Political opponents and US ethics organizations have criticized US President Donald Trump’s decision to relax regulations governing the cryptocurrency market while promoting his own coins. His relationship with crypto is examined in this image.
Unless the Israeli government responds to the humanitarian crisis in Gaza, French President Emmanuel Macron has warned that his country may “apply sanctions” against Israelis.
Macron said that the international community could not continue to be passive as Gaza’s Palestinians struggle to solve their hunger crisis during a visit to Singapore on Friday. The comments underscore the growing international pressure on Israel, which has imposed a three-month blockade of the Palestinian enclave with aid agencies’ warnings of famine.
At a joint press conference with Singapore’s Prime Minister Lawrence Wong, Macron said, “The humanitarian blockade is creating a situation that is untenable on the ground.”
We will have to “harden our collective position” if there is no action in the upcoming hours and days in accordance with the humanitarian situation, he continued, suggesting that France might consider imposing sanctions on Israeli settlers.
Israel recently stated that it would allow “minimal” supplies of food and medicine into Gaza, where it continues to launch a fierce military assault, under international pressure.
Looting and violence have been accompanied by the trickle of aid entering the strip, which is now under the control of a new NGO supported by Israel and the United States.
Macron urged people to reject the notion that Israel upholds human rights in his remarks.
However, he continued, “I still hope that Israel’s government will change its mind and that we will finally receive a humanitarian response.”
The French leader added that establishment of a Palestinian state would have to be conditioned on a number of factors, including the fact that it was “not only a moral duty, but also a political necessity.”
His remarks came after Indonesian President Prabowo Subianto and Israeli President Subianto publicly denounced any Israeli plans to annex Gaza or expel its population.
Paris is attempting to spread the idea of a conditional recognition of Palestinian statehood, which would, among other things, necessitate Hamas’ demilitarization.
Prior to a UN conference that France and Saudi Arabia are hosting between June 17 and 20, French officials are considering whether to lay out the conditions for a Palestinian state while protecting Israel’s security.
Some diplomats and experts contend that this would irritate Israel and cause deeper divisions in the West.
The humanitarian crisis persists despite the Israeli blockade, which has allowed some aid to flow into Gaza. One in five people is reportedly facing starvation, according to experts.
On Thursday, the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), a private initiative with the support of the US and Israel, expanded its relief efforts. However, the organization’s efforts have been widely denounced by the UN and other organizations as being insufficient, poorly managed, and not upholding humanitarian standards.
As a result of the overwhelming hunger of the population and the overreach of security forces at distribution points, GHF centers have turned into places of chaos, violence, and desperation.
![Palestinians carry an injured man after he was shot at an aid distribution center run by the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation a US-backed organization approved by Israel in Khan Younis, southern Gaza Strip, on Thursday, May 29, 2025. [Abdel Kareem Hana/AP]](https://i0.wp.com/www.aljazeera.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/AP25149597968661-1748586516.jpg?w=696&ssl=1)
As they attempted to reach a GHF-established aid distribution point, an Al Jazeera correspondent in Gaza reported on Friday that several people were hurt by Israeli army gunfire in the city’s center.
If permitted access, UNRWA, the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, announced on Friday that it was prepared to deliver supplies from its Amman warehouses, which are only a few hours’ drive from Gaza, including food parcels, hygiene kits, and medical supplies.
The US has proposed a new plan, and negotiations over a ceasefire between Israel and the Palestinian-armed group Hamas are ongoing.
Hamas claims that the proposal is “still being discussed,” but in its current form it would only lead to “the continuation of killing and famine” in Gaza.
Beginning on June 4, an estimated 1.8 million Muslims will prepare to perform the Hajj pilgrimage to Mecca.
The Hajj is the largest annual gathering of Muslims from all over the world and a once-in-a-lifetime journey for many.
We provide answers to 10 frequently asked questions about the Hajj in this visual explanation, along with explanations for its significance, rituals, and preparations.
The fifth and final pillar of Islam, along with the Shahada, five daily prayers, mandatory charity (zakat), and fasting during Ramadan, is the annual pilgrimage to Mecca, Saudi Arabia.
The word “h-j-j,” which means “entrancing a journey” or “setting out for a certain purpose,” is the Arabic equivalent of “h-j-j.”
It is obligatory once in a lifetime for all adult Muslims who are physically and financially able to undertake the journey.
The eighth and thirteenth month of the Islamic calendar, Dhul-Hijjah, or the 12th and final month, perform the Hajj. The Ramadan ends about 70 days later, but the timing may change depending on the lunar cycle.
In 2025, the Hajj will take place from June 4 to June 9, but many start arriving in the days and weeks ahead to prepare for the journey.
The Hajj falls 10 to 12 days earlier in the Gregorian calendar each year because the Islamic calendar has a 29 or 30 day lunar cycle. Notable is that this year marks the last time the Hajj will fall during Mecca’s hottest summertime temperatures for 16 years.
