Following Australia’s decision to expel its ambassador from Canberra over allegations that Tehran was behind anti-Jewish attacks in the nation, Iran has promised to take the same course of action.
Australia’s accusations were “absolutely rejected,” according to Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Esmaeil Baghaei on Tuesday, saying that “any inappropriate and unjustified action on a diplomatic level will have a reciprocal reaction.”
Baghaei added that the measures appeared to be “influenced by internal developments” in Australia, including weekend protests against Israel’s occupation of Gaza, which organisers claimed were the biggest pro-Palestine demonstrations in Australia’s history.
He continued, “It appears that this action is taken to make up for the limited criticism the Australian side has directed toward Israel.”
Australia’s prime minister Anthony Albanese earlier on Tuesday claimed Iran was responsible for the devastating destruction of a kosher cafe in Sydney in October and that it was responsible for the major arson attack on a synagogue in Melbourne in December.
In neither of the attacks, where assailants set fire to the homes and extensive damage, there were no fatalities.
Tohid Asadi, a journalist from Tehran, reported for Al Jazeera that Iran views Australia’s actions as a continuation of its hostility toward Australia.
Iran has been subject to a number of sanctions from Australia, such as those imposed on Iran in 2024, he said, adding that Tehran sees these most recent actions as “another sign that Australia is siding with the Israelis.”
‘Sharing in his support for the Palestinian cause’, ambassador expelled.
Ahmad Sadeghi, the Iranian ambassador, was declared a “persona non grata” by Australia, who also required him and three other officials to leave the nation in less than seven days. The move, according to Australia’s Foreign Minister Penny Wong, was the first time since World War II that Australia has expelled an ambassador.
Australia also suspended operations at its Tehran embassy, which opened in 1968, and withdrew its ambassador there.
Wong added that in order to advance Canberra’s interests, the government will continue to maintain diplomatic ties with Iran.
According to Foad Izadi, a professor of world studies at the University of Tehran, Sadeghi “vocal in his support for the Palestinian cause.”
“Australia’s decision to expel him is primarily due to that,” he said. The largest pro-Palestine demonstrations took place just a few days ago in numerous Australian cities.
The Australian government’s recent expelling of a country’s ambassador is an indication that they are afraid of their own population and afraid of the demands that this population [makes] in relation to the issue of genocide in Palestine.
The government will pass legislation to designate the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps, or IRGC, as a terrorist organization, according to PM Albanese.
Since Israel’s occupation of Gaza began in October 2023, the Australian Security Intelligence Organization is looking into IRGC involvement in other anti-Jewish attacks.
Izadi refuted those assertions, saying that it “hasn’t provided any evidence.” He believes that the Australian government made these decisions because it is concerned about the Australian people’s serious objections to Israel and calls for greater political activism against the genocide in Palestine.
Australia’s actions against Iran coincide with Israel’s ties with the country’s decision to support France, the UK, and Canada’s recognition of a Palestinian state at the UN General Assembly in September.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu described Albanese as a “weak politician who betrayed Israel and abandoned Australia’s Jews” last week.
Ivan Chenin, a student in Moscow, resigned as president of Ukraine when Vladimir Putin decreed a full-scale invasion in 2022 to work as a volunteer for the separatist Donetsk and Luhansk People’s Republics of eastern Ukraine, which Russia now calls its “new territories.”
Chenin re-enlisted in the Thunder Cascade volunteer unit after returning from an earlier trip to Ukraine’s occupied areas last year.
Chenin told Al Jazeera, “I operated a reconnaissance UAV [drone].
“My responsibilities included observing and resolving issues with the enemy.” I reported a target to the commander, and we took control of it once it was discovered. Then the missile or artillery systems operated.”
One of the nearly half a million people who signed up for military service in Russia as contract soldiers or volunteers was Chenin.
Russia does not currently appear to have this issue despite Ukraine’s struggles with manpower to the point where recruitment officers are accused of systematically detaining young men off the street.
