Israeli police said on Monday that they had arrested 10 people in the occupied West Bank after settler attacks on an American photographer and a French mayor that drew international condemnation but mixed messages from the government.
In a rare action against rising settler violence, police said they raided several locations across the occupied territory and seized cars and potential evidence related to the attacks.
“Following the severe incidents of violence over the past weekend, including the assault of a media worker and the suspected attacks on foreign civilians, an arrest operation was conducted before dawn,” said Major General Moshe Finchi, the Israeli police’s West Bank commander.
“Suspects were arrested on suspicion of involvement in the violent incidents, violating a military commander’s order concerning a closed military zone, and illegal construction,” he said.
Witnesses say that settlers have been stepping up violent attacks on Palestinians during the ongoing olive harvest, aiming to seize their land during a season that carries cultural importance for the community.
Rights groups note that Israel rarely prosecutes settlers when the victims are Palestinian. The Israeli human rights group Yesh Din said it documents 561 acts of settler or military violence against Palestinians since September 27 — more than 26 incidents a day.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who is facing a tight race for a new mandate, has tried to shore up his pro-settlement right-wing base and has cast doubt on the circumstances behind the recent settler attacks on Westerners.
Netanyahu’s tone has brought unusually strong criticism from the opposition, which has accused him of tarnishing Israel’s image.
US Ambassador Mike Huckabee, a staunch ally of Israel, had called Friday’s beating of veteran photographer Heidi Levine an “act of terror” and demanded punishment. He called Monday’s arrests a “very positive development”.
Levine, 65, who was on assignment for The Washington Post, was taken to a hospital with broken vertebrae. She was visited at her hospital bed both by President Isaac Herzog, who holds a largely ceremonial role, and centre-left opposition leader Yair Golan.
Golan, in a social media post afterwards, said that if he takes power, there will no longer be “a reality in which Jews instil terror in the name of Jewish supremacy, and stain the state we built here”.
One day after Levine’s beating, settlers attacked a convoy of European diplomats, including the French and Belgian consuls general in Jerusalem as they went through the town of Taybeh in the West Bank on Saturday.
The settlers beat up Bernard Baudoux, 78, the mayor of the northern French town of Aulnoye-Aymeries, who was wearing a sash in the French tricolour during a goodwill visit in which he helped harvest olives.
Netanyahu earlier questioned the facts behind the two recent incidents.
On Levine’s beating, he alleged that Palestinians and “far-left” activists were fanning violence. With the attack on the diplomatic convoy, he pointed out that the mayor was a leftist supporter of the Palestinian cause and said that diplomats should have coordinated with the Israeli military.
The top official on human rights in the US State Department, Riley Barnes, on Sunday visited the same town where the mayor was beaten, which is largely Christian, on a trip coordinated with the military. He was unharmed.
The violence by settlers has led British Foreign Secretary Ed Miliband to accuse Israel of an “ethnic cleansing” campaign and for London to impose sanctions on goods from settlements.
Marking Monday’s deadline for Israel accepting construction tenders for the E1 settlements, a major new project that Palestinians fear will divide the West Bank in two, Miliband warned businesses about consequences.
“They should be aware of legal and reputational consequences, including the risk of involving themselves in serious breaches of international law,” Miliband said in a statement.
Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar hit back against what he called an “obsession” with Israel by British Prime Minister Andy Burnham’s government.
“The days when Israel would quietly accept threats, sanctions and attempts to dictate its policies are over,” Saar said.
A New Delhi magistrate extended the detention of two leaders of India’s youth-led Cockroach Janta Party (CJP) movement by two days on Monday, after they were remanded in custody five days ago.
CJP activists and opposition parties have defied a security crackdown to demand the resignation of India’s chief election commissioner, accusing the poll body of manipulating voter rolls to benefit Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s ruling party.
The commission, which oversees voting in the world’s most populous nation, has denied any wrongdoing.
Television footage showed CJP leaders Ashutosh Ranka, 30, and Saurav Das, 27, being taken away in a blue police van from a police station where the hearing took place.
“This is an absolute mockery of the justice system,” the movement’s legal affairs head Ratna Singh told reporters.
Das and Ranka were taken into custody on Oct 14 for their “alleged repeated attempts to disturb public peace and violate the law”, the police said in a statement at the time.
The pair had jumped security barricades to wave the national flag at Jantar Mantar, a decades-old protest site that police have barred people from using.
“Their alleged attempts to instigate others through social media to engage in similar unlawful activities were also taken into consideration,” the statement said.
