also accused of committing 17 extrajudicial killings in that wave of violence, as they targeted suspected gang collaborators. The UN reports that new massacres have unfolded in the months since. In the Centre department, a border region where gangs operate trafficking networks, similar acts of retaliation have been reported as the gangs and vigilante groups clash for control of the roads. One instance the UN chronicles from March involved the police interception of a minibus driving from the city of Gonaives to Port-au-Prince. Officers allegedly found three firearms and 10,488 cartridges inside the bus, a fact which sparked concern and uproar among residents nearby. “Enraged, members of the local population who witnessed the scene lynched to death, using stones, sticks, and machetes, two individuals: the driver and another man present in the vehicle,” the report said. Advertisement Haiti has been grappling with an intense period of gang violence since the assassination of President Jovenel Moise in July 2021. Criminal networks have used the resulting power vacuum to expand their presence and power, seizing control of as much as 90 percent of the capital. A transitional government council, meanwhile, has struggled to re-establish order amid controversies, tensions and leadership turnover. The council, however, has said it plans to hold its first presidential election in nearly a decade in 2026. Meanwhile, Volker Turk, the UN high commissioner for human rights, warned that civilians will continue to suffer as the cycle of violence continues. “Caught in the middle of this unending horror story are the Haitian people, who are at the mercy of horrific violence by gangs and exposed to human rights violations from the security forces and abuses by the so-called ‘self-defence’ groups,” he said. Adblock test (Why?)
Kenya mourns vendor killed in protests, as calls grow for Ruto to quit
Police shooting of Boniface Kariuki last month sparks mass grief and anger over state-sanctioned police brutality. Hundreds of mourners have attended the funeral of a Kenyan mask vendor killed by police, as opposition leaders demanded the resignation of President William Ruto over comments he made sanctioning the use of violence in recent protests. The funeral of 22-year-old Boniface Kariuki, shot at point-blank range by an officer in riot gear during a rally against police brutality on June 17, took place Friday in his hometown of Kangema, some 100km (60 miles) northeast of Nairobi. Kariuki, who died later in hospital, was selling masks at the rally. He is one of more than 100 people who have been killed across Kenya since last year, as police crack down on waves of protests. The demonstrations were initially sparked by proposed tax rises in 2024, but they reignited last month after the death of blogger Albert Ojwang in police custody. The shooting of Kariuki was captured on film and shared widely across social media, highlighting police brutality in the country and galvanising anger towards a government many Kenyans see as corrupt and unaccountable. “We are in sorrow,” said Edwin Kagia, 24, Kariuki’s friend and fellow vendor. “I used to hear that police kill people, but I could not imagine it would happen to my brother.” Reporting from Kakuma in northern Kenya, Al Jazeera’s Catherine Soi said: “People are very angry about what is happening in Kenya. There’s a lot of impunity. They say there’s bad governance and police brutality is just on another level.” Young Kenyans chant anti-government slogans as they carry the coffin of Boniface Kariuki during his funeral in Kangema, on July 11, 2025 [Luis Tato/ AFP] President under pressure Amid the grief over the vendor’s death, President Ruto came under increasing pressure to step down, two days after he called for police to shoot and “break the legs” of people found looting or damaging property during protests. Advertisement Opposition figure Kalonzo Musyoka said the president’s order was “against the constitution” and that he should “resign or be impeached”. Human rights groups have called for restraint among police, as it emerged that more than 50 people were killed in two major demonstrations this year, according to the state-funded Kenya National Commission on Human Rights. Al Jazeera’s Soi said there had also been a “spate of abductions”. “Kenyans are quite angry … because police officers are here to help Kenyans and to protect Kenyans, but that is not happening,” she said. Four police officers are currently facing murder charges over the recent deaths of protesters. Three officers were last month charged with the death of blogger Ojwang after a postmortem report stated that his injuries were not self-inflicted, as alleged by police. On Thursday, an officer was charged with Kariuki’s murder. A plea hearing for the officer is set for July 28. Several mothers of the young people who have been killed in protests since last year were present at the vendor’s burial. Meanwhile, Kenya swore in a group of top electoral officials on Friday, hours after their approval by Ruto, following months of legal wrangling. The appointment of a new chairman and six commissioners to the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission fills essential positions that had long been left vacant in a country with a long history of contentious and often violent elections. The appointments were delayed by legal petitions from activists questioning the “qualifications, integrity, relevance and meritocracy of the candidates”, according to the High Court ruling that dismissed their case. The appointees will serve for six years. Adblock test (Why?)
