IAEA’s Grossi urges uninterrupted diesel supply for Zaporizhia NPP generators
18:09, 02.10.2026
2 min read
The Zaporizhia Nuclear Power Plant (ZNPP) is considering a further reduction in the number of emergency diesel generators (EDGs) kept in automatic standby as diesel fuel supplies at the site continue to be a concern, IAEA Director General Rafael Mariano Grossi said.
“The availability of sufficient and reliable emergency electricity generation capacity to supply safety-related equipment is essential for the safety of any nuclear facility. The continued lack of diesel deliveries to the ZNPP is exacerbating an already precarious situation,” his statement was quoted as saying in an agency statement.
“The prompt delivery of fuel to the ZNPP would have a large positive impact on nuclear safety at the ZNPP. I call on all sides to work with the IAEA to achieve this goal,” Grossi added.
According to the agency, diesel fuel reserves at the ZNPP remain low following an extended loss of off-site power in August and September, when the plant relied on EDGs for nearly three weeks. Efforts to replenish the reserves have been hampered by military activity in the area. The ZNPP has experienced 10 such losses since June alone and currently relies on a single off-site power line, the 330 kilovolt (kV) Ferosplavna-1 line.
On 29 September the IAEA team at the ZNPP was informed that planned maintenance of electrical equipment in the 750kV switchyard had been delayed due to the security situation. Maintenance of an EDG was also delayed due to the late arrival of contractors.
On 30 September the IAEA was informed of repair work required at the Zaporizhia Thermal Power Plant to increase the robustness of the power supply to the ZNPP. The IAEA is working with the Russian Federation and Ukraine on a ceasefire that should allow for the maintenance work to be carried out.
The ZNPP is Europe’s largest nuclear power plant, with six VVER-1000 reactors. The plant has not generated electricity since September 11, 2022. All six ZNPP reactors are in cold shutdown.
WASHINGTON – President Donald Trump said the United States will begin importing significant amounts of diesel fuel from Russia after an agreement reached with President Vladimir Putin, an extraordinary reversal of U.S. policy that lifts sanctions on Moscow in a bid to lower fuel prices before the midterms.
The move, announced less than one month before the Nov. 3 midterm election, comes as high fuel prices caused by the war in Iran pose major liabilities for Trump and Republicans as they try to hold onto power in Congress. The agreement upends years of U.S. efforts to cut off Russian energy from the global markets after Putin’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine.
Trump, in an Oct. 9 post on Truth Social, said the deal came together during a “highly successful discussion” with Putin. He said Russia will supply U.S. and global marketplaces with 300,000 tons of diesel fuel “immediately” and an additional 1 million tons in November. Trump said Russia will then deliver 3 million tons of diesel fuel “within a short period of time,” though he suggested it will be based on the condition of Russian diesel refineries.
“That is a big deal,” Trump later told reporters at the White House on Oct. 9, thanking Putin by name. “We have massive amounts of oil coming into our country, and it’s diesel, which is what we want.”
President Donald Trump said on Friday he secured an agreement from Russian President Vladimir Putin to supply markets with Russian diesel fuel as he works to bring down energy costs ahead of the midterm elections.
Energy industry analysts, however, say the agreement — which sparked anger in Ukraine — isn’t likely to lower diesel prices in any meaningful way.
Trump wrote on social media that Putin agreed to “immediately supply” more than 300,000 tons of diesel to global energy markets, with another 500,000 tons promised in November. Together, the amounts — equal to 6 million barrels of diesel fuel — would cover about a day and a half worth of US demand, according to the US Energy Information Administration.
Trump said millions more tons of Russian diesel would be supplied following the first tranches “based on the condition of their Diesel Refineries.”
“We are talking PERHAPS a 5-6% increase in supply between now and year end,” Dan Pickering, founder and chief investment officer at Pickering Energy Partners, said about the the president’s announcement in an email.
“Bottom line — this is helpful but not a needle mover for global diesel markets,” Pickering said. “Sidenote — there is a reason Trump talked about volumes in tons instead of barrels. The tons number looks bigger to a general observer. This is more politics than a game changer.”
Russia banned exports of diesel in early July, after Ukrainian drone strikes on its refineries triggered widespread fuel shortages across the country. This cut roughly 800,000 barrels per day from the global market — at a time when supplies were already tight because of the US war against Iran.
The ban was extended last month, aggravating cost pressures on energy.
According to the Kremlin readout of the phone call between the two leaders, Putin told Trump that Russia was “ready to supply oil and petroleum products to the US and global markets.”
“I am confident that this will have a positive impact on the entire global economy,” Putin said, according to the Kremlin.
Trump echoed that statement later on Friday, telling reporters at the White House that “oil prices are already dropping like a rock. So, we’re very happy to get it.”
But analysts — and commodities traders — raised doubts that Russia would be able to live up to that promise.
