Category World News

Mohammed Ibrahim, 16, is recovering after allegedly throwing rocks in an Israeli prison for nine months. The Israeli occupation of the West Bank caused a wide outcry and condemnation for the Palestinian American boy’s situation.

The resignations of BBC Director General Tim Davie and Director of News Deborah Turness over a Panorama edit of a 2021 speech by United States President Donald Trump have plunged the United Kingdom’s national broadcaster into one of the deepest crises in its history.

But the scandal did not begin with a single programme or a single misjudgement. Close to the centre of this crisis is Robbie Gibb, a man who has spent more than a decade shaping the BBC’s political coverage, zig-zagging between the BBC and the Conservative government while advancing his own partisan project that has distorted the corporation’s journalism on Brexit, Trump and, &nbsp, eventually, Gaza.

I saw the effects of that influence myself when the BBC delayed and then dropped our film on Gaza’s doctors. What is unfolding today is simply the moment when a long-running pattern of interference has burst into full public view.

Gibb has been such a huge figure in the wings of public life in the UK for so long that it is a relief he is now being publicly named and discussed. Until the Panorama scandal and the resignations it triggered, he was rarely scrutinised outside political and media circles. Now he is suddenly in headlines and the subject of fierce debate across social media, as people try to understand how one unelected figure came to wield such influence.

It is hard to think of anyone who has had a more pervasive influence on British public life without any accountability, from within both No 10 and the BBC. Gibb has been arguably the most influential yet hidden helping hand to Brexit politics, the Conservative Party and Israel, while bestriding two of the nation’s most important institutions as, variously, the head of the BBC’s Westminster team, the head of press at No 10, and then a pivotal BBC board member influencing BBC News. There has been little change in his guiding motivations or modus operandi between these roles, just a strong belief that only he could hold the line against an overwhelmingly liberal and left-leaning BBC “wokerati” and ensure impartiality. But in so doing, he has destroyed any notion of it, leading to the present crisis in the BBC, a $1bn battle with Trump and a collapse in the credibility of its coverage of Gaza.

As the editor of Channel 4 News from 2012 to 2022, I had experience of Gibb from the moment he was appointed press secretary at No 10 in 2017. His instinct to manage political reporting in ways that advanced his own political project was evident from the start. From the outset, he severely restricted Channel 4 News’s access to government ministers, access that remained freely available to the BBC and reflected the close relationships he had built during his years overseeing parts of its political output. Gibb was well known inside the BBC for his longstanding support for Brexit, a cause he had championed since working for the Conservative Party from 1997 to 2002. His conduct at No 10 with the BBC seemed little different from his BBC years, his direct control of the output was swapped for bargaining over access, helping him to continue to shape British politics. And he had all the BBC’s political staff on speed dial.

Relations worsened in 2018 when Channel 4 News became the first broadcaster to cover the Windrush scandal. It had emerged that hundreds of Black British citizens, most of whom had arrived from the Caribbean more than 50 years earlier, had been wrongly detained, deported and denied legal rights. The scandal resulted from policies implemented by Theresa May in her previous role as home secretary. As we continued to report on the growing number of older victims, Gibb reacted furiously. He barred Channel 4 News from interviews with the prime minister and other ministers, reportedly telling aides we were “banging on and on about something no one else cares about”.

He then extended that ban to the Conservative Party conference, excluding us from the traditional round of prime ministerial interviews that had been granted for decades. Every other broadcaster, including the BBC, signed a letter warning that the ban set a dangerous precedent. A former BBC colleague of Gibb later approached me at the conference to say he was “hopping mad, he’s absolutely livid”.