According to the Muslim holy book, the Quran, the Hajj is a direct commandment from Allah (God).
It was affirmed during Prophet Muhammad’s “farewell pilgrimage” in 632 AD, in the 10th year of the Islamic calendar.
According to Islamic tradition, the Prophet Abraham (Ibrahim) and his son Ishmaeel (Ismaeel) built the Kaaba, a stone structure with black silk at the center of Mecca’s Grand Mosque, under God’s direction. The Hajj, which was first instituted as a divine ritual, was founded in this context.
The journey is spiritual, and it is thought that Muslims can ask for forgiveness, purify their souls, and demonstrate their obedience to God. The Quran contains the word “Hajj” 12 times, with one chapter having its own name.
Hajj also serves as a reminder of the Day of Judgement, and by performing it, Muslims follow the example of Prophet Abraham and his family, whose actions are commemorated during the pilgrimage rituals. In the end, it serves as a means of renforcing one’s faith while fulfilling a fundamental religious obligation.
Depending on how it is performed, the Hajj lasts five to six days. Many pilgrims travel to Mina, a desert valley located 8 kilometers (5 miles) from Mecca, where they spend the night to prepare for the rituals of the day’s festivities, which start on the eighth day of Dhul-Hijjah, known as Tarwiyah.
It ends with Tashreeq days, where pilgrims return to Mina for the symbolic stoning of the Devil at a site called Jamarat, after which they perform final rituals to symbolise the end of the Hajj. Some people may end their rites on the 12th, while others will continue until the 13th.
Umrah is a suggested shorter and simpler pilgrimage that Muslims can take any time of the year, in contrast to the Hajj, which is only required of all able-bodied Muslims once in their lives.
The graphic below shows some of the key differences between the Hajj and Umrah:
Muslims perform many rites and rituals during the days of the Hajj, which can be explained in the following steps.
Muslims from all over the world observe the Eid al-Adha, or sacrifice celebration, on this day.
Tawaf’s farewells
A final Tawaf, or “farewell tawaf,” is performed by pilgrims around the Kaaba before leaving Mecca, evoking a spiritual farewell.
There are three types of Hajj to facilitate the pilgrimage for Muslims from different locations and abilities:
The Hajj’s etiquette forbids a number of other things that are permitted in Islam, including cursing, arguing, hunting, shaving, or cutting hair and nails, organizing or getting married, wearing sewn clothing (for men), covering the head (for women), and covering the face (for women).
There are typically specific steps and steps to take in order to rectify a pilgrim’s situation if they unintentionally or unintentionally violate anything during the Hajj. This often involves repentance, as well as making up for the mistake by offering charity or an animal sacrifice.
Packing for the Hajj requires careful planning to ensure you have everything you need without overloading. A practical list of items to pack before traveling is provided in the image below.
Eid al-Adha, which is observed on the 10th of Dhul-Hijjah and lasts for three days in many nations, marks the conclusion of the Hajj.
The day begins with a special prayer shortly after sunrise, as Muslims gather in mosques or open areas wearing their finest clothes. Sharing meals, exchanging gifts, and making visits to family and friends is the order of the day. Commonly exchanged is the greeting “Eid Mubarak,” which means “Blessed Eid.”
Eid al-Adha also involves the ritual of animal sacrifice, known as Qurbani. The meat is divided into three categories: one for the family, one for relatives and friends, and one for those in need, according to Muslims who are able to do so. It is sacrificed for a sheep, goat, cow, or camel.
According to a recent study, about half of the world’s population has experienced an additional month of extreme heat as a result of human-caused climate change.
According to the report (pdf) from World Weather Attribution, Climate Central, and the Red Cross, the extreme heat caused deaths and illnesses, damaged agricultural crops, and stretched the country’s healthcare systems.
Researchers examined weather data from May 1, 2024 through May 1, 2025 to highlight the dangers of extreme heat, which is defined as temperatures exceeding 90% of those recorded at a given location between 1991 and 2020.
According to the study, at least 30 days of extreme heat were experienced by at least 4 billion people, or 49 percent of the global population. During the same time period, 67 extreme heat events were discovered, according to the report.
Heat is arguably the deadliest extreme event, according to the report, though floods and cyclones frequently dominate headlines.
Experts claim that extreme heat-related deaths are frequently underreported or mischaracterized. One of the report’s authors, Friederike Otto, associate professor of climate science at Imperial College London, claimed that heat waves are silent killers.
People don’t pass away in a heatwave on the street; instead, they are simply not seen. Either way, they either pass away in hospitals or poorly insulated homes.
Heatwaves will affect more people, he added, with each barrel of oil burned, each tonne of carbon dioxide released, and each fraction of a degree of warming.