Putin asserted at a meeting in March that Russia is hiring more servicemen at a rate twice as high as Ukraine.
Ukrainian officials in Kiev reported in April that this year the Russian military will increase its presence in Ukraine by 150 000 soldiers. The Russian Federation’s deputy head of military intelligence, Vadym Skibitsky, stated earlier this month that its recruitment goals are being met by at least 105 to 110 percent per month, which puts it well on track to meet its quotas by the end of the year.
Reduced casualties
Given that Russia keeps these statistics secret, it is impossible to independently verify that number, which is in line with other estimates from Western intelligence agencies and think tanks, is more than a million Russian soldiers have died during World War II.
However, one reason for Russia’s escalating number of troops is because it is now enduring fewer losses, according to Oleg Ignatov, a senior analyst for Crisis Group.
He told Al Jazeera, “This is explained by a change in tactics.”
Because it is so vulnerable to drones, Russia has almost stopped using heavy equipment on the front lines. He continued, citing Ukraine’s counterattack in western Russia as the last time it used heavy equipment on a large scale during the Kursk operation in winter.
“Russia hasn’t attacked with large numbers of soldiers in a while. Under the cover of drones and artillery, Russia gradually infiltrates Ukrainian army positions using small groups, occasionally just one or two people. This lessens the number of casualties.
Other factors are at play, too.
In neighboring countries like Georgia and Mongolia, thousands of young men who were eligible for military service fled during the first year of the conflict. In order to arrest potential draftees, police patrolled subways and searched for housing options.
These apprehensions about being press-ganged have now largely dissipated.
Since November 1, 2022, there hasn’t been a call-up for mobilization, according to a human rights lawyer from the group that assists eligible recruits avoid military service.
The mobilization period is still ongoing and has not yet been ended, meaning those who are already serving can’t quit until the mobilization is complete. The regions have been given the task of recruiting contract soldiers since 2022, replacing having them conscripted for mobilization. Participants in the war are limited to those hired under contract.
The lawyer added that unscrupulous recruiters who tell their targets they are required to sign a contract because conscription is still in place use this tactic to exploit the confusion. Conscripts have occasionally been the subject of contracts that have been forged on their behalf, which is against Russian law.
The generous salaries appeal to others.
A decree signed by Putin last year gave new contract soldiers a welcome bonus of 400, 000 roubles (roughly $4, 977) from the federal government. Local authorities were advised to at least double that amount, as well as offer a minimum monthly salary of 204, 000 roubles ($2, 500) and other benefits like loan assistance. The offers are appealing for those who are struggling to find a job or who come from rural areas that are less developed and poor.
The lawyer, who requested anonymity, continued, “People who are most vulnerable to recruitment for a contract are people who are suffering from poverty as well as those who have been brought to the attention of the police, such as those who are caught for petty thefts and other crimes.”
Worker migrants, foreigners, or new citizens are also susceptible to recruitment and coercion to serve under a contract. It is obvious that more people are recruited because the regions are more economically and economically depressed.
On August 11, 2025, people in Moscow walk past a banner supporting the Russian army. The adage “The history of Russia is the history of the fatherland’s defenders” is on the banner.
Freedom is a major battleground for Russia’s front-line forces, which includes a sizable portion of it. Prisoners who have been detained throughout the war, including those who have been found guilty of murder and rape, have been released from their cells and given rifles to fight in Ukraine.
They were instructed to storm Ukrainian positions in human wave assaults in battles, such as the bloody fighting in Bakhmut in mid-2019, when Russian forces were accused of war crimes. If they were to survive, they were greeted as heroes deserving of redemption and returned to Russia as men who could not be free.
However, rehabilitation is not always successful: veterans are encouraged by the fact that they can simply re-enlist if they are caught again. This is a problem.
The scheme was expanded to include those who were awaiting trial or were merely being investigated by the government last year.
Ivan Chuviliaev, spokesman for Go By The Forest, a group that assists soldiers avoid mobilization, said, “On average, 50 people leave]prison] colonies in a single stream, about once a week.
