The Israeli-occupied Al-Aqsa Mosque threat has been circulating among Israeli-based organizations, prompting the Palestinian government to express “extreme concern.”
Israeli settler , organizations that are circulating on Hebrew-language social media platforms, called on the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Expatriates to attack and destroy the mosque and build a temple in its place, according to a report released on Saturday.
In response to Israel’s ongoing conflict with Jews in Gaza, the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound in occupied East Jerusalem, which is the third-heilig site of Islam and a symbol of Palestinian identity, has grown to symbolize the increased tension between Muslims and Jews.
Early this week, an Al-generated video was released describing the construction of the “Third Temple” in Jerusalem and the destruction of the mosque.
The ministry said in a statement that was made available on X that the posts on social media were a “systematic incitement to escalate the targeting of Christian and Islamic holy sites in occupied Jerusalem.”
The Ministry calls on the international community and its relevant UN organizations to take the necessary steps to address this repressurization, according to the statement.
regular target
Jordan is in charge of the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound, but Israeli soldiers have control over access to the site.
Right-wing Israeli politicians and Israeli settlers have regularly visited Al-Aqsa and conducted religious rituals there under Israeli control, and they have since taken to the area.
Jews regard the site of the First and Second Temples, which the Romans destroyed in 70 AD, as an important site.
Jews and other non-Muslims are permitted to visit the compound in occupied East Jerusalem during specific hours, but they are not permitted to pray there or display religious symbols. This is done in accordance with the decades-old status quo maintained by Israeli authorities.
Itamar Ben-Gvir, the right-wing minister of national security, claimed he would erect a Jewish synagogue at the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound in August, causing outrage.
The construction of the “Third Temple” on Al-Aqsa, which was once viewed as a fringe movement, is taking shape in Israel, and many Palestinians see it as akin to what took place in Hebron, where the Ibrahimi Mosque, also known as the Cave of the Patriarchs, was divided.
In central Nigeria’s Benue State, two suspected nomadic cattle herders allegedly carried out twin attacks on at least 17 people, according to reports of at least 17 fatalities.
A large number of suspected militia had invaded a region of Benue State overnight, according to police spokesperson Anene Sewuese Catherine in a statement released on Friday. In response to the deadly clashes between farmers and herders, which has claimed hundreds of lives in recent years, the attack occurred.
Five farmers were killed in Benue’s Ukum area when security forces were deployed and the assailants “were being repelled in the early hours of today,” according to the report.
About 70 kilometers from the site of the first attack, according to police, a second attack occurred in Logo.
Unfortunately, a simultaneous attack was carried out in a nearby town, where 12 people were killed before police arrived, according to the police spokesperson.
Just two days prior to the attacks, 11 people were killed in the Benue Otukpo region and just one week after gunmen attacked villages and killed more than 50 people in Plateau State.
More than 500 people have been killed and 2.2 million have been forced to leave their homes in the region as a result of clashes between nomadic cattle herders and farming communities, according to research firm SBM Intelligence.
The clashes between Christian farmers of the Berom and Irigwe ethnic groups and Muslim Fulani herders are frequently depicted as ethnoreligious.
Regardless of their faith, analysts claim that farmers and herders are being pitted against one another by climate change and the lack of pastoral land.
An assassination plot against President Daniel Noboa has caused Ecuador to declare “maximum alert.”
The Ministry of Government stated in a statement titled “The revenge of the bad losers” that “all security protocols have been activated” as a result of the threat coming from “criminal organizations, in collusion with political groups defeated at the polls.”
Noboa was elected again earlier this month and pledged to fight back against ferocious cartel violence in Ecuador. Luisa Gonzalez, his opponent, has vowed to win the election despite his repeated accusations.
A military intelligence report that claimed assassins from Mexico and other nations planned to carry out “terrorist attacks” against Noboa was leaked earlier this week.
In a bid to destabilize the government, the government claims that “bad losers” from the most recent April 13 election hired sicarios (hitmen) from Mexico and other nations.
“The state is on high alert,” he declared. The armed forces, the National Police, and intelligence agencies are all working together, according to the statement.
According to a source with information, it describes “the plotting of an assassination, terrorist attacks, and street riots through violent demonstrations.”
According to the plot, “the life of the President of the Republic, state authorities, and public officials” is at stake.
The statement appears to accuse the Citizen Revolution Movement (RC5), which is led by Gonzalez and has connections to former president Rafael Correa, of planning the attack, despite not giving names.
Additionally, reports in Ecuadorian media suggested that foreign leaders, including Mexico’s President Claudia Sheinbaum, may have supported the initiative.
