In response to concerns that the three European countries might re-engage with Iranian diplomats in nuclear negotiations, according to warnings made by the three countries’ previous 2015 agreements.
The meeting, which is taking place in Turkiye’s Istanbul on Friday morning, is the first since Israel launched an intense 12-day conflict in which the United States militarily intervened on behalf of Israel and attacked important Iranian nuclear sites, starting in mid-June.
Top commanders, nuclear scientists, and hundreds of civilians were killed as a result of Israel’s offensive, which also affected residential areas and caused the US-Iran nuclear talks to end in April.
Iran claimed on Friday that the meeting will give the so-called E3 group from Germany, the UK, and France the chance to change their positions on Iran’s nuclear issue. According to Esmaeil Baghaei, a spokesperson for the foreign ministry, Iran considers the discussion of extending UN Security Council Resolution 2231 to be both “meaningless and baseless.”
The resolution is scheduled to expire in October, ratifying the 2015 agreement Iran and the world powers reached in exchange for urgent sanctions relief. It guarantees the right of the big powers to rescind UN sanctions.
The “snapback mechanism,” which would reinstate the sanctions against Iran by the end of August, was reportedly threatened by the E3 since then as a result of the moribund 2015 nuclear agreement that US President Donald Trump unilaterally tore up in his first term.
Tehran has warned of the consequences if the E3 chooses to activate the snapback, and the option expires in October.
This week, senior Iranian diplomat Majid Takht-Ravanchi and Iranian deputy foreign minister Kazem Gharibabadi warned that enacting sanctions “is completely illegal.”
After the US withdrew from the deal, he also accused the European countries of “halting their commitments.”
Gharibabadi stated, “We have warned them of the risks, but we are still looking for common ground to manage the situation.”
Tehran’s warning
Iranian diplomats have previously warned that Tehran might withdraw from the world’s nuclear non-proliferation treaty if UN sanctions are reinstated.
Iran’s already constrained economy would be put under more pressure if sanctions were to be reinstated, which would increase its standing abroad.
Gideon Saar, the foreign minister of Israel, has urged the world to activate the mechanism. Two days before Tehran and Washington were scheduled to meet for a sixth round of nuclear negotiations, Israel launched an attack on Iran on June 13.
Fordow, Isfahan, and Natanz were among the US nuclear facilities that were struck on June 22.
Prior to the conflict, Washington and Tehran had differences regarding uranium enrichment, which Iran has called a “non-negotiable” right for civilian purposes, while the US called it a “red line.”
Iran enriches uranium to a 60% purity, according to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), far above the 3.67 percent cap set forth in the 2015 agreement’s requirement for weapons-grade levels.
Tehran has stated that it is not interested in negotiating uranium enrichment rates and levels.
Iran reportedly began reversing its commitments a year after the US pulled out of the nuclear deal, which had put restrictions on its nuclear activities in exchange for sanctions relief.
Iran is accused of pursuing nuclear weapons by Israel and Western powers, a charge Tehran has consistently refuted. In the run-up to the June conflict, both US intelligence and the IAEA claimed to have seen no indication of Iran’s intention to develop nuclear weapons.
Enrichment is “stopped.”
Iran insists it will continue to maintain its nuclear program, which Abbas Araghchi, the country’s foreign minister, dubbed “national pride.”
The US bombing’s full scope of damage is still a mystery. Trump has claimed that the sites have been “completely destroyed,” but US media reports have cast doubt on how much of the destruction has been done.
According to Araghchi, enrichment is currently “stopped” due to “serious and severe” harm to nuclear sites brought on by US and Israeli attacks.
Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian stated in an interview with Al Jazeera on Wednesday that Iran was ready for another war and that it would continue to use its nuclear arsenal in accordance with international law. He added that the nation had no intention of pursuing nuclear weapons.
Iran has stopped cooperating with the IAEA because of the 12-day conflict, accusing it of being biased and not to condemn the attacks.
