Category World News

India and Canada have kicked out one another’s diplomats after a row over who is responsible for the killing of a Sikh activist reignited. Here’s what we know.

Deir el-Balah, Gaza, Palestine – Amani Madi still can’t believe she and her family survived the bombing that hit Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in the middle of the night.

In the open space where the attack on displaced people’s tents took place early on Monday, the smell of smoke prevails, and burned cans and food are scattered on the ground among charred blankets and clothes.

People wander back and forth. Most of them used to live in the tents, and they are trying to find anything left behind by the blaze that destroyed their flimsy homes.

Bodies on fire as they ran

The attack tore through the makeshift camp set up by displaced people in the hospital’s courtyard, killing at least four people and injuring at least 40.

“It was 1:10am when a massive explosion shook everything,” Madi, a 37-year-old mother of six, recalls as she sits in the remains of her burned tent.

“I looked out and saw flames devouring the tents next to ours,” Madi says. “My husband and I carried the kids and ran towards the emergency building.

“At the entrance, I saw my five-year-old son, who was screaming, was bleeding. I took him to the doctors to discover that he had shrapnel in his stomach.”

The doctors were able to bandage Ahmed up but had to leave the shrapnel where it had hit him, explaining to Madi that it would require delicate surgery to remove, a surgery that is not possible given the badly damaged Gaza medical sector.

Many Palestinians displaced multiple times end up at schools and hospitals, setting up tents again and again, using whatever materials they can find, clustering close together due to a lack of space.

Israel’s bombs spread fire through the crowded tents within minutes as Civil Defence workers struggled to put it out with what limited capabilities they had.

“People – women, men and children – were running away from the spreading fire, screaming,” Madi says. “Some of them were still burning, their bodies on fire as they ran. Terrifying, horrific, … unbelievable.

“Where are we supposed to go? It’s nearly winter. Is there no one to stop this holocaust against us?”

Madi’s tent was next to Jamalat Wadi’s tent, which was practically at the centre of the bombing.

Wadi, 43, says: “It was a miracle we survived, me and my seven daughters.”

“I woke them up, screaming, as our flaming tent was falling on our heads.

“My neighbour, her son and her husband were burned to death. No one could save them,” she says, crying bitterly.

Like many others, Wadi has been forced to flee numerous times, starting in Shujayea, then to Rafah, Nuseirat and Khan Younis before seeking refuge at Al-Aqsa Hospital.

“Now we’re in the streets again, but I won’t stay here after this. There’s nowhere safe.

“Hospitals and schools are at the forefront of Israeli targeting. What have we done to deserve this?”

‘A leg fell to the ground’

Maha Al-Sarsak, 17, lives in a tent adjacent to the ones that burned. Her family’s tent was not affected, but she witnessed the first moments of the explosion and fire.

Al-Sarsak walks through the carnage left behind by the bombing, crying.

She has been displaced at Al-Aqsa with her family for nine months.

After the hospital grounds were targeted numerous times, she says, she stopped sleeping at night for fear of another Israeli bombing.

“I was awake. What I feared happened … for the seventh time. I heard the strike from the direction of the tents opposite us. I screamed for my mother and my [eight] siblings, and we ran out towards the hospital building.”

“I saw our neighbour Umm Shaaban [Alaa Al-Dalu, 37] completely burned and her body charred along with her son [Shaaban, 20].

“When they were moving the victims from there, I saw a leg fall to the ground,” Al-Sarsak adds as she cries.

“They said the south is safe, but there is no safety. People were burned alive, and we spent a very terrifying night. Every time the hospital is targeted, we’re terrified,” Al-Sarsak says.

“But last night was the most terrifying. The fire ate the tents and people’s bodies in moments. Oh, God, have mercy.”

In September, Pope Francis attended the World Meeting of Popular Movements, an initiative he launched 10 years ago as a platform for grassroots organisations to come together and address the “economy of exclusion and inequality”. During his speech at the event, the head of the Catholic Church renewed his call for a global universal basic income (UBI), saying that implementing such a measure would not only be a reflection of compassion but also “strict justice”.

Pope Francis has joined a growing international movement advocating for income redistribution through a scheme of unconditional monthly cash payments to every individual to cover their basic needs and provide economic security as a fundamental human right.

A global UBI is not just a question of poverty relief. It’s also a question of social justice. Centuries of exploitation and overextraction of resources have concentrated wealth in the Global North, and as a result, most Global South countries lack the tax base and fiscal firepower to fund their own national UBIs. A global UBI would not only end world poverty, but also represent a necessary and equitable redistribution of wealth from north to south.

