By Yashraj Sharma July 21, 2026 More than 100 students injured in police action against thousands of demonstrators during march on parliament. But students say they aren’t done – just like the cockroaches India’s chief justice compared them to. A protester falls during clashes with police as CJP supporters rally in New Delhi on July 20, 2026, demanding Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan resign over exam paper leaks. Credit: Al Jazeera, Anushree Fadnavis, Reuters New Delhi, India – Blood spots on the walls, overturned barricades, shattered mirrors and sandals strewn across the road. A scarf here, broken glasses and a torn shirt there lie as remnants of the chaos that took over the Indian capital. The heart of New Delhi – Parliament Street and Connaught Place, a colonial-era square – bears the imprint of Monday’s police crackdown on thousands of protesters, most of them students who had shut down the capital, demanding that Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan resign. A swarm of protesters reached parliament’s doorstep before retreating as the police tear-gassed them. More than 100 students were injured. “I still cannot believe my eyes that I’m in Delhi,” said Anshul Dev, an 18-year-old who grew up in the capital. “Part of it is because tear gas still stings,” he added, bursting into laughter with his group of friends. One of them had both legs bandaged. “This government, whom our elders voted to power, is treating us like terrorists and criminals,” Dev said. “This is our country, and we are reclaiming it from their hateful politics. We are here to break the spell.” Anger among India’s youth, the world’s largest Gen Z cohort, has been simmering for the past two months over a string of compromised entrance exams that affected millions of students. In some cases, exam papers were leaked; in others, students who sought copies of their answer scripts found that they had been wrongly graded. More than 20 students died by suicide, many citing the paper leaks. Prime Minister Narendra Modi has not addressed the protests, even as he appeared smiling on Monday in parliament, barely metres away from demonstrators at one point. On Tuesday afternoon, India’s leader of opposition, Congress’s Rahul Gandhi, camped outside Modi’s residence in New Delhi, joined by other members of parliament – and gave a public call to assemble. Analysts said the student protests face formidable obstacles before they can extract concessions from Modi’s government. Yet the protests, the government’s refusal to hold any of its own accountable and the crackdown have also embellished a charge that the prime minister has long faced from critics and opposition parties – that although he is elected democratically, his government has weakened democratic checks and accountability. Tear gas spreads around protesters in New Delhi on July 20, 2026. Credit: Al Jazeera, Anushree Fadnavis, Reuters ‘Protests will Continue’ After dark on Monday, Abhijeet Dipke – the leader of the Cockroach Janta Party (CJP), a political pressure group that called the march – returned to a torn-down stage at the CJP’s main protest site near Jantar Mantar, an 18th-century observatory that is now an important location for protests. “This barbaric Delhi police has beaten up our students and comrades. We are heartbroken,” he said, addressing about 2,000 protesters who stayed back after the crackdown. “We will continue to resist and demand accountability from the government. We will not back down until Dharmendra Pradhan resigns.” Dipke told the protesters that the Delhi police “brutally cracked down to crush our hopes” that Pradhan would resign. “It was only our first call to march,” he said. “There will be more. Do not lose hope.” Volunteers began to pick up rubbish, tie a tent together and sweep the road at the Jantar Mantar site. This is where more than 100 protesters from student unions have been sleeping for nearly a month to join Sonam Wangchuk, a prominent activist, in a hunger strike seeking the minister’s resignation. The police also rampaged through these student unions’ tarpaulin tents and belongings on Monday. The movement gained momentum last week after the police forcibly removed Wangchuk from the protest site and restricted him to a government-run hospital, where he remains. His family and the CJP have called it “illegal detention”, but the Delhi High Court has refused immediate relief. Wangchuk, 59, broke his hunger strike before the march on Monday. However, later he said he would be at it again after “seeing the brutality” against “peacefully protesting students”. The Delhi police have filed at least five criminal cases against protesters related to violence, stone-throwing and vandalism during the march. CJP founder Abhijeet Dipke speaks to protesters injured in New Delhi on July 21, 2026. Credit: Al Jazeera, Arun Sankar, AFP Meeting with Government a ‘Waste of Time’ Before the march, CJP leaders said the government reached out for talks. As thousands of demonstrators assembled in New Delhi, two CJP spokespeople met JP Nadda, India’s health minister, to convey the movement’s three demands: Pradhan’s immediate resignation, Wangchuk’s discharge from hospital and compensation of nearly $105,000 for the families of those students who died by suicide. However, they were disillusioned by sunset. “It was a waste of our time,” said Ashutosh Ranka, a CJP spokesperson. “We were made to wait for four hours, and the minister met us for 10 minutes.” Nadda said he met with the spokespeople “in a cordial atmosphere”, adding that he “requested all the protesters to end their sit-in and assist the administration in restoring normalcy”. Speaking with reporters on Tuesday, CJP leader Dipke said: “If the government wants to have talks again, they have to come to Jantar Mantar. We won’t be going there.” Some students have been calling for the decentralisation of the protests, so they could move beyond the CJP to demand accountability from the government. And political analysts who spoke with Al Jazeera said maintaining the credibility of the CJP’s leadership remains one of the biggest immediate hurdles for the movement in the face of an unprecedented crowd turnout for the march. A CJP supporter poses next to a protest message in New Delhi after the police crackdown on July 20, 2026. Credit: Al Jazeera, Sajjad Hussain, AFP Confronting a ‘Strong Man’ Since the police forcibly removed Wangchuk from the protest site, the movement and demonstrators have called on Modi to resign. Slogans targeting the prime minister reverberated through central New Delhi on Monday. The large number of protesters “is itself a big challenge to the prime