Inspectors have since left the nation, but a technical team is expected to return in the coming weeks, as per Iran’s promise that future cooperation will take “new form.”
As Thailand and Cambodia fight head-on, desperate evacuees have reported being surrounded by thunderous artillery bombardments.
More than 100, 000 people were forced to leave their homes across four Thai border provinces on Friday as a result of the worst fighting in more than a decade between the neighboring nations.
Thousands of people from northeastern Surin province renounced their homes for makeshift shelters built in the town center on Thursday as a result of artillery fire.
Nearly 3, 000 people packed onto rows of plastic mats covered in colorful blankets and hastily gathered things in Surindra Rajabhat University’s sports hall.
Thidarat Homhuan, 37, told the AFP news agency, “I’m concerned about our home, our animals, and the crops we’ve worked so hard on.”
She eluded nine members of her family, including her grandmother, who had just come out of a hospital, who was 87.
“That concern persists,” he said. However, because we are now further away from the danger zone, being here makes it feel safer. We’re at least safe, she said.
When she first heard what she described as “something like machinegun fire,” followed by heavy artillery thuds, Thidarat was babysitting at a nearby school.
“There was chaos,” he said. The children feared for their lives. She said, “I rushed to the bunker at the school.”
Evacuees slept next to each other in the shelter beneath the gym’s high ceiling, surrounded by loud electric fans and hushed rumors.
Children played quietly in the shade of blankets, while infants slept in cradles, and the elderly were lying in blankets. In mesh crates close to the public restroom, pet cats sat nearby.
According to Chai Samoraphum, the president’s office director, this is the first full year the university has been operating as a shelter.
The campus quickly changed into a functioning evacuation center after classes were immediately canceled.
Six locations on the campus were used to distribute evacuees from four border districts.
The majority of them departed quickly. Some people have chronic illnesses but didn’t bring their medications, while others only managed to grab a few things, Chai told AFP.
Chai explained that the center offers mental health services to trauma victims and care for those who have chronic illnesses with the provincial hospital’s assistance.
According to reports from Thailand’s officials, at least 14 people have been killed in border fighting, including one soldier and two civilians who were killed in a rocket attack close to a petrol station in Sisaket province. It is confirmed that there was also a Cambodian fatality.
Evacuees are unsure of their ability to return home as fighting continues near the border.
The shelter offers safety and a place to wait for confirmations that it’s safe to “go back to normal life,” according to Thidarat.
She already wants the government to take swift action, saying, “Do not wait until lives are lost.
She said, “We rely on the government very much for protection, and we look up to it.”
Key figures in the US protest movement, according to the US protest group Code Pink, are accused of participating in Israel’s starvation campaign in Gaza. Former President Joe Biden and Senator Lindsey Graham have previously been targeted for their support of Israel’s war.
Due to the sheer scale of the evidence in accusations against him by Syrian activists and European prosecutors, France’s highest court will decide whether to revoke Bashar al-Assad’s exile from Russia’s highest court.
If al-Assad’s immunity is overturned on Friday, al-Assad could face an absentee trial for using chemical weapons in Ghouta and Douma in 2018.
Human rights activists and attorneys claim that it could set a precedent for the prosecution of other government officials linked to atrocities.
Al-Assad has denied being responsible for the chemical attacks and has no attorneys to answer these questions.
Since al-Assad’s forces were the only side in the nearly 14-year civil war with sarin, the opposition has long refuted al-Assad’s claim.
According to Mazen Darwish, president of the Syrian Center for Media and Freedom of Expression, which collected evidence for war crimes, a ruling against al-Assad would be a “huge victory for the victims,” according to The Associated Press news agency.
This will open the door for victims from any nation, and it will be the first time a domestic investigative judge has the authority to issue an arrest warrant for a president while he is in power.
He claimed that the decision would allow his organization to pursue allegations of money laundering against former Syrian Central Bank governor and minister of economy Adib Mayaleh, whose attorneys claimed he had immunity under international law.
