The final lick of paint was barely dry on the newly built, white-tiled Al-Hasanat home when the war in Gaza erupted in October.

For three-year-old Ayten, the apartment in central Gaza was a source of immense pride. “This is our beautiful house,” she would say to anyone who would listen, her father, Ahmed Al-Hasanat, recounted.

But two weeks after the family moved into their new home, they were forced to flee the besieged Al-Mughraqa neighborhood, said Al-Hasanat. When they returned in November, they found their apartment badly damaged by Israeli strikes. A doll belonging to Ayten lay among the rubble, peeking out from behind a broken door.

“She said, ‘Daddy, my doll died.’”

From neatly organizing letters while staying in labyrinthine tent camps, to keeping branches from family olive trees, some say they are doing all they can to keep memories alive. For many, repeated displacement means reliving the trauma of generations uprooted by al-Nakba, or “the catastrophe,” when roughly 700,000 Palestinians fled or were forcibly expelled from their homes in historic Palestine, during the creation of Israel in 1948.

Israel launched its military offensive on October 7 after the militant group Hamas, which governs Gaza, attacked southern Israel. At least 1,200 people were killed and more than 250 others abducted, according to Israeli authorities.

Israeli strikes in Gaza have since killed more than 39,000 Palestinians and injured another 90,000, according to the Ministry of Health there.

“We are being subjected to the biggest genocide. Every moment must be documented for the sake of other generations.”

Ahmed Al-Hasanat, a Palestinian father

A box of memories

Before the war, Fadi Adwan was studying for an electrical engineering degree at the Islamic University of Gaza, his dream since he was a teenager. These days, he fiddles with a navy and gray scientific calculator inside a tent in Rafah, in the south.

Israeli strikes destroyed several of the university’s buildings in the early days of the war, Palestinian news agency WAFA reported.

“Since I was in the 10th grade, I always had a calculator in my hands,” said the student, in his early 20s. He and his family have been displaced at least five times since October, he added. “I was thinking that we would go home after a month or so, but things were not the same in this war as previous wars.”

As her family prepared to flee, Ismail instructed her three sisters to fill a small box with their most treasured possessions. Her younger sister, Dina, contributed a necklace and some handwritten letters from close friends.

“Dr. Refaat’s voice is what keeps ringing in my head whenever I see my notes,” said Ismail. “He made us aware of the power of words and writing in delivering messages to the world, so we as Gazans will be heard.”

Cycles of displacement

Ismail wonders if she will relive the plight of her grandparents, whose lives were uprooted in 1948, when they were children. Her only living grandparent – her paternal grandma, who has Alzheimer’s disease – still remembers the horrors of al-Nakba, Ismail said.

“I hate it when I realize that I am reliving the exact wretched fate my grandparents once lived… I too will be traumatized and attached to my past life for as long as I live,” Ismail said.

Cycles of repeated displacement – without the promise of return – are embedded within Palestinian communities, according to Rochelle Davis, an associate professor of anthropology at Georgetown University.

“I used to wonder why they were leaving their homes in 1948,” said Adwan, the electrical engineering student. “But when this war happened, I understood why they left their homes; because of the horrific massacres that took place and because of the blood that was shed.”

Longing for ‘Palestine’

Small green leaves cling to a withering olive branch which 19-year-old Raghad Ezzat Hamouda took in October from a tree which had been planted by her father in their home in Beit Lahia, northern Gaza.

Having been displaced at least six times, Hamouda has preserved the branch – and a keffiyeh, the traditional scarf worn by many Palestinians, that belonged to her grandmother, Tamam – as they remind her of her “beloved homeland,” she says.

“Our ancestors were displaced by Israel in 1948, and the scene today in 2024 is repeated,” she added.

“The Palestinian keffiyeh is a symbol of my identity, which is Palestine.”

Raghad Ezzat Hamouda, 19, displaced Palestinian

Once a marker of Palestinian life, Hamouda says her black-and-white fishnet-patterned keffiyeh is now a symbol of loss.

She said 85-year-old Tamam, a Nakba survivor, was injured when Israeli tanks opened fire as the family fled from northern to western Gaza in December. She was pushing her grandmother in her wheelchair at the time, she recalled. The teenager said her grandmother bled to death before they could get her to a hospital. “My grandmother was very affectionate and loved her grandchildren very much,” she said. “She loved to smile and gave us hope, especially during times of war.”

