Category World News

A hot discussion topic in Afghanistan these days is the extreme crime allegedly plaguing various cities in the United States, most of them Democratic-led ones.

This, at least, is one of the notions to have recently emerged from the brain of US President Donald Trump, as justification for his efforts to unleash the National Guard on the city of Chicago, Illinois: “It’s probably worse than almost any city in the world. You could go to Afghanistan, you can go to a lot of different places, and they probably marvel at how much crime we have.”

In reality, of course, a lot of folks in Afghanistan and other “different places” are probably marvelling at the fact that the country that has made a name for itself illegally waging war across the world is now illegally waging war on its own cities.

As Trump himself put it: “We should use some of these dangerous cities as training grounds for our military.” Never mind that the military is intended for use abroad – the president has detected an “enemy within”.

Currently in the Trumpian crosshairs are Chicago and Portland, Oregon, both of which the administration has labelled as “war zones”. And what better way to will a war zone into being than by sending in the military?

Notably, the two heavily Democratic cities have played host to significant public protests over Trump’s sadistic immigration crackdown, with peaceful protesters – pardon, “enemies within” – being on the receiving end of tear gas, rubber bullets, and other treats courtesy of US forces of law and order. And yet people wouldn’t be protesting in the first place had Trump not authorised US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to wantonly eviscerate rights and rip communities apart.

But without such protests and other “civil disturbances”, there would be no excuse for rampant militarisation by Commander-in-Chief Trump, who would then have so much extra money on his hands that he might have to invest in, I dunno, healthcare or education.

In June, Trump deployed thousands of National Guard troops as well as hundreds of US Marines to Los Angeles, California, to help combat protests against ICE’s manic immigration raids. A US district judge subsequently ruled that the Trump administration had wilfully violated federal law in doing so.

Then in August, Trump imposed federal control on the local police force in the nation’s capital of Washington, DC, and mobilised 800 National Guard troops, ostensibly to fight “out of control” crime levels. As everyone pointed out, however, crime in DC was in fact down.

But there’s nothing like the sight of the military patrolling the streets to keep Americans in line – and living in fear.

In the case of Portland, Trump’s militarised vision has been stymied for the moment by a federal judge – appointed by Trump himself, no less – who temporarily blocked the administration’s move to send National Guard troops from California into Oregon.

Trump’s appointed “hellhole” of Chicago, on the other hand, looks poised to receive the Trumpian treatment sooner rather than later, as hundreds of National Guard troops from Texas arrived in Illinois on Tuesday despite legal challenges. A lawsuit filed on October 6 by the state of Illinois and city of Chicago argued that “the American people, regardless of where they reside, should not live under the threat of occupation by the United States military, particularly not simply because their city or state leadership has fallen out of a president’s favor”.

Trump has warned that, if necessary, he will not hesitate to invoke the Insurrection Act, a federal law dating from 1807 that would effectively permit military occupation whether state and city officials like it or not. The last usage of said act took place in 1992 under then-president George H W Bush, who whipped it out in response to unrest in Los Angeles following the acquittal of four white police officers in the beating of a Black man named Rodney King.

Again, the unrest never would have happened had US forces of law and order not engaged in egregiously criminal behaviour. From any objective standpoint, the solution to abuses committed by armed representatives of the state is not the deployment of more armed representatives of the state.

Meanwhile, Chicago and Portland are hardly the end of Trump’s list of targets, which comprises many more “dangerous cities” that can potentially be used “as training grounds for our military.” But as journalist Melissa del Bosque reveals in a recent dispatch for the Border Chronicle, the Texas-Mexico frontier is already being utilised as just such a training venue.

Since Republican governor of Texas and anti-immigrant extraordinaire Greg Abbott launched “Operation Lone Star” in 2021, del Bosque writes, Democratic-leaning Texas border communities have “been occupied by National Guard troops deployed by Republican-led states, including Tennessee”. Over the past four-and-a-half years, “Abbott and other MAGA-aligned governors have spent billions of taxpayer dollars to send troops and police to the border,” with Operation Lone Star serving “as a testing ground for Trump’s mass-deportation campaign and for his troop deployments”.