Brutal crackdown
Hafez al-Assad and his son Bashar served as ruler of Syria for more than 50 years.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR) reports that more than half a million people died in a brutal civil war that started against their rule in 2011 across the 23-million-strong nation. More than a billion people have fled Europe, Lebanon, Jordan, Turkiye, and elsewhere.
Despite promises that Syria’s new leaders will carve out a political future for the country that includes and represents all of its communities, the al-Assad dynasty also stoked sectarian tensions to stay in power.
The decision of the French judges could provide the legal framework to prosecute not just deposed and exiled leaders but those who are currently in power, given that the International Criminal Court (ICC) has issued arrest warrants for leaders accused of atrocities. These include Rodrigo Duterte in the Philippines, Israel’s Benjamin Netanyahu in Gaza, and Vladimir Putin in Russia.
The Syrian government initially denied involvement in the Ghouta attack in 2013, but the United States later threatened military retaliation before agreeing to a deal with Moscow, allowing Russia to wrest significant influence in the war-torn nation.
Zimbabwe’s Bulawayo: When Lloyd Muzamba was seriously hurt in a car accident on the Harare-Bulawayo highway in 2023, he required a swift blood transfusion to save his life. Despite being admitted at Mpilo Central Hospital, the biggest public health facility in Zimbabwe’s Matabeleland region, a shortage of supplies meant the doctors didn’t have enough for him.
The family of Muzamba turned to a nearby private hospital to purchase the three pints of blood out of desperation. Muzamba, who earned a $ 270 monthly salary and had no savings, was unable to afford it because it cost $250 per pint.
With time running out, the family had to make a plan. After selling a cow for $300, Muzamba’s uncle requested contributions from other relatives.
The now-recoverable Muzamba claims that the incident has psychologically damaged him, as he worries about other situations where people might require life-saving blood.
“Three pints can be a small number, others might need more than that. However, the risks are severe because of the cost, according to the 35-year-old who works in a Bulawayo hardware store.
Without making a payment plan or paying, I was unable to get the blood. It was a painful experience for an ordinary Zimbabwean like me”.
Muzamba’s is not a singular case.
Due to financial constraints, desperate Zimbabweans in need of care are facing life-threatening delays because of ongoing currency problems, rising living costs, and rising poverty rates. This includes blood shortages – despite supplies being free in public health facilities.
When her second child was delivered, Tanaka Moyo, a mother of two in Harare, also experienced the stress of having to pay for emergency blood supplies.
The 38-year-old street vendor needed four pints of blood after excessive postpartum hemorrhage.
Together with her husband, a security guard, she had struggled to raise money for the birth of their child. A blood transfusion was unexpectedly necessary, and it cost unanticipated money.
“My husband yelled at a microfinance agency and borrowed money.” The interests are steep and conditions stringent, but he had to act quickly”, said Moyo.
The hospital insisted that the blood was free, but it was not.
Postpartum hemorrhage is the main cause of maternal mortality, according to Plaxedes Charuma, a gynecologist in Bulawayo. The prevalence of the condition means that hospitals should always have supplies on hand to deal with maternal blood loss emergencies that arise, health experts say.
[Photo by Simon Bulawayo/Reuters] A maternity ward in a Harare, Zimbabwe hospital
The Zimbabwean community working group on health (CWGH), a network of civic health organizations, claims that pregnant women are the most vulnerable in the country because of the country’s high demand for blood transfusions.
“About half a million pregnancies are expected in Zimbabwe, and in some of these, there is excessive blood loss, requiring transfusion of at least three pints of blood”, said Itai Rusike, CWGH’s executive director.
According to Rusike, “Maternal mortality in Zimbabwe continues to be unacceptable high.” According to the saying, “Timely blood transfusion prevents maternal deaths, which are estimated to be 212 for every 100 000 live births in Zimbabwe.”