At the close of trading on Friday, diesel futures were down by about 4%.
But Trump’s announcement was met with anger in Ukraine. Kyiv has long advocated for tougher sanctions on Russian energy exports, arguing that oil and gas revenues are a major source of funding for Russia’s war machine.
Ukraine has also stepped up its attacks on Russian oil infrastructure over the past few months, refusing to stop despite calls from Trump to do so. Just this week, Kyiv has claimed strikes on four different refineries across Russia.
Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky called the move to allow Russia to export diesel “a weak decision of strong partners.”
“This is additional money for this war, for the suffering, and of course against us. This is only fuels Putin and gives him the possibility to fight more,” he said on social media.
The past few months have been exceptionally deadly for Ukrainian civilians as Russia has managed to take advantage of Kyiv’s critical shortage of air defense missiles, launching near non-stop aerial attacks against Ukrainian cities. One such strike on a bus stop in eastern Ukraine killed more than 30 people on Thursday.
Zelensky has made it clear the timing of the announcement — just as a top-level Ukrainian delegation arrived to Miami for talks with US envoy Steve Witkoff and Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner — makes it all the more painful for Kyiv.
“In this exact moment when our team is talking to the American team in Florida, the US President has a conversation with Kremlin leader, with the leader of this war, the leader of this aggression,” he said.
Former US officials say it is unclear if Putin even has the amount of diesel that Trump cited to sell.
Richard Nephew, a former principal deputy coordinator for sanctions policy at the State Department, noted that “the message it sends and the damage it does to the broader sanctions regime is very significant.”
“How does anyone take the sanctions regime seriously?” he questioned, noting that if the US is going to say that they need to use sanctions relief to address an economic issue, “how can we convincingly argue that anyone else shouldn’t use the same excuse?”
A former senior State Department official said it doesn’t matter if Putin can actually deliver the diesel because “now he’s achieved the result he wants” which is Trump thinking he’s gotten a pre-election bump and it might have an impact on the markets.
The timing of the call with the start of the talks with Ukraine is no coincidence.
“Putin is a lot of things, but he’s not stupid,” they said.
The Social Reckoning, Aaron Sorkin’s sequel to The Social Network, asks how we got here. It is not about Twitter or The Odyssey, of course. It’s about Facebook and how it fueled the January 6th insurrection that attempted to disrupt the peaceful transfer of power from Donald Trump to Joe Biden.
See also
The Legacy of the “Facebook Revolution”: How did the Arab Spring shape citizen use of social media?
By Joud Walid, Researcher, Media and Journalism Policy Centre
#BlackLivesMatter; #AllEyesOnRafah; #MeToo. While the relationship between social media and activism may seem obvious and inextricable today, the use of digital platforms to organise and mobilise on a mass scale is a recent phenomenon, one that only solidified itself in the early 2010s, following the Arab Spring. But how did these digital platforms, once considered nothing but engaging social diversions, evolve into such powerful tools for mobilisation, especially in times of political upheaval? Furthermore, if social media was truly so central to the Arab Spring, to what extent has its legacy shaped our use of social media today?
The Arab Spring: A Case Study of Mobilisation
Often dubbed the “Facebook Revolution”, the Arab Spring is credited as the first instance where social media platforms were employed on a mass scale for the mobilisation and rallying of people across the Arab World. Widespread dissatisfaction, anger and frustration over the state of political repression, corruption, and economic hardship saw a series of pro-democracy uprisings and protests erupt in countries such as Tunisia, Egypt, Libya and Syria, as Arab populations took to the streets to voice their grievances.
The call for liberty quickly seeped into the digital world. Erupting at a time where social media was beginning to play a more ubiquitous role in everyday life, protestors filmed themselves chanting at demonstrations, voicing their demands and capturing unfiltered footage of the injustices they were experiencing, all the while broadcasting it to the world on platforms such as Twitter, Facebook and Youtube. This citizen journalism, delivering real-time content on the ground, unedited and uncensored, transformed regular citizens from observers of activism to activists themselves, with a greater stake as leaders of unfolding events (Alterman, 2011).
The trend in citizen documentation was also monumental in invigorating protest. Notably, the fate of Tunisian street vendor Mohamed Bouzizi- who self-immolated in protest of the violence and corruption of Tunisian government officials and law enforcement- was initially suppressed and censored by state television.
However, the harrowing images were captured by citizen journalists and shared widely on social platforms, triggering the very first protests of the Arab Spring in Tunisia (Lageman, 2020). Similarly in Syria, the brutal death of thirteen-year-old Hamza Al-Khatib, who was tortured and killed at the hands of the Syrian regime, sparked massive outrage that galvanised the Syrian protest movement in May of 2011- but only after pictures of his disfigured corpse began circulating on social media (Macleod and Flamand, 2011).