As border militarisation now spreads to the country’s interior, the MAGA crowd is urging the Trump administration to simply ignore court rulings that impede his National Guard Deployments. And as the US becomes a post-legal testing ground for total control by Trump, they may even be talking about it in Afghanistan.

US President Donald Trump has announced that Israel and Hamas have agreed to the first phase of a peace plan that aims to achieve a ceasefire in Gaza.

This plan seeks to end Israel’s war that has dragged on for two years, killing more than 67,000 Palestinians with thousands more lost under the rubble and presumed dead.

During the initial phase, Palestinian prisoners and Israeli captives will be released by each side.

These are the key moments that led to Trump’s announcement.

September 9: Israel attacks Hamas leadership in Qatar

At about 12:00 GMT on September 9, Israel fired missiles into a residential area of Qatar’s capital, Doha, where negotiators from Hamas were meeting to discuss a ceasefire plan for Gaza put forth by the United States. Senior Hamas leaders Khalil al-Hayya and Khaled Meshaal both survived.

Six people were killed, including al-Hayya’s son, Humam; one of al-Hayya’s office directors; three bodyguards; and a Qatari security official.

Trump’s reaction to the attack was muted – the US president initially said he was “not thrilled” by what Israel had done.

After Qatar’s Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani condemned the attack, calling it “a flagrant violation of its sovereignty and security, and a clear violation of the rules and principles of international law”, Trump said he felt “very badly about the location of the attack” and promised it would not happen again.

However, on the night of the attack, Israeli ambassador Yechiel Leiter appeared to suggest on Fox News that Israel would continue to target Hamas leaders in Qatar or elsewhere, stating, “If we didn’t get them this time, we’ll get them next time.”

September 22-23: Wave of nations recognise Palestinian state:

During the 80th session of the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) in New York, France, Luxembourg, Malta, Monaco, Andorra and Belgium all formally recognised a Palestinian state.

Currently, 81 percent of the international community, or 157 of 193 UN member states have formally recognised the sovereign state of Palestine.

These recognitions have added to the mounting pressure on Israel – and its principal ally, the US – to agree to a ceasefire.

Speaking at UNGA, Trump called these recognitions a “reward” for Hamas.

“As if to encourage continued conflict, some of this body is seeking to unilaterally recognise the Palestinian state. The rewards would be too great for Hamas terrorists, for their atrocities,” Trump said.

However, he also stated: “We have to stop the war in Gaza immediately.”

September 29: Netanyahu visits White House, apologises to Qatar

Netanyahu apologised to Qatar for the killing of a Qatari citizen during an Israeli attack in Doha, during his visit to the White House to discuss a ceasefire in Gaza.

The apology was delivered on a trilateral call from Trump and Netanyahu at the White House to Qatari Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman bin Jassim Al Thani.

September 29: Trump’s 20-point proposal

Trump unveiled his 20-point proposal for Gaza during a White House news conference on September 29 after his meeting with Netanyahu, who was also present at the event.

He said that if both Israel and Hamas accepted the proposal, the war would end immediately, military operations would halt and Israeli captives would be returned within 72 hours.

In exchange for the freed captives, Israel is to release Palestinian prisoners, including life-sentence inmates and all women and children detained since October 7, 2023. Remains of Palestinians are to be exchanged for remains of Israelis.

Under the proposal, Gaza is to be provisionally governed by a technocratic Palestinian committee with oversight from an international “Board of Peace” chaired by Trump, pending reforms by the Palestinian Authority. Hamas is to be excluded from government, but its members will receive amnesty if they disarm, or be provided with safe passage if they wish to leave.

The proposal additionally seeks to dismantle Gaza’s military infrastructure, while launching immediate, United Nations-managed aid and reconstruction of essential facilities.

The plan was welcomed by the Palestinian Authority. The foreign ministers of Egypt, Indonesia, Jordan, Pakistan, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Turkiye and the United Arab Emirates released a joint statement welcoming the plan.

October 3: Hamas accepts parts of the 20-point proposal

Trump had given Hamas until October 5 to accept the proposal, and Hamas gave its formal acceptance of parts of it on October 3. Trump reiterated that if Hamas rejected the plan, he would fully support Israel to “do what it has to do”.

