French dairy goods company Lactalis has recalled batches of infant formula in France and more than a dozen other nations due to concerns that batches may have been contaminated by a toxin.
Following Nestle’s recall of infant formula in almost 60 nations since the start of the month, the announcement on Wednesday comes as a result.
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According to the company, Lactalis is “continuing to conduct a voluntary recall of six batches of Picot infant milk, available in pharmacies and mass retail, due to the presence of cereulide in an ingredient supplied by a supplier,” referring to the toxin that can cause nausea and vomiting.
Parents of young children may be concerned about this information, the company said.
A company spokesman told the AFP news agency that the recall applies to Australia, Chile, China, Colombia, Ecuador, Spain, Madagascar, Mexico, Uzbekistan, Peru, Georgia, Greece, Kuwait, the Czech Republic, and Taiwan.
According to the spokesperson, the recall involves “a few batches” of formula in each nation.
The business claimed that the French authorities had not received any reports or claims relating to the consumption of these goods.
Recalls have recently impacted the infant formula sector.
Authorities in Singapore recalled batches of Nestle formula, Dumex baby formula, and French food tycoon Danone.
After detecting cereulide, the Singapore Food Agency ordered the precautionary recall of a batch of Nestle’s NAN HA1 SupremePro and Dumex Dulac 1 of Thai origin.
Danone claimed that only “a few pallets” of Dumex had been blocked, indicating that retail outlets were yet to stock them.
Since January, Nestle has issued recalls for the potential presence of cereulide, a bacterial substance that can lead to illness.
Following new research that revealed the potential presence of cereulide, Nestle France announced it was “preventive and voluntary recall” of some batches of its Guigoz and Nidal infant formulas.
No direct connection has been established between the infant’s consumption of milk from one of the batches recalled by Nestle, according to French health authorities who announced an investigation on Tuesday.
Naif Ghawanmeh, 45, sits in front of the fire when the music stops, which is played during Ras Ein al-Auja, an occupied West Bank town. The night is chilly, and for the first time in weeks, everything is still for a moment – the Israeli settlers’ celebrations have finished for the day.
Ras Ein al-Auja, which is located in the Jericho governorate of the eastern West Bank, is now almost completely uninhabited.
The village was one of the last Palestinian herding communities in this part of the Jordan Valley, but now, the herders’ sheep have gone – most of them stolen or poisoned by settlers or sold off by villagers under pressure. The Ras Ein spring, which the nearby settlers have been ostensibly blocking for the past year, has been closed off to the water.
And for the past two weeks, most of the community’s homes have been dismantled. Before they leave, many of the families who were forced to flee have burned their furniture to use by the invaders.
“By God, it’s a difficult feeling,” Ghawanmeh says. He fidgets by the fire, rubbing his face in agony and exhaustion, and is sometimes at a loss for words. ”Everyone left. There is not a single one. They all left. ”
Since the start of this year, about 450 of the 650 Palestinian inhabitants of Ras Ein al-Auja have fled their homes – for many the only place they have ever lived – because of violence by Israeli settlers.
The rest of the Ghawanmeh families are packing up and departing in the coming days, aside from the 14 who claim to have nowhere to go, including a sizable number of children.
This rapid displacement of hundreds of people marks the largest expulsion from a single Bedouin community as a result of Israeli settler violence in modern times – a feat that has elicited taunting celebrations by the encroaching settlers and left lives in ruins for Bedouin families now deprived of shelter, livelihoods and community.
As a result of settler violence, Palestinians leave their homes and flee Ras Ein al-Auja [Photo by Looking the Occupation in the Eye]
No land, no sheep, no water, no safety
Despite a wave of physical assaults, thefts, threats, movement restraints, and property destruction by settlers, the people of Ras Ein al-Auja had continued to live on their lands until the new year. This is now all too common for rural Palestinian communities in the West Bank.
