Category World News

Alaa Abd El-Fattah, a prominent Egyptian-British human rights activist, was released after spending the majority of his first 12 years behind bars, his family reported the following day. Abdel Fattah el-Sisi pardoned him and five other prisoners.

As she sat next to her son, surrounded by jubilant family and friends, Abd El-Fattah’s mother, Laila Soueif, said, “I can’t even describe what I feel,” she said from her home in Giza on Tuesday morning.

“We’re happy, of course,” the statement read. However, she said, “our greatest joy will be when there are no political prisoners in Egypt.”

Abd El-Fattah was regarded as one of Egypt’s most well-known political prisoners due to his lengthy imprisonment and frequent hunger strikes.

Prior to the uprising that led to the ouster of Egypt’s hardline ruler Hosni Mubarak during the Arab Spring and the years that followed, the former blogger had been detained.

However, his criticism of the government’s crackdowns on political dissidents after then-army chief el-Sisi’s rule in Egypt in 2014 earned him one of his longest prison sentences by far.

He was given a 15-year prison sentence in 2014 for demonstrating against orders. He was briefly released in 2019, but he continued to serve time for parole, and he was detained once more in the same year and given a five-year prison sentence.

After his release, friends, family, and supporters shared images of the activist with smiling Abd El-Fattah embracing his mother and other family members on social media.

His sister, Mona Seif, expressed her brother’s acceptance on social media: “We can take a breath and give happiness a chance to fill our hearts… and keep going. The world is full of nightmares, injustice, violence, and many things that break the heart.. but we can take a breath and give happiness a chance.”

She wrote in a separate post, “Oh Lord, the same joy for the families of all the detainees.”

What would happen and how much beauty and joy would flood the world with in a single moment, if that were to occur?

A truly generous day

Alas, the picture is free. twitter.com/nmg4oROSTi

Abd El-Fattah’s protracted detention had become a sign of Egypt’s deterioration of democracy.

Foreign Secretary of the United Kingdom, Yvette Cooper, stated, “I sincerely welcome the news that Alaa Abd El-Fattah has received a Presidential pardon.

President Sisi deserves my gratitude for making this choice. Alaa’s family will soon be reunited with him when he returns to the UK.

Abd El-Fattah, who became a citizen of the UK through his mother in 2021, was a member of a cult of prominent activists and intellectuals who had spearheaded numerous efforts to free him.

His mother arranged for her son’s release after meeting with UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer earlier this year.

Soueif launched a lengthy hunger strike in the UK in September 2024, intensifying her campaign as her son’s release was delayed due to his pre-trial detention, but it was only stopped after her family appealed for help because her health had drastically deteriorated.

Abd El-Fattah has also taken to his own hunger strikes in detention, most recently in early September, in solidarity with his mother, and promised to do everything in his power to get him released.

But his most notable hunger strike occurred in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt, in 2022, during the annual UN climate summit. Abd El-Fattah lost consciousness and was revived with fluids before the strike ended.

Due to the unproven connection between Tylenol and autism, US President Donald Trump has urged pregnant women to avoid the brand name for the painkiller.

Trump issued the warning on Monday as the US drug regulator announced plans to label paracetamol informing children of an increased risk of autism and ADHD.

Don’t take Tylenol, please. Trump remarked as he “don’t take it,” while addressing a crowd of top public health officials at a press conference at the White House.

Trump remarked, “Fight like hell not to take it.”

There might come a point where you’ll have to work out with yourself.

Trump also questioned the medical consensus regarding childhood vaccines, suggesting that measles, mumps, and rubella vaccinations should be done separately from the combined MMR shot.

Based on what I feel, this. Trump argued that the three diseases should be treated separately, including measles and the mumps.

“And it seems like there could be a problem when you mix them,” he continues.

The American Academy of Pediatrics and the American College of Obstetrics and Gynecology (ACOG), which have long recommended paracetamol as one of the few painkillers that women can take while pregnant, were among the medical organizations that condemned Trump’s comments.

Paracetamol, which is sold under brand names Dyman, Panadol, and Panamax in various countries, is thought to help about half of pregnant women worldwide who are taking it for pain relief and to lower fevers, which are potentially dangerous for both the expectant mother and the foetus.

Steven J. Fleischman, president of ACOG, described the claims that paracetamol may have a connection to autism as “irresponsible.”

It’s crucial to take into account all potential risks as well as any benefits when weighing the use of medication during pregnancy, Fleischman said in a statement.

According to Fleischman, who also uses the name paracetamol in the US, “the results of numerous studies have demonstrated that acetaminophen plays an important – and safe – role in the well-being of pregnant women.”

Medical experts have urged that more robust studies have concluded that there is no link between paracetamol and neurological conditions like autism and that causality is still a mystery because some research has found that.

When comparing children who had been exposed to the painkiller with their siblings who had not, one of the largest population-based studies, which was published last year in The Journal of the American Medical Association, found no link.

The Trump administration’s actions were “hugely negative” for public health, according to bioethicist Arthur Caplan of the NYU Grossman School of Medicine.

Caplan told Al Jazeera, “The big reveal about autism was a total bust full of misinformation, a lack of evidence, bad advice, and a fictitious explanation about the cause.”

Caplan remarked, “I believe mainstream medicine will disregard what he said today.”

“Patients must turn to other reputable sources because they can’t trust federal science in the USA,” says Dr. Lewis.

Studies showing a link between paracetamol use and autism, according to Catherine Lord, a professor of psychiatry at UCLA with a special interest in autism, were constrained by the presence of confounding factors that are challenging to control for.

