Foreign News
Hopes for ceasefire in Gaza falter ahead of Ramadan
Hopes had been high over the past week following talks in Paris that there could be a new Gaza ceasefire deal in place for the start of the Islamic holy month of Ramadan next week.
However, while Hamas has now sent a delegation to Cairo for further negotiations with Egyptian and Qatari mediators, Israel has not. This looks like a serious new block.
Israeli officials – quoted in local media – demand clear answers from Hamas on key issues as well as a list of the surviving Israeli hostages who could be released with an agreement.
Meanwhile, a senior Hamas official, Dr Basem Naim, told the BBC on Sunday that “practically, it is impossible to know who is still alive” because of continuing Israeli bombing. “They are in different areas with different groups. We have asked for a ceasefire to collect that data,” he added.
Dr Naim went on to say that such “valuable information” about the hostages could not be given “for free”. He, and other senior Hamas figures, have also been continuing to demand a full ceasefire and withdrawal of Israeli troops from Gaza, rather than a temporary truce.
The US and regional players with leverage will now be putting pressure on both Israel and Hamas trying to shore up recent progress on the potential deal.
This would reportedly see some 40 Israeli hostages released in exchange for about 10 times as many Palestinian prisoners being freed from Israeli jails. More than 130 hostages are still believed to be held by Hamas. Israeli officials have said that at least 30 of them are dead.
Over the course of a proposed 40-day truce, there would be a surge in desperately needed aid entering into Gaza.
Without a deal, there is a higher threat of a further spread of tensions during Ramadan, which this year is due to begin on 10 or 11 March, depending on the lunar calendar.
Israel is expected to impose restrictions on access for Palestinians to the holiest Muslim site in occupied East Jerusalem, the al-Aqsa Mosque compound, citing its security concerns.
The site – which is also the holiest place in Judaism, known as Temple Mount – has often been a flashpoint for violence in the decades-old Israel-Palestinian conflict.
Hamas is well aware of international fears about a new conflagration and has previously used al-Aqsa to raise the stakes.
Last week, in a televised address, the leader of the Islamist group, Ismail Haniyeh, claimed Hamas was showing flexibility in negotiations, but also called on Palestinians in the occupied West Bank and Jerusalem to march to the mosque to pray on the first day of Ramadan.
International pressure for a ceasefire deal has ratcheted up with the dire humanitarian conditions in Gaza where, according to the UN, hundreds of thousands of people are facing famine following nearly six months of war.
“Given the immense scale of suffering, there must be an immediate ceasefire for at least the next six weeks, which is what is currently on the table,” the US Vice-President Kamala Harris told an event in Alabama. “This will get the hostages out and get a significant amount of aid in. People in Gaza are starving. The conditions are inhumane and our common humanity compels us to act,” Ms Harris went on.
,The United States has begun making aid drops into Gaza (BBC)
Her comments were some of the strongest language used yet to describe the situation by a senior US government official and reflect the growing frustration within Washington – the closest ally of Israel – about developments in the war.
Increasingly what is happening on the ground in Gaza is hurting President Biden’s presidential re-election campaign.
In Israel, there is also intense domestic pressure on the war cabinet to agree a new deal from the families of the hostages.
Thousands of Israelis joined them for the last leg of a four-day solidarity march, which began close to the Gaza border at one of the sites that was a focus of the deadly 7 October Hamas attacks, and ended in Jerusalem on Saturday night.
They held up Israeli flags and posters of the hostages.
Speaking at the rally, Sharon Sharabi whose brother, Eli, is still believed to be held in Hamas captivity, said: “We’ve lost four members of our family, the Sharabi family – my family, your family. We do not intend – listen carefully, leaders of Israel – we do not intend to bring a fifth coffin here.”
(BBC)
Iran has begun several days of public mourning and funeral processions for its former Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, more than four months after he was killed in strikes launched by the US and Israel.
The former Ayatollah’s body will lie in state in Tehran’s Grand Mosalla from Friday, ahead of his burial in his hometown of Mashhad next Thursday.
Iranian authorities said 12 to 20 million people were expected to attend, which they are calling the “funeral of the century”.