Hamas’s response stated that the group has agreed to “to release all occupation captives – both living and the remains – according to the exchange formula outlined in President Trump’s proposal, with the provision of field conditions necessary for the exchange”.

It added that it was ready to “immediately enter negotiations through mediators to discuss the details”.

Hamas also said that it was ready to “hand over the administration of the Gaza Strip to a Palestinian body of independents [technocrats] based on Palestinian national consensus and with Arab and Islamic support”.

October 6 and 7: Negotiations in Egypt

Indirect negotiations over the conditions for a ceasefire deal took place in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt on October 6 and October 7.

October 8: Trump’s Truth Social announcement

On the third day of negotiations in Egypt, US officials including Trump’s Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff and former Middle East adviser Jared Kushner (also Trump’s son-in-law), Netanyahu’s top adviser, Strategic Affairs Minister Ron Dermer, and the Qatari prime minister arrived in Egypt for negotiations.

Late in the evening, Trump announced that Israel and Hamas had agreed to the first phase of the peace plan, in a post on his Truth Social platform at 23:17 GMT on Wednesday.

Trump wrote: “This means that ALL of the Hostages will be released very soon, and Israel will withdraw their Troops to an agreed upon line as the first steps toward a Strong, Durable, and Everlasting Peace. All Parties will be treated fairly!”

When Hamas attacked Israel on October 7, 2023, it took 250 people captive. Many of these have since been released in various prisoner-exchange deals with Israel. Israel says that approximately 20 hostages are still alive in Gaza, and that the bodies of 28 others are also being held there.

How have previous ceasefire attempts in Gaza fared?

Over the past two years, there have been several attempts to halt hostilities and end the war in Gaza.

• November 2023: After six months of fighting, Israel and Hamas agreed to a four-day pause in fighting on November 21. They also agreed on a prisoner exchange of Palestinian prisoners and Israeli captives. The truce was brokered by Qatar, Egypt and the US. The truce began on November 24 and was renewed twice before ending on December 1 with renewed violence.
• January 2024: On January 15 last year, Hamas and Israel agreed to a ceasefire also involving a prisoner and captive exchange. However, fighting erupted again due to unresolved disputes over further prisoner releases and security guarantees.
• January 2025: On January 18, a ceasefire deal came into effect, which sought to pause fighting and free prisoners and captives. Qatar, Egypt and the US mediated this deal. Israel violated the ceasefire by continuing to kill people in Gaza, according to daily reports from the Ministry of Health. On March 18, Netanyahu unilaterally ended the ceasefire.

As the Norwegian Nobel Committee prepares to announce this year’s winner of the Nobel Peace Prize, one name, one persona hovers over its decision – the United States president, Donald Trump.

Since stepping into office in January, Trump has made it clear that he believes he should win the coveted prize since he has, he claims, ended at least “seven wars”.

On Wednesday, he put himself in the front seat to claim credit for the possible end to an eighth war, after Israel and Hamas agreed to the first stage of a ceasefire deal that is rooted in Trump’s 20-point peace plan, which he had unveiled last week.

This year’s award announcement also comes amid Russia’s ongoing war in Ukraine and conflicts in many other countries.

There are 338 nominees for the prize, and the Nobel Committee — a group of five people selected by the Storting, the Norwegian parliament— picks the winner.

Is Trump qualified to win the prize? Here’s what we know:

Why does Trump say he deserves the Nobel Peace Prize?

Speaking at the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) in New York in September, Trump said, “Everyone says I should get the Nobel Peace Prize.”

“I ended seven wars. No president or prime minister has ever done anything close to that,” he added.

Trump noted that the wars he ended include Cambodia and Thailand; Kosovo and Serbia; the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) and Rwanda; Pakistan and India; Israel and Iran; Egypt and Ethiopia; and Armenia and Azerbaijan.

What are Trump’s credentials?

Some of the wars Trump claims to have ended are ones he participated in himself. His role in some other ceasefires is disputed. Still, there are other conflicts where the involved parties do credit him with playing a key role as mediator.