In facilitating this circumvention of state censorship, online platforms allowed the world to see the horrors of authoritarianism in the Arab world. Indeed, though these images were poor in quality, they were strong in content, and social media successfully disseminated them to audiences worldwide.
Another key role that social media played in the Arab Spring was the facilitation of mobilisation and organisation. In Egypt and Tunisia in particular, the ‘when’, ‘where’, and ‘how’ of mobilisation was planned on Facebook prior to major demonstrations. The instantaneous communication allowed for the sharing of critical, time-sensitive updates and for rapid mass coordination, which citizens had found extremely difficult, if not impossible, to do in the past (Smidi and Shahin, 2017, 204).
For this same reason, social media campaigns such as the Facebook group ‘We Are All Khaled Said’ and ‘#Jan25’ were able to become viral, helping raise awareness of stories of injustice- such as the death of 25 year old Egyptian Khaled Said due to police brutality. This rapid spread of stories helped internationalise the conflict on an unprecedented scale, forming international solidarity ties and global activist networks.
A protester holds a placard in Tahrir Square, Cairo, highlighting the role of Facebook during the 2011 Egyptian revolution (Source: Wikimedia Commons / Essam Sharaf)
Key Takeaway: DRC President Félix Tshisekedi’s special envoy undertook a regional tour to rally support for the DRC’s plan to demobilize the Forces démocratiques de libération du Rwanda (FDLR).Three of the African Union mediators for the DRC peace process visited Goma and Kigali to meet with regional stakeholders.Pro-Congolese government forces retook Remeka town and claimed control of other areas in southern Masisi district in North Kivu as significant fighting continued into early October. The US-backed Ruzizi hydropower plant project is reportedly back in limbo after a Chinese firm withdrew from the project’s consortium.
Ex-UFC fighter Tim Kennedy among injured in Congo as Blackwater founder Erik Prince’s forces suffer heavy casualties
An ambush in the Democratic Republic of Congo has reportedly left former UFC middleweight contender Tim Kennedy wounded, according to emerging reports.
Tim Kennedy was reportedly among three personnel caught in a firefight last month, according to the outlet. He suffered several gunshot wounds and was subsequently flown to the United States for medical care, with his condition described as stable.
GOMA, Congo — In a makeshift nightclub in the hull of the overnight ferry from Goma to Bukavu, a handful of teenage boys are trying out some new moves. Some land, some don’t. When they don’t, the elderly man on the bench next to us nudges us and rolls his eyes, amused.
The DJ, who has so far been playing the usual Afrobeats hits and Congolese rumba, whips out a more unexpected Communist crossover: the Russian Internationale — the pre-1944 Soviet national anthem — mixed with a Congolese beat. People immediately pack the dancefloor.
Here in eastern Congo, enthusiasm is palpable for the “Russians,” a catch-all term for the roughly 1,000 Eastern European mercenaries stationed in Goma as well as actual Russian mercenaries embedded in other fragile states — and the Russian government, which said in March that it approved a tentative military cooperation agreement with Kinshasa.
The reason is simple. Since 2022, this area has been mired in one of the world’s most catastrophic conflicts. With Rwanda’s help, the M23 militia has raped and massacred its way through the North Kivu province and is edging nearer to the regional capital Goma — close enough that, the night before, we could hear the rumble of explosions outside the city.
The conflict has displaced millions, wrecked lives and livelihoods and destroyed the modest tourist industry. Even the endangered mountain gorillas, the area’s most lucrative draw for visitors, have fled the besieged Virunga National Park to neighboring Rwanda.
With international attention taken up by the wars in Ukraine and Gaza, there is little interest in the crisis here and no hope of support from the West. The East African Community sent some soldiers early on, but the alliance quickly soured. Even the UN peacekeepers are packing up to leave.
Congo is desperate for help, and the only groups keen to step in are mercenaries, Russian and otherwise, circling to see what they can gain.
Wazalendo protesters are detained after a banned rally in Goma, North Kivu Province, Republic of Congo.Moses Kasereka / EPA / TASS
Increasingly, too, a complex web of military and commercial actors from Russia, China, UAE, the U.S., France, Bulgaria and Romania — the interests of which on paper should not overlap — appear to be working together to maximize this extraction.
Historically, inviting in foreign militaries and especially mercenary groups has gone spectacularly badly throughout Africa.
And while Russia may have pulled off an impressive PR feat by convincing Congolese citizens that it will be a genuine ally, its mercenary forces’ actions elsewhere on the continent tell a very different story.
“The Wagner Group and other emerging Russia-backed forces and ‘advisers’ exploit the resources and people of African countries for their personal gain. They are a threat to stability and prosperity in countries where they are present,” a spokesperson for the U.S. State Department said in an emailed statement.
“These forces do not lower terrorism but rather exacerbate the threat by pursuing draconian, violent tactics. This results in dramatic increases of cyclical violence,” the spokesperson added.