minister”, said Nilanjan Mukhopadhyay, an author and Modi biographer. As of now, he told Al Jazeera, “Modi has decided to continue with his instinctive response of not giving any concessions to protesters and continuing to project himself as a strong man with completely unshakeable will”. The biographer added that the prime minister, who has been in power since 2014, “does not care before crushing a protest or using brute force until it cuts through his voting constituencies”. “They will go by their gut response of a crackdown. Modi would not want to emerge from this with a bloody nose,” he added, “despite a lot of anger among youth, which shows the undercurrent of anti-incumbency.” The simmering anger found a vent as Gen Z rallied behind a joke, the Cockroach Janta Party, after India’s chief justice equated government critics and unemployed youth to “cockroaches” and “parasites”. Memes, online rants and students taking photos in front of police have flooded the internet in India, where they expressed anguish and took digs at the police crackdown. Meghnad S, a YouTuber, was among the crowd of thousands in front of the Indian Parliament on Monday. “It was insanity, and the crowd was really riled up due to police actions. It was cruel,” he told Al Jazeera from the protest site on Monday night. “But movements are always messy. This is very difficult to control. We are all cockroaches, after all. And we are still swarming here.” By Tuesday morning, the crowd had packed the site yet again. The cockroaches had returned. CJP supporters march towards parliament on July 20, 2026. Credit: Al Jazeera, Adnan Abidi, Reuters © 2026 Al Jazeera Media Network

By Fatma Khaled July 20, 2026 Fireworks burst as Houthi supporters rally against the Saudi-led coalition in Sanaa, Yemen, Monday, July 20, 2026. Credit: AP News, Osamah Abdulrahman CAIRO (AP) — Yemen’s Iranian-backed Houthi rebels on Monday announced they are imposing a maritime embargo against Saudi Arabia in retaliation for a blockade on Yemen and a recent attack on Sanaa International Airport, threatening another vital waterway for global shipping and raising fears of renewed conflict. A Houthi military spokesperson, Yahya Saree, said in a video statement that the maritime ban against Saudi Arabia will be effective immediately, describing it as an “equation of ‘an eye for an eye.’” There were few details on how the embargo might work, but the deputy head of the Houthi media office, Nasruddin Amer, said on X that the Bab al-Mandeb strait will be closed to the Saudis in response to what he called the kingdom’s “unjust blockade on Yemenis for over 10 years.” Bab el-Mandeb, at the southern tip of the Arabian Peninsula, is the gateway to the Red Sea through which around 12% of the world’s trade usually passes. A fourth of global container trade transits through the 32-kilometer (20-mile)-wide strait to and from the Suez Canal. The Houthis earlier demonstrated their ability to disrupt shipping there when they targeted ships for months over the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza, with over 100 vessels attacked. It is unclear whether the Houthis will resume that level of attack against neighboring Saudi Arabia. Saudi Arabia’s military said it would keep the waterway open. “All Houthi threats against transiting vessels will be dealt with swiftly and firmly, as such threats are a blatant violation of international law and fall under acts of maritime piracy,” said Maj. Gen. Turki al-Malki, a Saudi military spokesperson. Iran War Limits Shipping Routes The kingdom already faced pressure as it uses its East-West Pipeline to the Red Sea as an alternative to the Strait of Hormuz, which remains in the grip that Iran imposed shortly after the U.S. and Israel attacked it on Feb. 28. The Saudis have been sending millions of barrels of crude oil a day through the pipeline. Now, about 2.5 million barrels of oil per day could be at risk, Texas-based Rystad Energy wrote Monday. Saudi Arabia leads a coalition against the Houthis and imposed an air and sea blockade on Yemen in 2015. Yemen’s civil war began in 2014 when the rebels seized the capital, Sanaa, and much of northern Yemen and forced the government into exile. A truce was reached in 2022. Exchange of Fire Escalates Tensions That truce has been threatened in recent days after the Houthis said the Saudis struck the Sanaa airport in an attempt to affect a flight carrying Houthi leaders back from Iran, where they attended the funeral of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. The plane landed safely at another airport. The Houthis then launched missiles and drones at Saudi Arabia’s Abha International Airport in the most significant confrontation in years. By allowing a direct international flight to land without the approval of the Saudi-led coalition, the Houthis sought to establish a new reality in which they could independently make decisions over Yemen’s airspace, experts told the AP. “We affirm the right of our great people to respond to the blockade with a blockade,” Saree emphasized on Monday, adding that Houthis are prepared to confront “any foolish act committed by the reckless Saudi enemy ... with a comprehensive and decisive escalation.” Houthi-run Al Masirah TV broadcast footage of hundreds of supporters gathering in the city of Ibb, south of Sanaa, to back the embargo against Saudi Arabia. Similar rallies were held in the governorates of Saada, Marib, Hajjah and Taiz. Iranian Weapons Supplies Dwindle The Houthis are a crucial part of Iran’s so-called “Axis of Resistance,” which also includes militant groups in Lebanon, Iraq and the Palestinian territories. The rebels have had a large stockpile of drones, but several Houthi members previously told the AP that the stockpile is running low after its attacks during the Israel-Hamas war. The Iran war has further impeded the flow of weapons, said the members, who at the time spoke on condition of anonymity because they weren’t authorized to talk to the media. The U.S. and Israel responded to the Houthis’ earlier attacks on shipping with a punishing air campaign across Houthi-held areas in Yemen until a deal that saw the rebels stop their assaults. Disrupting transit through the Bab al-Mandeb forces shipping firms to route vessels around the Cape of Good Hope off South Africa, significantly increasing costs. The U.S. government in the past has said going around the cape would add about 2,700 miles (4,345 kilometers) to the journey from Saudi Arabia to the U.S. ___ Associated Press writer Jon Gambrell in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, contributed. Copyright 2026 The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.

