Foreign News
Tens of thousands march across world in support of Palestinians in Gaza
Tens of thousands of people have marched through Australia’s major cities and towns, organisers said, demanding action to save dying and starving Palestinians.
More than 40 protests took place across Australia on Sunday, the group Palestine Action said, including large turnouts in state capitals Sydney, Brisbane and Melbourne.
“We demand from our politicians more than just talk. We are long past this,” Remah Naji, one of the organisers of the protest in the eastern city of Brisbane, told Al Jazeera.
“Now, we demand actions in the same way we acted in times of genocide. We are signatories to the Genocide Convention, which means that we have an obligation to prevent and punish genocide when it occurs.”
Protests denouncing Israel’s war an starvation campaign were also held in several other countries on Sunday.
In Australia, where people rallied in cities of all sizes nationwide, protesters urged sanctions against Israel and an end to arms trade with the country, which has been accused of carrying out a genocide by leading rights groups.
Organisers estimate more than 300,000 people participated in the demonstrations.
In Sydney, organiser Josh Lees said Australians were out in force to “demand an end to this genocide in Gaza and to demand that our government sanction Israel” as rallygoers, many with Palestinian flags, chanted “free, free Palestine”.
In Melbourne, protesters congregated outside the State Library Victoria, chanting “sanction Israel now”.
Organiser Nour Salman said Australia’s plans to recognise Palestinian statehood must be accompanied by tougher sanctions on Israel.
“Enough is enough. There is no ifs, buts or maybes,” Salman said.
Thousands also gathered in the southwestern city of Perth.
“Our government cannot claim to support human rights while continuing to arm an apartheid regime,” Friends of Palestine Western Australia organiser Nick Everett was quoted as saying by WAToday newspaper. “Trade unions, civil society, and communities across the country are united in calling for action. Palestine can’t wait.”
The protests came after the world’s leading authority on food crises – the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) – declared famine in Gaza City.
The warning has come as Israeli forces have intensified attacks and bombardments across Gaza, where nearly two million people have been displaced.
The IPC report said more than half a million people in Gaza – about a quarter of its population – face catastrophic levels of hunger, with many at risk of dying from malnutrition-related issues.
Protests in solidarity with Palestinians in Gaza were also held elsewhere around the globe on Sunday, including in Malaysia, Kenya, Belgium and Senegal. Over the weekend, demonstrations took place in the United Kingdom and Sweden.
A mass rally held in Malaysia’s capital, Kuala Lumpur, saw thousands of people demonstrate, answering a call by Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim, who said the demonstration would act as a starting point to form a group of activists to take humanitarian aid to Gaza later this month.
In Senegal’s capital Dakar, demonstrators condemned Israeli attacks on Palestinians in the enclave, and called for humanitarian aid to be allowed into the famine-struck Gaza Strip.
In Nairobi, hundreds of bikers rallied, chanting: “Free Palestine”. Many decried the international community for its inability to stop Israel’s deadly assault.
Al Jazeera’s Catherine Soi, reporting from Nairobi, said protesters are standing in solidarity with Palestinians in Gaza.
“They have watched horrific images of children who are starving; they have seen parents being killed as they go to get food for their families,” Soi said. “Here, they are saying: ‘Enough is enough.’”
At least 62,263 Palestinians have been killed in the Israel-Palestine war since it started on October 7, 2023, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry.
The victims include at least 2,000 Palestinians who were attempting to secure meagre food parcels at the Israeli and US-backed GHF aid distribution sites, dubbed by Palestinian officials as “death traps”.
Last November, the International Criminal Court [ICC] issued arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his former Defence Minister Yoav Gallant for war crimes in Gaza, including using starvation as a weapon of war.
[Aljazeera]
More than a year after a 33-year-old woman froze to death on Austria’s highest mountain, her boyfriend goes on trial on Thursday accused of gross negligent manslaughter.
Kerstin G died of hypothermia on a mountain climbing trip to the Grossglockner that went horribly wrong. Her boyfriend is accused of leaving her unprotected and exhausted close to the summit in stormy conditions in the early hours of 19 January 2025, while he went to get help.
The trial has sparked interest and debate, not just in Austria but in mountain climbing communities far beyond its borders.
Prosecutors say that, as the more experienced climber, the man on trial was “the responsible guide for the tour” and failed to turn back or call for support in time to help his girlfriend.
Identified by Austrian media as Thomas P, he denies the charges and his lawyer, Karl Jelinek, has described the woman’s death as “a tragic accident.”
The tragedy unfolded after the couple began their climb of the 3,798m (12,460ft) Grossglockner.
Prosecutors accuse Thomas P of making mistakes from the outset and have published a list of 9 errors.
At stake is the question of when personal judgement and risk-taking become a matter of criminal liability. If the climber is found guilty it could mean “a paradigm shift for mountain sports”, says Austria’s Der Standard newspaper.
Key to the case is the charge by state prosecutors in Innsbruck that he was to be considered the “responsible guide for the tour”, as “unlike his girlfriend, he was already very experienced in high-altitude Alpine tours and had planned the tour”.