Multiple BBC journalists told me at the time that Gibb was still effectively directing parts of the BBC’s political coverage from No 10, using his influence and longstanding relationships to shape what was reported and who gained access. Many said they struggled to distinguish between Gibb at the BBC and Gibb at No 10 because he continued to exert influence over key decisions. One of the major advantages for No 10 was Gibb’s sway over the BBC’s post-Brexit coverage. The BBC chose not to look back and investigate what had happened during the referendum, unlike Channel 4 News, which pursued the Vote Leave and Cambridge Analytica investigations. Several BBC colleagues later told me this reluctance to scrutinise the referendum was not new but reflected how Gibb had operated in real time when he oversaw BBC political output during the campaign itself.

In 2019, we obtained emails between Arron Banks, the major Brexit donor, and Gibb sent in the run-up to the referendum. The emails showed that Banks complained to Gibb about a BBC inquiry into Leave. The European Union’s attempts to build support within far-right online communities and asked Gibb to intervene. After Banks raised his concerns with Gibb, the investigation was dropped. The BBC said the story did not meet editorial standards, but weeks later, the same investigation was published by The Sunday Times. Banks also told Gibb that Nigel Farage did not appear often enough on the BBC. In the months leading up to the referendum, Farage then appeared repeatedly across the broadcaster’s output.

In 2019, after Gibb left No 10 with Theresa May, Boris Johnson appointed him to the BBC board, an influential position from which he was not meant to interfere in day-to-day editorial decisions. Despite this, multiple allegations emerged that he continued to do so, including attempts to block appointments, visits to newsrooms and repeated involvement in editorial matters. In 2020, he took a controlling interest in the Jewish Chronicle – the world’s oldest Jewish newspaper, a paper long regarded as the voice of Britain’s Jewish community – on behalf of undisclosed backers, and the paper then shifted sharply to the right. Several of its most respected journalists resigned amid allegations that Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was influencing its coverage. All of this occurred while Gibb, as the most experienced editorial voice on the BBC board, was allegedly exerting an increasingly dominant influence, despite the board’s rules prohibiting direct editorial involvement. In Gibb’s case, old habits clearly died hard.

After the horrific Hamas attack on Israel on October 7, 2023, and Israel’s unrelenting two-year assault on Gaza, which flattened much of the Palestinian enclave and killed more than 70, 000 people, including 20, 000 children, I was told by multiple sources that Gibb, as the strongest editorial voice on the BBC board, was placing BBC News under pressure over its Israel coverage from the very start. The pressure came to a head in February, when the BBC broadcast and then withdrew the film Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone.

The film had been produced externally and failed to disclose that its 13-year-old narrator’s father was a deputy agriculture minister in Gaza’s Hamas-run government. In the aftermath, the BBC delayed our investigation into Israel’s destruction of Gaza’s healthcare system and the killing of more than 1, 500 medics, offering a series of excuses until eventually admitting they would not run it while they examined the other film. It was an extraordinary and unprecedented decision that effectively silenced and blunted their coverage. Only after we went public was Gaza: Doctors Under Attack finally broadcast, not on the BBC but on Channel 4.

I was told that the board, under Gibb’s influence, effectively pushed Tim Davie and Deborah Turness to first obscure their position on our film, then ask us to make significant changes, before finally saying they would run only three one-minute clips from our 65-minute investigation on their news outlets. This was a film about hospitals being bombed and evacuated, about doctors and medics and their families being targeted and killed, and about hundreds of others detained and tortured. It had already been approved by the BBC and later ran on Channel 4 – and Mehdi Hasan’s new media platform, Zeteo – without any complaints. It has since been nominated for many awards and is now beginning to win them.

In the end, it seems Davie and Turness did not fall because they stood up to Gibb, but because they reacted too slowly to the crisis his world helped create. After years of pressure over Gaza and mounting complaints about bias, the misleading Panorama edit of Trump’s speech and their hesitant response to his legal and political onslaught became the final straw. Only Gibb knows whether he intended to push the BBC into a position where it is now facing a potential billion-dollar lawsuit from a sitting US president, but his influence and alliances were central to the chain of decisions that led there. And now, hiding in plain sight, Gibb’s decades-long mission to reshape the national broadcaster around his own political agenda, dressed up as a defence of impartiality, can finally be seen for what it is: an absolute disaster for the BBC and for the public it is meant to serve.