Settlers have been enabled by rapid growth in the number of settlement outposts springing up across the West Bank. International law prohibits settlements and these outposts. They are also built without the legal permission of Israeli authorities but in practice are largely tolerated and offered protection by Israeli forces, especially in recent years under the far-right government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
According to international law, occupying powers like Israel are prohibited from settling occupied territories like the West Bank, where about 700,000 settlers currently live.
In December, another 19 settler outposts built without government approval were retroactively approved by Israel’s government as official settlements. Since 2022, there have been 141 to 210 settlements and outposts in the West Bank and occupied East Jerusalem, totaling nearly 50%.
This recent explosion of settler outposts has given way to a more recent yet even more dangerous phenomenon: shepherding outposts.
These outposts mimic the Bedouin culture with their own grazing flocks, but with a different landscape. They are typically run by a single armed Israeli settler supported by several armed teenagers often funnelled in by government-funded programmes intended to support “at-risk” troubled youth.
According to the Israeli NGO Kerem Navot, these settlers had already taken control of roughly 14% of the West Bank by April 2024 by using animal grazing as a means to overthrow Palestinian shepherds and seize their lands. That figure has increased since then by at least tens of thousands of dunums (1 dunum equals 0. Dror Etkes, the founder of Kerem Navot, claims that there is 1 hectare and a quarter of an acre.
The outposts serve as a launching pad for attacks, controls on Palestinian movement and army-coordinated arrests, which have unfolded in places like Ras Ein al-Auja.
Palestinian shepherds, who largely live in these remote areas, depend on settlers to steal and poison their livestock for a living. On top of this, settlers are preventing Palestinian shepherds who still have flocks from accessing the grazing lands they’ve always used. Palestinians are being forced to purchase expensive animal fodder to supplement their flocks by the builders who also use intimidation and violence to enforce them.
Settlers also target the basic resources that Bedouin Palestinians rely on for themselves. The Israeli government forbids electricity to residents of Ras Ein al-Auja, like most other Palestinian communities in Area C, which Israel vetoes. The Israeli Civil Administration, which controls zoning and planning in Area C, rarely grants permits for Palestinians to build infrastructure, including connecting to the grid or installing solar energy systems. The settlers have frequently destroyed the solar panels the villagers have constructed.
In addition, these Palestinian shepherding communities, often located in dry regions, are now denied sufficient access to water, including from the lush springs found in Ras Ein al-Auja which once made this village one of the most prosperous of the shepherding communities.
According to Ghawanmeh, “they prevented us from getting water.” “They prevented us from bringing the sheep to the water and getting water from the spring. ”
A Palestinian home is dismantled except for the floor in Ras Ein al-Auja, nearly all of whose inhabitants have been forced out by violent Israeli settlers [Courtesy of Looking the Occupation in the Eye]
Near-total impunity
Israeli settlers have also been emboldened by a wide-scale armament programme spearheaded at the start of Israel’s genocidal war in the Gaza Strip by National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir and the near-total impunity they enjoy when they carry out attacks. Although there have been a few court decisions in favor of Palestinians and against settlers, they are uncommon.
According to the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, more than 1,800 settler attacks – about five per day – were documented in 2025, resulting in casualties or property damage in about 280 communities across the West Bank, and besting the previous year’s record of settler attacks by more than 350. In the West Bank in 2025, settlers or Israeli forces killed 240 Palestinians, of which 55 were children.
These unprecedented levels of settler and soldier violence alongside the wholesale deprivation of basic resources that rural Palestinians need to survive have led to the erasure of dozens of rural Palestinian communities.
According to the Israeli human rights organization B’Tselem, the Israeli military forced about 40,000 people from Tulkarem and Jenin’s refugee camps in January and February 2025. Since the Gaza war began in October 2023, settler violence has forced out 44 Palestinian communities in the West Bank consisting of 2,701 people, nearly half of whom are minors. There have been partially transferred to another three additional communities, which total 452 people. These people end up wherever they can find a place to stay, resulting in fractured communities and families.
In the West Bank, these displacement figures have not been seen in decades.