By Fauwaz Khan Genocide Watch Mapping Team intern Fauwaz Khan has created an interactive web map that allows viewers to see the ethnic composition of Africa. Selecting an ethnic group, signified by different colors on the map, will show their geographic distribution, present-day countries, and areas where multiple groups overlap, if applicable. To view this interactive map, see the embedded map below or click the image above to open it in a new tab.

Long-simmering ethnic tensions between the mainly Buddhist Sinhalese and the largely Hindu Tamil minority led to the civil war. What are Black July massacres that triggered Sri Lanka’s 26-year civil war? 27 Jul 2023 Forty years ago, mobs in Sri Lanka burned 13 people alive, part of a weeklong pogrom that caused simmering ethnic unrest to soon escalate into an all-out civil war. Known in Sri Lanka as “Black July”, the brutal violence triggered a 26-year conflict that killed about 100,000 people, displaced about 800,000, and set development back by decades in the island nation. The head of the separatist Tamil movement, Velupillai Prabhakaran, was shot dead by security forces on May 18, 2009, bringing a formal end to the bloody ethnic war. What caused the civil war? Ethnic tensions between the mainly Buddhist Sinhalese majority and the largely Hindu Tamil minority had long simmered, which worsened after the former colonial ruler Britain quit in 1948. Despite the British rule marked by a divide-and-rule strategy, some Tamils were appointed to high-ranking civil services jobs and played an important role in the island’s governance. However, administrative power in 1948 fell into the hands of the Sinhalese, who began a policy of discrimination against the Tamil minority. The Ceylon Citizenship Act of 1948 denied Tamils citizenship because of their Indian descent. In 1956, the Sinhala Only Act made Sinhalese the only official language of Sri Lanka. In the 1970s, importing Tamil language books, magazines and films from India’s Tamil Nadu state was also outlawed. Growing calls among Tamils for the right to self-determination were brushed aside in 1977 when the Sri Lankan government passed an amendment to the constitution, prohibiting peaceful advocacy of independence. Four years later, an irreversible blow to Tamil culture and history at the hands of an organised Sinhalese mob saw a library in Jaffna set on fire in 1981. More than 95,000 Tamil historical texts and manuscripts were burned to ashes. Sri Lankan families of missing demand gov’t probe mass graves What happened in July 1983? The conflict erupted when a landmine ambush laid by Tamil rebels killed 13 Sinhalese soldiers of the Sri Lankan army in the Tamil heartland of Jaffna in the north. The government flew the bodies to capital Colombo for a mass burial, but relatives demanded individual funerals and anti-Tamil riots began. The backlash degenerated into a week of violence targeting Tamils, with the worst of the violence on July 29, dubbed the “Black Friday”. According to the government, 400 to 600 people died over the course of the massacres – mostly Tamils. But minority groups say the true toll could be in the thousands. “The events that happened … changed the course of history,” said Tamil legislator MA Sumanthiran. “We don’t regard what happened in 1983 as a riot, because it was planned violence unleashed on the Tamil people in this country. It was a pogrom.” Activists offer flowers to the sea in remembrance of the civil war’s victims [File: Eranga Jayawardena/AP] Some claim the army was actively involved or provided tacit support to the attacks in revenge for the loss of their 13 comrades, and several then-government officials were seen leading mobs. No one has been prosecuted. What do the survivors say? The 1983 anti-Tamil mob attacks escalated on July 29, when Mohan Panneer Selvam was just eight years old. A rampaging gang torched his home in the tea-growing central town of Hawa Eliya, burning 13 people inside, including his parents, relatives and their staff. “My grandmother started to escape, they shot her and threw her body into the house,” Panneer Selvam said, breaking down while recalling the events narrated to him by his older sister. He and his younger brother were away at boarding school when the riots broke out, returning as orphans to the ruins of their burned home two months later. His sister – then a child of 10 – was the sole survivor only because their mother “threw her out of the kitchen window,” he said. She was wounded and found “two or three days later” by police and sent to a camp for Tamils made homeless by the violence. “My sister saw the burned bodies – they put the bodies in a municipal tractor [trailer],” he told the AFP news agency. “They dumped them somewhere.” What is the civil war’s legacy? Human rights lawyer Nimalka Fernando, who is a Sinhalese, said autonomy was the “political standard of the Tamil people”, noting they had always voted for a federal system – and had even demanded a separate state during elections in 1977. “To quell that, to subdue that, violence was practised,” he said. “So ’83 was the height of that kind of strategy by the government.” Legislator Sumanthiran says about 1.3 million Tamils fled the country after the riots, many north to neighbouring India – motivating their increasing interest in the conflict. New Delhi pressed Colombo to seek peace by granting autonomy to the Tamils, and the Sinhalese leaders’ policy “boomeranged” back in their faces, he added. “While everything was on fire, the Indian government intervened,” Sumanthiran said. Of the estimated 100,000 killed in the war, the dead are split roughly equally between the security forces, Tamil fighters and Tamil civilians, with Sinhalese and Muslims also among the dead. “Over 40 years, it has been a journey to grapple with waves of internally displaced people, waves of refugees in my own country,” Fernando said. The physical scars of the war fade, and only a few of the battle-scarred buildings remain. But the legacy of events 40 years ago lives on. Today, Sumanthiran said many Tamils still dream of political autonomy. “Successive governments after the war ended have been successful in sort of delaying it – promising and not doing,” he said. “But I don’t think they can do that for too long.” © 2026 Al Jazeera Media Network