Venezuela has revoked operating permits for six international airlines after they suspended flights to the country following a United States warning of airspace risk, in the latest point of tension between the two countries.

Last week, the US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) warned of a “potentially hazardous situation” in Venezuelan airspace due to a “worsening security situation and heightened military activity”.

While Caracas said the FAA had no jurisdiction over its airspace, the decision led some airlines to indefinitely suspend flights to the South American country from November 24 to 28, Marisela de Loaiza, president of the Airlines Association in Venezuela, said.

The action comes amid worsening tensions between the US and Venezuela over President Donald Trump’s battle against what he calls ‘narco-terrorism’ in the Caribbean.

Since September, the US has carried out at least 21 strikes on vessels it accuses of trafficking drugs, killing at least 83 people. Venezuela has said the strikes amount to murder.

Which airlines has Venezuela banned and why?

On Wednesday night, Venezuela’s civil aviation authority announced that Spain’s Iberia, Portugal’s TAP, Colombia’s Avianca, Chile’s and Brazil’s LATAM, Brazil’s Gol and Turkish Airlines would have their permits revoked.

The authority said the decision was taken against the carriers for joining “the actions of state terrorism promoted by the United States government”.

Before the revocation, Venezuela’s government had issued a 48-hour deadline on Monday for airlines to resume their cancelled flights or risk losing their permits.

Airline carrier Iberia had said it plans to restart flights to Venezuela as soon as full safety conditions are met.

At the same time, Avianca announced in a statement on Wednesday its intention to reschedule cancelled flights to the Venezuelan capital by December 5.

But Portuguese Foreign Minister Paulo Rangel called the decision to revoke permits “disproportionate”.

“What we have to do is, through our embassy, ​​make the Venezuelan authorities aware that this measure is disproportionate, that we have no intention of cancelling our routes to Venezuela, and that we only did this for security reasons,” he said.

What about other airlines operating in Venezuela?

Spain’s Air Europa and Plus Ultra have also suspended flights to Venezuela, but their permits have not been revoked, with no reason given for the exemption.

Panama’s Copa and its low-cost airline, Wingo, are continuing to operate to Venezuela. Domestic airlines, including the flag-carrier, Conviasa, flying from Venezuela to Colombia, Panama and Cuba are also still in operation.

What is behind US-Venezuela tensions?

Since US President Donald Trump’s return to office in January, tensions between his administration and Venezuela’s government have ramped up.

The US has built up a large military presence off the coast of Venezuela – its most significant military deployment to the Caribbean in decades – to combat what it claims is the trafficking of drugs.

The Trump administration has frequently claimed that Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro is behind the drug trade, without providing any evidence to support this.

In August, the US government raised its reward for information leading to Maduro’s arrest from $25m to $50m.

Maduro denies that he is involved in the drug trade.

This week, the US designated the Cartel de los Soles (Cartel of the Suns) a foreign “terrorist” organisation. It also claims the group is headed by Maduro and a senior figure in his government.

Venezuela’s foreign ministry said it “categorically, firmly and absolutely rejected” the designation, describing it as a “new and ridiculous lie”.

Moreover, the US has long rejected Maduro’s government, calling his election win last year “rigged”. In November 2024, the US recognised Venezuela’s opposition leader, Edmundo Gonzalez, as the country’s rightful president.

The Venezuelan government has suggested that the drug operation in the Caribbean and eastern Pacific is a cover for the US’s real aim of deposing Maduro from government – something some observers also believe.

Since September, the US has conducted at least 21 strikes on Venezuelan vessels in the Caribbean and eastern Pacific, claiming they are drug boats. More than 80 people have been killed, but the Trump administration has provided no evidence for its claims.