According to a report in the Moscow daily MK in February, the once-massive prison population in Russia has decreased by 120, 000 over the past two years to a record low of 313, 000. Correctional facilities across the nation are currently shutting down.
However, these strategies are not always required. According to a poll conducted earlier this year by independent pollster Levada, 75% of Russians are in favor of the war, and recruits like Chenin are drawn to patriotism.
Love for the motherland is considered to be the first and foremost factor. He claimed that “everything else is secondary.”
Iqbal Solangi, a resident of Karachi, is in his small home as a new wave of cloudbursts, monsoon rains, and floods wreak havoc across Pakistan. He is grieving for those who lost their loved ones, their homes, and their livestock.
More than 800 people have died as a result of a heavier-than-usual monsoon that followed floods and landslides, damaged at least 7,225 homes, washed away more than 5,500 livestock, and caused the country’s widespread crop destruction.
Although it is still unknown what caused the floods, climate change, and other factors may have played a role in the deluge. Pakistan, one of the top 10 most vulnerable countries for climate change, contributes less than 1% of global emissions, but it is one of the top 10 most vulnerable countries.
After the 2010 and 2012 floods, Solangi had already left farming and had already put an end to his climate-change-forced exile in 2022. He had also experienced another major debt loss, this time due to the flooding.
Due to climate change, his forefathers’ jobs had become unsustainable, so he relocated to Karachi in 2012. He had already moved from a small village on the border of Sindh and Balochistan provinces. Three decades of farming were abruptly put to an end by the displacement.
When I was sitting in a high chair and watching the water go away, I decided I would never go back, Solangi said of the 2022 floods, which had impacted 33 million people and flooded 4 million hectares (9.9 million acres) of agricultural land.
A day after flash floods, locals gather wood from Noseri Dam near Muzaffarabad.
According to data from 2022, Pakistan ranked first among the countries on the list of the most affected according to the Climate Rate Index report from 2025. More than 1, 700 people were killed by extensive flooding in the following region of the nation: 9 million people were in poverty, caused $ 14. 8 billion in economic losses, and caused $ 15. 2 billion in damage.
The monsoon has changed from a source of beauty and renewal to a source of chaos and despair, according to an article in Pakistan’s Dawn newspaper in August. What was once filled with joy now fills the void.”
More than 600 people died as a result of a heatwave and thousands of more floods were affected by the heatwave last year. The over 13 000 plus glaciers in Pakistan are being forced to melt due to the country’s rising temperatures, which raises the risk of flooding, property loss, damage to infrastructure, loss of life, and water shortage.
According to Pakistan’s Bureau of Statistics (PBS), agriculture still accounts for roughly 24 percent of Pakistan’s gross domestic product (GDP). Agriculture, which makes up more than 37 percent of the workforce, provides 40 million people with a means of earning a living.
The Pakistani minister of climate change warned that the melting of the glaciers would have “catastrophic consequences for Pakistan’s agricultural economy” in an interview with Al Jazeera earlier this year.
If these gushing floods wash away our infrastructure and wreak havoc on agricultural lands, the government lacks the resources to provide for such a large portion of the population because they work in agriculture. The potential for destruction is enormous, according to Musadiq Malik, both economically and agriculturally.
Agriculture’s sector posted a modest 0.6 percent growth rate this year, which is significantly below the target 2 percent and significantly below the 6.4% growth rate that was previously announced.
Between 1950 and 2012, according to a recent study published in the Nature journal, the Indus Plain in Pakistan experienced 19 flood disasters that affected an area of almost 600,000 square kilometers (231, 661.3 miles), resulting in 11, 239 fatalities, and causing more than $ 39 billion in economic damage. After 2000, all of those things happened.
PBS’s shared data shows a rise in farmland numbers in Pakistan over the past few years, from 8.6 million in 2010 to 11.7 million last year, with an exception of Punjab, which is increasing across all provinces. Farmers have been greatly impacted by changes in the rain patterns, though.