By Sonia Perez D. July 1, 2026 Guatemalan Attorney General Gabriel Garcia Luna speaks during a press conference in Guatemala City, May 17, 2026. (AP Photo/Moises Castillo, File) GUATEMALA CITY (AP) — Gabriel García Luna, Guatemala’s new attorney general who took office in May, pledged Wednesday to dismantle what he called the “repressive and vengeful” administration of his predecessor, who was sanctioned by multiple countries including the U.S. for stifling anti-corruption efforts. Guatemala, once a strong U.S. partner in the region on anti-corruption efforts, took a turn under Consuelo Porras, who stifled corruption cases, persecuted justice officials, activists and journalists, and drove many into exile. She also attempted to prevent President Bernardo Arévalo’s inauguration and invalidate his presidency by alleging fraud, which was never proven. “Everyone has a concept of a Public Prosecutor’s Office that can be used in a certain way, and we can no longer have that,” García Luna told The Associated Press. “It is not a political entity, nor a political weapon for anyone, and I do not intend to repeat the actions taken in previous administrations.” García Luna has already begun moving the institution in a new direction by dismantling the network of Porras’ trusted administrative and prosecutorial staff, who were accused of criminalizing and persecuting former justice officials. He has also launched a commission to review cases of people criminalized. Porras has denied the accusations against her. The Public Prosecutor’s Office while it was under her tenure said the accusations affect Porras’ “right to honor, dignity, reputation and the presumption of innocence.” On Wednesday, García Luna expressed his commitment to radical change to the institution by reviewing potential abuses during the past administration and reviving the prosecutorial profession, which was battered by the exodus of qualified personnel under Porras. García Luna said his predecessor “formed a parallel government that destroyed the prosecutorial profession, mainly by dismissing between 800 and 1,000 employees during her eight-year tenure.” The new attorney general did not rule out the possibility of legal action against Porras, who has several complaints against her, including one for human trafficking in irregular adoptions, and her associates. In cases where the prosecutor’s office, under Porras’ orders, benefited or allowed the release of alleged corrupt officials, drug traffickers and those accused of other crimes, the prosecutor stated that these cases are being reviewed, reopened and that legal action will be taken to ensure there is no impunity. Many, including former prosecutor Juan Francisco Sandoval, who lives in exile after denouncing persecution by Porras for his work on high-impact corruption cases, say the allegations against Porras and those in her administration should be subject to an “impartial and independent” investigation. “These should not go unresolved, in accordance with the principle of equality before the law and the principle that no one should be above the law,” Sandoval said. García Luna already has international support, such as from the U.S. government and countries of the European Union, that have offered their backing in the fight against transnational crime, including drug trafficking and human trafficking. He said that the Attorney General’s Office is collaborating with the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, which has scheduled a hearing for Aug. 4 to review cases of people who denounced political persecution under Porras. Copyright 2026 The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.

Daniel Ortega puts an end to the electoral process in Nicaragua: “There will never be another election here” July 20, 2026 By Wilfredo Miranda Aburto (EL PAÍS) During the commemoration of the Sandinista Revolution, Ortega announces legal reforms to prevent the opposition from challenging his hold on power and points toward a model of a hegemonic party. Rosario Murillo and Daniel Ortega, in Nicaragua, this Sunday. Photo: Government of Nicaragua Daniel Ortega made an announcement on Sunday, during the commemoration of the Sandinista Revolution, that effectively buried the last vestiges of democracy in Nicaragua. “There will be no more elections here,” he declared. With that statement, he explicitly ruled out the electoral process as a mechanism for political change ahead of the elections scheduled for November 2027. In addition, he announced that he will work with the Parliament, which he controls, to “put up a wall” against political parties that seek to reach the government through that route. “Let them forget it! There will be no more elections here so that they [the opposition political parties] can’t try to seize the government or seize power,” Ortega said on July 19, during the ceremony marking the 47th anniversary of the Sandinista uprising that overthrew dictator Anastasio Somoza Debayle in 1979. Although in practice the announcement does not change a reality well known to Nicaraguans—local and national elections have been marred by successive instances of fraud since 2008, according to international election observation organizations—it does represent a rhetorical and political shift. The 2021 presidential elections were already the prime example of a system devoid of competition: Ortega and his wife, co-president Rosario Murillo, imprisoned all opposition candidates with a realistic chance of challenging them for power at the polls and secured 75.92% of the vote. Added to this is the fact that the co-presidential regime, after banishing all opponents, permanently barred them from running for public office by declaring them traitors to the nation and charging them with other political crimes, leaving only puppet parties under its control. The United States described those elections as a “farce,” while other governments and international organizations refused to recognize their legitimacy. But now, although he did not specify the details of how this change would take shape, Ortega is pointing toward a model more akin to those of hegemonic-party or permanent-power regimes, such as North Korea and Cuba, where elections exist in name only but do not constitute a real mechanism for contesting power. This new shift directly confronts Washington, which has consistently demanded free elections for Nicaragua. Juan Diego Barberena, a lawyer and opposition figure in exile, insists that what is new is not that the elections will no longer be free. “For two decades, the right to vote has been violated, but now Ortega is saying that not even the fraudulent elections—the charades they used to organize—will take place,” he states. In the opinion of the lawyer—whose license was recently revoked—the message points to the “perpetuation of power through a dynastic system” and reflects “the absolutist nature” that the regime has gradually taken on. What Ortega did say is that he will impose restrictions on political parties. He emphasized that he will work with his deputies and political allies in the National Assembly, as well as with the “relevant organizations,” to enact laws “that will put up a wall, a barrier” against any political groups that consider running in elections to take power in Nicaragua. “So, let those parties win the elections… The days when parties backed by the Yankees or the Somocistas would return to power are over. Never, never, never… No matter how much money the Yankees give [to political parties], they won’t be able to, they won’t be able to,” Ortega insisted in his speech. A one-party system For Juan Sebastián Chamorro, one of the seven presidential candidates imprisoned by the regime ahead of the 2021 elections, Ortega’s announcement confirms a conception of power that he has championed for years. “He has always maintained that political parties are undesirable because, according to him, they divide societies,” he says. In the economist’s view, the president aims to transform Nicaragua into a one-party