Jantar Mantar, in the heart of the capital, has been sealed off with yellow metal barricades for more than a week and guarded by security personnel.
Delhi police said last week they had removed the site from the list of designated protest venues.
Tech billionaire Elon Musk said on Monday that he would give every child in the United States a share in his SpaceX rocket company.
“Next year, I will give one of my SpaceX shares to every kid in America,” Musk, the richest man in the world, said on X.
“This will be the first of many,” he said, without providing details about how the scheme would work.
There are around 73 million children under the age of 18 in the United States, according to 2024 data from the US Census Bureau.
Musk owns 38 per cent of SpaceX, according to Forbes.
His announcement comes after US President Donald Trump promised last month to give every American adult $5,000 if his Republican party retains control of Congress in November’s midterm elections.
SpaceX set the record for the largest initial public offering in history, raising $85.7 billion in June.
The company’s Starship megarocket reached orbit for the first time in September, a milestone for the rocket central to Musk’s Mars ambitions.
France announced partial curfews in Paris and other cities on Monday after weekend demonstrations over soaring prices degenerated into some of the worst street violence in recent years.
Prime Minister Sebastien Lecornu did not rule out imposing a state of emergency after the interior minister said police had “lost control”.
Tourists in Paris had a taste of the disruption on Monday when they found the Louvre closed because of a small group of student protesters.
Facing accusations that it failed to anticipate and respond to the violence, the government has vowed to re-establish order, while officials scrambled to contain public anger.
The unrest, erupting just six months before France elects a successor to President Emmanuel Macron, threatened to continue, with organisers calling for a new round of protests next Saturday.
Authorities said partial curfews would be enforced from Monday evening to Tuesday morning in a number of cities including Paris, Lille and Lyon, to protect businesses.
In the capital, a curfew was ordered from 11pm (2am PKT), while demonstrations were banned from 8pm.
“I’m absolutely determined to restore public order”, Lecornu said.
Other European countries have also seen demonstrations over rising prices, with smaller clashes breaking out in Milan and Belgium over the weekend and protests simmering in Spain and Portugal.
Some half a million people turned out across France on Saturday to denounce the surging cost of living, a culmination of four weeks of protests that began with students demanding better conditions at high schools.
What started as peaceful demonstrations descended into violence in many cities, as masked groups attacked law enforcement, broke into public buildings and set some ablaze, looted shops, and set fire to cars, bicycles and scooters.
On Monday, France’s digital minister, Anne Le Henanff, urged online resale platforms to remove listings for “stolen items” following Saturday’s looting and summoned representatives of companies including Vinted and eBay.
After the weekend scenes of chaos, Interior Minister Laurent Nunez offered his resignation, but Macron refused to accept it.
More than 2,500 people were arrested and nearly 1,000 members of the security forces injured. Protesters were also hurt, with one demonstrator’s hand blown off by a police crowd-control grenade.
Macron acknowledged failures in the government response, which had seen 60,000 law enforcement personnel deployed on Saturday.
Nationwide, more than 2,513 people have been taken into police custody since the weekend, Justice Minister Gerald Darmanin said. He added that 67 had been jailed and “dozens” of criminal cases opened.
Darmanin also said authorities would use facial recognition on social media to identify perpetrators.
At least 3,000 shops were damaged, with the cost running into hundreds of millions of euros.
In an address to the nation on Sunday, Macron slammed the “unbridled” violence.
The European Union called the violence “unacceptable” but warned that the right to peaceful protest “must be protected” in France.
Germany condemned the violence and updated its travel advice for France, saying “further outbreaks of violence in the coming days cannot be ruled out”.
China has warned citizens travelling to France to be aware of risks and take safety precautions, state broadcaster CCTV reported.
In Paris on Monday, a dozen demonstrators blocked the entrance to the Louvre, the most visited museum in the world, while bewildered tourists looked on.
“We don’t want to get involved. We want to stand back and get away from them,” Pat Boland, a tourist from Australia, said of the protests.
The pensioner, 73, spoke to AFP outside barricades that had been erected at the Louvre, which was closed because a small group of protesters stood by its famed glass pyramid entrance.
The unrest has flared before presidential elections in April and May that will elect a new French president after a decade of centrist Macron.
Marine Le Pen, the far-right presidential candidate, is riding high in the polls.
The government has accused ultra-left groups of stoking the violence to boost the chances of the far-left firebrand Jean-Luc Melenchon in the presidential polls.
The interior minister and intelligence services were to meet late Monday to discuss the violence.