Palestinians take their houses apart before fleeing the village of Ras Ein al-Auja in the eastern West Bank [Courtesy of Looking the Occupation in the Eye]
Two years of psychological strain
For 27 months, Ras Ein al-Auja has been subjected to all of these types of attacks and restrictions. In the last year, several Israeli shepherding outposts have appeared at various locations throughout the village, which total 20,000 dunums (20 km or 7). 7sq miles), and have come increasingly closer to Palestinian homes.
An exhausted Ghawanmeh describes the haphazard shifts the men of his village have been working overtime to keep watch. “If you sleep, the settlers will burn your house. ”
Under the pressure of settler attacks, poisonings and thefts, the number of sheep belonging to the community has dwindled from 24,000 to fewer than 3,000. Nine solidarity activists, some progressives from Israel and others from other nations, were required to maintain a 24-hour security presence because settler attacks and invasions have become so frequent.
Without anywhere else to go – and knowing from both settler threats and accounts from displaced relatives elsewhere that settlers would likely follow them anyway – the people of Ras Ein al-Auja had hung on by a thread.
That is until the most recent settler base.
Following a pattern seen in other now-displaced Bedouin communities like nearby Mu’arrajat, some of whose inhabitants fled to Ras Ein al-Auja, settlers began erecting outposts directly next to people’s homes at the beginning of the year – right in the middle of the community.
According to Ghawanmeh, “life has completely stopped ever since.” Families have barricaded themselves inside their houses, terrified of the settlers who now routinely graze their flocks just outside Palestinian homes.
Then, as a result of the recent attacks, more families were forced to flee and bring the last of their sheep with them. Almost three-quarters of the community has now gone. Although the majority of these families reside in the cramped towns and cities of Area A, which accounts for 18% of the West Bank and is run by the Palestinian Authority, are now dispersed throughout the West Bank.
As a result, these communities’ centuries-old traditions as Bedouins are coming to an end.
According to Ghawanmeh, there is a saying among Bedouins that says, “Upbringing outweighs origins.” “It means you were raised here, you eat from the land, you drink from the land, you sleep on the land. It is from you, and you are. ”
He continues, “It is very, very difficult to leave your house and your village.” But we are forced to. ”
The children who remain have been left rudderless and afraid at night as they look at empty, scarred patches of land where once their friends and family lived. According to Ghawanmeh, “children are scared, scared that the settlers, the [settler security guards] will come.”
Al Jazeera requested comment from the Israeli military about the accusations made in this article and to ask for details about what action is being taken to prevent settler attacks on Palestinian communities, including Ras Ein al-Auja. No response was provided.
Residents of Ras Ein al-Auja prepare to leave as Israeli settler attacks have intensified on their community, property and livestock this year [Courtesy of Looking the Occupation in the Eye]
I won’t be happy if you don’t sing along until tomorrow, I promise.
As the swell of violence and land thefts gives way to a steady exodus of the last remaining villagers, a couple of musicians come to provide some relief from another day of traumatic separation and displacement.
Kai Jack, a professional contrabass player and solidarity activist, says, “I hope they will feel seen, and I hope they will feel happy for at least a few moments, and that they can feel like children.”
About a dozen children huddle in plastic chairs in a tin shack that once served as the meeting place for the community’s many families to hear this rare performance. The children begin to clap and sing to songs from the classics Wein a Ramallah (Where? ), then relax and start chanting a few Palestinian folk songs. To Ramallah).
The kids even manage to make a few smiles for the first time in a few weeks.
And then, Jack and the accompanying violinist, Amalia Kelter Zeitlin, settle into playing the Palestinian lullaby Yamma Mawil al-Hawa (Mother, What’s with the Wind? . . . The children’s mothers, looking on from the sidelines, begin to softly sing along:
My life will continue as a result of my sacrifice for freedom. ”
The mothers give rounds of applause to the children as the song comes to an end. “Beautiful? Jack inquires.
“Very,” replies one of the mothers who explains how she helps her child fall to sleep with this very song. And it has been a long time since they were sleeping well. ”
A few of the remaining Ghawanmeh brothers leave as the performance draws to a close and the audience members gather around Jack’s enormous bass. They soon find themselves thinking about their unavoidable expulsion.