As Western countries sanctioned Moscow following its 2014 annexation of Crimea, the Kremlin began frantically pushing to sign military cooperation deals with various African nations. This included a May 2019 military agreement with Congo’s neighbor, Congo-Brazzaville/Republic of the Congo, that saw Russia send military specialists to the country and help maintain its Soviet-made equipment. The Kremlin claimed it inked a similar agreement with Congo earlier this year.
Since 2017, Russia has also aggressively expanded its military presence across Africa through the Wagner Group, a collection of front companies and Russian mercenary outfits formerly owned by the late businessman Yevgeny Prigozhin.
Once a close ally of President Vladimir Putin, Prigozhin launched the Wagner Group following the annexation of Crimea to further the Kremlin’s foreign policy goals even as sanctions piled up and the country became diplomatically isolated.
The U.S. designated the Wagner Group as a transnational criminal organization in January 2023, and the Treasury sanctioned connected individuals and companies.
But by May last year, it was believed to have around 5,000 mercenaries stationed in Africa — many of whom were former Russian soldiers and convicts.
Wagner troops have been detected in Mali, Sudan, Central African Republic, Libya and Mozambique, and its mercenaries have been accused of torture, rape, child abduction and summary execution of civilians. Wagner-linked companies are allegedly involved in gold smuggling and illegal mineral exploitation, using Cameroon as a logistics and transport hub. The group also engaged in election meddling (through AFRIC, Prigozhin’s fake election monitoring organization) in Congo, Zimbabwe, Madagascar, Mozambique and South Africa.
Ukraine Joins the Fight Against Russian Mercenaries in Africa
In brief: Ukraine is boosting ties with Africa by offering military training, aiding refugees, and countering Russian influence through diplomacy, humanitarian aid, and food security efforts.
light of this incident, the company has rebranded twice: once to Xe Services, and then to Academi.
The Wagner Group was recently identified as the perpetrators of a massacre in Mali, which killed at least 500 people. They have also been involved in questionable recruiting practices since the start of the War in Ukraine, such as recruiting convicted felons and criminals.
And we see thousands who have mobilised to protest in current times, many receiving right wing aggressive crushing of their efforts, but many succeeding within a democracy to let the people choose.
Egypt’s Talaat Moustafa Group (TMG) launches global Sylvester Stallone campaign for EGP 1.6 trillion SouthMed project
Egypt’s Talaat Moustafa Group Holding (TMG) has launched a global promotional campaign fronted by Hollywood actor Sylvester Stallone for its SouthMed tourism project, a development with investments nearing EGP 1 trillion and anticipated sales of EGP 1.6 trillion (approximately $35bn).
The campaign for the 23m square metre (5,500 feddan) project in El Dabaa on the North Coast accumulated millions of views on digital platforms within hours of its release for the summer 2026 season. The marketing push coincides with a new sales phase featuring 15-year payment terms, aimed at leveraging TMG’s leading 38 per cent market share in the region.
In the promotional video, Sylvester Stallone provided a testimonial for the development, stating: “I’ve visited many destinations on the Mediterranean, but from time to time you discover a place that is different in all its details, and SouthMed is one of those rare places.”
Abu Dhabi wealth fund ADQ announced on Saturday that it will acquire a 40.5% stake in ICON, the listed hospitality arm of Egypt’s Talaat Moustafa Group (TMG), allowing the ADQ to take part ownership of several luxury hotels across the country.
The value of the acquisition was not disclosed.
Under the deal, a special purpose vehicle owned by ADQ and its unit Abu Dhabi National Exhibitions Company (ADNEC), with respective 49% and 51% holdings, will carry out a capital increase to acquire the ICON stake.
EFG Hermes is acting as the sole financial advisor to TMG Holding on the transaction, which is currently under the customary closing conditions.
In December, TMG’s ICON finalized an $882 million deal to acquire a 39% stake in Legacy Hotels, which owns seven historical state-owned hotels.
The seven hotels are Sofitel Legend Old Cataract Aswan, Mövenpick Resort Aswan, Sofitel Winter Palace Luxor, Steigenberger Hotel Tahrir, Steigenberger Cecil Hotel Alexandria, Marriott Mena House Cairo, and Marriott Omar Khayyam Zamalek.
ICON owns four operational hotels, which are Four Seasons Cairo at Nile Plaza, Kempinski Nile Hotel Cairo, Four Seasons Sharm El-Sheikh, and Four Seasons Alexandria at San Stefano.
“The transaction represents a major foreign direct investment in Egypt and marks a strong vote of investor confidence in the Egyptian tourism and hospitality sector,” ADQ said in a statement.
Post-transaction, ICON will have a combined portfolio of 15 luxury and upscale hospitality assets with a total of around 5,000 keys in prime locations including Cairo, Luxor, Aswan, Sharm El Sheikh, and Alexandria.