Basharat Jamal still cultivates his land in the province of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, but he claims that droughts have nearly eliminated his crop over the past ten years.
Jamal, who earns a small sum of money as a supplement to his income, claims that the area has been put in double jeopardy as a result of the shift from farming practices. Many farmers are moving to urban centers to find work because their income and output have drastically decreased. Additionally, some farmers now own livestock, which eat away at their unprotected crops due to lack of fodder.
Major crops like wheat and cotton, which are now considered to be in decline, decreased by 13.5 percent, limiting the overall GDP growth rate by 0.6%, according to the Pakistan Economic Survey 2024-25.
Farming is now equivalent to “gambling with nature.”
Farmers in Pakistan’s largest province, Balochistan, say farming in an unpredictable climate is “like gambling with nature” as a result of the frequent floods and droughts that have forced him to cross several states.
Despite “watching helplessly our crops wither and fail year after year,” he has continued to farm.
We had no choice but to leave our ancestral homeland and cross the world in search of survival ten years ago, Hashim said. Then, in 2022, the devastating floods struck. Everything that we rebuilt was left standing. Our fields once more were destroyed. We relocated once more the following year. We briefly found some tranquility.
On my farm and in a shop, I worked. Our kids returned to school, and things started to feel normal.
Farmers who abandoned their land and moved to cities as a result of the 2022 floods, according to the Migration Policy Institute, were among the more than 8 million people who were displaced by the floods.
In a report on the 2022 floods, the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) stated that Pakistan will face “a crucial, trying year,” with growing macroeconomic and fiscal concerns, a cost-of-living crisis affecting the most vulnerable, and cataclysmic floods whose threats were multiplied by climate change.
However, he was forced to relocate soon after the drought, but he quickly resigned.
He said, “My farming days would be over one year when there are floods and drought,” adding that if this pattern continued.
Tens of thousands of people have been evacuated by Pakistani authorities after neighboring India releases water from overflowing dams and swollen rivers into low-lying border regions.
The move on Tuesday was made a day after New Delhi made its first public diplomatic contact with Islamabad since a four-day conflict in May.
At least 800 people have been reported dead in Pakistan since late June as a result of Pakistan’s most recent flood alert and evacuation drive.
The National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA) of Pakistan announced that there were ongoing evacuations from various districts in the eastern part of the province in response to a surge in the Sutlej River and the risk of flooding.
More than 14, 000 people were evacuated from Kasur, according to a statement released by rescuers, and about 89, 000 were moved to safer ground from Bahawalnagar, which is close to India’s border.
Rescue workers evacuating a villager in this photo, which was released by Pakistan’s National Disaster Management Authority [Photo via AP]
Additionally, it warned that several Indian states were anticipating heavy rainfall, which could swell rivers and streams heading for Pakistan, according to Pakistan’s Geo News TV channel.
Instead of the permanent mechanism established by the 1960 World Bank-brokered Indus Waters Treaty, which India rejected after it attributed Pakistan’s role in the April 26 tourist deaths in Indian-administered Kashmir, the flood alert was sent to Pakistan via diplomatic channels.
In May, both countries launched missile strikes due to India’s decision and the severing of diplomatic ties.
In recent months, Pakistan, a nation that is extremely susceptible to the effects of climate change, experienced numerous cloudburst floods and more than usual rainfall.
More than 300 people were killed when flash floods hit Buner district in the northwest of the nation this month, according to residents who complained.
Authorities in the southeast of Victoria have reported that police in Australia are looking for a gunman who fatally shot two officers and injured another on a rural property.
About 300 kilometers (186 miles) northeast of Melbourne, according to a statement from Victoria police, the shooting took place on Tuesday at 10:30 am as 10 police officers arrived at the property.
Police urged residents of Porepunkah and the surrounding area to stay indoors until further notice, and they also advised against visiting the area.
According to Victoria police, “the precise circumstances surrounding the incident are still being determined, and it continues to be a dynamic situation.”