• In September, Trump said he “deserved” to win the prize for the possibility of ending Israel’s two-year-long war on Gaza. While US weapons and the country’s ironclad diplomatic support for Israel have been critical in allowing the war to continue, Trump is also widely believed to have pressured Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu more than his predecessor, Joe Biden, to end the fighting. Last week, Trump unveiled his 20-point peace plan. Now, with the announcement of a ceasefire deal between Israel and Hamas, the war is the closest it has been to its conclusion.
• The war between Iran and Israel in June ended with a ceasefire brokered by Trump. But the bout of fighting, which started with Israel striking Iranian nuclear facilities, killing scientists and bombing residential neighbourhoods, also included the US as an active participant. Trump took part in it by ordering his military to strike three Iranian nuclear sites. Iran struck back by hitting the largest US military base in the Middle East, in Qatar, before the ceasefire was announced.
• In May, India and Pakistan waged an aerial war, bombing each other’s military bases. India said it also hit “terrorist” bases in Pakistan and Pakistan-administered Kashmir, while Pakistan claimed India killed dozens of civilians. Ultimately, Trump announced a ceasefire after four days of fighting. But while Pakistan credits the US president for helping halt the fighting, India insists he had no role.
• Cambodia and Thailand saw five days of hostilities in August, and a truce began after phone calls from not only Trump, but also mediation from Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim and a delegation of Chinese negotiators. So far, only Cambodia has thanked Trump for his role.
• Relations between Serbia and Kosovo have been tense since the early 2000s. The European Union and NATO have always been key mediators in this region. Kosovo and Serbia signed a deal in 2020 under Trump during his first term. While relations remain tense, the two have not been involved in a full-blown war since Trump’s return to power.
• Trump says he ended a war between Egypt and Ethiopia. But while the two nations have had tense relations, especially over a hydroelectric dam which opened on a tributary of the Nile River, they have not been in any war.
• Rwanda and the DRC signed a peace deal in June, brokered by Trump. The ceasefire is fragile and tensions between the two countries remain high, but the deal is holding for now.
• In August, Trump oversaw a peace agreement between Armenia and Azerbaijan at the White House, which promises to end a simmering conflict that often exploded into open war since the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991. But in a subsequent interview with Fox & Friends, Trump appeared confused about the countries he had mediated between. He told his hosts that he had ended a war between Azerbaijan and Albania.

“I would be surprised if President Trump will be awarded this year’s peace prize as he has not yet made a substantial enough contribution to peace to win the prize,” Nina Graeger, director of the Peace Research Institute Oslo, told Al Jazeera.

“While he deserves credit for his efforts to end the war in Gaza, it is too early to tell whether the peace proposal will be implemented and lead to lasting peace,” she said.

Why does Trump want the Nobel Prize?

Trump says he deserves it — and many of his supporters agree. But the US president has also often compared his foreign policy initiatives with the global recognition that former US President Barack Obama received during his stint in power.

Obama won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2009 “for his extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples” — even though he had been in power for only a few months at that point. Obama’s win has long been criticised, given his role in expanding the use of drone attacks overseas, including against US citizens, and his continuation of multiple wars around the world.

“If I were named Obama, I would have had the Nobel Prize given to me in 10 seconds,” Trump said last year.

According to Norwegian newspaper Dagens Naeringsliv, in July, Trump also called Norway’s Finance Minister Jens Stoltenberg — the former NATO chief — to discuss tariffs and lobby for the Nobel Peace Prize.

But hasn’t Trump also been an aggressor?

Graeger said when it comes to selecting a winner, the Nobel Committee may want to look at the sum of a candidate’s efforts towards peace.

“Trump’s retreat from international institutions, wish to take over Greenland from the Kingdom of Denmark, a NATO ally, as well as infringements on basic democratic rights within his own country, do not align well with the will of Alfred Nobel,” she said.

Besides participating in bombing Iran together with Israel in June, Trump also ordered US forces to attack Somalia in February, claiming he was targeting senior ISIL (ISIS) leadership in that country.

In March, he launched large-scale strikes on Yemen’s Houthis over the group’s Red Sea attacks, and in September, he ordered US forces to strike boats in the Caribbean, including at least three originating from Venezuela, claiming they were ferrying drug smugglers and narcotics to the US.

The US president has also threatened to annex Greenland, Canada and the Panama Canal.

Is violence a no-no for Nobel Peace Prize winners?

