Sao Paulo, Brazil – Attendees have been forced to evacuate the 2025 United Nations Climate Change Conference, known as COP30, after a fire broke out at the venue in Belem, Brazil.
There were no injuries in Thursday’s blaze, according to Brazil’s Tourism Minister Celso Sabino. In a news conference afterwards, he downplayed the seriousness of the fire.
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“There was a small fire here, which is possible at any large event,” he told journalists. “This small fire could happen anywhere on planet Earth.”
Organisers reported that the evacuation was “fast” and the fire was controlled within six minutes, leaving only minor damage.
Thirteen people were treated for smoke inhalation, according to a joint statement from the UN and COP30 leaders.
The affected area, known as the Blue Zone, is expected to remain closed until 8pm local time (23:00 GMT).
The cause of the fire remains unclear. But Helder Barbalho — the governor of the state of Para, where the summit is taking place — told the Brazilian channel GloboNews that authorities believe a generator failure or short circuit might have sparked the incident.
On social media, Barbalho assured the public that other parts of the COP30 conference zone continued to be in operation.
“We will find out what caused it, whether we can restart work here in the Blue Zone today or not,” he wrote. “The Green Zone is operating normally.”
Reports emerged about 2pm local time (17:00 GMT) of flames in the Blue Zone pavilion, a restricted area for negotiators and accredited media.
Videos on social media showed scenes of panic and security officials ordering attendees to exit the venue.
caralho, fogo na zona azul aqui da COP 30. uma loucura de gente correndo. meu deus! pic.twitter.com/ebXubnHwiR
Al Jazeera spoke to Fernando Ralfer Oliveira, an independent journalist who was in the Blue Zone when the fire broke out and shared footage of the flames.
“I was in the big corridor that leads to the meeting rooms when a commotion of people started running. I had my phone in my hand and immediately started recording,” said Ralfer.
“When I got close to the pavilion, someone ran past me shouting, ‘Fire, fire, fire!’ So I ran a little and managed to record that bit of the fire. But at that moment, security was already coming towards us in force, saying ‘Evacuate, evacuate, evacuate.’”
Ralfer and other evacuees were then directed to the COP30’s food court area, located outside the pavilion.
Roughly an hour after the fire broke out, the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), which organises the conference, sent an email to attendees saying that the local fire service would conduct “full safety checks” at the venue.
They then announced the Blue Zone’s continued closure: “Please note that the premises are now under the authority of the Host Country and are no longer considered a Blue Zone.”
The Blue Zone fire happened a week after Brazil responded to the UN’s concerns around safety at COP30.
On November 13, Simon Stiell, the executive secretary with the UNFCCC, sent a letter to Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva and his government, raising issues ranging from faulty doors to water leaks near light fixtures.
Marjayoun district, Lebanon – In his southern Lebanese hometown of Hula, a few metres away from the border with Israel, Khairallah Yaacoub walks through his olive grove. Khairallah is harvesting the olives, even though there aren’t many this year.
The orchard, which once contained 200 olive trees and dozens of other fruit-bearing trees, is now largely destroyed. After a ceasefire was declared between Hezbollah and Israel in November 2024, ending a one-year war, the Israeli army entered the area, bulldozed the land, and uprooted trees across border areas, including Hula – 56, 000 olive trees according to Lebanon’s Agriculture Minister Nizar Hani. Israeli officials have said that they plan to remain indefinitely in a “buffer zone” in the border region.
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Israeli forces are not currently stationed in what remains of Khairallah’s farm, but the grove is fully exposed to Israeli positions in Menora, on the other side of the border. That makes the olive farmer’s every movement visible to the Israeli army, and is why he has been so afraid to venture to his trees before today.
Khairallah Yaacoub harvests olives from his destroyed orchard despite the poor yield]Mounir Kabalan/Al Jazeera]
Harvesting under fire
“This was the place where my brothers and I lived our lives”, said Khairallah, as he walked next to the olive trees that he said were more than 40 years old. “We spent long hours here ploughing, planting, and harvesting. But the]Israeli] occupation army has destroyed everything”.