The acquired hotels in Egypt are managed by best-in-class operators and will continue to benefit from the synergies, resources, and in-country expertise of TMG Holding, according to ADQ.
“The investment in ICON is an important strategic step for ADNEC Group, as we deliver on our global expansion strategy and will provide ADNEC Group and its portfolio companies with access to Egypt’s rapidly growing tourism market and reaffirms our commitment to enhance our hospitality and tourism platform,” said Humaid Matar Al Dhaheri, managing director and group CEO of ADNEC Group.
“We will work closely with TMG Holding to enhance and grow ICON and create additional value for our shareholders,” he added.
ADQ said that this transaction reinforces its interest in investing in assets that can provide continued upside growth and sustainable returns. ADQ is a long-term investor in the Egyptian economy.
Meanwhile, Hisham Talaat Moustafa, CEO and Managing Director of TMG Holding noted: “We are delighted to have ADQ and ADNEC join us as strategic partners and shareholders in this landmark transaction and provide for an exciting outlook going forward. Through this partnership, we will pursue substantial growth opportunities in Egypt’s tourism sector and beyond and will unlock further value for our shareholders.”
In the past years, ADQ has made investments in market leaders across different sectors, including the acquisition of Amoun Pharmaceutical Company., one of Egypt’s leading pharmaceutical manufacturers, distributors, and exporters.
ADNEC Group has evolved into a full-service tourism solutions provider by creating Tourism 365, a leisure tourism arm, that has existing operations in Egypt and hence offers significant synergistic potential with the investment in ICON.
Europe fortifies itself against Russia’s hybrid war
Europe’s allies strengthen security as the Kremlin’s sabotage and hostile actions increase
Rescue teams carry the body of a woman killed in a Russian attack on a residential neighborhood in Zaporizhzhia, last Saturday.Kateryna Klochko (AP/LaPresse)
Russia is stepping up its hybrid war against Europe. From sabotage, drone incursions, and arson to plots (mostly foiled) to assassinate pro‑Ukraine activists and Russian dissidents on European soil, the Kremlin is testing the allied response, and incidents against NATO’s European partners are becoming more serious, such as the explosive‑laden drones found this summer at Leipzig Airport in Germany. That gray line between a hybrid attack and a conventional one is blurring, and several European intelligence sources warn of the risk that one of those incidents could escalate — either by a deliberate Kremlin decision or a miscalculation.
“What would have happened if the explosives at Leipzig Airport had detonated?” asks a senior EU source. Senior European and NATO officials consulted over the past week share the concern — not because of a conventional military assault but because that gray boundary is becoming ever more fragile. “The greatest danger now is that the hybrid war will accidentally cross a red line,” says another veteran source, who points to an incident two weeks ago in which flares were fired from a Russian frigate at a Danish helicopter as an example.
In fact, Emily Ferris, a researcher at the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI), says the serious episode involving explosive drones in Leipzig — which Germany clearly attributed to the Kremlin on September 1 — “showed that Moscow, and probably NATO itself, still lacks clarity on the current red lines that would trigger a military response.”
The Kremlin is furious at the stalemate in its war against Ukraine — which is approaching its fifth anniversary — and is moving to undermine allied support for Kyiv while testing the West’s response capacity, which so far has been relatively mild. The uptick in attacks is also occurring at an especially vulnerable moment for Europe, as it considers how to operate without the security umbrella of the United States and on the eve of a key super election year for the European project.
In recent weeks the alarm has risen sharply and Europe is beginning to bunker down against a threat that is becoming less and less hybrid. “We are preparing to face and survive a new kind of war,” admits a European intelligence source. One that does not necessarily involve missiles or tanks but could paralyze a country and undermine society through cuts to water and energy supplies, disruptions to computer systems, or weeks‑long closures of its airports, the source stresses.
Temperatures are rising in European capitals and the secret visit by CIA director John Ratcliffe to Moscow on August 25, the mystery over its purpose, and the messages he received there, has fed concern. The trip revived an unsettling precedent: the last time a CIA director traveled to Moscow was in November 2021, when William Burns tried to dissuade the Kremlin from invading Ukraine. Vladimir Putin launched the full‑scale war on February 24, 2022. As such, Keir Giles, a researcher at the Chatham House think tank, says the comparison is inevitable — and the parallel, he adds, shows how seriously the U.S. appears to view the current Russian threats.
Hybrid warfare is not episodic, but a permanent feature of Russia’s strategy, rooted in Soviet “active measures” and enhanced by modern tools like artificial intelligence–enabled information manipulation and cyber operations. It exploits the seams of open societies — disinformation, cyber, sabotage, coercion — below the war threshold.
Defensive measures such as cybersecurity and critical infrastructure protection mitigate damage but do not deter Russia, which exploits ambiguity and inaction in the gray zone.
