Category World News

Hezbollah chief Naim Qassem has accused Lebanon’s government of “handing” the country to Israel by pushing for the group’s disarmament, warning it would fight to keep its weapons.

Qassem spoke in a televised address on Friday after meeting Iran’s top security chief, Ali Larijani. Tehran has long backed the Lebanese armed group.

Lebanon’s Prime Minister Nawaf Salam slammed the remarks, branding them “a veiled threat of civil war.” Salam added, “No one in Lebanon today wants a civil war, and any threats or intimidation of such a war are completely unacceptable.”

Lebanon suffered one the 20th century’s worst civil wars for 15 years, between 1975 and 1990. The war left around 200,000 people dead and an estimated 17,000 others missing. The Israeli army also occupied Lebanon during and after the war, with a full invasion in 1982, only withdrawing its troops in 2000 after being harried out by Hezbollah.

Hezbollah emerged badly weakened from last year’s war with Israel, during which longtime leader Hassan Nasrallah was assassinated in a massive Israeli strike in Beirut. Under United States pressure, the Lebanese government has ordered the army to devise a plan to disarm the group by the end of the year.

Iran, whose “axis of resistance” includes Hezbollah, has also suffered a series of setbacks, most recently in its own war with Israel, which also saw the US strike its nuclear sites.

“This is our nation together. We live in dignity together, and we build its sovereignty together – or Lebanon will have no life if you stand on the other side and try to confront us and eliminate us,” Qassem said.

“The government is implementing an American-Israeli order to end the resistance, even if it leads to civil war and internal strife,” the Hezbollah leader added.

“The resistance will not surrender its weapons while aggression continues, occupation persists, and we will fight it … if necessary to confront this American-Israeli project no matter the cost,” he said.

Qassem urged the government “not to hand over the country to an insatiable Israeli aggressor or an American tyrant with limitless greed”.

He also said the government would “bear responsibility for any internal explosion and any destruction of Lebanon” as he accused it of “leading the country to ruin”.

Hezbollah and its ally the Amal party would not organise any street protests at this time, he said, while threatening to do so in future.

Reporting from Beirut, Al Jazeera’s Zeina Khodr said Qassem used the address to send messages to the government about the disarmament plan.

“Most of his speech was directed at the government, saying their decision is dangerous, that they are exposing the country to a major crisis, and the government will be held responsible if there is internal strife,” she said.

Before the war with Israel in October and November, Hezbollah was believed to be better armed than the Lebanese military.

It has long maintained it needs to keep its arsenal to defend Lebanon from attack, but critics accused it of using its weapons for political leverage.

This week, Larijani, Iran’s Supreme National Security Council chief, was in Beirut, where he met Qassem and President Joseph Aoun.

Iran has expressed its opposition to the government’s disarmament plan and has promised to continue to provide support to Hezbollah.

Global talks to develop a landmark treaty to tackle plastic pollution have once again failed to reach an agreement, despite efforts late into the night to strike a deal.

Delegates at a closing meeting of the Intergovernmental Negotiating Committee (INC) in Geneva on Friday spoke of their dismay at the failure to break a deadlock at the sixth round of talks in under three years, as countries remained deeply divided over the scope of any treaty.

“South Africa is disappointed that it was not possible for this session to agree a legally binding treaty and positions remain far apart,” its delegate told a closing meeting.

Cuba’s delegate said that negotiators had “missed a historic opportunity but we have to keep going and act urgently”, the AFP news agency reported.

“The planet, and present and future generations need this treaty.”

Landmark treaty sought

More than 1,000 delegates from at least 180 countries had gathered in the Swiss city for the latest meeting of the INC, a group established by the United Nations Environment Assembly in 2022 with the mandate to develop the world’s first legally binding global treaty to tackle plastic pollution.

The negotiations in Geneva were intended to be the last round of talks that would produce a deal – although the same was said of the previous round of talks held in Busan, South Korea, late last year.

Delegates had been working to a deadline of Thursday to reach a deal, and held frantic last-minute negotiations into the early hours of Friday to try to strike common ground before talks collapsed.