“These songs are for the children,” Naif Ghawanmeh says. We are exhausted inside, she said. Very tired. ”
One of his small nephews, Ahmed, just 2 years old, begins to sing the chorus of Wein a Ramallah. The atmosphere is almost festive for a brief moment. But while he is happy the children are relaxing, Ghawanmeh shrugs it off himself.
By the way, he says, “By God, look at me,” as the settlers are burning whatever supplies they didn’t want to bring with them. “Even if you sing for me until tomorrow, I won’t be happy. You see, I’m inside exhausted. For two years, I’ve been suffering from oppression, hardship and problems day and night from the settlers.
Hong Kong is the site of a landmark trial involving three activists who staged demonstrations to commemorate the massacre in Tiananmen Square in China.
Former Hong Kong Alliance members Chow Hang-tung, Albert Ho, and Lee Cheuk-yan are charged with “inciting subversion of state power” in the case before the Chinese territory’s High Court.
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On Thursday, Lee waved at his supporters as they entered the courtroom, who then responded with “good morning.”
Chow thanked her supporters for surviving the winds during the night and bowed to them as she sat quietly.
Minutes later, Ho admitted guilt while Lee and Chow made a guilty plea.
On Thursday morning, about 70 people waited in line outside the court while dozens of police were stationed nearby.
Beijing’s deadly crackdown on demonstrators in Tiananmen Square was celebrated in Hong Kong every year on June 4, 1989, but those activities have been suspended since 2020.
In response to extensive, sometimes violent pro-democracy demonstrations in the former British colony that year, Beijing passed a national security law.
Rights organizations and some foreign governments have criticized cases involving prominent pro-democracy figures using the law to silence dissent.
According to Sarah Brooks, Amnesty International’s deputy regional director for Asia, “This case is not about national security; it is about rewriting history and punishing those who refuse to forget the victims of the Tiananmen crackdown.”
The trial was referred to as a “sham,” according to Angeli Datt, research and advocacy coordinator for the Network of Chinese Human Rights Defenders.
The only way to stop all charges and release the three organisers is to ask the Hong Kong authorities to actually follow the law, according to Datt in a statement.
Following the protests in 2019 that prompted hundreds of thousands of people to take to the streets, Beijing has claimed that the security law has brought stability to the city.
The trial, which is scheduled to last 75 days, will be presided over by three government-vetted judges. The prosecution’s evidence will include videos that relate to the alliance’s years of work.
Chow’s earlier request to throw out the case was rejected by the three-judge panel.
In a preliminary ruling, the judges wrote that the court won’t allow the trial to turn into a tool for political suppression, as Chow had previously said.
In May 1989, the Hong Kong Alliance in Support of Patriotic Democratic Movements of China was established to support protesters staging demonstrations in Beijing for democracy and anticorruption.
The Chinese government imposed a heavy censorship on Tiananmen Square’s movement the following month, which the country’s government later heavily censored domestically.
The Alliance demanded that Beijing accept responsibility, release dissidents, and support democratic reform for the next three decades.
Every June 4, the Hong Kong’s Victoria Park candlelight vigils drew thousands of people.
Following the arrest of media mogul Jimmy Lai last month, which received widespread condemnation, the trial of Chow, Lee, and Ho is now underway.
Lai was found guilty of conspiring to extort money from other countries.
Bangladesh’s capital city of Dhaka may interpret the lyrics of the fast-paced, rhythm-driven song as a reflection of rural Bangladesh.
The words go, “The days of boat, the sheaf of paddy, and the plough have come to an end, and Bangladesh will be built.”
The song, which went viral on Facebook, YouTube, Instagram, and TikTok in early November, is actually a political anthem in support of Bangladesh’s Jamaat-e-Islami party.
The boat is the Awami League (AL) of former prime minister Sheikh Hasina, who was ousted by a student-led uprising in August 2024, the paddy’s sheaf is the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP), and the plough is the Jatiya Party’s Awami League, which was formerly led by a military ruler in the 1980s.