Critics of the movement have often pointed to the significant cost that implementing UBI could incur for governments. So is there a sustainable way to pay for it?

At Equal Right, a nonprofit that also advocates for UBI, we have developed detailed modelling laid out in our paper “Climate Justice Without Borders”. It shows that a charge of $135 per tonne on the global extraction of fossil fuels could raise as much as $5 trillion a year and fund a global UBI of at least $30 a month. A progressive wealth tax ranging between 1 and 8 percent on the world’s richest multi-millionaires and billionaires could yield another $22 for every person in the world, and a financial transactions tax of just 0.1 percent could raise another $16 each.

These payments could be supplemented by other taxes on the global commons, including land, mining and artificial intelligence tools, recognising the equal right we all have to a share of the world’s wealth and resources.

Now, a payment of around $70 a month may not be life-changing for many. But for the 712 million people living in extreme poverty worldwide, it would be transformational. Pilot programmes from Canada to India and Finland to Brazil have demonstrated the huge social and economic benefits of giving people cash.

So, we can fund a global UBI by taxing carbon and wealth, but we must acknowledge the limitations of this approach. As carbon emissions decrease and wealth becomes more evenly distributed, taxable resources will diminish. This creates a cliff edge for the longevity of UBI, one that can only be bridged through more sustainable financing.

At the same time, a green just transition is urgently necessary to end our reliance on fossil fuels, and huge potential exists in the Global South in particular. Currently, this transition is fettered by predatory, high-interest loans that keep many countries in never-ending debt cycles.

That is why, to ensure the sustainability of UBI and support a green just transition, Equal Right proposes establishing a Global Commons Fund (GCF) – a people-owned initiative that would collect revenues from the fossil fuel charge, invest them in the green economy, and distribute a UBI as a dividend to all citizens. Based on the performance of similar sovereign wealth funds, like Norway’s (which is worth $1.7 trillion), we expect the fund could become self-sustaining (and no longer be reliant on extractive revenues) within around 20 years. However, an initial capital endowment from Global North countries could expedite this.

The GCF would seek to end the debt cycle for poor countries and provide grants for climate mitigation and adaptation. It could even pay interest to governments who show leadership by keeping their fossil fuel reserves in the ground.

Crucially, we must ensure that this fund does not encourage further exploitation of our shared resources. Therefore, we propose a global cap on carbon extraction, based on scientific recommendations to keep global temperature rise within 1.5 degrees Celsius. Fossil fuel companies would then pay a charge to access every tonne of fossil fuel extracted under this cap.

The “cap and share” model we have put together not only funds a global UBI, but also mitigates the climate crisis, paving the way for a radical but necessary socio-ecological transformation needed to keep us within planetary boundaries and avoid continued climate chaos.

The UBI itself could be a powerful tool to tackle the climate crisis. For instance, in India, basic income pilot programmes have shown that households receiving UBI are more likely to transition to cleaner fuel options. In Peru, an NGO called Cool Earth provides a basic income for conservation work in the Amazon. Meanwhile, NGOs GiveDirectly and the International Rescue Committee are using data to predict natural disasters and provide cash payments to help communities prepare and rebuild, acting as a form of compensation for loss and damage.

Climate justice and economic justice are two sides of the same coin. Our “cap and share” system not only addresses the urgent need for climate finance, but also tackles poverty and inequality by funding a global UBI.

As the world looks towards COP29, and pressure mounts on member states to achieve the aims of the Paris Agreement and agree on a New Collective Quantified Goal (NCQG) for climate finance, Equal Right urges policymakers to consider the potential of the “cap and share” system.

This radical yet necessary approach can fund a global UBI, as championed by Pope Francis, while capping fossil fuels and funding a better future for us all. Embracing these bold yet essential approaches will not only advance climate justice but also foster economic equity, ensuring that no one is left behind in the pursuit of a sustainable and just future for all.

In a time of immense uncertainty, “cap and share” gives us options: a way out, a way through and a way forward.

Hundreds of protesters blockaded the New York Stock Exchange to demand the US stops arming and funding Israel’s wars in Gaza and Lebanon, and to condemn weapons firms profiting from the violence.

Refugees from Syria’s war have been arriving back in opposition-held areas after fleeing Israeli attacks in Lebanon. Many said they spent days making the journey and faced problems along the way.