Last month, the US military conducted bomber flights up to the coast of Venezuela as part of a training exercise to simulate an attack, and sent the world’s largest aircraft carrier, USS Gerald R Ford, into the region.

However, in recent days, Trump has shown a willingness to hold direct talks.

On Wednesday, Trump told reporters on board his presidential plane, Air Force One, that he “might talk” to Maduro but warned “we can do things the easy way, that’s fine, and if we have to do it the hard way, that’s fine, too”.

What has Trump said about anti-drug land operations in Venezuela?

On Thursday, Trump warned that land operations to combat drug trafficking by land could begin “very soon”.

“You probably noticed that people aren’t wanting to be delivering by sea, and we’ll be starting to stop them by land also,” Trump said in remarks to troops stationed around the globe to mark the US holiday, Thanksgiving.

“The land is easier, but that’s going to start very soon.”

At least 56 people have died as a result of a deadly tropical storm, Cyclone Ditwah, which swept across Sri Lanka on Friday as a result of floods and landslides.

What we know is as follows.

What has occurred?

Wind speeds of 65 kilometers per hour (40 miles per hour) were recorded early on Friday morning in the island nation, which primarily affected the eastern and central regions of the island nation.

Heavy rain is produced before and after a tropical cyclone or storm makes landfall. Between Thursday and Friday, there was a heavy torrential downpour of over 300mm (11.8in) in Sri Lanka.

Numerous fatalities have been caused by flooding and landslides as a result of the rain.

What are the casualties’ status known to us?

On Friday, there were 56 deaths in Sri Lanka.

More than 25 people were reported killed in landslides in Badulla and Nuwara Eliya, which are both tea-growing regions in the central mountainous region, about 300 kilometers (186 miles) east of Colombo, the capital. In other parts of Sri Lanka, others perished in landslides.

According to the government’s disaster management center, 14 people have been injured and 21 are still missing in the Badulla and Nuwara Eliya areas. 23 people are currently missing across the nation.

What harm and disruption occurred?

Four houses have been destroyed by the heavy downpour, and more than 600 have been damaged.

Additionally, it has obstructed numerous roads and railroad lines and caused trees and mud to fall.

Flight disruptions have been caused by the bad weather.

Local media reported that on Thursday and through Friday afternoon, 15 flights, including those from Muscat, Dubai, New Delhi, New Delhi, and Bangkok, were diverted from Bandaranaike International Airport (BIA) in Colombo to Mattala Rajapaksa International Airport (MRIA) in southern Sri Lanka, as well as to Trivandrum and Kochi in India.

What has the government done?

Local media reported on Friday morning that the country’s Disaster Management Center (DMC) had evacuated 43, 991 people from 12 313 families to shelters in schools and other public places.

On Thursday in Hanwella, a town in Sri Lanka’s Colombo District, the media released footage of three military helicopters rescuing three people who were stranded on the roof of their home. Additionally, the police and the navy used boats to evacuate people.

On Friday, the government announced the government would shut down all of its offices and schools.

Additionally, the Colombo Stock Exchange announced an early trading conclusion and train services were suspended.

After landslides caused rocks, mud, and trees to fall onto roads and rail lines, some of which were also submerged by floodwaters, the authorities closed several roads across the nation.

What causes this kind of storm?

Over warm ocean waters close to the equator, tropical storms form. A zone of low pressure is created when warm air rises. This air cools down as more rising warm air from below moves in, creating a constant cycle that results in heavy rain and strong winds.

A calm, clear, and eye-catching pattern forms at the center, marked by very low air pressure as the system expands and its rotation accelerates.

The system is categorized as a cyclonic or tropical storm once wind speeds reach 63 km/h (39 mph). Cyclone Ditwah has a 65 km/h wind speed, giving it the current technical name for a storm. It turns into a tropical cyclone if the winds are 119 km/h (74 mph) or higher.

What has recently happened on the ground?