According to Lord, “I believe the medical community will be sincere in their assertion that Tylenol during pregnancy does not cause autism, but that pregnant women should always be wary of taking it,”

They should consult their doctor because having a high fever or feeling pain is neither good for a growing baby either.

The US Food and Drug Administration cited evidence of a “correlation” between paracetamol use and autism in its updated guidelines released on Monday, as well as research that suggested a higher risk is associated with taking the drug “chronically” throughout pregnancy.

The drug regulator, however, was noticeably less vocal than Trump, pointing out that “contrary studies in the scientific literature exist and that a causal relationship has yet to be established.

The regulator used the other generic name for paracetamol to refer to the fact that acetaminophen is the only over-the-counter medication permitted to treat fevers during pregnancy.

China criticized the US’s campaign to obstruct TikTok’s sale for years, once accusing Washington of acting in “robbers’ logic” in response to the platform’s success.

Beijing is currently promoting discussions about how ByteDance, the Chinese owner of the video-sharing platform, might cede control of its US operations.

Analysts believe Beijing has come to view TikTok as a useful bargaining tool to win concessions on more pressing issues, which raises questions about what China might anticipate in return.

There are numerous unanswered questions about what a sale would entail, and China has yet to confirm a deal on TikTok, which Washington has portrayed as a threat to privacy and as a propaganda tool for Beijing.

The question of who would own and control TikTok’s recommendations algorithm, which is credited with boosting the platform’s explosive popularity in the US, where it claims more than 170 million users, is most important.

Companies are prohibited from transferring sensitive technologies, such as TikTok’s algorithm, without government approval under the new Chinese export controls that were implemented in 2020.

The state-run China Daily warned in an editorial last month that the export restrictions “presented a red line for the TikTok transaction.”

Dexter Roberts, a nonresident senior fellow at the Atlantic Council’s Global China Hub, predicted that China would make significant concessions on issues like trade, restrictions on Chinese technology, and Taiwan.

According to Roberts, “If there is anything on the Chinese side that makes them more eager to do a deal on TikTok, I think it’s because they believe they can benefit significantly from the Trump administration than they believed,” and they may be thinking about using TikTok as a bargaining leverage.

President Donald Trump’s first direct face-to-face meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping since leaving the White House appears to be aimed at achieving a resolution on TikTok as soon as possible, according to Roberts.

He said, “And it seems as though he’s willing to give a lot in return to get that sit-down and that “deal”.”

The US and China both welcomed the possibility of a resolution to the conflict over TikTok, but the two countries’ perspectives on how things stand have significantly differed.

An unnamed senior White House official was quoted as telling media outlets that the Trump administration was confident that China would approve of a deal that would grant TikTok’s algorithm to a new US joint venture in a briefing on Monday.

According to reports from the official, Texas-based Oracle, whose billionaire cofounder Larry Ellison has a steadfast support for Israel, would manage and retrain the licensed algorithm using US data in accordance with the terms of the agreement.

Ellison has pledged cybersecurity and cloud infrastructure support to Israel since the start of the 2023 conflict in Gaza, which has resulted in the deaths of more than 60 000 Palestinians.

Since several Republican lawmakers have accused the platform of promoting pro-Palestinian content since 2023, Oracle’s growing role in TikTok’s future has grown.

Trump, who has repeatedly foreshadowed the sale of the platform, received the most recent White House briefing after he announced on Friday that he had struck a deal with Xi during a nearly two-hour phone call.

According to White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt, the spin-off will have six Americans on its board, which will ensure that TikTok’s algorithm is “controlled by America.”

According to Jeffrey Towson, a digital strategy consultant formerly based in China, “Both the US and China now support “info-nationalism.”

“China has long emphasized that domestic information flows should not be controlled by foreign businesses or individuals. The US has now reached the same conclusion. Strong control points are made by digital platforms. What can be said, read, and watched can be shaped and constrained by them.

An agreement on the platform could de-escalate trade tensions between Washington and Beijing, according to Heiwai Tang, director of the Asia Global Institute in Hong Kong, despite the uncertainty surrounding how TikTok’s sale might go under Chinese law.

Tang told Al Jazeera, “China would gain significantly if the US’s current additional 30% tariffs on China could be lowered.”

China has only gone so far as to claim that there is a “basic framework consensus” on TikTok between the parties.

Following Xi’s call with Trump, China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs stated in a statement that “China respects the wishes of the company in question. We would be happy to see productive commercial negotiations that adhere to Chinese laws and regulations and take into account the interests of both sides.”

The Atlantic Council’s Roberts said that China’s language regarding a “framework” for resolving the TikTok dispute leaves room for negotiation and that “details like who actually gets the algorithm, which Washington has stated the US gets, could still very much be up for grabs.”

Chunmeizi Su, a lecturer on media and communications at the University of Sydney who studies platforms like TikTok, doubted that any licensing agreement would contain all of the details of TikTok’s algorithm.

The algorithm used by TikTok is “a core technology that has been applied to other apps under ByteDance,” according to the company. The company has a red line here. Su told Al Jazeera, “I think they would rather shut down TikTok US than reveal the details of their algorithms.”

The licensing agreement is only intended to provide surface-level technologies, or, to put it another way, a shell of TikTok US. And even achieving this will take time.

Although a deal on TikTok would lower US-China’s temperature, the parties would likely refrain from explicitly citing concessions in other fields, according to Charlie Chai, vice president of research at Beijing-based 86Research.

Chai told Al Jazeera, “I don’t believe there will be an explicit trade-off or receiving anything in return.” He claimed that Washington could quietly halt further tariff increases or export restrictions, but that would only be done as a “prolongation of a good-faith negotiation.”