Western responses must go beyond resilience, imposing credible costs — through sanctions, cyber countermeasures, diplomatic expulsions, and legal actions — that outweigh the benefits Russia gains from hybrid operations. Resilience alone will not stop hybrid warfare; allies should pair deterrence-by-denial with deterrence-by-punishment.
Deterrence principles must address clear credibility, capability, and communication, and all these measures must remain grounded in the rule of law to ensure legitimacy, allied unity, and stability.
Practical countermeasures to Russian hybrid threats should include public attribution and naming-and-shaming, enhanced NATO and European Union (EU) intelligence sharing, stronger maritime and infrastructure security, targeted sanctions against Russian elites and networks, expulsions of intelligence-linked diplomats, and dismantling of disinformation networks.
A coordinated NATO-EU approach is essential, aligning the EU’s economic and legal levers with NATO’s military and cyber capabilities to prevent Russia from exploiting divisions.
Instead of warning Russia of the possible ramifications of its actions, allies should be proactive by imposing timely, coordinated costs to make hybrid aggression a losing bet for the Kremlin.
This is part of an article from back in March of 2026. The Israeli settlers have continued to demolish mosques, homes, farms of the Bedouins who have lived on this land for countless generations.
Bedouin communities – Dispossession and entrapment
From desert nomads to displaced people: The Ongoing Nakba of the Bedouins
March 17, 2026 at 7:27 pm
Israeli army continue attacks on the El-Halayil Bedouin community, forcing 11 Palestinian families to leave their homes in Ramallah, West Bank on February 21, 2026. [Issam Rimawi – Anadolu Agency]
As the war in Gaza continues to devastate Palestinian life, and the ongoing confrontation involving Iran, Israel, and the United States deepens regional instability, another quieter tragedy unfolds on the margins of the conflict. The Bedouins – long-standing desert communities whose lives have been intertwined with the fragile ecosystems of the Middle East – find themselves caught in the crosscurrents of militarization, displacement, and geopolitical rivalry.
While global attention focuses on the spectacle of war, Bedouin communities across the Naqab (Negev), the occupied West Bank, and parts of Sinai endure intensifying dispossession, settler violence, and forced displacement. Their struggle, largely invisible in global headlines, reflects a deeper pattern of erasure that has accompanied the Palestinian catastrophe since 1948 and which now risks accelerating under the cover of wider regional war.
Bedouins (from the Arabic badawi, “desert dweller”) are traditionally nomadic, Arabic-speaking tribes who have inhabited the deserts of the Middle East and North Africa for centuries. They are pastoral nomads, traditionally raising camels, goats, and sheep, and living in portable black goat-hair tents.
Palestinian Bedouin communities – both within the occupied West Bank and in the Naqab – are facing accelerated displacement, sometimes described as a “slow-motion genocide” or “spaciocide” aimed at erasing their presence.
Historically, they moved across arid landscapes in search of water and grazing land for their livestock.
Bedouin society is patriarchal and tribal, who place a strong emphasis on community, honour, loyalty, and hospitality. While many still live in the desert, others have settled into permanent modern homes.
Today, while some Bedouins continue to herd and live in desert environments, others have adapted to more sedentary lifestyles. Their cultural traditions are often highlighted in tourism sectors in countries such as Jordan, Egypt, and the UAE.
In 1948, over 110,000 Bedouins were displaced from the Negev/Naqab, reducing the population to around 11,000 who were subsequently confined to a designated area. The ongoing post-1948 context is often described as an “ongoing Nakba,” where the Bedouin community in the Naqab is caught between state-driven dispossession and efforts to secure legal rights to their ancestral lands. The remaining Bedouins were placed under strict military rule until 1966. During this period, the state used the “Absentee Property Law” to declare Bedouin lands as “unregistered” or “absentee” property, enabling large-scale land confiscation. To further limit land claims and centralize control, the government later concentrated Bedouin populations into seven state-established townships.
Despite being a subaltern minority, Bedouins have engaged in both resistance and, at times, tactical legal or economic engagement with Israeli authorities to maintain their presence.
Post-Nakba (1948), the political background of the Bedouins in Israel and the occupied territories has been characterized by forced displacement, rapid sedentarization, marginalization, and ongoing struggles over land rights.
Bedouin youth face extreme stress, experiencing both anger toward Israeli policies and fear of violence, while often lacking basic protection such as bomb shelters in unrecognized villages. Many struggle daily without running water, electricity, or adequate schools. Communities are frequently threatened by military training exercises and settler violence. In places like the Muarrajat village, settlers have forced families off their land, destroying their traditional and sustainable ways of life.
In the Sinai Peninsula, Bedouin communities face a different but equally severe form of marginalization. Many are trapped in poverty with limited economic opportunities and an inability to register land ownership. The collapse of tourism and continuing instability have further weakened their livelihoods. Despite these hardships, Bedouin individuals have demonstrated remarkable courage and solidarity.