Along with house keys, some Palestinians will also have passports and land deeds from the 1940s testifying to pre-existing ownership of land in what is now Israel, according to Dr. Scott Webster, an academic from the University of Sydney. At least 70% of residents in Gaza are refugees, those who were displaced from their homes during the creation of Israel and their descendants, Amnesty International says.

“The house key is important because it brings with it all the memories, memories of the house and the garden around it, and the grapevines,” said Adwan, who has held onto his keys while being forced to flee multiple times, including from the besieged Al-Shifa Hospital.

“My father and mother have been working hard for 30 years to be able to build this house… It was partially destroyed in 2014. We built it again and it was destroyed again,” he said. “We are people with lives and memories… Maybe one day someone might care about our cause and help end our suffering.”

‘I am no longer me’

Israeli attacks in Gaza have killed at least 15,983 children, the Government Media Office reported on July 7.

Guardians may use personal objects – including toys – to provide emotional support for displaced children, said Davis, of Georgetown University. Meanwhile some adults hide their psychological trauma because they do not want to overload younger generations, according to Dr. Samah Jabr, a psychiatrist, psychotherapist and head of the mental health unit at the Palestinian Ministry of Health, in Ramallah, in the occupied West Bank.

For Al-Hasanat, saving Ayten’s doll from the wreckage of their home was an attempt to soothe his daughter’s psychological trauma.

“She used to always laugh and spread happiness,” he said, explaining that she has now developed anxiety-related habits.

“I want to look for a safe place for the sake of my children, and for the sake of a happy life for Ayten, who needs a lot to return to the way she used to be,” he added. “The pain is indescribable. We have become without feeling or sensation.”

Since their visit in November, Al-Hasanat said, their apartment has been completely destroyed by bombing. “Nothing remains of the house,” he said.

Ismail, the literature student, says the stress of war has made her feel like “a stranger in my own life.”

“That’s how I and all Gazans feel after being snatched out of our lives and being forced to evacuate,” she said. “I am exhausted, counting days waiting for this all to end. I feel I am no longer me.”

A group of 45 American physicians and nurses who volunteered in hospitals across Gaza have sent an open letter to US President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris sharing their experiences and demanding an immediate ceasefire and arms embargo.

The signatories unanimously described treating children who had suffered injuries they believed must have been deliberately inflicted. “Specifically, every one of us on a daily basis treated pre-teen children who were shot in the head and chest,” they wrote.

“We wish you could see the nightmares that plague so many of us since we have returned: dreams of children maimed and mutilated by our weapons, and their inconsolable mothers begging us to save them. We wish you could hear the cries and screams our consciences will not let us forget.”

Many in the group have public health backgrounds and experiences volunteering in other conflict zones such as Ukraine and Iraq, according to the letter. “We believe we are well positioned to comment on the massive human toll from Israel’s attack on Gaza, especially the toll it has taken on women and children,” reads the letter posted to X on Thursday by Dr. Feroze Sidwa, who spearheaded the writing of the letter with the other physicians.

“We believe our government is obligated to do this, both under American law and International Humanitarian Law, and that it is the right thing to do,” the letter said.

The ‘only independent monitors’ in Gaza

“In Gaza, there’s no independent monitor,” he said. “If you’re not going to believe the Palestinians, then you should believe 50 doctors who’ve gone there at different times and places.”

Apart from Palestinian journalists living in Gaza, there has been no media access to the enclave since October 7, with a few exceptions of entry under official escort.

Hamawy signed the letter to recount what he saw with his own eyes. “We all saw a complete devastation of a society, of people’s lives, of health care structure,” he said.

Hamawy has worked as a surgeon in Sarajevo, in New York City on 9/11, and in Iraq, where he performed life-saving surgery on US Senator Tammy Duckworth in 2004 after her helicopter was hit by an RPG. But he said those experiences in other conflict zones were not comparable to what he had witnessed in Gaza, adding that 90% of those he had seen killed there were women and children.

Hamawy worked at the European Gaza hospital in the southern city of Khan Younis in May of this year where he performed about 115 reconstructive surgeries and treated mostly children under 14 years old. He worked on amputations, burns, and gunshot wounds to the face, he said.