Countries remain divided between those seeking significant action, such as imposing caps on producing new plastic, and those, mostly oil-producing states, who want the deal to concentrate on waste management.

The so-called High Ambition Coalition, a large informal bloc which includes the European Union, the United Kingdom and Canada, as well as many Latin American and African countries, has pushed for the treaty to introduce curbs on plastic production and the phasing out of toxic chemicals.

But a camp of oil-producing states calling itself the Like-Minded Group – including Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Russia, Iran, and Malaysia – argues that the treaty should be much more limited in scope.

Luis Vayas Valdivieso, chair of the negotiating committee, wrote and presented two drafts of a treaty text, but the delegates did not agree on either as the basis for negotiations.

Anger and disappointment

France’s Ecological Transition Minister Agnes Pannier-Runacher said she was “angry” and “disappointed” by the outcome, the AFP news agency reported, adding that a small number of countries “guided by short-term financial interests” had stood in the way of an important treaty.

Palau, speaking for a group of 39 small island developing states, expressed its frustration at “repeatedly returning home with insufficient progress to show our people”.

“It is unjust for [our countries] to face the brunt of yet another global environmental crisis we contribute minimally to.”

The next steps for the negotiations were not immediately clear. Vayas said on Friday as the delegates reconvened that no further action has yet been proposed on the latest draft. He banged a gavel made of recycled plastic bottle tops and said the session was adjourned, to be resumed at a later date.

Some delegates expressed interest in a seventh round of talks in the future, despite their disappointment in the outcome.

Palestinian officials have condemned far-right Israeli National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir’s taunting visit to the jail cell of long-imprisoned Fatah leader Marwan Barghouti.

Footage of the visit shared on social media on Thursday showed the minister making threatening remarks to the 66-year-old.

In the footage, Ben-Gvir is seen telling Barghouti, who has been in prison since 2002, including years in solitary confinement: “You won’t win. Whoever messes with the nation of Israel, whoever murders our children and women – we will wipe them out.”

“You should know this, [this happened] throughout history,” Ben-Gvir added.

The Palestinian Ministry of Foreign Affairs condemned the incident “in the strongest terms”.

In a statement on Thursday, the ministry said Ben-Gvir’s actions were “an unprecedented provocation and organised state terrorism, falling within the framework of the crimes of genocide, displacement, and annexation faced by the prisoners and our people”.

It added that the Palestinian Authority will take the threat seriously and will follow up with the International Committee of the Red Cross, relevant states, the international community, and its specialised organisations and councils.

Barghouti’s wife, Fadwa, said he and other Palestinian prisoners are subjected to inhumane treatment behind bars.

“They are still, Marwan, chasing you and pursuing you even in the solitary cell you’ve been living in for two years, and the struggle of the occupation and its figures with you continues. The shackles are on your hands, but I know your spirit and determination, and I know you will remain free, free, free,” she wrote in a statement on Facebook.

“I know that the only thing that can shake you is what you hear about your people’s pain, and the only thing that crushes and wounds you is the failure to protect our sons and daughters. You are of the people; wherever you are among the people, you are one of them and part of them.”

‘Shocking’

Israel’s Channel 12 broadcast a video clip of Ben-Gvir’s visit at Ganot Prison in central Israel. The channel reported that the minister’s visit was intended to oversee stricter conditions for Palestinian prisoners.

The video marks the first time for years that footage of Barghouti has been published. His family and rights groups said he has been in solitary confinement since Israel launched its war on Gaza in October 2023 after Hamas-led attacks on southern Israel.

Relatives of Barghouti who viewed the footage told Al Jazeera Arabic there was a “shocking” appearance in his features, apparently from “exhaustion and hunger”, and expressed fear that he would die in custody.

In October, the Palestinian Prisoner’s Society accused Israeli prison staff of “brutally assaulting” and injuring Barghouti while he was being held in solitary confinement.

The claims that he has several times been beaten by prison staff have been denied by the Israel Prisons Service.

A Japanese cabinet minister was among thousands of people to visit a controversial war memorial in Tokyo as Japan marks 80 years since the end of World War II.