During the weekend, clashes broke out on the sidelines of a cost-of-living demonstration in Milan.
“I’m very worried because it’s a new phenomenon, which also originates from an international scenario and therefore feeds itself,” mayor Giuseppe Sala said.
In Belgium, police fired tear gas and water cannon to disperse protesters in Brussels and Liege.
In Spain protesters have set up tents in the heart of Madrid to denounce soaring housing costs, with similar encampments going up in neighbouring Portugal’s main cities of Lisbon and Porto.
![](https://i.dawn.com/thumbnail/2026/10/19172435579e628.webp "A local resident crosses the street with his broom on Rue Yves Toudic after a weekend of protests against the "high cost of living", in central Paris, France on October 19, 2026. — AFP")
![](https://i.dawn.com/large/2026/10/19172435579e628.webp "A local resident crosses the street with his broom on Rue Yves Toudic after a weekend of protests against the "high cost of living", in central Paris, France on October 19, 2026. — AFP")
The World Food Programme said Monday it would end monthly assistance to 500,000 people in Gaza due to a funding shortfall, despite acute needs in the war-battered Palestinian territory.
With the cutbacks, 1.1 million Palestinians in Gaza — still about half the population — will be receiving either food or cash assistance each month from the UN agency, in reduced amounts.
The World Food Programme (WFP) said its efforts had mitigated the effects during a famine last year in Gaza and warned that conditions had not improved to the point that it can take away aid.
“People are not safe. Airstrikes continue on a daily basis. People continue to be displaced,” Shaun Hughes, the WFP country director, told AFP at the agency’s office in east Jerusalem.
“Almost everybody remains without a permanent home to live in. And the humanitarian conditions are brutal,” he said.
According to the latest assessments, 1.4 million people — or two-thirds of Gaza’s population — are still “acutely food insecure” and need humanitarian assistance to survive, he said.
In August last year, the UN’s Integrated Food Security Phase Classification said that Gaza was suffering famine conditions.
The famine classification was lifted in December, two months after a US-brokered ceasefire was announced in Gaza. Israel has kept striking Gaza since then, vowing to kill anyone involved in the October 7 attack.
Since the ceasefire, the WFP has been able to step up assistance and had been reaching between 1.5 million and 1.8 million people every month.
“This has been a lifeline. But now, rather than being able to sustain and scale up that assistance, we’re actually having to reduce it,” Hughes said.
“And that’s not because we don’t have humanitarian access to deliver food; that’s because we don’t have funding.”
In addition to reducing the number of people who receive rations, the WFP has been forced to shrink the content.
Families receiving food assistance will now get only one food parcel instead of two and a smaller bag of wheat flour, the WFP said in an operational note.
The 75,000 families who receive assistance in cash will see the amount reduced from 1,250 to 750 shekels ($400 to $240) per month.
The WFP is funded by governments as well as private donors. It has seen a sharp drop in resources, including after President Donald Trump returned to power in the United States and drastically slashed contributions to UN agencies as well as bilateral aid.
The agency says it needs about $450 million over the next six months for its operations in Gaza and the West Bank, but in 2026 it has only received about half the usual financing for the Palestinian territories.
In September, the agency also reduced by half the number of aid recipients in the West Bank, which Israel has occupied since 1967, from 400,000 to 200,000.
“Now is not the time in the history of Palestine and Gaza to turn away from what is happening in Gaza,” Hughes said.
The WFP says that conditions have moderately improved in Gaza but noted that needs could rise again with the onset of winter.
Israel has allowed more goods into Gaza under the terms of the Trump ceasefire but still imposes heavy restrictions, turning away shipments of anything that is seen as having potential military use — a policy that has included blocking even prosthetic limbs, according to the United Nations.
Israel has ramped up longstanding criticism of the United Nations since the Gaza war, accusing the world body of bias and perpetuating dependency among Palestinians.
Britain’s Met Office says this year’s El Nino is “unprecedented.” Japan’s weather agency has called it the strongest ever observed. US forecasters say it still trails the biggest events in its record books.
How can they all be right? The answer lies in how they measure El Nino’s strength, with meteorological agencies using different methods to assess the climate phenomenon that make direct comparisons difficult.
“By any measure, we are looking at a very strong El Nino,” climate scientist Emily Becker of the University of Miami told AFP, adding that only once it is over will scientists be able to assess how big it is and “where it fits in the context of history.”
The Pacific Ocean’s El Nino Southern Oscillation (ENSO) is the planet’s main natural climate driver. Normally, trade winds blow east to west along the equator, pushing warm water from South America toward Asia, while cold water rises from the depths to replace it.