Another patient was a little boy who picked up what he thought was a can of tuna to bring back to his family in Rafah, Hamawy recalled. But the metal object was in fact an unexploded cluster bomb, according to Hamawy, who said that after opening it in front of his family, the child lost his left arm, both his legs, and three fingers on his right arm.

‘No kid gets shot twice by a sniper by mistake’

The photos were sent to him by a first-year medical resident who had been forced to perform the surgery and requested Perlmutter’s expertise. When Perlmutter asked why senior surgeons hadn’t done the operation, the resident explained that they had been killed in a bombing.

Describing a hospital overrun, Perlmutter said after every bombing, he would find injured children laid across the floor, their loved ones panicking and crying.

“Some are dead, some will die in front of you, and some you can save. You try to save the ones you can save,” Perlmutter said.

He recalled two patients aged around six years old, who had suffered gunshots to their heads and chests – wounds which suggested they had been deliberately targeted, he said.

“No kid gets shot twice by a sniper by mistake,” Perlmutter said, adding that the shots were “dead center” to their chests.

As Perlmutter tried to treat the children with head injuries, he said, their “brains poured out” in his hands, in what he described as a personally traumatic moment.

‘Everyone in Gaza is sick, injured, or both’

Launched in response to Hamas-led terror attacks in Israel on October 7 which killed at least 1,200 people, Israel’s monthlong military offensive in Gaza has left more than 39,000 Palestinians dead, according to the Gazan Health Ministry. The letter’s signatories estimate that the true toll of the war could be in excess of 92,000, if it included deaths from starvation or disease and bodies still buried under the rubble.

Last week the World Health Organization said the polio virus had been found in sewage samples, putting thousands of Palestinians at risk of contracting a disease that can cause paralysis.

Under such conditions, the American medical workers warned that epidemics could lead to the deaths of tens of thousands more children. The displacement of people to areas with no running water or toilets “is virtually guaranteed to result in widespread death from viral and bacterial diarrheal diseases and pneumonias, particularly in children under the age of five,” the letter said.

“Everyone in Gaza is sick, injured, or both,” with few exceptions, their letter said. “We are not politicians. We do not claim to have all the answers. We are simply physicians and nurses who cannot remain silent about what we saw in Gaza.” the letter said.

Reporting contributed by Tala Alrajjal, Sam Fossum and Eugenia Ugrinovich.

The British government has dropped plans to oppose the International Criminal Court’s application for an arrest warrant against Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu over alleged war crimes in Gaza, according to UK news agency PA Media..

“This was a proposal by the previous government which was not submitted before the election, and which I can confirm the Government will not be pursuing in line with our long standing position that this is a matter for the court to decide on,” said a spokeswoman for the UK’s new Labour government, which earlier this month replaced a Conservative government led by former Prime Minister Rishi Sunak.

ICC prosecutor Karim Khan announced in May he was seeking arrest warrants for Netanyahu, Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, and three Hamas leaders – including Gaza chief Yahya Sinwar – over charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity.

The court has no means of enforcement, however ICC members have an obligation to cooperate fully with its decisions. If the warrants are granted, Netanyahu and others could risk arrest when traveling to the 124 countries that are ICC members – including Germany and the United Kingdom.

The international court still must assess submissions from other powers before making a decision on whether to grant the request for arrest warrants.

Israel has faced significant criticism over the scale and force of its military the Israeli military campaign in Gaza, launched after the Hamas-led October 7 terror attacks, which killed at least 1,200 people and abducted more than 250 others. After months of war, many Gazans are facing mass displacement, destruction, and bouts of famine; more than 39,000 Palestinians have been killed and another 90,403 people injured since the Israeli offensive began, according to the Ministry of Health in the Palestinian enclave.

The UK’s governing Labour party and its leader, former human rights lawyer Keir Starmer, have faced pressure from supporters to take a tougher stance on the Gaza war.

On Thursday, US Vice President Kamala Harris vowed “not to be silent” about human suffering in Gaza, speaking to reporters after her meeting with Netanyahu in Washington. The White House has also faced increasing pressure to ease the suffering of Palestinian civilians under bombardment, which has included the use of US munitions.

Israel and the United States are not members of the ICC. However, the ICC claims jurisdiction over Gaza, East Jerusalem and the West Bank after Palestinian leaders formally agreed to be bound by the court’s founding principles in 2015.