Agricultural Minister Shinjiro Koizumi on Friday paid his respects at the Yasukuni Shrine, a symbol of Japan’s militaristic past.

He was joined by dozens of national and local politicians from the far-right “Japan First” Sanseito Party, according to local media.

The Shinto shrine was built in the 19th century to honour Japan’s war dead, but it is best known for enshrining 14 Japanese “class A” war criminals and 1,000 others also found guilty by an Allied tribunal after World War II.

The Yasukuni Shrine is considered a political lightning rod in East Asia, where memories of Japan’s wartime atrocities are not forgotten, but senior Japanese leaders have continued to visit over the years.

But the shrine was just one site where Japanese people gathered on Friday to mark 80 years since Emperor Hirohito announced Japan’s surrender in an August 15, 1945, radio broadcast.

Tokyo formally surrendered a few weeks later on September 2, 1945.

Japanese media reported that more than 4,000 people attended the National Memorial Ceremony for the War Dead in Tokyo, including Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba.

Ishiba spoke at the commemoration about the lessons Japan carried from the war.

“We should never repeat the devastation of war. We will never, ever make a mistake in choosing the path to take,” Ishiba said, according to Kyodo News.

Ishiba also spoke of Japan’s “remorse” over the war, marking the first time a Japanese prime minister used the term in more than a decade at a war memorial, the news outlet said.

Japan famously adopted a pacifist constitution after World War II, but wounds linger from decades of Japanese colonial rule in parts of Asia that lasted from 1895 to 1945.

The prime minister stopped short of directly mentioning Japan’s wartime aggression and the suffering it caused, a precedent set by past Japanese leaders, Kyodo said.

Japan’s Emperor Naruhito also attended the event, where he said he was “overcome with deep emotion” at Japan’s transformation since the end of World War II.

“It is my sincere hope that we carry on passing down the stories of the hardships endured during and after the war and continue in unity of spirit to seek peace and the happiness of the people in the future,” he said, according to Japanese media.

United States President Donald Trump has renewed his promise to “save” jailed Hong Kong tycoon Jimmy Lai, who is on trial for alleged national security crimes over his pro-democracy activism and antipathy towards China’s Communist Party.

“I’m going to do everything I can to save him. I’m going to do everything … His name has already entered the circle of things that we’re talking about, and we’ll see what we can do,” Trump told Fox News Radio in the US.

Trump’s remarks came as closing arguments in Lai’s high-profile trial.

Closing arguments have been pushed from Friday to Monday after Lai’s lawyer said he had experienced heart palpitations.

The delay marks the second in as many days, after Hong Kong courts were closed due to bad weather.

Trump previously pledged to rescue Lai during an interview last October, just weeks before his election as president, and had said he would “100 percent get him out”.

Lai is one of the most prominent Hong Kongers to be charged under the city’s draconian 2020 national security law, and his cause has made international headlines.

The 77-year-old is a longtime opponent of China’s Communist Party thanks to his ownership of Apple Daily, a now-shuttered pro-democracy tabloid newspaper.

Thank you, President Trump, for your support for Jimmy Lai at this critical time.

“I’m going to do everything I can to save [Jimmy Lai]. I’m going to do everything…His name has already entered the circle of things that we’re talking about, and we’ll see what we can do. I… pic.twitter.com/EmscQHYQmX

He is facing two counts of “colluding with foreign forces” and a separate charge of sedition in the long-running national security trial that began in December 2023.

If found guilty, he could spend the rest of his life in prison. He has always protested his innocence.

Lai was first arrested in 2020, just months after Beijing imposed the new national security law on Hong Kong, which criminalised the city’s pro-democracy movement and categorised public protests as acts of secession, subversion and terrorism.

The law was later expanded in 2024 to include further crimes such as espionage and sabotage.

Lai has been in detention continuously since December 2020 and is serving separate prison sentences for participating in a banned candlelight vigil and committing “fraud” on an office lease agreement.

He has spent more than 1,600 days in solitary confinement, according to the United Kingdom-based Hong Kong Watch, despite his age and health complications.

Lai was also denied the lawyer of his choice during trial and access to independent medical care.