According to the study, the Caribbean region experienced some of the highest extreme heat days, with the island of Aruba recording 187 of them, or 142 days more than normal without climate change.
Extreme heat is most prevalent in low-income communities and vulnerable populations, including older people and those with medical conditions.
Without climate change, the report claims that the extreme heat events that took place in Central Asia in March, South Sudan in February, and the Mediterranean in July would not have been possible.
In Morocco, the temperature reached 118 degrees Fahrenheit (48 degrees Celsius) in July, which caused at least 21 fatalities.
In a statement attributed to the Red Cross Red Crescent Climate Center, Roop Singh, head of urban and attribution, claimed that people are noticing that the temperature is rising without any direct correlation with climate change.
To address the growing challenge, Singh said, “We need to quickly scale our responses to heat by better early warning systems, heat action plans, and long-term planning for heat in urban areas.”
Without eliminating fossil fuels, the researchers predicted that heatwaves would continue to grow more frequent and severe.
Some experts are concerned and others are unsure about the policy’s specifics because US Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. reversed the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s recommendation in a one-minute video.
Kennedy was joined in the video, posted on May 27 on X, by Food and Drug Administration Commissioner Marty Makary and National Institutes of Health Director Jay Bhattacharya.
Kennedy, who was chosen by President Donald Trump after a years-long embrace of vaccine conspiracy theories, did not specify whether he was speaking to recommend that pregnant women get their first booster shots, or both. No clarity was provided on the HHS website, which stated that “everyone 6 months and older can get COVID-19 vaccines.” Getting vaccinated is the best way to help protect people from COVID-19″. A similar broad vaccine endorsement was provided on a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention webpage from January 7 before Kennedy became secretary.
Some experts believe that tightening the federal vaccine recommendation is due to the low rates of serious COVID-19 cases in children. Others say that the move will make it harder to get vaccinated and cause preventable serious illnesses.
Kennedy broke the law by refusing to hold a scheduled meeting of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices to vote on vaccine guidance.
If insurers choose not to cover COVID-19 shots for those groups, suggesting against vaccination for some groups might make it more difficult for most children and pregnant women to get the shot. Immunization rates are already low, with 13 percent of children and 14.4 percent of pregnant women up to date with the 2024-25 edition of the COVID-19 vaccine, the CDC found in late April.
Health experts and three federal health officials’ statements were fact-checked by us.
Kennedy said, “Last year, the Biden administration urged healthy children to get yet another COVID shot, despite the lack of any clinical data to support the repeat booster strategy in children”.
The Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, a group of outside experts who advise the CDC on when and how frequently to immunize healthy children who have already received COVID-19 vaccines, has recommended annual boosters in recent years.
According to Dr. William Schaffner, professor of preventive medicine at Vanderbilt University Medical Center, the committee made this recommendation without also recommending that the vaccine go through new rounds of clinical trials each year before being used. (The vaccine had been approved by the FDA for safety and efficacy early in the pandemic.) According to Schaffner, a former committee member and current adviser, the panel came to the conclusion that the coronavirus vaccine operated similarly to the annual flu vaccine, which didn’t require repeated clinical trials.
The American Academy of Family Physicians and the American Academy of Pediatrics both recommended COVID-19 vaccinations for children, but they did not demand any new clinical trials.
According to Makary, “Healthy kids don’t need” the vaccine.
This dispute persists. Most children will not face serious illness from COVID-19, but a small fraction will. Given this level of risk, experts have various opinions on how widespread the vaccination program is.
Children and adolescents 17 and younger made up about 4% of COVID-19-associated hospitalizations during the COVID-19 season in the years 2024 to 2025. The relatively small number of serious cases among children has driven the belief among some scientists that the universal vaccination recommendation is too broad.
Infants under six months old were the youngest among all children, with the highest rates of COVID-19 hospitalizations.
According to Schaffner, who cited a September 2024 , article , on the CDC’s website, “With 4 million new children born every year without being exposed to COVID, young children have rates of disease comparable to those of people over 65.”
COVID-19 was among the top 10 causes of death in children during the worst of the pandemic between 2020 and 2022, said Tara C Smith, a Kent State University epidemiologist. Why don’t we continue to vaccinate for COVID even though we may no longer be at that stage?
Some doctors are concerned about the persistent condition known as long COVID, which is more well known, particularly in children.
The outside advisory committees and the medical academies found this level of serious disease to be sufficient to recommend continued annual vaccinations.
Makary was accurate when he claimed that “most nations have stopped recommending” routine COVID-19 vaccination for children.
“Many countries will only offer the COVID vaccine to children if they have underlying health conditions or are immunocompromised”, said Brooke Nichols, a Boston University associate professor of global health.
A list of booster recommendations from Canada, Europe, and Australia was included in Makary’s May 20 article. In the majority of nations, it was said that the advice was to vaccine older people or those who were at high risk.