“The fact that Hamas fighters need water doesn’t justify denying water from all the civilian population of Gaza,” he added.

Israeli lawmakers have vehemently condemned the application, with Netanyahu calling the decision “a political outrage.” Israel’s President Isaac Herzog said the announcement was “beyond outrageous.”

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Manu Solidaire is quick to admit that he is not a real chef. Yet the cooking livestreams that he broadcasts from his tiny Paris apartment have attracted a huge audience on TikTok. They aren’t watching to see complicated cooking techniques; it’s his generosity that’s on full display.

The 33-year-old spends hours preparing dozens of meals before hopping on his bike and distributing the food to people living on the streets of Paris. Solidaire takes his online audience along every step of the way.

“When I wake up in the morning,” he said, “I’m thinking about, ‘What do I want to make today?’”

From prep to packaging, Solidaire’s cooking sessions last four to eight hours. His kitchen is only about 30 square feet, so there is little room for others to keep him company. Instead, he often has an audience of thousands interacting online in a party-like atmosphere.

“We laugh, we dance, we move, we are like a family on the live session,” he said.

When Solidaire first began delivering his meals in 2022, he said that he wore a GoPro camera on his bike helmet for his own security. After a few months, he started asking people if they would mind being in his videos. He says he uses these videos to change perceptions around homelessness.

“It’s to show to the world some homeless people … they work all their lives and right now they have some problems,” he said. “And maybe you can understand their situation.”

Solidaire’s TikTok account has 352,400 followers and 5.6 million likes. His social media audience helps fund his efforts through links on the account and by donating during his livestreams. Last year, Solidaire won TikTok’s L’award d’honneur for his work.

Solidaire first got to know people experiencing homelessness when he was running a pair of e-cigarette businesses. He would allow people in need to charge their phones in his store and would offer free coffee. Then, during the pandemic, he says “the business decreased, and the happiness decreased, too.”

“I was thinking, ‘I have to find a new way to be happy,’” he said.

One day, he made pasta for his family and had three portions leftover. He spent 20 minutes walking the streets and found three people who would not have eaten had he not offered the meals.

“I come back home with a really huge smile,” he said. “It’s good for me and good for them.”

@manu.solidaire

Déjà plis d’un an de distribution aux démunis. MERCI pour votre soutien

♬ son original – Manu Solidaire

Solidaire found a new mission and started up his TikTok livestreams hoping to share recipes and sharpen his cooking skills.

His first deliveries proved that he had some lessons to learn. When he would approach people, he said they did not know what to make of a stranger alone on his bike saying, “Hello, are you hungry? I have free food.” Then he realized, “’Manu, did you really ask about homeless people if [they] are hungry?’ Sure, [they] are hungry.” So, Solidaire changed his approach, instead saying, “I deliver free food for you. Do you need it?” He found people were far more accepting of his offer.

When he saw that their needs went beyond food, he began distributing hygiene supplies. He also sometimes offers to pay for hotel rooms.

Now, with the world’s eyes on Paris for the Olympic Games, many homeless people have been moved out of the city. Solidaire says he fears that the government is sending them to areas where they have no connection or resources. He argues this does not solve the underlying problems.

“We can’t just hide the poverty of the country without any solution,” Solidaire said, adamant that he will still feed the people who depend on him. “If I can’t find them on the streets … I will take the train to continue to deliver my food.”

One thing hasn’t changed for Solidaire since the first pasta meal he gave away: the joy that this work brings.

“When I see the smile I (get) on the street, when I see the smiles I have (doing this), and when I see the smiles (from) my followers … thank you for that.”

France’s high-speed train lines were targeted by multiple “malicious” acts including arson on Friday, in what has been described as “an attack on France” and “coordinated sabotage” to disrupt travel ahead of the opening ceremony of the Paris Olympics.

The French state railway company SNCF called the overnight disruption a “massive attack aimed at paralyzing the high-speed line network.”

In a post on X, SNCF said that “a large number of trains were diverted or canceled,” and asked “all travelers who can to postpone their trip and not go to the station.”

The operator said the Atlantic, Northern and Eastern high-speed lines were impacted, with damage caused to several of its facilities, adding that one of the acts was “foiled” in the east after SNCF agents scared off several individuals.