Sheinbaum announced on Wednesday that noboa’s administration would not resume diplomatic relations with Ecuador as long as Noboa was in office despite a diplomatic resumption that began last year.
Gonzalez was backed by the Mexican leader in a public way.
The plot for the assassination comes in the wake of the 2023 assassination of presidential candidate Fernando Villavicencio, which has become a pattern in Ecuador.
The nation has also been plagued by rampant violence by criminal gangs operating in neighboring Peru and Colombia, two of the biggest cocaine producers in the world.
At least 12 people were killed on Friday in a shooting incident in the coastal province of Manabi when gunmen dressed as military officers opened fire on a cockfight.
In line with Noboa’s ongoing fight against organized crime, the country declared an “internal armed conflict” to combat drug gangs in January of last year.
Along with a promise to boost the nation’s sluggish economy, which was viewed as crucial in his re-election victory earlier this month.
The two largest economies of the world are currently engaged in a trade war. A heated debate of narratives and messages exists between the two nations in addition to the tariff dispute.
Contributors: Andy Mok, Senior Research Fellow at the Center for China and Globalization The American Conservative’s managing editor, Jude Russo Strategy Risks CEO, Isaac Stone Fish Director of China Program at Stimson Center, Yun Sun
on our radar
Sudan’s civil war broke out on April 15 and lasted for two years. Sudanese media have been wiped out. Nearly 450 journalists have fled the country since the start of the war, according to Reporters Without Borders. More is coming from Meenakshi Ravi.
How Canadian voters were swooned by Trump’s “51st state” speech.
Canadians are encircling their flags as a result of Donald Trump’s public musings about how Canada should become the nation’s 51st state. Ryan Kohls, a contributor to The Listening Post, discusses the Trump effect and how it has impacted Canadian politics and nationalism in unprecedented ways.
On Saturday, April 19, 2018, this is how things are going.
Fighting
The Ukrainian air force reported that Russia launched eight missiles and 87 drones into Ukraine overnight, causing damage in five different regions. 33 Russian drones were shot down by air defense units, and 36 were redirected by electronic warfare. The south, northeast, and east have all been damaged, with five distinct regions.
One person was killed in Kharkiv by a Russian missile attack, and another was killed in Sumy by a drone attack, along with dozens more injured by at least five children. According to Ihor Terekhov, the attack damaged 15 residential structures, a business, and an educational facility.
A Russian drone struck Zaporizhzhia at night, killing the city. Ivan Fedorov, the governor of the region, reported the incident on Telegram, claiming that an emergency service was called in and a fire had erupted.
Russia asserted that it had targeted Ukrainian drone factories and that any increase in German military might result from German long-range missile launches, calling for direct military action.
diplomacy and politics
Unnamed European officials cited by the US have a suggestion to end the conflict in Ukraine that includes lifting sanctions against Russia, according to Bloomberg. According to the report, the US strategy “would effectively freeze” the conflict because it would leave Ukrainian territory under Russian control.
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio gave a briefing to NATO’s Mark Rutte about the plan, but Rubio cautioned that Washington would “move on” if a ceasefire deal didn’t materialize within the next few days.
In response, President Donald Trump later said that if Moscow or Kyiv continue to prevent the war from ending, the US would “take a pass” on mediating peace.
In a deal that the UAE has brokenred, Russia and Ukraine will exchange 246 prisoners on Saturday. The 13th exchange, which Abu Dhabi mediated, will add to the growing list since 2022, bringing the total number of captives swapped to 3,233.
Daria Kozyreva, a 19-year-old activist, was given a two-year and eight-month prison sentence by a Russian court for allegedly “discrediting” the army by quoting Ukrainian poetry from 19th-century and antiwar graffiti. The verdict was viewed as a “chilling” attack on peaceful dissent, and Amnesty International demanded Kozyreva’s immediate release.
The US dollar’s value has fallen in the wake of Donald Trump’s “Liberation Day” tariff announcement on April 2.
The dollar, which typically increases in value during times of financial turbulence, has continued on a downward trend, even though the US stock markets have mostly recovered since then.
Due to Trump’s extreme international trade policies, which have slowed the recovery of the US economy later this year, causing a decline in demand for the country’s currency.
Trump’s tariff blitz also makes it increasingly likely that the dollar’s hold on power may be waning or even losing.
According to Deutsche Bank analysts in a recent note to clients, “the world is facing a dollar confidence crisis as the repercussions of ‘Liberation Day’ continue to resonate.”
The US has been the “safe haven” for investment for close to a century. A peg to the dollar is still used by many nations, indicating that their currency prices are correlated.