Khairallah now has 10 olive trees left, but their yield is small for several reasons, most notably the lack of rainfall and the fact that he and his brothers had to abandon the orchard when war broke out between Hezbollah and Israel on October 8, 2023. Khairallah’s aim now is to begin the process of restoring and replanting his olive grove, the main source of livelihood for the 55-year-old and his four brothers.
The farm in Hula, which lies in the district of Marjayoun, once provided them with not just olives, but olive oil, and various other fruits. They also kept 20 cows on the land, all of which have died due to the war.
But with the presence of the Israelis nearby, getting things back to a semblance of what they once were is not easy, and involves taking a lot of risks.
“Last year, we couldn’t come to the grove and didn’t harvest the olives”, Khairallah said. “]Now,] the Israeli army might send me a warning through a drone or fire a stun grenade to scare me off, and if I don’t withdraw, I could be directly shelled”.
Olive trees cut down as a result of the bulldozing operations carried out by the Israeli army in Khairallah Yaacoub’s orchard in the town of Hula]Mounir Kabalan/Al Jazeera]
Systematic destruction
Like Khairallah, Hussein Daher is also a farmer in Marjayoun, but in the town of Blida, about five kilometres (3.1 miles) away from Hula.
Hussein owns several dunams of olive trees right on Lebanon’s border with Israel. Some of his olive trees, centuries old and inherited from his ancestors, were also uprooted. As for the ones still standing, Hussein has been unable to harvest them because of Israeli attacks.
Hussein described what he says was one such attack as he tried to reach one of his groves.
“An Israeli drone appeared above me. I raised my hands to indicate that I am a farmer, but it came closer again”, said Hussein. “I moved to another spot, and minutes later, it returned to the same place I had been standing and dropped a bomb, if I hadn’t moved, it would have killed me”.
The United Nations reported last month that Israeli attacks in Lebanon since the beginning of the ceasefire had killed more than 270 people.
The dangers mean that some farmers have still not returned. But many, like Hussein, have no choice. The farmer emphasised that olive harvest seasons were an economic lifeline to him and to most other farmers.
And they now have to attempt to recoup some of the losses they have had to sustain over the last two years.
According to an April study by the United Nations’s Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), 814 hectares (2, 011 acres) of olive groves were destroyed, with losses in the sector alone estimated at $236m, a significant proportion of the total $586m losses in the wider agricultural sector.
“We used to produce hundreds of containers of olive oil, today, we produce nothing”, said Hussein, who has a family of eight to provide for. “Some farmers used to produce more than 200 containers of olive oil per season, worth roughly $20, 000. These families depended on olive farming, honey production, and agriculture, but now everything was destroyed”.
Abandoned
The troubles facing the olive farmers have had a knock-on effect for the olive press owners who turn the harvested olives into Lebanon’s prized olive oil.
At one olive press in Aitaroun, also in southern Lebanon, the owner, Ahmad Ibrahim, told Al Jazeera that he had only produced one truckload of olive oil this year, compared with the 15 to 20 truckloads his presses make in a typical year.
“Some villages, like Yaroun, used to bring large quantities of olives, but this year none came”, Ahmad said. “The occupation destroyed vast areas of their orchards and prevented farmers from reaching the remaining ones by shooting at them and keeping them away”.
Ahmad, in his 70s and a father of five, established this olive press in 2001. He emphasised that the decline in agriculture, particularly olive cultivation in southern Lebanon, would significantly affect local communities.
The olive press in the southern town of Aitaroun has had to shut after a poor olive oil production season]Mounir Kabalan/Al Jazeera]
Many of those areas are still scarred from the fighting, and the weapons used by Israel could still be affecting the olive trees and other crops being grown in southern Lebanon.
Hussein points to Israel’s alleged use of white phosphorus, a poisonous substance that burns whatever it lands on, saying the chemical has affected plant growth.
Experts have previously told Al Jazeera that Israel’s use of white phosphorus, which Israel says it uses to create smokescreens on battlefields, is part of the attempt to create a buffer zone along the border.
But if Lebanese farmers are going to push back against the buffer zone plan, and bring the border region alive again, they’ll need support from authorities both in Lebanon and internationally – support they say has not been forthcoming.