SNCF CEO Jean-Pierre Farandou told journalists on Friday that cables – which are there to ensure the security of train drivers – were set on fire and taken apart but that authorities “don’t know who is behind it.”

Travel on the affected lines is “very disrupted,” with the railway network needing to divert and cancel a large number of trains, SNCF said. Disruptions – which it estimates could impact around 250,000 travelers today – were expected throughout the weekend, affecting 800,000 passengers, as work crews oversee repairs, it added.

The Rémi Train Centre Val de Loire said travel on its railway lines would be disrupted until at least Monday, with a fire near the tracks in Courtalain, northern France impacting services to Paris.

Farandou explained that they have to pull the damaged cables back together one by one, reconnect and test them. “It’s a question of security,” he said. “We have to make sure we test them so when trains are back up and running, they are safe.”

Brittany, a region in the northwest France, and the north of the country are the most impacted areas, SNCF said, though some trains have started running again, notably in eastern France. There would be no trains from Paris’ Gare Montparnasse, however, until at least 1 p.m. local time, Christophe Fanichet – the CEO of SNCF Voyageurs – told reporters.

Eurostar, the high-speed train service that connects the United Kingdom with France, has been forced to cancel and divert trains due to the “coordinated acts of malice,” on French lines.

The French Minister of Sports and the Olympic and Paralympic Games, Amélie Oudéa-Castera said the disruption to the train lines are “a sort of coordinated sabotage.”

Speaking BFMTV, Oudéa-Castera condemned the attacks in the “strongest possible terms,” and said it is “truly appalling.”

“We will assess the impacts on travelers, athletes, and ensure the proper transport of all delegations to the competition sites,” she said.

Other French officials echoed her description of the attacks being intentional. Outgoing French transport minister Patrice Vergriete and Valerie Pecresse, head of the Île-de-France region, in which Paris lies, said on Friday that “all elements” pointed towards it being a “deliberate attack.” Vergriete added those elements were “the coincidental timing, the vans found after the people had fled (and) the arson materials found on location.”

Outgoing French prime minister Gabriel Attal said in a post on X that the consequences are “massive and serious” while SNCF called the disruption an “attack on France.”

In response to the attacks, Paris police chief Laurent Nunez said Friday that police are stepping up security and focusing manpower on the capital’s train stations.

Security in Paris had already been bolstered in recent weeks.

The cause of the disruptions is currently unclear. But there has been growing domestic unrest, powered in part by recent national elections that saw a battle between the left and far-right.

Interior Minister Darmanin confirmed security forces had detained a “member of the extreme-right” this week who was “suspected of wanting to commit violent action during the Olympic Games.” According to Darmanin, the man had an “intention to intervene during a phase of the torch relay.”

This is a developing story and will be updated.

An emotional, accelerating campaign to allow assisted dying for terminally ill adults in Britain has reached parliament, with activists hoping the country will become one of few to legalize the process.

A Private Member’s Bill is to be introduced in the House of Lords on Friday, putting the issue back on parliament’s agenda – though it is uncertain whether it will reach the House of Commons for approval from lawmakers.

Whatever its progress, it marks another development in a debate that has found its way onto Britain’s airwaves and prompted impassioned appeals from some well-known faces.

“Change is definitely coming.”

Assisted dying generally refers to the process through which a person with a terminal illness can legally access drugs to end their lives. It is legal in few countries; Canada and 11 US states allow it, as does most of Australia, Switzerland and the Netherlands. It is partially available in Germany and Italy, while Spain and Portugal have legalized the process in recent years.

“The conditions for change have never been better,” said Ellie Ball of Dignity in Dying, a leading campaign group that has pushed for years for the United Kingdom to follow suit. “The trend around the world is towards giving people greater choice at the end of their lives.”

But it is a heated national conversation, and its path to legalization remains long – with vocal pockets of opposition from outside and inside parliament.

“The state should not be complicit in encouraging people to end their lives,” said Alistair Thompson, a spokesman for Care Not Killing, which opposes any change in the law on assisted dying or euthanasia and advocates for better palliative care.

“People just need to look very coldly, clinically at the facts and the data, and not necessarily at clearly very emotional stories,” he said.

‘The pain can become unbearable’

Friday’s bill is not the first to reach parliament; nine years ago MPs voted by a sizable margin not to legalize assisted dying in Britain, and Lords have occasionally tried to reintroduce the issue in the years since.