El Ninos, which occur every two to seven years on average and last nine to 12 months, disrupt this pattern.
The trade winds weaken and warm water is pushed back east toward the Americas. That shift in where ocean heat is released into the atmosphere ripples across global weather, making some regions cooler and wetter and others hotter and drier.
In describing the El Nino as unprecedented, the Met Office points to raw temperatures in the Pacific.
“Our observations confirm that sea-surface temperatures in the central equatorial Pacific have now surpassed levels recorded during previous El Nino events,” it said in a statement to AFP.
But absolute temperatures are just one way of measuring El Nino’s strength.
Agencies also look at anomalies — how far temperatures rise above a historic baseline — to assess the event.
The Japan Meteorological Agency last week declared this El Nino the strongest on record based on how far sea surface temperatures were above normal in the Nino3 region of the eastern Pacific. By its count, the event beat 1997 in observations going back to 1949.
The US watches a neighboring box, Nino3.4, in the east-central Pacific.
It declares an El Nino when temperatures there run at least 0.5C above normal and the atmosphere responds, weakening the trade winds and shifting tropical rainfall eastward. This process is known as “ocean-atmosphere coupling.”
How “normal” is defined has been a matter of significant debate.
The US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and other agencies including the UN’s World Meteorological Organisation long used the Oceanic Nino Index (ONI), which compares temperatures to a 30-year average that is updated every five years, so that the baseline keeps pace with a warming climate.
But with climate change speeding up and warming oceans worldwide, NOAA now uses the Relative Oceanic Nino Index (RONI), and the WMO is in the process of switching.
RONI also relies on a 30-year average but goes on to measure how warm or cool the east-central Pacific is compared to the rest of the tropical ocean, because it is that difference that drives the weather impacts we care about.
“We were finding a mismatch between the temperature of the tropical Pacific and the impacts,” said Becker about the old index. La Nina years, when the central and eastern tropical Pacific is cooler than normal, were producing stronger effects than their rating suggested, and El Ninos weaker ones.
NOAA projects this El Nino will be the strongest in its records, which go back to 1950, if the three-month average RONI anomaly reaches 2.5°C or higher, a level that would put it above the 1982-83, 2015-16, and 1997-98 events.
The chances are rated “high,” but not yet certain.
“Regardless of where we’re ranking or how we’re measuring this event, it’s an incredible opportunity to study and understand this very powerful phenomenon in the context of a warming world,” said Becker.
Alberta decides Monday if it wants to pursue a binding referendum on leaving Canada, with Prime Minister Mark Carney warning a separatist win would bring dangerous uncertainty during a trade war with the United States.
Polls indicate less than a quarter of people in the western Canadian province support independence.
But attention has focused on turnout in the days before the vote, and whether a motivated separatist camp could defy the polls, helped by complacent federalists.
“Don’t let anyone tell you this is already decided. Turnout will determine the outcome,” Carney told a rally on Thursday.
Carney, who grew up in Alberta, has called the referendum “a dangerous bluff” as US President Donald Trump imposes punishing tariffs and levels annexation threats aimed — the prime minister says — at breaking Canadian resolve.
“Vote like Canada depends on it, because it does,” Carney said.
Alberta has the world’s fourth-largest proven oil reserves and separatist momentum has been driven by anger over Ottawa’s management of the sector.
Many Albertans loathed Carney’s predecessor, Justin Trudeau, who they accused of trying to suppress oil production to advance his pro-climate agenda.
“If you want me to pinpoint who is responsible for the separatist sentiment, I think it’s Justin Trudeau,” Alberta Premier Danielle Smith told the Canadaland podcast this month.
At a separatist rally in Edmonton on Saturday, 61-year-old Sandy Martel said people connected to the oil industry feel “robbed, cheated (and) mistreated.” “It’s time to stand up and say stop,” she told AFP.
The vote comes days after a fire at a military base in the province left at least four soldiers dead and wounded dozens, prompting a national outpouring of condolences.
Smith, a conservative, says she wants Alberta to remain in Canada but called the referendum to settle the divisive issue.
If a majority votes to separate, she has pledged to move forward with a binding referendum.
If the federalists win, Smith says the secession question should be considered closed.
Analysts have compared Smith’s tactics to those of former UK prime minister David Cameron, who had hoped to resolve the debate over Britain’s European Union membership with a vote.
Carney led the Bank of England through the turmoil that surrounded Brexit, and issued a warning to Albertans about that experience on Thursday.