[BBC]
Six Russian and four Belarusian athletes will compete under their nations’ flags at the upcoming Winter Paralympics.
In September, the International Paralympic Committee lifted its ban on athletes from the two countries competing at the Games.
Both countries were suspended from Paralympic competition after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022, with Belarus a close ally of Russia. A partial ban – allowing athletes to compete as neutrals – was introduced in 2023.
However, the four individual governing bodies in charge of the six sports contested at the Paralympics decided to keep their bans in place.
In December, Russia and Belarus won an appeal against FIS – the governing body for skiing and snowboarding – at the Court of Arbitration for Sport (Cas), permitting them to compete and accumulate ranking points.
The IPC confirmed to BBC Sport that the 10 athletes have been awarded bipartite commission invitations to compete in Para-alpine skiing, Para-cross country skiing and Para-snowboarding at the Milan-Cortina Games.
“The IPC can confirm that NPC Russia has been awarded a total of six slots: two in Para-alpine skiing (one male, one female), two in Para-cross country skiing (one male, one female), and two in Para-snowboard (both male),” it said in a statement.
“NPC Belarus has been awarded four slots in total, all in cross-country skiing (one male and three female).”
Culture Secretary Lisa Nandy said it was “completely the wrong decision”.
“Allowing athletes from Russia and Belarus to compete under their own flags while the brutal invasion of Ukraine continues sends a terrible message,” Nandy wrote on X.
“The International Paralympic Committee should reconsider this decision urgently.”
Bipartite commission invites are granted to individual athletes, rather than their international federation, and allow the participation of top athletes “who may not have had the opportunity to qualify through other methods due to extraordinary circumstances”, among other factors.
Ukraine has also been awarded bipartite slots in three sports.
It will mark the first time a Russian flag has been flown at a Paralympic Games since the Sochi 2014 Games, firstly due to the country’s state-sponsored doping programme, before the 2022 invasion of Ukraine.
Russian news agency TASS reports that among the athletes set to compete are Aleksey Bugaev, a three-time Paralympic champion in alpine skiing, and cross-country skiers Ivan Golubkov and Anastasiia Bagiian – both are World Championship medallists.
All three returned to competition in January, and both Bugaev and Bagiian have since won World Cup titles.
The Milan-Cortina Winter Paralympics will take place from 6-15 March.
[BBC]
US civil rights leader Jesse Jackson died aged 84 on Tuesday morning surrounded by relatives, according to a statement released by his family.
“It is with profound sadness that we announce the passing of Civil Rights leader and founder of the Rainbow PUSH Coalition, the Honorable Reverend Jesse Louis Jackson, Sr,” the family said, adding he died “peacefully.”
His cause of death has not been released, but Jackson had been diagnosed with progressive supranuclear palsy and was in hospital late last year.
Tributes poured in for the prominent activist who twice ran to be Democrats’ presidential nominee, including from the first black US president, Barack Obama.
Jackson is survived by his wife Jacqueline and their children: Santita, Jesse Jr, Jonathan, Yusef, Jacqueline and Ashley.
In their statement, Jackson’s family said his “unwavering commitment to justice, equality, and human rights helped shape a global movement for freedom and dignity”.
“A tireless change agent, he elevated the voices of the voiceless from his Presidential campaigns in the 1980s to mobilising millions to register to vote – leaving an indelible mark on history,” they added.
Along with working with Martin Luther King, Jr, and running for president in 1984 and 1988, Jackson is remembered as the founder of a nonprofit organisation focused on social justice and civil rights, the Rainbow PUSH coalition.
Calling Jackson a “true giant”, Obama said in a statement that Jackson’s “two historic runs for president” had “laid the foundation for my own campaign to the highest office of the land”. Obama added that his wife Michelle “got her first glimpse of political organizing at the Jacksons’ kitchen table when she was a teenager”.
“For more than 60 years, Reverend Jackson helped lead some of the most significant movements for change in human history,” the Obamas also said in the statement.
“From organizing boycotts and sit-ins, to registering millions of voters, to advocating for freedom and democracy around the world, he was relentless in his belief that we are all children of God, deserving of dignity and respect.”
Jackson was admitted to hospital last November, and doctors said he had been diagnosed with a rare degenerative condition called progressive supranuclear palsy (PSP) in April 2025, revising an earlier diagnosis of Parkinson’s Disease that Jackson had said was made in 2015.
Both diseases affect the brain, nervous system, and muscle control and, according to the American Parkinson Disease Association and the group CurePSP, many people with PSP are initially diagnosed with Parkinson’s because a number of the symptoms overlap.
Born in 1941 in Greenville, South Carolina, Jackson became involved in politics at an early age. He rose to prominence in the 1960s as a leader in Martin Luther King, Jr ‘s Southern Christian Leadership Conference and was with King when he was assassinated in Memphis, Tennessee, in 1968.
Over the course of his career, Jackson built a movement to bring America’s increasingly diverse population together, with a message that centred on poor and working-class Americans.
After his presidential runs, Jackson later positioned himself as an elder statesman within the Democratic Party.
His son Jesse Jackson, Jr is a former US congressman.
[BBC]
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