The offender is believed to have since left the property, but his whereabouts are still unknown. The man’s whereabouts are being actively searched.
According to local media, the suspect was identified as Dezi Freeman as the police officers had gone there to execute a warrant for alleged historical sex crimes.
The families of the officers who died, received condolences from Australian Federal Police Association President Alex Caruana.
What has happened in Porepunkah serves as a reminder of the risks officers face every day in keeping the community safe, according to a statement from Caruana.
In Australia, strict gun laws were put in place in response to the 1996 mass shooting in Port Arthur, which resulted in the deaths of 35 people and 23 others.
Lucia Matimele stands surrounded by lush green leaves, peppers on the stalk, and bunches of ripe bananas in the main aisle of a busy conference pavilion in Maputo, the capital of Mozambique.
“We have land, we have water, we have farmers”! she is enthusiastic. Investment is what we need, he says.
Matimele is the director of industry and commerce for Gaza province, a region about 200km (125 miles) away that is one of the country’s main breadbaskets. As the government works to promote economic growth and development in a politically divisive year, she and her team packed some of their most promising crops and joined thousands of others from within and outside Mozambique to show their goods and form industry connections.
The 60th annual Maputo International Trade Fair (FACIM), the largest of its kind in the nation, will feature more than 3, 000 exhibitors from nearly 30 nations this week in Mozambique. Tens of thousands are expected to attend the seven-day event, the government said.
For day one of the event, which took place on Monday, crowds of exhibitors and eager attendees gathered at the sprawling conference site on the outskirts of Maputo. Local businesses, provincial leaders like Matimele, and regional and international companies looking to trade in or with Mozambique are among the dozen pavilions that are set up.
Standing before delegates and businesspeople at the opening ceremony, Mozambican President Daniel Chapo focused on the need to ensure a good environment for foreign investors, while also building an inclusive and sustainable local economy.
President Daniel Chapo and the Mozambican Ministry of Economy celebrate the opening of FACIM 2025.
In addition to being a “legendary country,” Chapo said in Portuguese, highlighting the country’s “unique opportunities” for international partners, that “Mozambique has a geostrategic location, with ports, development corridors, and various other potentialities, vast resources, mineral, natural, agricultural, tourism, and…
But at home, he affirmed, “economic independence starts with agriculture workers, farmers, the youth, women – all of us together”.
To assist in funding small and medium businesses in the nation, the government has established a new $40 million Mutual Guarantee Fund with World Bank funding. The president stated that it will offer credit guarantees to at least 15, 000 businesses and that it primarily aims to assist young people and women.
“One of the concerns we hear repeatedly at all the annual private sector conferences is the difficulty in accessing financing”, Chapo said while launching the fund at FACIM on Monday.
We are aware that small and medium-sized businesses, which make up the foundation of the country’s economic fabric, face a nearly insurmountable challenge due to high interest rates, which are largely responsible for our country’s economy’s dynamism and generate income primarily from young people. This is the reason we created this fund, which is specifically dedicated to this group of companies.
He continued, “This instrument serves as a bridge to the recovery of the Mozambican economy, not just a financial mechanism.”
‘ We can feed our people best ‘
According to the World Bank, Mozambique has “ample resources,” including abundant water sources, abundant energy, mineral resources, and natural gas deposits.
However, it is anticipated that 2025’s gross domestic product (GBP) growth will be only 3% (it was 1.8%) in 2024 and 5.4%) in 2023).
Experts point to a raft of challenges facing the Southern African nation: for years it was besieged by a $2bn “hidden debt” corruption scandal that implicated senior government officials, it is still recovering from post-2024 election protests that affected tourism, and it faces an ongoing rebellion by armed fighters in the northern Cabo Delgado province, home to offshore liquefied natural gas (LNG) reserves.
Sumayya Ismail/Al Jazeera FACIM 2025 in Maputo, Mozambique
According to Borges Nhamirre, a Mozambican researcher on security and governance with the Institute for Security Studies, the armed rebellion has put an end to TotalEnergies’ $20 billion LNG project and added pressure on the region’s finances and near-future economic prospects.