“It wasn’t clear what ‘Brexit’ meant at the time,” he told a Calgary television station.
“For the next few years, while that was being determined, there was huge uncertainty, investments stopped, the economy started to underperform,” he added, cautioning over unintended economic consequences.
Monday’s referendum features 10 questions, including several related to immigration, but focus is on question 10, which asks: “Should Alberta remain a province of Canada?” or should the province take the legal steps required for a definitive independence vote? Alberta’s election authority says ballots for question 10 will be counted first, with results expected in the early hours Tuesday.
The pre-referendum period was clouded by avalanches of manipulated AI content.
Carney has urged “a decisive result,” but experts are concerned about a contested outcome no matter the numbers.
“A very likely result of this referendum is going to be a community that sees this election as stolen or at least unfair,” said Aengus Bridgman, director of the Media Ecosystem Observatory at McGill University.
Close Trump allies have also inserted themselves into the discussion, including Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, who in January described Alberta as a “natural partner” for the United States.
After a separatist party won Quebec’s provincial election on October 5, tech billionaire Elon Musk posted that “they would be better off” if they seceded.
“Alberta and Saskatchewan should separate too,” he added.
Asked about alleged foreign interference, Carney said Thursday that foreign governments, including the US, should not “get themselves involved in our elections.”
French police battled protesters and looters for a second day on Sunday as the country reeled from the violent chaos left by a day of cost-of-living demonstrations in which around 2,000 people were arrested nationwide.
Paris city workers had not finished clearing up the torched cars, smashed shopfronts and burnt debris from Saturday’s unrest when the new troubles started and political recriminations erupted.
AFP journalists said several hundred people gathered in the Republique square in the capital following social media calls for a gathering that authorities said had not been approved.
Television footage showed the looting of a clothing store and bikes were also set alight nearby.
The Paris police prefecture said security forces moved in when “faced with the initial signs of tension”.
AFP journalists saw police firing tear gas and stun grenades at hundreds of people gathered in the square. Bottles and rocks were hurled at police who made several arrests.
Some 550 people out of 855 arrested in Paris remained in detention from Saturday’s troubles and police stations were struggling to cope, according to the Legal Team Paris group of lawyers.
Six months from a presidential election, the government faced opposition attacks over preparations for the nationwide day of action that followed weeks of mounting student protests over conditions in schools.
President Emmanuel Macron, who on Saturday vowed that anyone who engaged in vandalism or looting would be prosecuted, was to address the nation on Sunday evening at 1800 GMT.
Marine Le Pen, the far-right presidential candidate for the National Rally party, said the troubles showed that Macron’s administration was “running on fumes, exhausted and disoriented”.
“We are experiencing a profound crisis of trust and authority, which poses a threat to democracy,” said Le Pen, who leads opinion polls ahead of the election.
Le Pen has blamed ultra-left groups, while Jean-Luc Melenchon head of the far-left France Unbowed party accused authorities of inflaming tensions.
With images of French town halls burning and shops being looted grabbing headlines around the world, US President Donald Trump waded into the debate, blaming immigration for the unrest.
“France is burning! The immigration of people from an entirely different world, people with hatred in their hearts, has shattered that once great country,” Trump said in a social media post.
Looting rampages were reported on Saturday in Paris and other cities, including Marseille, Bordeaux, Nice and Strasbourg, on the margins of protests over the cost of living.
Around 1,500 businesses were damaged with losses estimated at hundreds of millions of dollars, according to the Retail and Trade Federation. One person died during the main march in Paris, but officials said the case was health-related.
“It’s like we had a war,” a 78-year-old Paris resident Mehmet Ozeden told AFP amid burnt street barricades from the protests.
Another resident, Anita Gras, said she saw young men loot a sports shoe retailer.
“It’s appalling, terrifying — groups of young people came here yesterday, looting, smashing everything, with total impunity,” said 57-year-old Cecile Rogue surveying a pile of charred bicycles.
The city of Limoges lost its 19th-century town hall to a fire that local prefect, Maurice Barate, told news channel LCI had been deliberately set by “a wild horde”.
About 7,000 people staged a march in the central city on Sunday to show their anger at the devastation.
In Lyon, a store owner, Jean-Christian, said those behind the violence were “animals”.
“We saw them looting, men high on adrenaline.”
A tourist office in the city centre was set ablaze during the protests amid multiple clashes and looting.
On Sunday, a clothing store was also looted in Lyon.
In Paris, startled tourists were seen on Saturday running with suitcases along streets filled with tear gas and protesters.
