World Echo

New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani on Thursday hit back at Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's criticisms in his United Nations General Assembly address, pointing to the international warrant seeking the visiting prime minister’s arrest. Netanyahu’s “lies” in his UN address cannot erase the warrant for genocidal war crimes issued by the International Criminal Court (ICC), said the mayor. “As he has done time and again, Prime Minister Netanyahu used his speech to repeat baseless lies meant to sanitise his genocide of Palestinians," Mamdani said in a statement, local media reported. "Yet no lie can change the fact that he remains the subject of an International Criminal Court arrest warrant alleging war crimes and crimes against humanity.” In November 2024 the ICC, based in The Hague, issued arrest warrants for Netanyahu and former Israeli Defence Minister Yoav Gallant for war crimes and crimes against humanity in the Gaza ...

India's 'Cockroach' youth movement leaders said on Thursday ​that they would launch ‌protests across the country if India's chief election officer does ​not resign in ​48 hours, a day after ⁠a newspaper report pointed ​to differences among top officers ​leading the poll panel. The Indian Express newspaper said on Wednesday that ​two election commissioners had ​raised questions or expressed concern at ‌least ⁠14 times in 10 months, mostly in connection with the process of updating ​voters' lists ​that ⁠began last year, with Chief Election Commissioner ​Gyanesh Kumar. The Election ​Commission ⁠of India said that differences were normal in any ⁠institution ​and that all ​its actions were legal. In July, Indian youth protesters called off ​weeks of demonstrations and celebrated in the streets after the education minister quit and Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government bowed to demands including calls to fix ‌a cheating-prone exam system. ...

A federal judge ordered US President Donald Trump on Thursday to restore White House access for ‌journalists from CNN, MS NOW and Politico, saying his ban on the three media outlets was likely unconstitutional. In a major setback for Trump in one of his biggest battles with the media, US District Judge Tim Kelly issued his order in a lawsuit that the news organisations filed contesting the ban that the Republican president announced on September 18. Kelly ordered the Trump administration to ​immediately return the outlets' press passes and blocked officials from enforcing the ban for 14 days. The judge rejected the government's assertion that the ​ban was motivated by national security concerns. Read: Trump bans CNN, MS NOW, Politico from White House "The record lacks factual support for defendants’ contention that the revocation of plaintiffs’ hard ⁠passes will in fact protect national security or that national security will be endangered if ...

The Israeli army blew up the home of a Palestinian prisoner in the occupied West Bank on Thursday, according to local sources. The sources told Anadolu that Israeli forces raided the town and surrounded Dawas Hassoun’s home before blowing it up, causing material damage to the building. A day earlier, Israeli forces raided the Hassoun family home and forced its residents to evacuate, while closing side roads leading to the house in preparation for its demolition, according to the sources. Hassoun was arrested in March 2026 and is accused of killing an occupier about six months ago. In a separate incident today, occupiers burned two vehicles and sprayed racist and hostile slogans on property during an attack on the village of Attara, north of Ramallah, according to local sources. Attara has been subjected to a series of occupier attacks, amid the establishment of a settlement outpost near Palestinian homes in the village in recent months, according to the same sources. Th...

Fresh from accusing fossil fuel interests of treating the atmosphere like an "open sewer," outgoing United Nations chief Antonio Guterres is set to host his final climate summit Wednesday at the world organisation's New York headquarters. The stakes are clearer than ever, as the impacts of climate change surge around the world — from heat waves and wildfires in Europe to catastrophic flooding in Nepal and Tibet triggered by a glacier collapse. Extreme weather impacts are set to worsen with an El Nino weather pattern that has tied for the most intense ever. And the world is set to shoot past — at least temporarily — 1.5C of warming, beyond which scientists say it will see worse catastrophes from climate change. The "High-level Event on Climate Action and the Just Transition" will have opening remarks by Guterres followed by Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese. The two countries are co-hos...

US President Donald Trump's Board of Peace will unveil a six-month, $2.45 billion recovery plan for Gaza at a meeting of its members on Wednesday, Axios reported. The 66-project proposal includes estimated spending for temporary housing, rubble removal, hospital repairs, economic recovery and the deployment of a multinational security force, the report added, citing a copy of the plan. The White House and US Department of State did not immediately respond to requests for comment. Read: Board of Peace reiterates Gaza objectives ahead of UN General Assembly The plan estimates physical damage in Gaza at $35.2 billion and says full recovery and reconstruction will require about $71.4 billion over the next decade, the Axios report added. It also calls for repairing border crossings, restoring electricity and water infrastructure, deploying 25,000 portable solar power kits and permanently filling tunnels beneath sites needed for priority reconstruction projects. Trump'...

Britain’s prime minister vowed Tuesday not to stand by as "horrific suffering" continues to grow and the prospect of a two-state solution "comes under attack" in Gaza and the occupied West Bank. In his address at the United Nations General Assembly in New York, Andy Burnham said recent sanctions targeting illegal Israeli settlements in the West Bank recognise that the Israeli occupation of the Palestinian territory is unlawful. The October 7, 2023 attack on Israel by the Palestinian group Hamas "does not justify the Israeli government's actions in Gaza or the West Bank," he noted, saying that "far too many people have died, including so many children." "We will not stand by as the horrific suffering continues to grow and the prospect of a two-state solution -- the best hope for peace and stability for both nations -- comes under attack," he added. Read: UK rejects 'damaging' Israeli retaliation over West Bank s...