It comes as Iran and the United States observe a fragile ceasefire after signing a preliminary deal to halt their conflict in June.
Six days of ceremonies will start at 06:00 (03:30 BST) on Saturday, at Tehran’s Imam Khomeini Mosalla, which visitors can visit to pay their respects until Sunday afternoon.
There will be an official funeral ceremony in Tehran on Saturday, which the Tehran-based Mohammad Rasulullah Corps is leading.
The group’s commander Hassan Hassanzadeh said Khamenei’s coffin would be displayed on an elevated platform, with crowd flows designed to allow visitors to enter and leave within 15 to 20 minutes.
Khamenei’s body will lie in the Grand Mosalla for three days, alongside the remains of family members who were also killed in the US and Israeli strikes in February.
Authorities have ordered public and private offices in Tehran to close from Saturday through Monday, while traffic restrictions will shut down most of the city centre to private vehicles, AFP reported. The airspace over Tehran will be partially closed from Friday and fully closed on Monday.
On Tuesday, events will move to Qom, just south of Tehran, where a senior Shia cleric will lead funeral prayers at Jamkaran – one of Iran’s most prominent and symbolic religious sites.
Khamenei’s body will then travel to Najaf in Iraq on Wednesday. Following a procession at the shrine of Imam Ali, Shia Islam’s first imam, ceremonies will continue in Karbala before the body returns to Iran.
Iranian officials say the Iraq events follow requests from Iraqi groups, with some analysts seeing them as representative of Khamenei’s influence across the Shia Muslim world and Iran’s religious and political ties across the region.
Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi visited Baghdad to coordinate the arrangements, saying the funeral had a “symbolic importance”.
On Thursday, Khamenei will be buried in the city of his birth, Mashhad, at the Imam Reza Shrine, the mausoleum of Shia Islam’s eighth imam and Iran’s most important pilgrimage site, which attracts millions of visitors each year.
Representatives from multiple countries are expected to attend the ceremonies, including Pakistan’s Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif.
Ceremonies will continue across the country for 40 days, with commemorative events planned until the first anniversary of Khamenei’s burial.
Khamenei was succeeded by his son, Mojtaba, who has not been seen in public since becoming supreme leader.
Key questions around the ceremony centre on whether Mojtaba will attend the funeral.
Last week, secretary of the organising committee, Ali Akbar Pourjamshidian, said any decision on Mojtaba’s attendance would be announced by the offices of the armed forces commander-in-chief and the supreme leader.
Questions also remain about who will lead the funeral prayer, as in Shia tradition the role carries religious and political significance.
[BBC]
Nigeria says it will seek compensation from South Africa for its citizens who have left the country following recent protests targeting undocumented migrants.
Foreign ministry spokesperson Kimiebi Imomotimi Ebienfa told the BBC that the issue would be discussed between the two governments “at the highest levels”.
Acting High Commissioner to South Africa Alexander Ajayi said on local television on Tuesday that the government had begun documenting businesses and properties left behind by Nigerians.
One Nigerian trader waiting to be repatriated told the BBC he had lived in South Africa for nearly a decade and had abandoned his business and home because he feared for his safety.
Oghodero Erejor Wilson, 32, said he was losing “everything because of fear”.
“I left everything in my house including clothes.”
He is among hundreds of Nigerians still waiting to be evacuated from South Africa. More than 600 Nigerians have already been repatriated in recent weeks.
The South African authorities say those who have been flown home were in the country illegally – though this is disputed by Nigeria.
About 25,000 nationals of other African countries have left South Africa following a wave of protests in recent weeks by groups demanding that the government does more to curb illegal migration.
Some anti-migrant groups had given undocumented foreigners a deadline of 30 June to leave the country and organised marches attended by thousands of people on Tuesday. These were largely peaceful but there were isolated incidents of violence against foreigners.
The South African police say that about 900 people were arrested, mostly for immigration-related offences and looting.
The BBC has asked South Africa’s government for comment on Nigeria’s compensation demand.