system, inspired by models such as China’s. “Ortega is likely thinking of a system of internal appointments, as in China, where officials are chosen from within the party itself rather than through open electoral competition,” Chamorro explains. Although for now the opposition is speculating about the model Ortega might impose—as he did previously with the “co-presidency” arrangement to share power and ensure succession alongside his wife—the fact is that this ambition clashes head-on with the policy Washington has maintained toward Nicaragua in recent years. Since the outbreak of the sociopolitical crisis in 2018, the United States has insisted that any resolution must involve the restoration of democracy and the holding of free, competitive elections with international observation. Last March, the State Department said that its strategy toward the “Murillo-Ortega dictatorship” aims to restore the rule of law and bring about “a change in behavior.” Washington did not specify at the time what new measures it was considering, but framed its warning around monitoring the international support the regime receives and using its diplomatic tools to increase pressure. The United States noted that since 2018 it has imposed financial sanctions against dozens of officials and entities linked to the government, while keeping other avenues of political, economic, and immigration pressure open. “All options remain on the table,” the spokesperson warned—a deliberately broad statement that avoided ruling out new sanctions, visa restrictions, or other actions against the regime. For his part, Eliseo Núñez, a political analyst in exile, interprets the announcement as a maneuver to change the rules of any potential future negotiations. “Ortega is creating a fait accompli,” he argues. “If at any point pressure forces him to negotiate, he will no longer be starting from the premise that there are elections in Nicaragua that must be free and competitive. Now the starting point will be that there simply are no elections.” Núñez agrees with Chamorro on the concept of Chinese “democratic centralism.” However, he warns that even if that model is enshrined in the announced reforms, decisions will continue to depend exclusively on Ortega and Murillo. “Ortega is taking this step convinced that he maintains internal control thanks to economic stability and repression, while he perceives that the United States’ attention is focused on other priorities,” he concluded. This article has been adapted from the original in Spanish. © 2026 Copyright EDICIONES EL PAÍS All rights reserved.

EU says Serbian minister's statement justifying ethnic cleansing in Kosovo in 1998-9 is 'inflammatory' – and that such rhetoric 'has no place in Europe'. Serbian forces take up positions opposite the village of Racak in Kosovo, the site of a massacre, January 1999. Photo: EPA/LOUISA GOULIAMAKI. The European Union on Tuesday condemned the “inflammatory” statement of a Serbian government minister supporting the ethnic cleansing of Kosovo Albanians during the 1998-99 war. Snezana Paunovic, Minister for Local Government, on Monday told the Belgrade-based Kurir that she “would have ethnically cleansed Kosovo” had she been in the place of Serbia’s then strongman leader, Slobodan Milosevic, in 1999. “I would not liquidate the Albanians as they are now trying to ethnically cleanse Kosovo [of Serbs] but in a way that anyone would … leave and go to their mother country,” said Paunovic, who was born in Kosovo herself. The Serbian government regularly accuses the Kosovo government of trying to drive out its remaining Serb population. The minister is from the ranks of the government’s junior coalition partner, the Socialist Party of Serbia, the party Milosevic founded in 1990 and led until he died in a Hague detention centre in 2006, awaiting a war-crimes verdict. An EU spokesperson condemned the comments and called on leaders on all sides “to act responsibly and refrain from any inflammatory rhetoric. “Our main position and key principle is that there should be no place, and there is no place in Europe, for rhetoric justifying and advocating for ethnic cleansing,” Anitta Hipper, an EU Spokesperson, told media in Brussels. “Such statements run counter to the values of human dignity, reconciliation, accountability and good neighbourly relations on which the EU is founded. They also run counter to the commitments made by Serbia in the framework of the EU-facilitated dialogue to normalisation of relations with Kosovo,” she added, referencing the stalled deal brokered some years ago. In Kosovo, Andin Hoti, Minister of Social Welfare, accused Paunovic of promoting the same ideas “as your ideological father [Milosevic] did”. “Anyone who calls for ethnic cleansing today is not a threat only to Kosovo. It is evidence that Serbia has not been liberated from Milosevic’s genocidal ideology and criminal politics, which brought wars, massacres and historic shame,” Hoti said. Natasa Kandic, a Serbian human rights activist and founder of the Humanitarian Law Centre, which documents the violations of human rights during the wars in ex-Yugoslavia, said Paunovic’s comments turn Serbia back towards a dark past. “When Serbian government minister Snezana Paunovic presents ethnic cleansing as a political solution, she is not speaking for a Serbia on the path to the European Union, but for the ideology of the wars of the 1990s,” Kandic said on X. The Free Citizens Movement, a liberal Serbian opposition party, urged Prime Minister Duro Macut to dismiss Paunovic. “A person who justifies the expulsion of people solely because of their nationality cannot be a member of the Government of the Republic of Serbia. It is especially dangerous that such messages come from the Minister of State Administration and Local Self-Government, who should guarantee the equality of all citizens before state institutions and respect for the Constitution and the law,” the party said. Copyright BIRN 2015

By William Christou Tehran bombs US allies in Middle East after US attacks on bridges, energy facilities and key port A screengrab from social media shows a damaged bridge in Bandar Khamir, Hormozgan province, Iran. Photograph: Social Media/Reuters The US hit bridges, energy facilities and a key Iranian port on Friday, expanding its aerial campaign against Iran, and prompting swift Iranian strikes against US allies in the Middle East. US airstrikes hit bridges in Iran’s southern Hormozgan province, killing at least seven people, Iranian state TV reported. The bridges were a key transit point for Bandar Abbas, Iran’s main port. Further US airstrikes brought down a tower in Chabahar port on the Gulf of Oman that the US military claimed the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) used to facilitate attacks on vessels in the strait of Hormuz. The US also targeted key electrical infrastructure and Iranshahr airport. Iran’s energy ministry told citizens to reduce their use of electricity and air conditioning after the power grid came under strain due to US strikes on energy facilities. The ministry said areas in the south were experiencing “extreme heat and attacks on power infrastructure” as