For Falconer, the time is right to try again. “There has been over the last year or two a much greater urgency and interest in the issue,” he said. His bill is similar to the law in Oregon, the first US state to allow assisted dying, where only terminally ill people – and not those in unbearable suffering – are permitted to seek medication that would end their lives.

It does not go as far as Switzerland, the Netherlands and Canada, which allow an assisted death in cases of suffering as well. Only a handful of countries allow euthanasia, in which another person deliberately ends someone’s life to relieve suffering.

It is currently a crime to help somebody die in England and Wales, punishable by up to 14 years in prison. Performing euthanasia on a person, meanwhile, is considered murder or manslaughter.

Polling indicates the public broadly supports ending those laws, and a campaign by celebrated journalist and broadcaster Esther Rantzen, who is terminally ill with lung cancer, has given the issue a prominent face.

“Isn’t it typically British that we give the pets we love a pain-free, dignified, private death but we can’t offer it to the people we love,” she told the BBC in April.

Rantzen told the broadcaster that allowing assisted dying would “mean that I could look forward in confidence to a death which is pain-free surrounded by people I love.”

Currently, traveling alone to a clinic like Dignitas in Switzerland is about the only option for Brits in her situation, but it is one very few seek out; only 33 British citizens ended their lives at Dignitas in 2022, according to the clinic.

Opponents of legalization have argued that those small figures represent a limited appetite for assisted dying in the UK, but there are other pressures at play too. “If my family go with me, they could be investigated by the police for killing me, or pressuring me to die,” Rantzen told the BBC.

One of the clinic’s recent British patients was Paola Marra, who had terminal cancer and died at Dignitas earlier this year. In a video message filmed before her death, she said: “The pain and suffering can become unbearable. It’s a slow erosion of dignity – the loss of independence, the stripping away of everything that makes life worth living.

“Assisted dying is not about giving up. In fact, it’s about reclaiming control,” she said.

A political test

Britons are increasingly hearing stories like Rantzen’s and Marra’s. But some among the country’s lawmakers, who will ultimately decide the fate of the assisted dying law, say there is more to consider.

“We’re in danger of it being a cause célèbre,” said Rachael Maskell, a Labour lawmaker and clinician who has researched assisted dying on parliament’s Health and Social Care Committee.

But she listed a number of reservations that she and other members of the committee considered, including that legalization would encourage patients to seek an earlier death to avoid becoming a burden on their relatives.

“I’ve had that conversation so many times with patients,” she said. “That worries me, because that person has as much right to a fulfilled life.”

And she said a lack of monitoring in Oregon of how medication is assigned and taken by patients “horrified” her when she visited the US state to study its law. “We wouldn’t be a world leader, we would be a world follower,” Maskell added.

The arrival of an intensely delicate issue in Britain’s parliament provides an early political test for Keir Starmer, Britain’s new prime minister – and the decisions his government take on the bill will determine whether and how soon assisted dying becomes legal in the country.

The first stages of a premiership are typically finely choreographed; a government’s priorities are introduced to parliament, one by one, as the prime minister looks to craft the public’s first impressions of their new government.

For Starmer, the assisted dying bill has the potential to disrupt those intentions. He said before and after this month’s general election – which his Labour Party won in a landslide – that he would allow time for a debate on the issue if it reaches the Commons, and he would allow a free vote on the issue, meaning his MPs wouldn’t be asked to vote one way or the other.

But legalizing assisted dying wasn’t in Labour’s manifesto or in its King’s Speech, limiting the opportunities for it to ever reach MPs. Falconer’s effort is a Private Member’s Bill, allocated individually after a ballot determined which peers can introduce a bill. A similar ballot will take place in the Commons in September, which could see an elected lawmaker take on the mantle, and that is the way the government is believed to prefer the matter is introduced.

“The key piece of the jigsaw that is currently missing is a vote in the Commons,” Falconer said. “I think (Starmer) is very keen for it to be done. (But) of course there are other priorities.”

Starmer, a former human rights lawyer, is likely to eventually face calls to allow a debate and a vote on the issue, whether those come as a result of Falconer’s bill or another legislative push.

But campaigners are urging lawmakers to turn to the matter faster.