“Unfortunately, no one has compensated us, neither the Ministry of Agriculture nor anyone else”, said Khairallah, the farmer from Hula. “My losses aren’t just in the orchard that was bulldozed, but also in the farm and the house. My home, located in the middle of the town, was heavily damaged”.
The Lebanese government has said that it aims to support the districts affected by the war, and has backed NGO-led efforts to help farmers.
Speaking to Al Jazeera, Agriculture Minister Hani said that the government had begun to compensate farmers – up to $2, 500 – and plant 200, 000 olive seedlings. He also outlined restoration projects and the use of the country’s farmers registry to help the agricultural sector.
“Through the registry, farmers will be able to obtain loans, assistance, and social and health support”, Hani said. “Olives and olive oil are of great and fundamental value, and are a top priority for the Ministry of Agriculture”.
But Khairallah, Hussein, and Ahmad have yet to see that help from the government, indicating that it will take some time to scale up recovery operations.
That absence of support, Hussein said, will eventually force the farmers to pack up and leave, abandoning a tradition hundreds of years old.
Five days of immigration raids and protests have come to an end thanks to official North Carolina immigration officials’ signal that the city of Charlotte has recovered from its five-day crackdown.
Mayor of Charlotte Vi Lyles claimed on Thursday that the Democrat-led city’s border patrol appeared to have ended its crackdown.
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The U.S. Border Patrol’s operations in Charlotte appear to have ended. She wrote on social media, “I’m relieved for our community, the residents, businesses, and all those who were targeted and impacted by this intrusion.”
It is crucial that we come together as we move forward, not as separate groups divided by recent events but as a single Charlotte community.
Federal officials assured Sheriff Garry McFadden that “Operation Charlotte’s Web” had been completed and that no further operations would take place on Thursday, according to the Mecklenburg County Sheriff’s Office.
In Mecklenburg County, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) will continue to operate as they have always, according to a statement from the sheriff’s department.
According to federal law, “ICE has full authority to detain, apprehend, and take into custody any undocumented immigrant.”
The operation began on November 15 when US President Donald Trump made the announcement that Charlotte would receive “surging resources.”
By praising local officials for adopting “sanctuary” laws that let undocumented people “roam free on American streets,” it justified the upsurge.
The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) announced on Wednesday that it had made more than 250 arrests as of Tuesday night during an update.
During the operation, immigration efforts expanded to Raleigh, the state capital, and other nearby cities.
However, Charlotte, the state’s largest city and a hub for tech businesses, had received a lot of resistance from residents. 300 people call Charlotte home, compared to 911.
For instance, hundreds of protesters gathered outside Manolo’s Bakery to protest raids that temporarily shut its doors to customers and employees. Another protest occurred outside a Border Patrol headquarters where Border Patrol agents had gathered.
In show of support for the immigrant community, students from East Mecklenburg High School, Northwest School of the Arts, and other schools also staged a walkout.
Local media reported a drop in school attendance of nearly 15% on Monday, but it was not known how many of those absences were caused by protests, concerns about immigration enforcement practices, or seasonal trends like the flu.
Locals in the Charlotte area recorded instances of car windows being smashed and people being hit to the ground and left bloody as a result of the rise in immigration operations.
A new wave of Border Patrol operations is anticipated in another southern city, New Orleans, as Charlotte’s surge of federal immigration enforcement operations settles. The “Swamp Sweep” is how that operation is referred to.
In addition, more immigration enforcement operations have been conducted in other Democratic-controlled cities, raising questions about the methods being used and the respectability of the laws being upheld.
Los Angeles, Chicago, Memphis, and Washington, DC are among those cities.
The world’s biggest music labels have struck AI licensing deals with a little-known startup named Klay Vision, the companies have said, the latest in a series of deals that underlines how the technology is shaking up the music industry’s business model.
Warner Music Group, Universal Music Group and Sony Music Entertainment, and their publishing arms, all signed separate agreements with Klay, according to an announcement posted on Warner’s website on Thursday.
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It comes a day after Warner inked two other deals involving artificial intelligence, with startups Udio and Stability AI.
There were few details released about the agreements or about Klay, which is based in Los Angeles, and what it does.