A Danish tourist, Soren Petersen, said it was “sad” to see damage to Paris buildings. “It is not a protest, it’s far beyond a normal protest,” he told AFP.
Around 500 police, firefighters and paramedics were hurt in the protests, Interior Minister Laurent Nunez said.
The violence took place on the sidelines of nationwide protests that the interior ministry said drew 550,000 people. The CGT union said 800,000 people participated.
A 17-year-old boy had his right hand blown off by a crowd-control grenade in the southern city of Saint-Etienne. In Mulhouse a 17-year-old girl lost an eye, according to prosecutors.
France’s Yellow Vest movement, which staged street protests eight years ago against Macron’s government over planned fuel-tax hikes, had called Saturday’s “yellow and youth” demonstrations.
![](https://i.dawn.com/thumbnail/2026/10/181913417e63861.webp "Protesters hold a placard reading a quote from French rapper Kery James "And if you cry, let your tears be tears of determination, for this is no complaint — it is a revolution" as they gather during an unauthorised demonstration at Place de la Republique central Paris, on October 18, 2026 a day after nationwide protests against the "high cost of living". — AFP")
![](https://i.dawn.com/large/2026/10/181913417e63861.webp "Protesters hold a placard reading a quote from French rapper Kery James "And if you cry, let your tears be tears of determination, for this is no complaint — it is a revolution" as they gather during an unauthorised demonstration at Place de la Republique central Paris, on October 18, 2026 a day after nationwide protests against the "high cost of living". — AFP")
![](https://i.dawn.com/thumbnail/2026/10/181911378fac892.webp "This photograph shows the partially burnt facade of the Limoges city hall a day after riot and looting following nationwide protests against the "high cost of living", in Limoges on October 18, 2026. — AFP")
![](https://i.dawn.com/large/2026/10/181911378fac892.webp "This photograph shows the partially burnt facade of the Limoges city hall a day after riot and looting following nationwide protests against the "high cost of living", in Limoges on October 18, 2026. — AFP")
The normally close ties between Turkiye and Azerbaijan have come under strain, fuelled by a dispute over Baku’s restrictions on headscarves in schools and disagreements over Israel.
Public tensions have become evident in what has traditionally been a very close relationship between two nations which share a common language and whose bond is characterised by the slogan: One nation, two states.
Although the rhetoric has remained restrained at the top, senior officials have been more outspoken in their reactions.
On Monday, Oktay Saral, chief adviser to President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, shed his normal diplomatic reserve to denounce as “unacceptable” Azerbaijan’s move to change school uniform regulations, banning anything that conflicts with the normal uniform or the secular principles of education.
“The headscarf is not an obstacle; it is a requirement of faith! The right to education cannot be sacrificed to any ideological imposition!” he wrote on X.
“We expect Azerbaijan to reverse this mistake as soon as possible.”
The following day, the ruling Yeni Azerbaijan Party (YAP) hit back with a sharply worded statement denouncing Saral and MPs from Erdogan’s AKP for their “populist and irresponsible statements”.
“The recent disinformation campaign targeting Azerbaijan has become increasingly aggressive, systematic, and openly slanderous,” it said.
The confrontation reflected sharp differences between Azerbaijan — one of the most secular states in the Muslim world — and the leadership in Ankara.
But it also highlighted tensions over the growing rapprochement between Azerbaijan and Israel since Baku’s 2020 Karabakh war with arch-foe Armenia, when the Israelis supplied them with drones and other weaponry.
Turkiye’s ties with Israel, by contrast, could hardly be worse, with Erdogan accusing Israel of genocide in Gaza and Ankara regularly releasing images of top-level talks with the leaders of Hamas, whose October 2023 attacks on Israel sparked the latter’s onslaught on Gaza.
Turkiye’s pro-government media has held little back, with the Yeni Safak daily denouncing the headscarf regulations as a gesture towards Israel.
“We firmly reject attempts to deliberately distort Azerbaijani-Israeli relations, portray these ties as supposedly exceptional, and use this as a basis for making political accusations against Azerbaijan,” the country’s ruling party said.
The sharp response underscores Azerbaijan’s emergence as a regional middle power.
It is more willing to push back against Turkiye as Ankara seeks to project influence from the Black Sea, increasingly ensnared by the Russia-Ukraine war, and an ever-more volatile Middle East.
“The changing geopolitical order in the greater Eurasia has enabled Azerbaijan to pursue a more pragmatic foreign policy,” said Fuad Shahbazov, an independent political analyst, indicating that meant Baku now “categorically resists the attempts of external actors, even its ally Turkiye”.