Scales serve as the Jamaat’s symbol.
In what is expected to be a direct contest between the BNP and a Jamaat-led alliance, the nation will cast its ballot on February 12. On-the-ground campaigning will begin on January 22. However, parties have been tampering with Gen Z voters online for months, trying to sway them to support the formation of the next government.
In a time when mass rallies are no longer the only way to appeal to millions of voters, social media is frequently just as effective a tool as the pro-Jamaat song’s online popularity, for instance, sparked a frenzied race among parties to start songs.
The pro-Jamaat song was originally produced for a single candidate in Dhaka, according to HAL Banna, a London-based director who wrote and sang it. Other candidates “found it connected with regular voters and began using it,” he said as others started using it.
The BNP wrote its campaign song, which suggests that the party, which is only marginally ahead of the Jamaat in polls, prioritizes the nation over itself. The lyrics to the song “Amar agey amra, amader agey desh, khomotar agey jonota, shobar agey Bangladesh]Us before ourselves, the nation before us, people before power, Bangladesh above all” are in the lyrics.
The song that went viral was also produced by the National Citizen Party, which was founded by students at the forefront of the anti-Hasina protests in 2024.
However, a wider digital push has included music as well.
Social media has also been flooded with short, dramatized videos, candidacies with voters, policy explainers, and satire.
The online conflict has grown this year beyond just a legislative debate.
A referendum on the interim interim government led by Nobel laureate Muhammad Yunus, which the electorate will choose on February 12th, will also be held on February 12. The interim government’s proposed reforms, which Nobel laureate Muhammad Yunus calls necessary, must be ratified in order to institutionalize changes in state institutions brought about by the uprising of 2024.
Why it matters online
As of November 2025, Bangladesh had about 130 million internet users, or roughly 74 percent of its 176 million population, according to the Bangladesh Telecommunications Regulatory Commission.
The nation has roughly 64 million Facebook users, close to 50 million YouTube users, 9.15 million Instagram users, and more than 56 million TikTok users aged 18 and over, according to a report from DataReportal, a global digital research and analytics platform report, which was released in late 2025. X, in contrast, has about 1.79 million users and a relatively small footprint.
According to analysts, this digital reach contributes to political parties’ continued investment in online narratives.
According to election commission data, 43.56 percent of voters are between the ages of 18 and 37, with many of them first-time voters or young Bangladeshis who had a real sense of disenfranchising under Hasina. National elections in 2013 and 2018 were marred by irregularities, boycotts, and intimidation of opposition figures, turning them into fake votes. According to analysts, that has resulted in apprehension into a desire to vote later.
Digital tactics
The Awami League’s political activities, including voting in February’s elections, have been prohibited by Bangladeshi authorities.
The result of that is a bipolar election.
A BNP-led alliance, which claims to be the experienced governing body in place of the Awami League’s excesses, is on one side. Hasina’s government is accused of widespread murders, forced disappearances, and corruption. The BNP ruled Bangladesh between 1991 and 1996, and then again between 2001 and 2006.
A Jamaat-led alliance, which includes the NCP, is on the other side.
BNP leader Mahdi Amin stated to Al Jazeera that the party is concentrating on distributing policy proposals and collecting voter feedback. The BNP continues to be a political party with a proven track record of winning elections. He claimed that we have specific plans for each industry.
The BNP has created websites like MatchMyPolicy.com, where voters can express their disagreement with policy proposals that the party claims they will implement if elected, to increase online voter engagement.
The Jamaat-e-Islami has launched a website called Janatarishtehar, just like the BNP. – that it claims is aimed at gathering voter feedback in order to prepare the party’s election manifesto.
Jamaat leader Jubaer Ahmed claimed that the party’s online efforts were aimed at “sharing the narratives we believe in.” When asked about the actions of other parties, Ahmed responded, “We observe others, but we don’t follow.” Intellectual will be in the mix for us.
Is there a winner in the online conflict?