On Friday, government buildings and schools were closed. Additionally, road and train closures are in effect.

For the next 48 hours, the irrigation department has issued a red-level flood warning for low-lying areas along the Kelani River valley, indicating that Colombo, the capital, is included in the risk zone.

What is the current state of Sri Lanka’s economy?

As part of a bailout loan package from the International Monetary Fund (IMF), Sri Lanka elected leftist Anura Kumara Dissanayake as its president last year. He had pledged to end painful austerity measures imposed by his predecessor, Ranil Wickremesinghe.

Although Dissanayake initially opposed the IMF deal, it still stands as he works to boost the nation’s economy.

At a landmark event, Pope Leo XIV pleaded with Christian leaders from around the Middle East to end centuries of thorny divisions during his first overseas trip as head of the Catholic Church.

In an effort to build bridges and spread peace amid raging global conflicts, the first American pope has chosen Turkiye, which has a Muslim majority, as his first overseas destination.

Leo, a leader of the ancient Turkish town of Iznik, who created the Nicene Creed that is still used by most Christians today, declared at a ceremony at a ceremony on Friday that “the entire humanity, afflicted by violence and conflict, is crying out for reconciliation.”

He reaffirmed that “we must firmly reject the use of religion to justify war, violence, or any other form of fundamentalism or fanaticism.” The paths to follow are those of fraternal interaction, discussion, and cooperation.

Leo’s four-day visit to Turkiye was primarily Muslim, and the main reason for it was Friday’s ceremony, at which the Church leaders lit candles near the underwater ruins of a fourth-century basilica and performed prayers in English, Greek, and Arabic.

The pope’s first visit to Turkiye was reported by Al Jazeera’s Jonah Hull, who claimed the country is “inextricably” linked to the country’s history.

He said that encounters like this are valuable in bringing the Christian divide together because the pope and the patriarch are both interested in doing so.

In light of the pope’s visit, Hull emphasized that the pope’s visit places emphasis on establishing a religion’s unity in the face of global conflict.

In a few days, he said, “He will send that message to Lebanon, urging peace there.”

The 1.4 billion Catholics who make up the world’s population gathered for a prayer service at Istanbul’s Catholic Cathedral of the Holy Spirit on Friday before heading to Iznik.

Police in Istanbul blocked Leo’s entourage’s main thoroughfare so they could pass through a major thoroughfare in the nation’s largest city.

Pilgrims gathered at Holy Spirit Church, and hundreds more waited patiently outside the courtyard to catch a glimpse of the pontiff. Getting up early, you’ll be on the front line.

Catherine Bermudez, a Filipino immigrant worker in Istanbul, stated to Al Jazeera that she was “very excited” to be chosen to greet the pope inside the church.

Leo, who was clearly moved by his church reception, appeared to be smiling and looking much more at ease than he did on Thursday, urging his flock to stay positive and remembering that the church’s true strength is in its littleness.

He urged Turkiye to give “special attention” to helping the nearly three million refugees and migrants who live in Turkiye, the majority of whom are Syrians, in his address, praising the church’s “small community, yet fruitful” community.

Major papal stop in Iznik

The 70-year-old pontiff traveled to Iznik to commemorate the 1,700th anniversary of the First Council of Nicaea, a gathering of bishops who, despite the separation of the Catholic and Orthodox churches, compiled a foundational statement of faith that is still fundamental to Christianity today.

Leo traveled by helicopter to Iznik, where the Patriarch of Constantinople, the leader of the world’s Orthodox Christians, invited him to a cult-fidel service near the ruins of a basilica from the fourth century.

According to reports, Turkish police had taken Mehmet Ali Agca, the man who fatally wounded Pope John Paul II in 1981 in Rome, from Iznik on Thursday.

Agca, who was released from prison in 2010, stated his desire to meet the pope, saying, “I hope we can sit down and talk for two or three minutes in Iznik, or Istanbul, or.”