temperatures in Iran soared Strikes on civilian infrastructure not being used for military purposes could constitute a war crime, human rights experts have said. Renewed US strikes had killed at least 38 people and wounded more than 400 in Iran by Friday morning, said a spokesperson for Iran’s health ministry, Hossein Kermanpour. The attacks appeared to be the follow-through of Donald Trump’s promise to expand strikes against Iran, including the targeting of infrastructure and power plants. The US president reportedly met senior department heads this week to discuss an expanded aerial campaign to force Iran to reopen the strait of Hormuz. Smoke rises after a strike at an unknown location by the US military in Iran. Photograph: US Central Command/Reuters The current round of fighting has entered its seventh day and further undermined the interim deal between Iran and the US, which was meant to keep the strait open and give room for negotiations to lead to a permanent truce. Iran has shut the strait and the US reimposed its blockade of Iranian ports and ships on Wednesday. After the US strikes on Friday, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps threatened a “devastating price” for countries hosting US bases if American attacks against infrastructure continued. “The American enemy and the hosts of its bases in the region should know that crossing red lines and attacking civilians and civilian infrastructure will have a very severe and devastating price to pay,” the IRGC said in a statement. The Iranian military responded to US strikes by targeting Bahrain, Kuwait, Jordan, Oman and Qatar. Qatar, one of the mediators between the US and Iran, had been mostly spared from Iranian retaliation in the recent rounds of violence. Qatari authorities said falling debris wounded a child as air defences intercepted missiles. In Kuwait, authorities said Iranian strikes hit a power and desalination plant, damaging the water facility. The country relies on desalinated water for about 90% of its drinking water. Officials said they were working to assess the damage and get the plant running again. Strikes in Iraqi Kurdistan killed eight members of armed Kurdish opposition groups, which blamed Iran for the strikes. Tehran also claimed to have struck the al-Tanf military base in Syria, although Syrian authorities denied this to Agence France-Presse. The renewed fighting has focused on the strait of Hormuz, which handled about a fifth of the world’s oil and gas supply before the war. Though the memorandum of understanding signed by the US and Iran last month said the strait should be open to traffic, both sides interpreted the deal differently. Washington and Tehran advanced competing plans for ships to transit the strait, with Iran attacking some ships that took the US route. Shipping in the waterway has been drastically reduced over the last few days as violence escalated, though most ships that continued to transit used the Iranian route. A tanker travelling through the strait, on the route closest to Oman, came under attack on Friday, according to the British military. The tanker sustained minor damage but none of its crew were hurt. Iran did not claim responsibility for the attack. Iranian state media also said the US struck an oil tanker which was empty and docked at Kharg Island, Iran’s main oil export terminal on the strait. US marines landed on the M/T Wen Yao in the Gulf of Oman yesterday in an exercise to enforce the naval blockade. Photograph: x.com/Centcom American forces boarded a ship in the Gulf of Oman on Thursday as part of the renewed blockade of Iran’s ports that began earlier this week, the US military said. US marines boarded the M/T Wen Yao “to ensure full compliance with the ongoing US naval blockade”, US Central Command (Centcom) said in a post on X. Centcom also said it had “redirected” three commercial vessels “trying to run the blockade” since it took effect at 8pm GMT on Tuesday. The previous day, a US aircraft fired on and disabled an unladen oil tanker that tried to break the blockade. Iran has asked its allies in Yemen, the Houthis, to be prepared to close the oil route through the Red Sea if the US targets Iranian energy infrastructure, Reuters reported – a threat that, if followed through, could paralyse the global energy market. The Houthi leader, Abdul Malik al-Houthi, also threatened that all Saudi oil and other critical facilities could be targeted by the group if Riyadh intervened in Yemen. The threat came after Saudi Arabia struck Sana’a airport, leading to retaliatory missile strikes from the Houthis on Saudi Arabia. Marines onboard the M/T Wen Yao in the Gulf of Oman on Thursday. Photograph: x.com/Centcom Week-to-week cargo shipments through the strait of Hormuz dropped by almost a quarter at the beginning of the month, according to the maritime data firm Lloyd’s List Intelligence. And that was before the recent rise in tit-for-tat attacks. Given the risks, some oil shippers are transiting the strait with their location devices turned off, but many are just staying put, Lloyd’s said on Thursday. A growing amount of the region’s energy is being shipped through pipelines, but not nearly enough to offset the decline in shipping through the strait. Pakistan’s foreign ministry on Thursday said efforts were still under way to bring the US and Tehran to the negotiating table but acknowledged that was becoming increasingly difficult. Despite the escalating conflict and interruption of trade, Trump said the war was going well for the US. “We are likewise winning big in Iran, and you will see the fruits of that labour very, very shortly,” Trump said in an address to the American public. The Associated Press and Agence France-Presse contributed to this report © 2026 Guardian News & Media Limited or its affiliated companies. All rights reserved. (dcr)

By Michał Jagielski Senior Middle East and Iran Analyst Genocide Watch The protests that took place in late December 2025 through early January 2026 were one of the most significant acts of social opposition to the Iranian religious leadership since the inception of the Islamic Republic in 1979. Their sheer scale, motivations, and, possibly most significantly, the government’s ruthless reaction highlight their importance and potential to drive change. Image: Luis Soto/SOPA Images/Sipa USA/picture alliance Unrest began on December 28, 2025, in response to the dwindling economy. The value of the Iranian rial reached new lows against the American dollar, trading at 1.4 million to 1, 40% inflation caused food prices to rise by around 70% compared to last year, the economy was growing by a mere 1% on an annual basis, and the public’s mood was exacerbated by the perceived mismanagement of state finances by Iran’s authorities. Furthermore, the cost of the 12-day war with the United States and Israel in June 2025, combined with the reintroduction of international sanctions by the United Nations due to Iran’s labored pursuit of its nuclear program, put even more pressure on the already struggling economy. Living conditions in Iran have plummeted in recent years due to water and electricity shortages and air, soil, and