Analysts advise against declaring a win-or-lose scenario.
The campaigns’ objectives appear to be overlapping, according to Mubashar Hasan, an adjunct fellow at Western Sydney University’s Humanitarian and Development Research Initiative.
Hasan noted that BNP’s online content frequently condenses its main promises into brief, captioned videos and shareable cards. For instance, some positions promote a “Family Card” initiative whereby 5 million households and women would receive 2, 000, 2, 500 taka ($16-20) per month or essential goods if the BNP is elected. A “Farmer Card” plan is mentioned in other videos and graphics, along with incentives, easier loans, and insurance coverage for farmers. It promises fair prices for fertilizers, seeds, and pesticides.
On the other hand, he claimed, pro-Jamaat online content frequently targets the BNP as being “no different” from the Awami League.
Hasina fled India in August 2024, and New Delhi has refused to send her back despite numerous requests from Dhaka, according to Qadaruddin Shishir, editor of the fact-check outlet The Dissent.
He claimed that these themes are becoming more prevalent outside Jamaat’s core, including among young users, through memes and copied formats.
Referendum also becomes popular.
The online battle this year includes party-versus-party competition as well. A state-backed referendum on a number of broad-based reforms is also in the forefront of the debate, which is known as the July Charter, which is named in honor of the uprising that resulted in Hasina’s removal.
Using official websites and social media platforms, Bangladesh’s interim government has launched a digital campaign in favor of a “Yes” vote. Shafiqul Alam, the press secretary for interim Yunus, claimed the strategy reflects the media landscape, which has consistently lost readers.
Alam claimed that the use of “legacy media” was decreasing, adding that online campaigning was required to accredit the reforms in order to institutionalize them.
The charter recommends stronger security forces, greater restrictions on prime ministerial power, and safeguards against election rigging. Additionally, it calls for constitutional changes and judicial independence to end authoritarian rule.
The NCP, which emerged as a result of the uprising in July, has also campaigned online for a “Yes” vote in the referendum.
Offline campaigning, according to analysts and content creators, is still important. Physical campaigning still lacks the “reach and impact” of “research and impact,” according to Hal Banna, the composer of the pro-Jamaat song that sparked the trend of viral campaign songs online this election season.
As heavy rains pour nearly the entire eastern seaboard of New Zealand cause the evacuation of homes and closed roads, with rescue workers searching for several missing people, including children, in the wake of the country’s North Island’s recent landslides.
At around 9:30 am local time (20:30 GMT, Wednesday) a landslide hit Mount Maunganui holiday park in North Island, leaving several people without information on Thursday afternoon.
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The popular tourist destination’s campervans and shower block were destroyed during the final week of the summer school holidays, according to Radio New Zealand.
According to police, a house in neighboring Papamoa was struck by a landslide, and two people were also missing. A 47-year-old man was missing after attempting to cross the Mahurangi River north of Auckland and crashing into floodwaters, according to Radio New Zealand.
Officials who were giving reporters a briefing on the ongoing rescue efforts at Mount Maunganui said they still wanted to find survivors but that the possibility of more landslides had hampered operations.
Superintendent Tim Anderson, the police district commander, stated that “it is possible that we could find someone alive.” He would only add that “it is in the single figures” and that he would not comment on the number of people missing.
First responders reported seeing signs of life in the rubble, but Fire and Emergency Commander William Park withdrew because there were concerns about further ground movement.
Members of the public, according to what I understand, tried to enter the rubble and did so with some voices. The initial fire crew heard the same thing when they arrived. Due to the possibility of the slip moving, we withdrew everyone from the site shortly after our initial crew arrived, according to Park.
Emergency Management and Recovery Minister Mark Mitchell claimed that some of the missing were children.
On X, Prime Minister Christopher Luxon claimed to be “actively monitoring situations throughout the country,” including those involving Mount Maunganui.
Extreme rainfall and other disasters are becoming more frequent as a result of climate change, which is brought on by fossil fuels and other pollutants, which has caused unheard of flooding in areas all over the world.