“The debate needs to start as soon as possible,” she said. “Dying people don’t have time to wait.”

A debt-ridden laborer in central India said his family’s life has been “changed forever” after he unearthed a 19.22-carat diamond worth almost $100,000.

Raju Gond normally makes about $4 a day taking whatever work comes his way to provide for his large family, working in fields or diamond mines in his home state of Madhya Pradesh, or as a tractor driver for a wealthier farmer.

But the 40-year-old and his younger brother Rakesh sometimes pay $9.50 a day to dig for gold in a 64-square-meter (690-square-foot) plot of government land.

And it was there that he made his fortuitous find. After laying his hands on the stone on Wednesday, he said, his heart raced as he cleaned the dirt off it. With every stroke of his finger, the stone shone brighter and brighter.

He and Rakesh hugged and jumped in delight. They got onto their bike and hurtled 7 miles (11 kilometers) back home from the shallow mine in Krishna Kalyanpur to share the news with their family. They then took their mother along to the local Panna Diamond Office to have the stone evaluated.

Gond may have the weather to thank for his good fortune.

Two months ago, monsoons descended upon the region, washing away many work opportunities. Rather than sit at home, the family felt compelled to search for diamonds.

“What we have to do is fill in a form, give identification proof, provide photos and pay 800 rupees ($9.50) to the government,” Gond explained. “When we are done searching there we can apply again to search for diamonds on another patch of land.”

Singh, the diamond examiner, said the government leases shallow mines to families who want to look for the gemstones, under the supervision of local officials. The government takes an 11.5% royalty for any find, plus a small tax, and gives the remaining amount to the person who found it.

The diamond office will wait for the value of its inventory to exceed $360,000 before holding an auction, Singh said, after which Gond will receive his payout.

“Right now, we have diamonds worth half that amount,” he said.

Planning for the future

Gond has opened a bank account and is eagerly waiting for the money to be credited. “Our lives have changed forever,” he said.

“The first thing I’ll do is pay back debt of ($6,000). Then we will invest in all children getting educated, building homes, buy some land and maybe a tractor too,” he said.

Lately, he said, it has been hard to make ends meet. His family includes his parents, wife, seven children, and the families of his younger brother and sister.

When he was growing up, his father and grandfathers would tell Gond stories of people who found diamonds in the soil, “and how the fate of the family had changed after that.” Today, he says, he has his own story to share.

And on Friday, the brothers were back at the mine.

Ukraine’s Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba urged Hong Kong to prevent Russia from using the Asian financial hub to bypass Western sanctions during a visit to the city on Thursday.

The United States and European Union have sanctioned dozens of companies in Hong Kong and mainland China for evading the extensive measures imposed on Russia in response to its invasion of Ukraine, including the supply of critical dual‑use goods such as semiconductors.

Kuleba “called on the Hong Kong administration to take measures to prevent Russia and Russian companies from using Hong Kong to circumvent the restrictive measures imposed for Russia’s aggression against Ukraine,” according to a statement from Ukraine’s Foreign Affairs Ministry issued after the minister met with Hong Kong leader John Lee.

“These restrictive measures are necessary to weaken Russia’s capacity to wage war and kill people in Ukraine,” it added. “The Minister stressed that Russia’s machinations should not spoil Hong Kong’s reputation as a highly developed liberal economy based on unwavering respect for the rule of law.”

Dual-use items are goods, software or technology that can be used for both civilian and military applications. The US has said that some of the dual-use items targeted by its sanctions are critical to Russia’s defense-industrial base.

While the UN General Assembly has passed resolutions condemning Russia’s invasion and demanding the withdrawal of its troops from Ukraine, similar resolutions at the UNSC have been vetoed by Russia, a permanent member of the group.

Hong Kong officials have previously said the city has no obligation to implement unilateral sanctions imposed by other countries – including when a mega yacht linked to a Russian oligarch sanctioned by the US, the EU and the United Kingdom dropped anchor in the city in October 2022.

However, international companies based in Hong Kong, including Chinese banks, have generally adhered to US sanctions to avoid any risk of being frozen out of the dollar dominated global financial system.

Kuleba’s visit to Hong Kong was the final leg of his trip to China, the first time the close partner of Russia has hosted a top Ukrainian official since Moscow’s invasion began nearly two and half years ago.

