The Kremlin has praised a new national security strategy adopted by US President Donald Trump, saying it aligns closely with Russia’s own view of global affairs.
The US document published last week warns that Europe faces what it calls “civilizational erasure”, identifies ending the war in Ukraine as a “core” US interest, and signals a shift towards restoring what Washington describes as strategic stability with Moscow.
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Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said on Sunday that the changes “correspond in many ways to our vision”.
He also welcomed language in the strategy about ending “the perception … of the NATO military alliance as a perpetually expanding alliance”. Moscow has long opposed NATO enlargement, citing its security concerns.
But Peskov cautioned that the position of what he called the US “deep state” – a term the US president has used to accuse officials who he believes are undermining his agenda – may differ from Trump’s new security strategy.
Ukraine war diplomacy
Since Russia’s annexation of Crimea in 2014 and its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, successive US strategies have identified Moscow as a destabilising force threatening the post-Cold War order.
Under Trump, Washington’s approach to the conflict has shifted amid public clashes with Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Trump has previously described Russian President Vladimir Putin as a “friend”.
Trump’s new strategy comes as efforts led by the White House to broker an end to the Russia-Ukraine war approach a crucial moment. Zelenskyy will travel to London on Monday for a four-way meeting with UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer, French President Emmanuel Macron, and German Chancellor Friedrich Merz.
Zelenskyy has repeatedly sought strong backing from European partners, especially when US officials have endorsed Moscow’s position that Kyiv should consider territorial concessions under any peace agreement.
Focus shifts to China
The new security strategy places the Indo-Pacific at the centre of US foreign policy, describing it as a “key economic and geopolitical battleground”. It pledges to expand US military power to deter conflict between China and Taiwan.
Meanwhile, Russia, isolated by Western sanctions over the war in Ukraine, has deepened its economic and political ties with China.
Trump in March told Fox News that “as a student of history, which I am, and I’ve watched it all, the first thing you learn is you don’t want Russia and China to get together.”
Experts say the document marks Trump’s desire to overhaul the US-led post–World War II order, reshaping global alliances through a so-called “America First” lens.
British documentary photographer Martin Parr has died at the age of 73, his foundation announced.
One of the best-known documentary photographers of his time, whose lens was often focused on the peculiarities of the English class system, Parr died at his home in the western English city of Bristol on Sunday.
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“Martin will be greatly missed,” said the Martin Parr Foundation on Instagram, noting it would be working with Magnum Photos “to preserve and share Martin’s legacy”.
No details on the circumstances of his death were provided, though the photographer had previously revealed being diagnosed with myeloma, a type of blood cancer.
Born and raised in Surrey, south of London, in the 1950s, Parr was inspired by his grandfather, a keen amateur photographer, and opted for his chosen profession while still a teenager.
He launched his career after studying at the University of Manchester, taking black-and-white shots that aped the great masters of the time such as Henri Cartier-Bresson.
But he found himself drawn to colour photography, which was becoming the standard form, inspired by the style of amusing seaside postcards and other kitsch items of everyday 1970s Britain.
“Once I tried colour, I never looked back,” he told news agency AFP in 2022.
Parr rose to prominence with his 1980s collection, The Last Resort, which depicted working-class visitors to the seaside town of New Brighton, with highly saturated shots of frazzled beachgoers lit by lurid flash.
In The Cost of Living, Parr captured gentrification under the government of Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher in the 1980s, documenting the middle classes keeping up appearances at suburban garden parties and fundraising events with an always satirical eye.
His controversial style was not universally liked. Parr was sometimes accused of cruelty for his refusal to flatter his subjects, though he remained unapologetic and became widely considered as a master of his craft who spawned many imitators.
Cartier-Bresson himself was among several photographers who tried to block Parr’s entry into Magnum, saying he appeared to come “from a totally different planet”. Parr later responded: “I know what you mean, but why shoot the messenger?”
Martin Parr looks out from his caravan at the Photo London show in London, Britain, in 2016 [File: Kevin Coombs/Reuters]
Though he travelled the globe during his decades-spanning career, snapping images everywhere from North Korea to Albania and Japan to Russia, he was best known for his unvarnished, warts-and-all depictions of Britain.
He told AFP he felt connected with Britain’s “history of satire and humour”, but had a “love-hate relationship” with the people, particularly amid the divisions of Brexit, which he captured after the 2016 referendum with photos depicting the volatility of the era.
“I love the country… the hate is from the bigotry, xenophobia that caused the Brexit vote,” he explained at the time.
In an interview with the AFP news agency published last month, he argued that the world has never been more in need of the kind of satire captured in his images.
Rwandan President Paul Kagame praises Trumpian diplomacy for de-emphasizing ‘democracy, freedom and human rights’.