Investors are now starting to worry about the dollar’s long-term security, which could have a significant impact.
On March 4, 2025, a board in Mexico City, Mexico, displays the exchange rates of the Mexican peso and the US dollar.
How is the dollar doing?
The Trump administration announced tough import tariffs on April 2 that would stifle confidence in the world’s largest economy and cause a sell-off of US financial assets on April 2.
In the three days following “Liberation Day,” more than $5 trillion was wiped from the benchmark S&, P 500 index of shares.
US Treasury bills, which have long been viewed as the archetypical safe investment, also experienced selloffs, which significantly lower their prices and cause significantly higher debt costs for the US government.
Trump announced a 90-day pause on tariffs on April 9 in response to a rout in the financial markets. However, investors are hesitant to own dollar-linked assets.
The dollar has fallen by 3% in April in comparison to a range of other currencies, breaking a nearly 10% decline since the start of 2025, to reach its lowest level in three years.
According to Karsten Junius, chief economist at Bank J Safra Sarasin, “investors have been selling US assets, and the value of the dollar has decreased.”
Since there hasn’t been a loss of faith in US economic policymaking, he continued, “but the dollar hasn’t increased as much]as US equity prices since April 9.”
(Al Jazeera)
What makes the US dollar so significant?
The US dollar has been the world’s largest reserve currency for the past 80 years, with significant amounts of foreign currencies being held by the world’s monetary authorities.
Due to the first and second world wars, the dollar largely became the world’s dominant currency. The US was making money as Europe and Japan sank into a prattle.
The role of the greenback in supporting the global financial system increased in 1971 when Richard Nixon removed the link between gold and the value of the US dollar. Its demand also increased.
Most nations abandoned gold convertibility after the “Nixon shock,” but they did not adopt market-determined exchange rates. Instead, they favored the dollar as the value of their currencies.
The dollar became the norm as the anchor of the dollar due to its dominance in both trade and finance. For instance, many Gulf nations began pegging their currencies to the greenback in the 1980s.
Its influence continued beyond that point. The Atlantic Council estimates that 54 percent of global exports were in dollars in 2023, compared to the US, which only accounts for one-quarter of the global gross domestic product (GDP).
Its standing in the financial industry is even stronger. Nearly 70% of international bonds are quoted in US dollars, while about 60% of all bank deposits are in US dollars.
According to the IMF, 57% of the world’s foreign currency reserves are held in dollars, which are assets held by central banks around the world.
However, confidence in the US economy, its financial markets, and its legal system is largely attributed to the dollar’s reserve status.
Trump is altering that. According to Junius, “he doesn’t care about international standards,” and investors are beginning to realize how exposed they are to US assets are.
According to Apollo Asset Management, foreigners own $ 9 trillion worth of US equities, $ 7 trillion worth of US Treasuries, and $ 5 trillion worth of US corporate bonds. That accounts for roughly 30% of the global GDP.
The dollar’s value could be put under sustained pressure if even some of these investors start lowering their positions.
What effects does having a lower-value dollar have?
Many members of the Trump administration refute the claim that the US dollar’s reserve status raises the price of US exports because it raises the cost of its overvaluation.
Trump’s Council of Economic Advisers chair, Stephen Miran, recently remarked, “high dollar valuations place undue burdens on our firms and workers, making their products and labor uncompetitive on the global stage.”
He continued, “Targets are a response to this unpleasant reality, and one factor is the dollar’s overvaluation has been to the US’s declining competitiveness over the years.
A lower dollar, at first glance, would support domestic manufacturing and help the nation’s trade deficits be less expensive for foreigners.
Jose Antonio Ocampo, former Colombian finance minister, told Al Jazeera, “It will also make imports more expensive, hurting consumers.” “The general consensus is that US inflation will rise.”
“Alsowhere, the price of gold has increased,” Campo said. There seems to be a growing preference for holding gold rather than US Treasuries among central banks.
Ocampo added that he believes that Trump’s tariff announcements have hurt confidence in the dollar and that gains in other safe-haven currencies have helped offset this.
Since the start of the month, the euro has increased more than 5% on the dollar since April 11 and reached a three-year high above $ 1.14.
Could the dollar become the world’s dominant currency?
Ocampo said, “For the time being, I believe the dollar will remain the dominant global currency.”
He added, however, that Trump is undermining world currency dominance by weakening the US’s economic foundations. Ocampo, for his part, mentioned two favorable currencies.
Inflows into the Swiss franc have recently occurred. He claimed that the euro is the only real substitute for the dollar.
One-third of the dollar amount is currently held by the euro, accounting for 20% of international foreign exchange reserves.