The Nobel Peace Prize, established under the will of Sweden’s Alfred Nobel, is given to “the person who shall have done the most or the best work for fraternity between nations, the abolition or reduction of standing armies and for the holding and promotion of peace congresses”.

But in reality, the prize is shrouded in controversy.

In 1973, US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger was one of its winners, for negotiating a ceasefire and ending the US’s Vietnam War. But Kissinger had wrecked earlier ceasefire efforts, prolonging the war. The carpet bombing campaign he oversaw in Cambodia under President Richard Nixon killed hundreds of thousands of people. Nixon also backed Pakistan’s massacres in present-day Bangladesh as the latter’s independence movement reached its crescendo in 1971. Kissinger and Nixon also funnelled millions of dollars into enabling a military coup against the democratically elected president of Chile, Salvador Allende. And after he won the Nobel, Kissinger in 1975 also greenlit Indonesian President Soeharto’s invasion of East Timor. Soeharto was a critical Cold War ally of the US.

In 1994, then-Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres won the Nobel alongside his Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin and then-Palestinian President Yasser Arafat for the signing of the 1993 Oslo Accords. Peres had been prime minister previously, would become PM again in 1995, and was later also Israel’s president.

But four decades earlier, as deputy director general of Israel’s Defence Ministry, Peres had helped plan the Suez War. During his premiership in the 1980s, Israel also launched a long-range missile attack on the office of the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) in Tunisia.

Myanmar’s pro-democracy icon Aung San Suu Kyi won the prize in 1991. But decades later, calls grew for the award to be withdrawn over her role overseeing massacres against the Rohingya, when she was the country’s de facto leader between 2016 and 2021.

And then there is Obama. “When Barack Obama received the prize in 2009, critics argued that it was premature, as he had been in office for less than a year and had not yet shown concrete results in promoting peace,” Graeger said.

“When awarding the prize to Obama, they emphasised his visions regarding the importance of multilateral diplomacy and disarmament, and one could argue that he represented a reset of international relations and cooperation,” she added.

All of these choices, Graeger said, do shed light on the boundaries the Nobel Committee is willing to push in choosing the winner of the prize.

“While the Nobel Committee does not set out to cause controversy, they do not shy away from it if they feel they have a laureate who is deserving of the Prize,” she said.

So can Trump still win — and who has endorsed him?

Nominations for the 2025 Nobel Peace Prize closed on January 31, just days after Trump returned to the White House.

In July, Netanyahu said he nominated Trump for the prize, followed by Cambodia’s Prime Minister Hun Manet in August. Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan and Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev also jointly endorsed Trump for the prize in August.

Within the president’s cabinet, Steve Witkoff, his chief envoy to the Middle East, has said Trump was “the single finest candidate” for the prize. US Representative Buddy Carter, a Republican, also sent a letter to the Norwegian Nobel Committee in September. US pharmaceutical company Pfizer’s CEO, Albert Bourla, also said Trump deserves the prize.

But nominations made after July 31 will count for the 2026 Nobel Peace Prize, according to the rules of the Nobel Committee. The government of Pakistan has already nominated Trump for the prize for next year.

Al Jazeera asked the Norwegian organisers of the prize whether Trump’s candidacy was under consideration, but there has been no response as yet.

What could happen if Trump does not win?

Speaking at a US military meeting in Virginia in September, Trump said it would be “a big insult to America” if he were not given the award.

“They’ll give it to some guy that didn’t do a damn thing … they’ll give it to the guy who wrote a book about the mind of Donald Trump,” he said.

Within Norway, questions have arisen over how Trump might respond if he does not win. The US has already imposed 15 percent tariffs on the country’s exports.

The Trump administration also told CNBC last month that the US is “very troubled” after Norway — which has an approximately $2 trillion sovereign fund — announced it would divest from US company Caterpillar over its links to Israel’s war on Gaza.

But in an interview with Bloomberg on October 3, Foreign Minister Espen Barth Eid said Norway’s government is not involved in the Nobel Peace Prize decisions.

How did a 218cm South Sudanese teenager, raised in a refugee camp, become a top-10 NBA draft pick? Samantha Johnson looks at Khaman Maluach’s journey and how sport can open doors when politics tries to shut them.