US diplomacy under President Donald Trump has a bigger chance of success because it focuses on transactional deals that “translate into improvements of people’s lives” instead of “theories about democracy, freedom and human rights”, argues Rwandan President Paul Kagame.
After the US government placed sanctions on the United Nations’ special rapporteur on the occupied Palestinian territories, Francesca Albanese, her life turned upside down.
Credit cards stopped working, she told Al Jazeera. A hotel reservation booked by the European Parliament was cancelled. Medical insurance was denied. For Albanese, the consequences of her work on Israel’s genocide against the Palestinian people of Gaza were not just professional — they were personal, too.
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“We are turned into non-persons,” she said at the Doha Forum, calling the sanctions imposed against her “unlawful” under international law.
“But again, for me, it’s important that people understand the extent … the United States, Israel and others would go to silence the voice of justice, the voice of human rights,” Albanese said.
As leaders, diplomats, and legal experts gathered in Qatar’s capital for the Doha Forum this weekend under the theme “Justice in Action: Beyond Promises to Progress”, the crisis in Gaza dominated discussions.
Allegations of genocide against Israel, repeated vetoes blocking UN ceasefire resolutions, and growing pressure on international justice mechanisms have made Gaza a test case for the rules-based international order, raising questions about whether international law is capable of providing justice.
‘Sense of insecurity around me’
According to Albanese’s legal assessments, Israel’s conduct in its war on Gaza constitutes a genocide, a term that prominent human rights groups such as Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch and Israel’s B’Tselem have also used.
When announcing the sanctions on Albanese, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio accused her of waging a “campaign of political and economic warfare against the United States and Israel”. She says the allegation is baseless.
“I have been subjected to smear campaigns,” she said, adding that US officials have accused her of being an anti-Semite, of supporting violence, and of failing to condemn the crimes committed on October 7 against Israeli civilians.
“It has created a sense of insecurity around me. I have received threats from all corners,” Albanese said.
United Nations Special Rapporteur Francesca Albanese is the UN’s expert on the situation of human rights in the occupied Palestinian territory [File: Pierre Albouy/Reuters]
In addition to targeting Albanese, the US imposed sanctions in August on nine judges and prosecutors of the International Criminal Court (ICC), including two European citizens, after the court began investigating alleged Israeli war crimes in Gaza.
“This is mafia-style intimidation that we are subjected to, just for doing our job,” Albanese noted, warning that sanctions and intimidation of legal experts set a dangerous precedent.
“There will be that pressure [on ICC judges and legal experts] that, if I go on this route, this is going to be scrutinised. This is the idea, to make it impossible for the organisation, for the ICC to work,” she cautioned.
“Imagine that every US person interacting with us, someone who works in the US or is a citizen, could go to jail for up to 20 years. It creates a chilling effect.”
Western hesitance
In November 2024, the ICC issued arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Defence Minister Yoav Gallant for alleged “war crimes”.
The US called the move “outrageous”, and while the United Kingdom and Canada said they would adhere to international law, they did not make clear if they would uphold the warrant.
Many Western countries have not described Israel’s actions in Gaza as genocide and have continued to send the country arms, despite growing allegations of war crimes occurring in Gaza.
Albanese emphasised that nations continuing to transfer arms are failing in their legal obligations.
“They have the obligation to prevent a genocide that has already been recognised as plausible in January 2024 by the International Court of Justice,” she said.
Janine Di Giovanni, co-founder of the Reckoning Project, which documents war crimes in Sudan, Ukraine and Gaza, said the position of many Western states reeked of a glaring “double standard”.
“There is one set of laws and rules that pertain to Ukraine … and another set for brown and Black people,” she said, pointing to the ICC’s historical focus on African leaders and the failure of Western powers to hold Israel accountable.
Di Giovanni directed her criticism at European Union foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas, saying the former Estonian prime minister had been “negligent” when it came to Gaza.
“She points out over and over again what [Russian President] Putin has done in Ukraine, but not a word about Gaza,” she added.
“She’s the EU foreign policy chief. She has a responsibility to point out Israel’s criminality.”
Is international law still relevant?
With multilateral institutions and the international law system coming under growing pressure from nation-states, Albanese said that international law does work and that “we need to make it work”.
“I often make the example, if a cure doesn’t work, would you trash all medicine? No,” she asserted.
“This is the first genocide in history that has awakened a conscience, a global conscience, and has the potential to be stopped.”
Meanwhile, Reckoning Project’s Di Giovanni said the UN General Assembly could be “activated to work at a higher level and a more effective level than what they’re doing, while the Security Council is blocked”.
“But maybe this shows us that we need to have a greater reform for how the Security Council works,” she said.
Di Giovanni added that it was crucial to address the “extraordinary heinous crimes that Netanyahu and others” have committed, or else it would send a message that “impunity is rampant”.