US public support for immigration rises amid Trump’s crackdown
A record high of 79 percent of US respondents in a Gallup survey say immigration is a ‘good thing’ for the country. A new poll shows support for immigration in the United States has increased since last year, while backing for the mass deportation of undocumented immigrants has gone down. The survey, released on Friday from the research firm Gallup, suggests a shift in public opinion as President Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown concludes its sixth month. Gallup found that 79 percent of respondents say immigration is a “good thing” for the country — a record high that represents a 15-point increase from last year. Among supporters of Trump’s Republican Party, the number rose sharply to 64 percent, up from 39 percent in 2024. Only 38 percent of respondents said they back “deporting all immigrants who are living in the United States illegally back to their home country”, down from 47 percent last year. Support for expanding the US-Mexico border wall also went down to 45 percent, a drop of eight percentage points. The survey, conducted in June, featured interviews with 1,402 US adults. “Americans have grown markedly more positive toward immigration over the past year, with the share wanting immigration reduced dropping from 55 percent in 2024 to 30 percent today,” Gallup said. Trump made mass deportations a key promise of his 2024 re-election campaign, often using language to demonise migrants, including by using a poem to compare them to poisonous snakes. He seized on the public concern over the uptick in the number of undocumented immigrants who crossed into the US from Mexico in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, under Democratic President Joe Biden. Advertisement Since returning to the White House in January, he has launched an all-out campaign on immigration, including by gutting the refugee resettlement programme, unleashing agents to round up undocumented migrants and sending suspected gang members to a maximum-security prison in El Salvador without due process. The Trump administration also ended protected status for nationals of several countries, including Venezuela and Haiti, who had been shielded from deportation due to dangerous conditions in their homelands. Meanwhile, it has been pushing to remove foreign students critical of Israel from the US. But while the crossings have sharply decreased this year, it appears that the US public may have soured on the anti-immigration campaign. “With illegal border crossings down sharply this year, fewer Americans than in June 2024 back hard-line border enforcement measures, while more favor offering pathways to citizenship for undocumented immigrants already in the US,” Gallup said. Trump’s immigration policies have sparked outrage and lawsuits, as well as accusations of executive overreach and violations of the US Constitution. A majority of respondents in the Gallup survey — 62 percent — said they disapprove of Trump’s handling of immigration, while 36 percent said they approve. David Bier, director of immigration studies at the Cato Institute, a libertarian think tank, described the findings of the survey as an “absolute bloodbath” for Trump. “Support for cuts to immigration has plummeted 25 points since last year,” he wrote in a social media post. “Deporting ‘all illegal immigrants’ has gone back to a right-wing only view.” Adblock test (Why?)
Rohingya refugees in peril in Bangladesh as support wanes: UN
The US and other Western countries have been reducing their funding, prioritising their defence spending instead. The plight of Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh could rapidly deteriorate further unless more funding can be secured for critical assistance services, according to the United Nations refugee agency. Bangladesh has registered its biggest influx of Myanmar’s largest Muslim minority over the past 18 months since a mass exodus from an orchestrated campaign of death, rape and persecution nearly a decade ago by Myanmar’s military. “There is a huge gap in terms of what we need and what resources are available. These funding gaps will affect the daily living of Rohingya refugees as they depend on humanitarian support on a daily basis for food, health and education,” United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) spokesperson Babar Baloch told reporters in Geneva on Friday. The humanitarian sector has been roiled by funding reductions from major donors, led by the United States under President Donald Trump and other Western countries, as they prioritise defence spending prompted by growing concerns over Russia and China. Baloch added: “With the acute global funding crisis, the critical needs of both newly arrived refugees and those already present will be unmet, and essential services for the whole Rohingya refugee population are at risk of collapsing unless additional funds are secured.” If not enough funding is secured, health services will be severely disrupted by September, and by December, essential food assistance will stop, said the UNHCR, which says that its appeal for $255m has only been 35 percent funded. Advertisement In March, the World Food Programme announced that “severe funding shortfalls” for Rohingya were forcing a cut in monthly food vouchers from $12.50 to $6 per person. More than one million Rohingya have been crammed into camps in southeastern Bangladesh, the world’s largest refugee settlement. Most fled the brutal crackdown in 2017 by Myanmar’s military, although some have been there for longer. These camps cover an area of just 24 square kilometres (nine square miles) and have become “one of the world’s most densely populated places”, said Baloch. Continued violence and persecution against the Rohingya, a mostly Muslim minority in mainly Buddhist Myanmar’s western Rakhine state, have kept forcing thousands to seek protection across the border in Bangladesh, according to the UNHCR. At least 150,000 Rohingya refugees have arrived in Cox’s Bazar in southeast Bangladesh over the past 18 months. The Rohingya refugees also face institutionalised discrimination in Myanmar and most are denied citizenship. “Targeted violence and persecution in Rakhine State and the ongoing conflict in Myanmar have continued to force thousands of Rohingya to seek protection in Bangladesh,” said Baloch. “This movement of Rohingya refugees into Bangladesh, spread over months, is the largest from Myanmar since 2017, when some 750,000 fled the deadly violence in their native Rakhine State.” Baloch also hailed Muslim-majority Bangladesh for generously hosting Rohingya refugees for generations. Adblock test (Why?)
Why are mass murderers from the Srebrenica genocide still free?
NewsFeed Thousands of Bosnian Serbs participated in the Srebrenica genocide in July 1995, killing more than 8,000 mostly Muslim men and boys in just three days. But only 54 people have ever been convicted. So why are so many killers walking free? Soraya Lennie has the details. Published On 11 Jul 202511 Jul 2025 Adblock test (Why?)