‘ Free blood for all ‘
There are typically two main blood transfusion types: autologous and allogeneic. An individual can donate the same blood to another person for their own use later, known as an autologous transfusion. Allogeneic transfusion, which is the most common in Zimbabwe, involves administering blood donated by one person to another who matches their blood type.
The organization that regulates blood donation and distribution in Zimbabwe is known as the National Blood Service Zimbabwe (NBSZ). Although it is a self-contained, not-for-profit organization, Zimbabwe’s government has mandated that it process and distribute blood throughout.
While the Ministry of Health and Child Care is permanently represented on its board of directors, NBSZ functions independently of hospitals and government health institutions. It is distributed decentralised throughout five regional centers: Harare, Bulawayo, Gweru, Masvingo, and Mutare, but it is not present in every facility.
Patients in Zimbabwe used to pay for blood, but the government has since worked to lower costs, going from $150 to $50 by 2018.
The government then went a step further in July that year, deciding that blood would be made free at all public health institutions.
During the World Blood Donor Day celebrations in June 2018, former minister of health and child care, Dr. David Parirenyatwa, stated that “the free blood for all move is proceeding as planned and mechanisms have already been put in place to finance the move. By July 1]2018, blood will be available for free.”
Hospitals are still in shortages despite the policy, though.
This May, there was a critical lack of blood in public hospitals, a situation that threatened the lives of thousands of people, the Ministry of Health and Child Care said in a statement. Al Jazeera reached out to ministry spokesman Donald Mujiri to inquire about the situation and the implementation of the free blood policy, but he did not respond to our requests for comment.
NBSZ, in contrast, claimed that operational and systemic issues that prevented the organization from carrying out routine blood collection activities contributed to May’s shortage.
“Without timely financial support, we faced constraints in mobilising outreach teams, securing fuel, and procuring essential supplies”, Vickie Maponga, NBSZ communications officer, told Al Jazeera.
“Additionally, a seasonal decline in donations, especially from youth, who make up over 70% of our donor base, exacerbated the crisis.”
Patients on the front line frequently need to buy blood at private clinics as a result of these shortages. In most cases, the patient is physically transferred to the private facility for the transfusion, where they pay the costs. In some circumstances, the patient pays and receives blood in a public hospital via a private hospital.
Zimbabwe’s annual World Blood Donor Day awareness street march [Photo by NBSZ]
Crucial blood donations
The World Health Organization (WHO) wants to make sure that all nations that perform blood transfusions use voluntary blood donors receive their blood supplies.
The NBSZ claimed for Al Jazeera that cultivating a culture of regular, voluntary donations, particularly among the young and underserved communities, is essential to ensuring a healthy blood supply in Zimbabwe.
The service has a mobile outreach model, through which it brings blood donation drives directly to schools and communities. Maponga added that they have started a club that encourages “young people to commit to giving blood at least 25 times in their lifetime” to further engage the youth.
She added, “We also incorporate blood donation awareness into school initiatives and work with tertiary institutions to ensure continuity after high school.”
Ivy Khumalo, 32, is one of those who has been donating blood since she was in high school. She claims that her ability to donate as an adult is now hampered by the absence of blood donation centers nearby.
It was [first started] as a result of peer pressure, according to Khumalo, who said it was fascinating. “It was only when I was an adult that I made a personal decision to continue donating out of love to save life and help those in need”.
She claimed that because Victoria Falls, which is located more than 100 kilometers (62 miles) away, is the closest hospital to donate blood, she said, it has become expensive since moving from Bulawayo to Hwange.
NBSZ claims that it regularly runs blood drives throughout the state. It also says it offers donors incentives.
In times of medical need, regular donors who adhere to a certain set of requirements, such as having made at least 10 donations, with the most recent one occurring within the past 12 months, are eligible for free blood and blood products for themselves and their immediate family members, according to Maponga.
However, the struggle to get to a far-off donation site is a barrier to entry for ardent donors like Khumalo.