water pollution, all of which have not been addressed competently by the authorities. As was the case with most major protests in Iran, including the 1978-1979 revolution against the Shah, the 2025-2026 demonstrations began with the Bazaaris, merchants and shopkeepers, who closed their establishments and staged strikes in major cities. The protests include the full spectrum of Iran’s struggling population, which quickly spread to all 31 provinces. Fueled by economic grievances, the demands of the demonstrators evolved into a general outcry against the political system and its many human rights abuses. People across the country chanted anti-government slogans, with people branding the then Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei a dictator and a small minority calling for the return of Reza Pahlavi, the son of Mohammad Reza Pahlavi. The government’s response was swift and brutal. Despite initially ‘limiting’ their use of physical force to tear gas, water cannons, beatings, and arbitrary arrests, authorities quickly gave security forces almost absolute authority to deal with the protesters in any manner they saw fit. The state deployed all its available forces, including the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), the Basij, and undercover personnel. Security forces stationed on the streets and rooftops began their indiscriminate campaign of murder, shooting men, women, and children as young as 14 years old, with shotguns and rifles. Medical workers treated people admitted to hospitals for close-range gunshot wounds to the face, upper body, eyes, and genitalia. The state-sponsored massacres reached their climax on January 8 and 9, killing thousands of civilians, the most brutal crackdown in decades. In preparation, the authorities imposed an almost complete communications blackout and cut access to the Internet. The exact number of civilians security forces murdered during the protests remains unclear. The figures presented by Human Rights Activists News Agency (HRANA) on February 15, 2026, put the casualties at over 7,000 people, including 226 children. The real numbers are likely significantly higher. The Guardian’s investigation presents evidence consistent with claims that more than 30,000 civilians were murdered. Eyewitness testimonies from hospitals, morgues, and graveyards describe scenes of piles of bodies being loaded into trucks and taken to remote locations to be buried in unmarked mass graves. Convoys of ice cream trucks and produce trucks drove day and night between morgues and undisclosed locations, disposing of the thousands of bodies. Following January 16, the end of the initial stage of the protests, the authorities continued to engage in arbitrary arrests and enforced disappearances. Security forces raided hospitals, and security forces took injured protestors to detention centers. As a result, many people with relatively minor injuries did not seek medical attention and died in their homes. Authorities subjected thousands of detained civilians, including children, to ill-treatment, sexual abuse, and torture. As was the case in previous years, the state framed the protestors as “rioters”, “terrorists”, and “opportunistic elements affiliated with the enemy”. The language used by state officials served two purposes. Firstly, it criminalized legal public dissent and legitimized brutal security crackdowns by presenting demonstrators as savage outlaws. In a speech issued during the protests, Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei addressed the reports of mounting casualties; however, he focused solely on the alleged thousands of patriots and security officials who had been killed in “an inhuman, savage manner”. Furthermore, state television broadcast dozens of confessions in which protestors admitted attacking security forces. The narrative was constructed to shift the blame from incompetent and corrupt state officials to foreign and domestic enemies. By claiming that the murdered and detained participants were acting in the interest of the U.S. and Israel, the government attempted to redirect the attention of its loyalists and people who have not joined the protests from domestic troubles to an external threat. The judiciary handed out capital sentences on an immense scale, charging the demonstrators with moharebeh (enmity against God), a common tool in Tehran's arsenal used against ethnic minorities such as the Kurds and the Baloch, both of which have been accused of working for the benefit of Iran’s enemies. The 2025-2026 Demonstrations are another iteration in the struggle between state authorities and the economically struggling population. Despite many similarities to the 2019 Economic protests and the 2022-2023 Women, Life, Freedom protests, the most recent round of unrest offers many lessons and indications of the future trajectory of the country. The frequency of major protests in Iran seems to be on the rise. The last 10 years alone saw four nationwide instances of public mobilization against the state’s handling of the economy and its oppressive religious laws. Every subsequent protest was larger than the previous one. Even if economic suffering motivated the initial strikes, they quickly evolved into general demands for structural change in the system. This trend has contributed to the continued rise in violent state crackdowns and stigmatizing narratives. Observers can interpret both as desperation and a sign of an eroding status quo. The scale of the protests and the government’s ruthless responses indicate a growing rift between what the authorities and the population believe to be the best path forward. The median age in Iran is 34.5 years, and only around 15% of the population is old enough to remember the brutal dictatorship of the Pahlavi dynasty. Most Iranians have only experienced life under the current system that has consistently brought them pain and injustice. Even though the general domestic mood seems to be growing increasingly anti-government, the lack of alternative political leadership is one of the biggest obstacles on the way to meaningful and long-lasting change. The state successfully extirpated grass-roots initiatives and organized opposition through enforced disappearances and arbitrary arrests. The existing opposition groups are in exile, due to which they might not be best suited to address the issues faced by Iranians in their day-to-day lives. Protesters have repeatedly struggled with a lack of leadership. Without a central figure to rally around, without a face that could negotiate in the best interest of the Iranians, most of the initiatives have quickly faced a dead end, and security forces have rapidly quashed most initiatives. This situation has partially contributed to the sporadic demands for Reza Pahlavi to return; the loudest supporters of the exiled figure are part of the Iranian diaspora. Despite the protests not bringing meaningful change to the country, their scale and the brutality security forces used against them indicate a growing resentment towards the system established in 1979 and possible anxiety among the ruling elites that one day the demonstrations might succeed.