The deal terms will help Klay “further evolve music experiences for fans, leveraging the potential of AI, while fully respecting the rights of artists, songwriters, and rightsholders”, the announcement said. Klay has been working with the music industry on a licensing “framework for an AI-driven music experience” and has built a “large music model” trained only on licensed music.
AI-generated music has been flooding streaming services amid the rise of chatbot-like song generators that instantly spit out new tunes based on prompts typed by users without any musical knowledge. The synthetic music boom has also resulted in a wave of AI singers and bands that have climbed the charts after racking up millions of streams, even though they don’t exist in real life.
Warner, Universal and Sony had last year sued Suno and Udio, makers of two popular AI song generation tools, accusing them of exploiting the recorded works of artists without compensating them. But there are signs that the disputes are being resolved through negotiation.
Warner, which represents artists including Ed Sheeran and Dua Lipa, said Wednesday that it resolved its copyright infringement litigation against Udio. The two companies said they’re teaming up to develop Udio’s licensed AI music creation service set to launch in 2026 that will allow users to remix tunes by established artists.
They provided no financial details on their agreement, which includes Warner’s recording and publishing businesses, but it will create “new revenue streams for artists and songwriters, while ensuring their work remains protected”.
It’s similar to an agreement that Universal Music Group signed last month with Udio, which triggered a backlash because Udio stopped users from downloading the songs they created.
Udio said it will remain a “closed-system” as it prepares to launch the new service next year. If artists and songwriters choose to let their works be used, they’ll be credited and paid when users remix or cover their songs, or make new tunes with their voices and compositions, the companies said.
Warner announced this week that it was working with Stability AI to create “professional-grade tools” for musicians, songwriters, and producers.
Palestinians are being questioned by Al Jazeera’s Hind Khoudary about whether they believe the fragile ceasefire between Israel and Gaza will continue to be in effect as a result of deadly shelling, shooting, and new destruction.
Dozens of Palestinian families are “besieged” in northern Gaza, local authorities say, as the Israeli military has repositioned its forces deeper into the enclave in violation of a United States-brokered ceasefire agreement.
Gaza’s Government Media Office said on Thursday that Israeli forces and tanks had advanced about 300 metres (984 feet) beyond the so-called “yellow line” in eastern Gaza City.
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“The fate of many of these families remains unknown amidst the shelling that targeted the area”, the office said, adding that the expansion of the yellow line shows a “blatant disregard” for the ceasefire deal.
Set out in the agreement between Israel and Hamas, the yellow line refers to an unmarked boundary where the Israeli military repositioned itself when the deal came into effect last month.
It has allowed Israel, which routinely fires at Palestinians who approach the line, to retain control over more than half of the coastal territory.
Reporting from Gaza City on Thursday, Al Jazeera’s Hind Khoudary said Israeli soldiers were seen placing yellow blocks and signs to identify the new deployment line, deeper into the city’s eastern neighbourhood of Shujayea.
“But the entire boundary has not been marked, so many Palestinians do not know exactly where it is”, Khoudary said.
“With this latest advancement in Gaza City’s Shujayea, more Palestinians are unable to reach their homes. People say this is a cage, as they’re being pushed and squeezed into the western parts of Gaza”.
The Israeli military has not publicly commented on the reports that it has gone beyond the yellow line in violation of the ceasefire.
‘ When will this nightmare end? ‘
The move comes amid a surge in Israeli attacks across the Gaza Strip that have sown fear across the war-ravaged enclave.
The Palestinian Health Ministry in Gaza said on Thursday morning that at least 32 Palestinians were killed in Israeli attacks over the past 24 hours and another 88 were wounded.
Medics said an Israeli air strike on a house in Bani Suheila, a town east of Khan Younis, killed three people, including a baby girl, and wounded 15 others.
Israel has violated the truce nearly 400 times since it came into force on October 10, according to an Al Jazeera analysis.
A displaced Palestinian man, 36-year-old Mohammed Hamdouna, told the AFP news agency that people are being killed daily in continued shelling.
“We are still living in tents. He claimed that all the basic necessities of life are still missing because the cities are rubble, crossings are still closed, and there are still no crossings.
Lina Kuraz, a 33-year-old resident of Tuffah east of Gaza City, also told AFP that she was concerned about the resumption of the war.