“In such circumstances, it is no longer a free donation as I spent money going there. Despite our passion for blood donation, the majority of us ultimately choose to stay at home, she said.
Rusike, a spokesperson for CWGH, claims that the NBSZ and the Ministry of Health and Child Care must quickly come up with creative and sustainable strategies to increase blood donations.
“The government should utilise the Health Levy Fund of 5 percent tax on airtime and mobile data as it was set up to specifically subsidise the cost of blood and assist public health institutions to replace obsolete equipment and address the perennial drug shortages in our public health institutions”, he said. That money should be ring-fenced and used in a more accountable and transparent way.
[Photo courtesy of National Blood Service Zimbabwe (NBSZ)] A woman works at a lab.
Promises and shortages
According to authorities, Zimbabwe’s national blood supply is showing good progress by the middle of 2025, and NBSZ has already collected more than 73% of its half-year goal (the annual target is 97,500 units) annually.
The public health service claims that the Ministry of Health and Child Care is responsible for controlling and subsidizing the blood cost.
“Since 2018, this]free blood policy] is made possible through a government-funded coupon system, which absorbs the full cost of $250 per unit, resulting in zero cost to the recipient]in public hospitals]”, said Maponga.
The NBSZ maintains that it operates on a cost-recovery basis. A pint of blood is collected, processed, and distributed throughout the entire cost-sharing chain, according to the statement. The agency charges $250, making a $5 profit per pint.
However, some private establishments charge up to $500 per pint, according to Zimbabweans. Due to the high cost, many people are still unaffordably aware of it, which has sparked a heated debate on social media.
“NBSZ does not have regulatory authority over how those institutions price their services to patients”, said Maponga, explaining that while blood itself is donated freely, the journey from “vein to vein” involves a complex and resource-intensive process.
However, more can be done to lower the cost of blood transfusions, according to observers.
According to Carlton Ntini, a socioeconomic justice activist in Bulawayo, “the entire chain of blood transfusions can cost less than $150 when strategically deploying available resources, using financial donor stakeholders like corporates, and also holding the government accountable for the entire process.”
The issue of free blood in the public hospitals is noble, Ntini said, but without full implementation, it remains a false hope and only benefits the “lucky” few, as shortages are the order of the day.
Any sum exceeding $50 per pint of blood is actually a death sentence for Zimbabweans, he claimed.
The cost of essentials only further complicates an already stressful situation for patients.
Muzamba was fortunate in that his family did not claim back the money they gave him for his blood transfusion. However, Moyo and her husband struggled to pay off their $1,400 loan debt.
According to local reports, a roof collapsed on a school building in Rajasthan, India, killing at least four children and injuring 17 others.
The tragedy occurred at a government-run school in the Barmer district on Friday morning shortly after daily prayers. Around 25 to 30 students, according to authorities, were reportedly inside the classroom when the ceiling sprang up.
Local police believe the collapse may have been the result of the building’s deteriorating structure, which has recently experienced heavy rain. Senior police officer Amit Kumar told the Press Trust of India that “some of the injured are in critical condition.”
Madan Dilawar, the minister of education in Rajasthan, claimed he had instructed officials to oversee the medical care of the injured and ensure that their families received support. He told the AajTak news channel, “I have directed the authorities to make proper arrangements, supervise the injured children’s treatment, and make sure they do not face any kind of difficulties.”
A formal investigation would be launched to find out the exact cause, according to Dilawar. He added, “I have also spoken with the collector and directed the authorities to assess the situation and offer any assistance.”
Locals and emergency personnel used cranes to clear debris as worried parents watched as footage was broadcast on Indian television. Near the site, you could hear wailing from relatives.
Late in the day, rescue efforts were still going. 32 students have already been pulled out alive, according to local media, some of whom have been seriously hurt.
Rajasthan Chief Minister Bhajanlal Sharma stated in a statement on X that “instructions have been given to the concerned authorities to ensure proper treatment for the injured children.”