Independent international commissions, UN experts, and various human rights organizations have accused Israel of committing genocide against Palestinians in Gaza since October 2023, characterized by mass killing, forced displacement, and the systematic destruction of life-sustaining infrastructure. In this broader context, Palestinian Bedouin communities – both within the occupied West Bank and in the Naqab – are facing accelerated displacement, sometimes described as a “slow-motion genocide” or “spaciocide” aimed at erasing their presence.
Since October 7, 2023, there has been a sharp increase in settler violence and military actions leading to the displacement of numerous Bedouin communities in the Jordan Valley and the South Hebron Hills. Bedouins are being pushed off their land through mechanisms such as 48-hour expulsion orders and the designation of areas as “closed military zones,” which then enable the expansion of illegal Israeli settlements. In one documented incident, residents of the Bedouin village of Wadi as-Seeq were forced out by armed soldiers and settlers, marking a clear example of a systematic policy to seize Palestinian land.
Human rights defenders argue that Israel is exploiting global focus on the war in Gaza to intensify what they describe as the “de-Palestinisation” of other areas, including East Jerusalem and the West Bank. Bulldozers, demolitions, and forced removals – methods visible in Gaza – are increasingly being applied in the West Bank to target Bedouin communities
Pro-Palestinian demonstrators protest against Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly in New York City on Sept. 24, 2026. Photo by Bing Guan/Reuters
RFK Jr.’s Enhanced Security Was Funded With Money From Minority Health Office
What Happened: HHS took about $12 million from the Office of Minority Health to help pay for RFK Jr.’s security as his protection costs jumped from roughly $10 million to $17 million a year. HHS also canceled 16 grants for programs including maternal care, chronic disease screenings, and access to fresh food.
Why It Matters: Money meant to provide health care and services to low-income communities was used to help pay for Kennedy’s increasingly expensive security.
Russell Vought and His Budgeting Cronies Are Using This Sketchy Loophole to Control Government Spending
Why the hell are Republican senators letting it happen?By Charles P. PiercePublished: Oct 02, 2026 5:00 PM EDT
Senator Ron (Shreds of Freedom) Johnson has been eclipsed on the calendar of Republican senatorial foolishness by the likes of Tommy Tuberville and, most recently, Eric Schmitt. But there’s life in the old fella yet. He personally intervened to allow the odious Office of Management and Budget to use a strategy of dubious legality to impound nearly a billion dollars in appropriations that already had been passed by the Congress. Emine Yücel has been bulldogging these shenanigans for Talking Points Memo.
A congressional watchdog agency, the Government Accountability Office (GAO), published a post Wednesday morning reaffirming that “pocket rescissions”—a supposed loophole that the Trump White House thinks it can use to seize Congress’ power of the purse—are illegal.
“A pocket rescission is illegal as we explained in our most recent decision on pocket rescissions,” GAO wrote in its WatchBlog, referring to a 2018 report the agency put out that states, “amounts proposed for rescission must be made available for prudent obligation before the amounts expire, even where the 45-day period for congressional consideration provided in the ICA approaches or spans the date on which funds would expire.”
[OMB head Russell] Vought and his allies believe they have found a loophole in the budgeting process that, they claim, allows them to declare congressionally approved funding rescinded if a rescissions package is sent to Congress close to the end of the fiscal year when funds will expire. Normally, a formal rescissions request starts a 45-day clock in which the executive branch is allowed to withhold the cash in question that it is asking to claw back. But if the request comes in 45 days before the new fiscal year is set to begin on October 1, Vought contends, the White House could withhold the money for that timeframe, regardless of whether Congress takes action on the package, and then claim that the funding is expired when the fiscal year ends.
Vought is trying this Mickey Mouse finagling again. Last week, Senate Democrats tried to force a vote on a bill that would block these so-called pocket rescissions now and in the future. On Wednesday night, however, Johnson rose up and objected to the bill, effectively killing it.
So, around 7 p.m., we got our answer: Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI) objected to the bill. He did not directly address the way in which Vought’s maneuvering has run roughshod over one of Congress’ most important duties: dictating federal spending. He shrugged that all government spending should be reduced, and then said the law around impoundments was vague. “It’ll probably have to be all sorted out by the Supreme Court,” he said. That much is right, and the Court has already shown an openness to what Vought is trying to do.
President Donald Trump personally ordered OBM director Russell Vought to find taxpayer money for TV ads promoting his presidency, triggering a $20 million government contract funded through Customs and Border Protection (CBP), according to a new report.
The New York Timesreported Friday that Trump instructed Vought, who runs the Office of Budget Management, to come up with the money from inside the federal government after expressing enthusiasm for ads about himself and his administration.
The money, according to the Times, was ultimately drawn from funds available to CBP and shifted on September 19 into a Department of Homeland Security budget category for “commemorative events.” One day later, CBP awarded a $20 million “national media campaign” contract to Maryland marketing firm LMD.