But on Friday, Kursad Zorlu, deputy head of Erdogan’s AKP, said the two sides knew how to tackle problems “within the family” in what appeared to be a tacit call for online restraint.
At a regional summit in Baku on Thursday, Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan hailed “the unshakable bond … between our leaders” despite being tested “in very difficult times”.
Observers agree the two nations share too much to risk a rupture.
“The sometimes-tense relations with Moscow and the Iran war happening next door mean that Baku cannot afford to alienate an otherwise good partner,” Ivan Klyszcz of the Estonia-based International Centre for Defence and Security (ICDS) told AFP.
“Moreover, energy cooperation, ongoing well before the current spat, is too important for both parties,” he stressed.
“For Turkiye, Azerbaijan is an essential gate for Central Asia, a region … seen by Ankara as strategic.”
Paradoxically, Baku seems to hold the cards, despite the fact that its population is ten times smaller than that of its ally.
“The litmus test of the Baku-Ankara axis will depend on the latter’s further attitude and commitment to quickly get back on diplomatic tracks to handle this crisis,” Shahbazov told AFP.
“Azerbaijan possesses energy leverage and access to the Central Asian region, giving it leverage over Turkiye,” he said.
And this is a crucial asset, given Ankara’s ambition to maintain its role as a transit hub between Europe and Asia.
Even so, points of friction remain.
On Friday, Baku said it had issued an “international arrest warrant” for a Turkish journalist working for the Sanliurfa Olay daily. According to prosecutors, Celal Ciftci called for a “coup d’tat” in Azerbaijan and promoted “religious extremism”.
With a sports car that somersaults through the air, Elon Musk is back in the headlines for technological daring — but his plunge into politics and his return to US President Donald Trump’s side mean the world’s richest man no longer enjoys the unqualified praise of years past.
“All the things that we were promised since the 1950s, of space travel and flying cars… he’s doing all of those things,” said Andrew Selepak, a social media professor at the University of Florida.
“And yet we’re not giving it the attention, we’re not giving it the awe that it probably truly deserves,” he added.
In recent weeks, Musk has seemed to be everywhere at once.
On Sept 28, SpaceX’s Starship megarocket reached orbit for the first time and deployed 26 Starlink satellites before splashing down in the Pacific — a milestone for the rocket central to Musk’s Mars ambitions.
Musk’s central role in geopolitics has also been on display, with Ukraine complaining of disruptions to the Starshield satellite communications system its military relies on.
Even the platform formerly known as Twitter is enjoying something of a renaissance, with Musk’s X now the go-to social media app for Silicon Valley insiders and the main marketplace for talk about artificial intelligence.
But despite his continued success, Musk’s unrelenting commitment to right-wing politics has taken a toll.
No image captured that shift more than Musk brandishing a chainsaw on stage in February 2025 — a gift from Argentine President Javier Milei — as a symbol of his drive to slash the US government as head of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) in the early months of Trump’s second term.
Through DOGE, Musk’s allies fanned out across federal agencies, driving cuts that effectively dismantled the US Agency for International Development (USAID) and contributed to a net loss of hundreds of thousands of jobs.
That combative imagery has been matched by Musk’s posts on X, where hardline anti-immigration views and right-wing conspiracy theories sit alongside posts about rocket launches and Tesla robotaxis.
Now Musk is back in Trump’s good graces, after a spectacular falling-out that followed his exit from DOGE in May 2025.
Last week, Trump presented Musk with the nation’s top science medal, calling him a “national treasure” and “our modern-day Thomas Edison”.
The renewed relationship comes as Musk has spent at least $276 million on Republican political campaigns ahead of next month’s midterm elections, in which the president’s party is expected to struggle.
Of that, $158m is funding a massive advertising campaign in Texas, Musk’s home state, where the Republican candidate is trailing in the polls.
For left-leaning pundits, Musk is now increasingly seen as an agent of Trump and the tech billionaires rather than a technology savant working for the good of humanity.
That opposition plays out in ‘Musk’, a four-hour documentary by Oscar-winning filmmaker Alex Gibney now in US theatres, which traces the life and career of the South Africa-born billionaire.
“I once described him as somebody who can jump off the edge of a cliff and invent a parachute on the way down. I think he thrives on chaos,” Musk’s first wife Justine Musk, who features prominently in the film, told podcaster Kara Swisher.