“The economy of Mozambique was prepared for the next 20, 30 years to rely on natural resources … But now the most recent problem is the insurgency in the northern part of the country. So that has a significant impact on Mozambique’s economy,” Nhamirre said.
“Unfortunately, Mozambique did not diversify the revenue sources and did not invest in other industries like agriculture, industry, and manufacturing, which rely primarily on natural gas,” he continued.
“Mozambique needs to bet on producing its own food”, the researcher said, noting that it is not affordable to keep importing when the country has the potential to feed itself. “There is water and land for agriculture.” Therefore, there is only a little capital and mentality at play.
At her booth in one of the pavilions at FACIM, Matimele has similar thoughts. She remarked, “We can feed our people best,” while surrounded by fresh produce from small farms in Gaza. Another booth across the aisle from her sells products made of the province of Tete, including coffee and honey, while businesses throughout FACIM are selling locally sourced goods throughout the entire FACIM, including grains, seafood, vegetables, and livestock.
In Gaza, Matimele says, people farm rice, bananas, cashews and macadamias, much of which they send abroad to countries such as South Africa and Vietnam – and she would like to increase exports and reach new places.
She claims that the issue is not with production but rather with distribution and processing.
According to Matimele, “we need big industry entering this industry,” while adding that small farmers require assurances that the produce they sell and doesn’t waste.
“FACIM helps us by giving us a secure market”, she explained.
At its FACIM pavilion [Sumayya Ismail/Al Jazeera], the Mozambican province of Tete displays produce and wares.
Without funding, “you will get stuck.”
For other observers, FACIM’s focus this year on investment and the Mutual Guarantee Fund are a step in the right direction, especially for small business owners in the agricultural sector.
Our main resource is agriculture, according to the statement. According to historian and researcher Rafael Shikhani, it employs millions of people and provides millions of people with food, according to him. Yet, there remains a longstanding “problem” with the sector, he noted from Maputo.
He noted the civil war from 1977 to 1992, and the country’s severe drought from 1982 to 1984, noting that “there have been so many breakups in that]agriculture cycle” historically. He claimed that it was a “temporary disruption to production” that had a negative impact.
Current challenges facing Mozambican agriculture, the researcher said, include a lack of capital for farming, as well as some people preferring to take an easier route by importing food from neighbouring South Africa to sell locally instead of growing it from scratch.
The funding is a key motivator in many cases, according to Shikhani. There will be a certain way you will get stuck, such as “you’ll need equipment, you’ll need a truck, you’ll need to put up a fence, for whatever,” according to the saying “if you don’t have funds, you can still start a very nice business.”
That is where the Mutual Guarantee Fund could come in handy.
Shikhani remarked, “More investment in agriculture is good.” It will also aid in the sector’s transition from small-scale farming businesses to small- and medium-sized farming enterprises that can choose their land based on “the type of land, where you farm, and how you exploit your land” in a more informed manner.
President Daniel Chapo and delegates at FACIM 2025]Courtesy of Ministry of Economy]
The Chapo government’s approach to solving the country’s most pressing economic issues will greatly affect the outcome, according to analyst Nhamirre.
However, he makes the observation that internal governance issues and external factors will also be a factor.
“There are internal things that the government needs to do well … The people are still very frustrated”, he said, pointing to the past year’s post-election violence, saying there is a chance protests may flare up again.
Shikhani examines the situation through the lens of history. There is a cycle of crisis: a political crisis, a social unrest, and a political crisis. If you deal with economics and you feed people, there will be no more social unrest, and there will be no political crisis. You should start with economics, he said.
Give people food, provide jobs, and give hope; they will work for a living and earn money.
At her booth in FACIM, Matimele and her team stand ready in matching red shirts emblazoned with the words: “Gaza, the route of progress” in Portuguese. A week of networking is scheduled for them, which they anticipate will result in more food, jobs, and hope.