The Times, citing 12 people familiar with the process, reported that Trump had been eager to get the promotional spots on television and personally approached Vought about financing them. White House Counsel Will Scharf and OMB counsel Mark Paoletta concluded that DHS money could legally be used, according to the report.
The $170 billion price tag for immigration enforcement eclipses other law enforcement expenditures at the federal, state, and local level. It is more than the annual expenditures on police by state and local governments in all 50 states and the District of Columbia combined.
Even the slice that goes just to ICE this year – nearly $29 billion – exceeds the budgets for all other non-immigration federal law enforcement functions put together, eclipsing funding to agencies whose law enforcement missions involve pursuing terrorists, violent criminals, sex offenders, fentanyl and other drug traffickers, and gun traffickers.
In the October 27, 2025, issue of The New Yorker, Andy Kroll wrote a long profile of Russell Vought, the director of the White House Office of Management and Budget. I read it then and wondered why we heard so little about a man with so much power over the money Congress appropriates.
Nearly a year later, I had the same question: What has he done lately?
On September 25, the White House sent Congress a request to cancel roughly $810 million that Congress had already appropriated for health, education, housing, and other programs. Most of it—$567 million—comes from funds for services to refugees, asylum seekers, and other noncitizens. The request arrived only days before the September 30 end of the fiscal year.
This is what is called a pocket rescission.
Ordinarily, a president can ask Congress to cancel previously approved funding, and Congress has time to decide. By making the request just before the money expires, the administration seeks to keep the money from being used even if Congress never agrees to cancel it. The White House says the spending should end. The nonpartisan Government Accountability Office put it plainly in its explanation of the tactic: “Unlike pocket vetoes, pocket rescissions aren’t allowed.” They are illegal. On September 29, GAO told lawmakers and Vice President Vance that the administration cannot lawfully withhold these funds past the September 30 expiration date. That is GAO’s legal conclusion; a court has not ruled on this particular $810 million request. In a similar foreign-aid dispute last year, the Supreme Court temporarily paused an order requiring funds to be committed before they expired. The Court expressly said its decision was not a final ruling on the merits; that case also involved foreign affairs, unlike the domestic programs targeted now.
Republican Senator Susan Collins, who chairs the Senate Appropriations Committee, objected, saying OMB cannot decide for itself which programs are worth funding. Democratic Senator Patty Murray and Representative Brendan Boyle condemned the move as well. Their objections are about more than any one program: Who gets the final say when Congress has passed a spending law?
Trump $5000 Dividend Check: President Donald Trump stood before a roaring crowd at the American Airlines Center in Dallas on Wednesday night, September 9, 2026, and made a promise that instantly became the biggest political story of the week: a $5,000 dividend check for every adult American citizen. The announcement came during the Republican Party’s first-ever midterm convention, and Trump tied the payout directly to the outcome of the November midterm elections. “If the Republicans win the House of Representatives and the United States Senate, both of them,” he told the crowd, “I will issue a dividend to every adult citizen in the United States of America for $5,000.” He compared the idea to a company handing out cash distributions to its shareholders, framing ordinary Americans as stakeholders in the nation’s economic performance. We’ll be updating this article monthly as new details, legislation, or official guidance emerge.
Within hours, the Trump dividend pledge had triggered a wave of fact-checking, cost estimates, and political pushback. Independent analysts quickly pegged the price tag of the proposal at somewhere between $1.2 trillion and $1.35 trillion, based on Census Bureau estimates of roughly 240 to 270 million adult U.S. citizens. That figure alone makes this one of the largest single cash-payment proposals ever floated by a sitting U.S. president, dwarfing even the COVID-era stimulus checks sent out under both the Trump and Biden administrations in 2020 and 2021. Yet, as of this writing, there is no legislation, no funding mechanism, no confirmed eligibility criteria, and no payment date. What exists is a campaign-style pledge made from a convention stage, and this article breaks down everything currently known, everything that remains unconfirmed, and what would have to happen before a single check goes out.
Trump appears to mix up Brazil’s presidential election with India’s as he calls US voting ‘corrupt’
Story by Siladitya Ray, Forbes Staff
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Topline
President Donald Trump appeared to mix up India and Brazil in a late Sunday night Truth Social post about the latter’s presidential election results—where Trump’s ally Flávio Bolsonaro advanced to a runoff—where he once again attacked the U.S. voting and counting process as “corrupt,” without citing any evidence.
![Israeli army continue attacks on the El-Halayil Bedouin community, forcing 11 Palestinian families to leave their homes in Ramallah, West Bank on February 21, 2026. [Issam Rimawi - Anadolu Agency]](https://i0.wp.com/www.middleeastmonitor.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/02/AA-20260221-40631406-40631404-ISRAELI_FORCES_DISPLACE_11_PALESTINIAN_FAMILIES_FROM_IN_RAMALLAH.jpg?fit=920%2C613&ssl=1)
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