Yet, she added, “I always assume that there’s a method to his madness,” and many of his loudest actions may in fact be deflections and “sleight of hand”. The same may be true of Musk’s dealings with Washington.
Few entrepreneurs depend as heavily on the federal government as Musk does.
SpaceX — which went public in June in the largest initial public offering in history — earns billions of dollars a year from Nasa and Pentagon contracts, while Tesla’s bet on robotaxis hinges on how quickly regulators allow driverless cars onto US roads.
Seen in that light, Musk’s millions for Republicans may be less a political conversion than an investment.
Egypt is ready to provide Saudi Arabia with the support it needs to defend its security and stability, the presidency said on Sunday.
Earlier in the day, the Saudi-led coalition fighting the Houthis said two officers were killed when their helicopter crashed near the Yemen border, after the rebel group claimed it shot the aircraft down.
The coalition blamed a “technical malfunction” for the helicopter crash, which inflicted its first military fatalities since the long-running conflict with the Houthis reignited in July.
The incident comes a week after strikes by the Houthis killed 13 people at Riyadh’s international airport, the deadliest attack in Saudi Arabia in more than a decade.
An AH-6i reconnaissance helicopter belonging to the Saudi Ministry of National Guard crashed “inside Saudi territory in Najran Region due to a technical malfunction”, coalition spokesman Turki al-Malki said, according to the official Saudi Press Agency.
“The accident resulted in the martyrdom of its aircrew, consisting of two officers.”
Late on Saturday, Houthi spokesman Yahya Saree claimed the group had “downed an Apache helicopter belonging to the Saudi enemy” in the same area.
Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi had requested an urgent parliament session to authorise the military, one of the region’s largest and most powerful, to help defend Saudi Arabia if the kingdom requested its support.
“Egypt will provide Saudi Arabia with all necessary and possible forms of support to defend its security and stability, protect its resources, territorial integrity and Islamic holy sites,” the Egyptian presidency said in a statement on Sunday.
It followed a meeting of Egypt’s National Defence Council chaired by Sisi and attended by the parliamentary speaker, the prime minister and the army chief.
A parliamentary vote had been expected on authorising the request for military support on Sunday, but discussions were due to continue on Monday, two lawmakers and local media reports said.
Sisi said in a speech on Saturday that Egypt would act in accordance with guidance from Saudi King Salman and Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, who visited Sisi on Sept 15, after fighting in Yemen reignited.
On the diplomatic front, Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Ishaq Dar held a telephone conversation with Egypt’s FM Dr Badr Abdelatty, the Foreign Office (FO) said.
“The two leaders exchanged views on recent regional developments and strongly condemned the Houthi attacks against the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, reaffirming their full solidarity with the Kingdom and support for its sovereignty, territorial integrity and security.”
They also discussed cooperation under the R-4 (Pakistan, Egypt, Türkiye and Saudi Arabia) framework and looked forward to the next meeting of the R-4 soon to further strengthen mutual ties and to coordinate on the regional issues, the statement added.
The foreign ministers of the four countries last met on Sept 21 in New York, where they had reaffirmed their support for Riyadh’s sovereignty and supported its right to self-defence.
Pakistan, which has signed two defence agreements with Riyadh, has repeatedly expressed solidarity with Saudi Arabia.
The first one, the Strategic Mutual Defence Agreement (SMDA), was signed in Sept 2025, under which the two countries pledged that any attack on either nation would be treated as an act of aggression against both.
The two countries are also parties to the Makkah Defence Alliance, which also includes Turkiye. The pact was signed on August 7 and provides that an attack on one member state would be treated as an attack on all.
After an uneasy, four-year truce, Yemen’s conflict has surged back to life, with the Houthis declaring a maritime blockade on Saudi Arabia in July.
The conflict intensified when Houthis captured territory around the Bab al-Mandeb strait, the Red Sea chokepoint and vital export route for Saudi oil since Iran blockaded the Gulf’s Strait of Hormuz.
The Houthis have also hit Saudi targets including tankers in the Red Sea, oil facilities and Riyadh’s King Khalid International Airport.
On the other hand, the Saudi-led coalition backing the internationally recognised government has launched repeated air raids on Houthi territory.
The coalition said overnight that it intercepted two drones in the Riyadh area and a third over the oil-rich Eastern Province. Saudi authorities had earlier issued a threat alert in the capital.
Two ballistic missiles “launched by the terrorist Houthi militia towards Khamis Mushait” were intercepted in the kingdom’s south, the coalition added.
On Saturday, the Houthis reported that Saudi strikes killed 12 people in Yemen, including three children.
Login