Nigeria’s acting high commissioner said he had asked all of those who had left South Africa “to document very accurately those things they were leaving behind in terms of businesses, in terms of even cars, movable and immovable properties”.
Foreign ministry spokesperson Ebienfa told the BBC that all claims would be verified before any formal request was made
“We have not severed ties with South Africa, we are still engaging them at the highest level, we will sort those details using our usual diplomatic channels,” he said.
Wilson, the trader, said he had run a clothing business in the South African city of Centurion in Gauteng province for several years.
But he said he had now closed his shop and fled to stay near the Nigeria High Commission in South Africa’s capital, Pretoria.
Scheduled to leave on the next repatriation flight to Nigeria on Friday, he estimates the goods left in his shop are worth more than 16,000 rand ($975; £735).
Wilson said his residency documents had expired in 2021 and he had been unable to renew them.
He said he was not very hopeful about the prospect of getting compensation.
“If South Africa government can compensate it, it will be nice, but I know they won’t,” he said.
(BBC)
US President Donald Trump made more than $1bn (£750m) last year from business dealings in cryptocurrency, according to his mandatory financial report for 2025.
In a 927-page disclosure, he reported $635m in royalties from a Trump meme coin that has plunged in value since he launched it days before taking office.
He also reported over $500m in income from World Liberty Financial, a cryptocurrency firm founded by his own sons and the children of his special envoy, Steve Witkoff.
He earned millions more from real estate and Trump-themed items. But the White House denied he was profiting from the presidency.
The earnings from his latest financial disclosure far outpace the previous ones for 2024, when Trump disclosed over $600m in income.
But the White House, which has repeatedly emphasised that Trump has placed his business in a trust managed by his sons, again denied any conflict of interest.
White House deputy press secretary Anna Kelly said the president had proudly made the US “the crypto capital of the world”.
“Neither the President nor his family has ever engaged – or will ever engage – in conflicts of interest,” she said in a statement.
She added: “All actions by President Trump and his administration are taken in the best interest of the American people – and any so-called ‘reporters’ pushing otherwise are recycling the same, tired, false narrative that Democrats and the legacy media have been pushing for a decade.”
The president himself has also highlighted that he is not subject to federal conflict of interest laws.
Trump once criticised cryptocurrency, famously calling Bitcoin a “scam” and a “disaster waiting to happen”.
But Tuesday’s disclosure shows his crypto earnings far overshadow income from his real estate business, which first catapulted him to fame.
He earned around $77m from his Mar-a-Lago club and $122m from his golf club in Doral, Florida.
He also earned more than $30m each from golf clubs in Bedminster, New Jersey, and Jupiter, Florida, and Turnberry, Scotland.
Trump also earned millions from other business ventures, according to the financial disclosure.
These included $4.7m in royalties from Trump-branded watches, along with Trump-branded Bibles, trainers, fragrances and guitars.
First Lady Melania Trump also listed her income from 2025 in the disclosure. She made $10.7m from a “license agreement” related to the documentary about her that was released last year.
Another $6m in income is listed for her from the sale of NFTs, which are digital images sold online.
The president listed millions of dollars, too, in settlements from various legal actions.
These included $16m from a lawsuit against ABC, $16m from CBS Broadcasting and CBS Interactive, $24.5m from Meta, $22m from YouTube and $8m from X.
But the White House has said most of that money went towards Trump’s future presidential library or a nonprofit dedicated to the upkeep of park sites in the Washington DC area.
According to a list of the world’s richest people compiled by Forbes magazine, Trump has an estimated fortune of $6bn – up from $2.3bn in 2024. Bloomberg’s Billionaire’s Index puts the president’s net worth at $7.6bn.
After his return to the White House, Trump adopted a friendly approach to the crypto industry, even as companies linked to his family issued digital tokens.
The Trump-appointed head of financial regulator, the Securities and Exchange Commission, is also seen as an ally of the crypto industry.
Since taking office in April 2025, Paul Atkins has shifted the agency away from the strict, regulation-by-enforcement approach of his predecessor.
Last July, the president signed the GENIUS Act into law, to make “make America the undisputed leader in digital assets”.
(BBC)
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