Beijing, which has forged deeper ties with Russia since the invasion and become a vital economic and diplomatic lifeline for Moscow, has repeatedly decried “unilateral sanctions” and what it calls “long-arm jurisdiction” by Western countries, saying they have no basis in international law.

In a meeting in the southern city of Guangzhou on Wednesday, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi told his Ukrainian counterpart that, “although the conditions and timing are not yet ready,” China was “willing to continue to play a constructive role in ceasefire and resumption of peace talks.”

Kuleba told Wang that Ukraine was prepared for peace talks “when Russia is ready to negotiate in good faith,” according to the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry, but stressed that Kyiv saw no such willingness from Moscow.

The Ukrainian diplomat’s visit comes as Beijing faces increasing pressure from the West over its deepening ties to Russia and allegations that it’s aiding Moscow’s war effort by providing dual-use goods. Beijing denies this and says the West is fueling the conflict by supplying arms for Ukraine’s defense.

As Venezuela girds for what could be a historic presidential election this weekend, one of the most important names in the race isn’t on the ballot: María Corina Machado – the woman who galvanized Venezuela’s opposition movement, and whom many voters see as the real challenger to socialist incumbent Nicolás Maduro.

Twelve years ago, Machado introduced herself to Venezuela’s political scene by confronting late President Hugo Chávez in Congress. Chévez, then at the peak of his power, was delivering his annual state of the nation address. Machado, then a fringe opposition politician who lost her primary race to challenge Chávez for the presidency, stood up and shouted back at the president on the podium.

Chávez dismissed her as an irritation, telling her, “An eagle doesn’t hunt a fly.”

On Sunday, once again, Machado will not be on the ballot – but not for lack of popularity. An avowed capitalist who has promised privatization of several state industries, Machado won more than 90% of the opposition primary vote last year, but has been barred from running for office following allegations that she didn’t include some food vouchers on her assets declaration. Machado has described the decision to bar her – upheld by Venezuela’s Supreme Court – as illegitimate, unjustified and unconstitutional.

The current opposition candidate for president, Edmundo González, is backed by Machado, who has campaigned on his behalf to mobilize voters.Experts say that their efforts may now pose the most significant threat to Maduro’s grip on power in years, as he fights to claim a third term.

Machado: We will win. We will succeed and we will bring everyone that has been forced to leave to come back. That’s my only plan.

Machado: I am committed to giving every single Venezuelan the opportunity to have the education they need to be independent and take hold of their future.

I do believe in public education, but I do believe that you have to create incentives so the public education can be as competitive and with the same degree of excellence that you have in private education.

You must have the rules of the market. It’s the system, and that works as well with the health system. I am convinced that education is a right.

Machado: As a society and as a state, you have the duty to guarantee that every single Venezuelan has access to it. But we have to change all the way around.

What do I promote? For instance, in the case of education, I believe in coupons that you can give directly to the parents so that parents can choose the kind of education they want for their children, either public or private. And this is a true revolution in Venezuela.

In the case of the energy sector or other, industries. Venezuela has a huge potential that requires enormous investments. That we don’t have the resources for. This country was sacked: we need to open markets.

And we need to create conditions that are so competitive, so attractive that international resources will be invested in a country, despite what happened in the previous regime.

One of the things we need to do is totally transform our judiciary system and come back from being the last place globally in rule of law to one of the most respected countries.

Machado: We need tens or hundreds of billions of dollars that could be invested in energy, not just oil and gas. Also, renewable resources.

The Venezuelan government doesn’t have the resources to do that. The resources we need to invest in infrastructure, in health, in education and so on.

We definitely need to open markets in order to take advantage of that huge potential and turn Venezuela into truly the energy hub of the Americas.

How the how the country will benefit from that? We will have fiscal flows, and other resources, mechanisms through which the state will get taxes.

But you don’t need to own the companies directly for the country to benefit from it.

If we don’t do that, the window of opportunity for oil and gas will close soon. And that will be unforgivable.

Machado: The regime will try to steal the election. But I have trust, full confidence in what the Venezuelan people voted for. We have built a platform to defend our votes; it’s unprecedented.

Today, Venezuelans realize that it is a personal responsibility. They don’t expect others to defend their vote. Right? They are going to do it themselves. And you will see people coming out with their families together, willing to stay as long as it takes.