Breaking new records, Israel sees unprecedented spike in media censorship

May 2, 2025

Haggai Matar

In 2024, Israel's military censor banned 1,635 articles from publication and partially redacted another 6,265 — part of a wider assault on freedom of press.

 

The front pages of newspapers in Israel at a shop in Jerusalem during the judicial overhaul, July 25, 2023. (Chaim Goldbeg/Flash90)

'Mockery' of Humanitarian Law: Israel Wants US Mercenaries for Aid Relief in Gaza

May 5, 2025

Jon Queally

What the Israeli government is planning is "not an aid plan," said one legal scholar, but rather "an aid denial plan."

 

 Displaced Palestinians, including children, crowd to receive hot meals distributed by charities in the Al-Mawasi area of Khan Yunis, southern Gaza, on May 3, 2025. The food distribution comes amid Israel's ongoing attacks and blockade, which have led to a deepening humanitarian crisis in the Gaza Strip. (Photo by Abed Rahim Khatib/Anadolu via Getty Images)

World military spending explodes

May 5, 2025

Danica Rachel

Global military spending is skyrocketing. The total spent on waging or preparing for war in 2024 was about US$2.7 trillion, 9.4 percent more in real terms than in 2023, according to the latest Stockholm International Peace Research Institute estimates. This is the biggest year-on-year increase since the institute began tracking world military expenditure in 1988.

 

Europe is erasing WWII’s truth – but Nazi crimes must never be forgotten

May 5, 2025

Sonja van den Ende

Fascism has resurged in Europe, with neo-Nazis masquerading as nationalists – most notably in Ukraine, where a far-right regime tightens its grip.

3 People Die in ICE Custody in April as Conditions Worsen in Immigration Jails

May 4, 2025

Mike Ludwig

At least seven people have died while incarcerated by ICE since Trump’s term began.

 

LIVE BLOG: ‘Direct Impact’ at Ben Gurion | Demolitions in Rafah | Israeli Soldiers Fled on Oct 7 – Day 576

Mary 4, 2025

Killed	Wounded	Missing
52,535	118,491	14,000

 

 Palestinians seek refugee in makeshift tents in Jabaliya, northern Gaza. (Photo: via QNN)

Sinjil: Palestinian town besieged by settler violence and Israeli army wall

May 3, 2025
Fayha Shalash

With farmland cut off and homes under threat, residents say Sinjil is becoming a prison surrounded by walls and expanding settlements

Palestinian farmer Ahmad Khalil reacts as he stands amid the charred remains of his agricultural installation, following an attack by Israeli settlers in the village of Sinjil, north of the occupied West Bank city of Ramallah on 23 April 2025 (AFP/Zain Jaafar)

The Economic Fallout From Deadly Blast At Iran’s ‘Golden Gateway’ Of Trade

May 3, 2025
Kian Sharifi

I’m RFE/RL correspondent Kian Sharifi. In this edition, I’m looking at the potential economic impact of a massive explosion at Iran’s Shahid Rajaei port and whether it will impact Iranian trade and hopes for foreign investment.

In the midst of despair over Gaza, a regional struggle for freedom is brewing

May 2, 2025

Sai Englert

As Israel wages genocide in Gaza with impunity, mass movements across the Arab world are once again rising up - against both Zionism and the regimes that enable it

 

'Democracy Is on Life Support': Trump Orders Defunding of NPR and PBS

May 2, 2025

Jake Johnson

"All of us who care about an independent press, an informed populace, a responsive government, and a thriving democracy have a stake in the outcome of this fight," said one press freedom advocate.

Demonstrators urge Congress to protect funding for NPR and PBS in Washington, D.C. on March 26, 2025. (Photo: Saul Loeb/AFP via Getty Images)

Russia and Ukraine ‘closer’ to settlement – Rubio

May 2, 2025

RT

The sides are nonetheless “far apart,” meaning a breakthrough is needed for the conflict to end, the US secretary of state has said

With USAID shuttered, Palestine’s most vulnerable lose a lifeline

April 30, 2025
Ella Halpern-Matthews
On Jan. 26, Dr. Sahar Alkawasmeh received a letter informing her that USAID funding to her organization, ADWAR (Roles for Social Change Association), had been suspended for 90 days, pending review. All work was to cease immediately.