Most countries have taken this course, Schaffner said, because “by now, 95 percent of us have had experience with COVID, either through the vaccine or through illness or both. Second, it is believed that the current variants are much milder than some of the earlier ones.
The World Health Organization, in its 2024 report, recommended the COVID-19 vaccine for children who had never been immunized. For children and adolescents who had previously been vaccinated, it did not routinely recommend revaccination.
The European Medicines Agency, which received the vaccine, made a recommendation for children over the age of five and said it was safe and effective. According to Euronews, the organization made its recommendation in November 2021 and later made it a recommendation for the vaccination of children between the ages of 12 and 17?
In the United Kingdom, “only older people or those with specific diseases or illnesses making them susceptible to severe COVID were recommended to get boosters, and as a result, uptake in those groups was actually higher than in the US”, where outreach and advertising for the vaccinations focused on children as well as older people, said Babak Javid, an associate professor in the division of experimental medicine at the University of California-San Francisco.
The New York Times discovered that “many countries in Europe do not recommend the shots for healthy children under five, but the shots are approved for everyone who is at least six months old.”
Experts disagreed with Kennedy’s recommendation against vaccinating pregnant women, saying the vaccine protects pregnant women and their infants.
The president of the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, Steven J. Fleischman, stated, “It is very clear that a pregnancy can lead to a catastrophic disability and severe family consequences. Growing evidence suggests that the infant is best protected after birth when the majority of hospitalized infants born to unvaccinated mothers are less than six months old.
After a vaccination, antibodies reach the fetus. Although there may be fever or pain at the injection site, the doctors’ group asserted that there is no conclusive evidence that the vaccine has any negative effects on the mother or the fetus.
In May, the federal government released contradictory information about pregnancy and the vaccine.
In Makary’s May 20 , article, he and his co-author included pregnancy on the CDC’s 2025 list of underlying medical conditions that increase the risk of severe COVID-19.
According to Dr. Peter Hotez, co-director of the Texas Children’s Hospital Center for Vaccine Development, “they literally contradicted themselves over the course of a few days.” “It appears that RFK Jr. reversed the decision of his own FDA.”
Following the May 27 video announcement, Makary , told NBC , that the decision about vaccination should be between a pregnant woman and her doctor.
A review of 67 studies conducted in 2024 found that pregnant women who had been fully immunized had a 61% lower chance of contracting COVID-19 while pregnant.
In its June meeting, the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices might move towards less sweeping recommendations for vaccinating children, closer to those that Kennedy enacted.
The discussions in the most recent previous meeting, according to Schaffner, appeared to be moving in a more targeted direction.
According to Schaffner, the advisory committees may suggest more flexibility with vaccine usage than Kennedy’s video statement suggests when it comes to pregnant women.
Other areas where the panels could back greater flexibility could be for otherwise healthy people who serve as caregivers or who live with more vulnerable people who are advanced in age or are immunocompromised.
A former Goldman Sachs banker who was a target of the multibillion-dollar 1Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB) corruption scandal received a two-year prison sentence, according to Malaysia’s commodities minister Johari Abdul Ghani, as too lenient.
Tim Leissner, a former Goldman Sachs chairman in Southeast Asia, was sentenced by New York judge Margo Brodie on Thursday to two years in prison for his role in the scandal.
Leissner, who previously admitted guilt to charges of bribery and money laundering in the United States, could receive a maximum sentence of 25 years.
Brodie called Leissner’s behavior “brazen and audacious” at the sentencing hearing. Leissner apologized to the Malaysian people in a “sincere apology” and expressed regret for his actions in court, which he read out.
Leissner should have received the maximum jail sentence, according to Ghani, the 1MDB asset recovery taskforce chairman, who claimed on Friday that he was “one of the masterminds” of the scheme, which saw the theft of billions of dollars from Malaysia’s investment fund.
Although the 1MDB fund was intended to entice foreign investment in Malaysian infrastructure and energy projects, it was stolen by officials and bankers.
According to Malaysian and US authorities, a grand theft total of $4.5 billion was carried out in an elaborate scheme that involved high-level officials from the government, including former Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak, who was imprisoned in 2022, among others.
Leissner admitted guilt in relation to his role in the scandal in 2018, including paying foreign officials roughly $2 billion in bribes and splitting another $1 billion in kickbacks with others in the scheme.
He will begin receiving a 24-month sentence in September, according to a representative from the US Department of Justice.
Due to his “extraordinary” assistance in conducting the investigation, US prosecutors had requested leniency. Roger Ng, a former colleague and Goldman Sachs Managing Director, was the star witness in the 2022 trial of Lessner.
In March 2023, Judge Brodie sentenced Malaysian national Ng to 10 years in prison for, among other crimes, “spewing billions of dollars embezzled” from 1MDB and paying more than $1.6 billion in bribes.