Dr. Gregory Stanton, Founding President of Genocide Watch, was interviewed on July 17, 2026 by Mr. Saqib Tanveer, Editor in Chief for Pakistan TV Digital, about Genocide Watch's warnings concerning the increasing risks of genocide in India against Muslims, Christians, and other minority groups by followers of Prime Minister Modi's exclusionary Hindutva nationalist regime. To view interview, click here or on the image above.

By the Ukraine, Russia, and Post-Soviet Space Area Task Force Picture of Kazakhstan’s President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev voting in Kazakhstan’s 2026 Constitutional Reform, from the Astana Times Photo credit: Akorda On April 15, 2026, Kazakhstan held a referendum on a new constitution. This constitution was promoted as a means for Kazakhstan to move away from its presidential model of governance, ostensibly giving greater powers to its parliament. These measures should have enabled Kazakhstan to establish a system of checks and balances, with room for an unobstructed democratic process. However, the constitution leaves concerning gaps which may allow presidential power to continue effectively dominating the country. In turn, that could allow the state to continue undermining the human rights of its citizens. In this way, the new constitution maintains a facade of reform while codifying the status quo and its flaws. Full Report:

Former dictatorship officer gets life in prison for crimes against humanity. José Ignacio Saravia Day was convicted for the false imprisonment of three soldiers, one of whom remains missing. July 03, 2026 Martina Jaureguy Former military officer José Ignacio Saravia Day was sentenced to life in prison on Friday for the false imprisonment of three soldiers during the last military dictatorship (1976-1983), one of whom remains missing. The conviction comes as part of a trial judging crimes against humanity committed in a police station in La Plata that operated as a detention and torture center in those years. In addition, former Buenos Aires Province Police officer Pedro Muñoz was handed a 15-year sentence for his role as a secondary participant in crimes including kidnapping, torture, murder, child abductions, and forced disappearances also committed at the same police station. The convictions were celebrated by activists and relatives of the victims who were present at the La Plata criminal court. The proceedings originally included an additional three former policemen among the defendants: Jorge Antonio Bergés — known as the “dictatorship’s obstetrician” for delivering babies in clandestine detention centers — who died in February, as well as Cecilio Reinaldo Gómez and Néstor Ramón Buzzato, who died before the oral proceedings began. The kidnapping of the soldiers In the 1970s, Saravia Day used to be a commander of the Mounted Granaderos, the elite military force in charge of the presidential security in Argentina. At the time of the dictatorship, this included those in charge of the military junta. On Friday, Saravia Day was convicted as a co-perpetrator of the forced disappearance of José David Aleksoski (21) and the kidnapping and torture of Juan Ignacio Araujo and Roberto Campos, all of them young soldiers in training. Aleksoski, Araujo, and Campos were complying with the mandatory military service as part of the Granaderos force, serving as guards at the presidential residence in Olivos. According to witness testimonies, on October 22, 1976, Saravia Day was on duty at the residence and asked Aleksoski to run an errand for him. However, the three men were kidnapped and taken to several clandestine centers of detention, including La Plata’s Police Station 5°. While Campos and Araujo survived, Aleksoski was never seen again. The court established that the kidnapping and torture of the three victims took place in a context of political persecution, stating that Saravia Day abused his authority. Saravia Day fled in 2017 after a judge ordered his arrest for his role in the disappearance of Aleksoski. He was found and arrested that same year. The crimes of Pedro Muñoz Former police officer Pedro Muñoz was convicted for crimes committed against over 100 victims. While the prosecutors had requested a life conviction for him, the judges ultimately found him to be a secondary participant in all of them, which led to his sentence being significantly shortened to 15 years. The crimes include the false imprisonment aggravated by the use of violence, threats, and torture against 39 victims who were being politically persecuted. Additional charges included the forced disappearance and torture of 51 victims, of which 14 have been confirmed to be dead. The whereabouts of the remaining 37 are still unknown. Among his victims of false imprisonment were Jorge Omar Bonafini, one of the two disappeared sons of late Mothers of Plaza de Mayo leader Hebe de Bonafini, and Jorge Julio López, a man who survived but disappeared again in 2006 on the day he was supposed to testify against his perpetrators in a trial. He has never been seen again. Muñoz was also convicted for taking part in the abduction or hiding of three children. Two of them were kidnapped alongside their parents. A third one, Leonardo Fossati, was born inside the police station while his mother, Inés Beatriz Ortega, was illegally detained there. Inés remains disappeared and is one of the victims of forced disappearance for which Muñoz was also convicted. He was also convicted for the forced disappearance of another baby born in the police station, Ana Baratti de la Cuadra. Both Ana and Leonardo were raised under false identities but discovered their true origins thanks to the Grandmothers of Plaza de Mayo. Muñoz was also found guilty as a secondary participant of the murder of 12 victims who were also tortured during false imprisonment, as well as the rape of two women and the sexual assault of 6 others. One of them was 14-year-old Mónica Santucho, a girl who was kidnapped during an operation in which her parents were murdered in late 1976. During her forced imprisonment at La Plata’s Police Station 5°, Mónica was brutally tortured and raped. She was last seen in late 1977. Her remains were identified in 2009 by the Argentine Team of Forensic Anthropology. She was found in a mass grave at the Avellaneda public cemetery. In addition, Muñoz was convicted for taking part in the forced disappearance of five pregnant women, one of whom was under 18 years old. The court stated that “women were subjected to various forms of gender-based violence, particularly obstetric violence, as well as violence against children and adolescents.” This is the first ruling in the country to declare that the crimes in question constituted violence against children and teens. All Right Reserved. Buenos Aires Herald