An ADWAR employee cooks bread for displaced women as part of the “Resilience In Every Slice” initiative, in Deir al-Balah, Gaza, Dec. 8, 2024. (Courtesy of ADWAR)

Trump Quietly Took Away a Living Wage From Thousands of Federal Workers

May 1, 2025
Michael Arria
Companies can now illegally pay federal contractors less than the current minimum wage and face no consequences.

PFAS Found in Condoms and Lubricants

April 8, 2025
According to a study by the consumer safety advocacy group Mamavation, popular brands of condoms and lubricants contain PFAS, per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances or so-called “forever chemicals,” Tom Perkins reported for the Guardian in July 2024.

A region on the brink: The global implications of the war on Gaza

April 30, 2025
On October 7, 2023, the military wing of the Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas), the group that governs the Palestinian territory of Gaza, breached the barrier that has surrounded the densely populated area for the last 16 years, preventing the free flow of people and goods. The militants then launched an attack on 22 nearby Israeli settlements, towns, and military bases, killing around 1,200 civilians and soldiers and taking at least 199 hostages.

Gains and gaps in gender equality in North Macedonia

April 30, 2025
Kristina Hadzi-Vasileva

Significant disparities emerge among the individual indicators of gender equality analyzed by the World Economic Forum

‘Manners in Macedonia. Ladies first.’ Caricature by George Denholm Armour published in Punch magazine on September 26, 2017, on display at the Museum of the City of Skopje's exhibition ‘Foreign painters in Macedonia in the period 1850–1950′ from the collection of Vlatko Miloshevski. Photo by Filip Stojanovski, used with permission.

Federal judge orders release of Palestinian student Mohsen Mahdawi from ICE detention

April 30, 2025
Michael Arria
A federal judge in Vermont ordered Mohsen Mahdawi be released from detention and compared the administration's crackdown on dissent to the Red Scare. Upon his release, Mahdawi declared, “To President Trump and his cabinet: I am not afraid of you.”

Mohsen Mahdawi addressing the press and supporters outside a Vermont courthouse following his release, on 4/30/25

مرگ

مرگ یعنی‌ پایان آنچه زندگی‌ نام نهاده‌ایم. این واژه عموما بسیاری را به خود جلب می‌کند و شخص کنجکاو می‌شود که منظور از عنوان این واژه چیست. آیا ما به دانش بیشتری در مورد  این پدیده نیاز داریم؟ چرا که مرگ به معنی‌ پایان آن چیزی است که زندگی‌ می‌نامیم، و به جز این عنوان چیز دیگری از آن نمی‌دانیم. البته می‌دانیم که این عاقبت همهٔ ماست، و بنابراین، کنجکاو می‌شویم که بعد از آن چه میاید و در پشت این پرده، یعنی‌ مرگ، چیست. در حالی‌که اگر این واژه را در گوگل فارسی جستجو کنیم، به هزاران و شاید میلیون‌ها مطلب در مورد مرگ برخورد کنیم، و شاید هیچیک واقعیت را بیان نکند.ا

PHOTOS: Besieged by settlers, Palestinians race to harvest wheat early

April 28, 2025
Georgia Gee & Dikla Taylor-Sheinman

Repeatedly harassed and chased off their land, farmers in Wadi Al-Rakhim were finally able to reap their crops last Friday — but only by sheer luck.

The Alhuraini brothers record and try to stop a settler dressed in army clothing from harassing them, in Wadi Al-Rakhim, April 25, 2025 (Georgia Gee)

'Trump Is Trying to Break Us,' Carney Warns as Liberals Win Canadian Election

April 29, 2025
Jake Johnson
Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney declared that his country's "old relationship with the United States... is over" after leading his Liberal Party to victory in Monday's federal election, a contest that came amid U.S. President Donald Trump's destructive trade war and threats to forcibly annex Canada.