SPACE/COSMOS

World-leading scientists to join forces to create the first ever 3D black hole movies

Heriot-Watt University

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image: 

On the left is M87*, the supermassive black hole at the centre of the galaxy Messier 87 (M87), 55 million light-years away. On the right is Sagittarius A* (Sgr A*), the black hole at the centre of our Milky Way. The images, released in 2019 and 2022 respectively, were captured by the Event Horizon Telescope (EHT), a global network of radio telescopes forming a virtual Earth-sized telescope with an incredibly sharp angular resolution. Dr Akiyama developed one of the computational imaging algorithms and co-led the entire imaging team as part of the wider EHT Collaboration efforts to create these first images of black holes. This project “TomoGrav”, hosted by Heriot-Watt University, aims to deliver the first 3D movies of these two black holes by combining pioneering international expertise in black hole imaging with cutting-edge artificial intelligence developed in the UK.  

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Credit: Credit: EHT Collaboration

Multimillion research to create the first ever 3D movies of black holes will combine pioneering international expertise in black hole imaging with cutting-edge artificial intelligence developed in the UK.

Dr Kazunori Akiyama has been awarded a £4 million Faraday Discovery Fellowship through the programme's Accelerated International Route, to be hosted by Heriot-Watt University. The project, named TomoGrav, brings together the pathbreaking expertise of Dr Kazunori Akiyama and Professor Yves Wiaux.

Dr Akiyama developed one of the computational imaging algorithms and co-led the entire imaging team as part of the wider Event Horizon Telescope (EHT) Collaboration efforts to create the first images of black holes.   Professor Yves Wiaux’s groundbreaking artificial intelligence algorithms are transforming how scientists reconstruct images from incomplete data. 

Dr Akiyama and Professor Wiaux are supported by a multidisciplinary team of 10 world-renowned partners from across the world, whose combined expertise will deliver the work.

The funding will see Dr Akiyama move from his present role as a Research Scientist at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) Haystack Observatory in the USA to Heriot-Watt University in Scotland as part of the scheme which provides long-term funding to talented mid-career researchers.

Using revolutionary imaging technology, the research is expected to transform understanding of the universe's most extreme environments by revealing how black holes behave and evolve across time.

Black holes are cosmic laboratories where gravity results as a byproduct of the warping of spacetime. Gas swirling around them is heated to extreme temperatures and accelerated to nearly light speed, generating powerful jets of magnetised plasma that are thought to influence the form of the largest scale structures in the universe.

The new research builds on the 2019 and 2022 photographs of two supermassive black holes, M87* and Sagittarius A*, which captivated billions of people worldwide and opened an entirely new scientific area which uses imaging to study gravity and black holes.

The groundbreaking images captured the first glimpses of this new frontier with the 2D doughnut-shaped snapshots revealing only the surface of far richer physics which is now waiting to be explored.

The TomoGrav project will deliver what the team have termed "dynamic gravitational tomography". Instead of flat images, they will create 3D movies showing how plasma flows and evolves around black holes across time, revealing how energy is channelled and how spacetime is bent by extreme gravity.

As well as advancing scientific discovery, the research has applications far beyond astronomy. The same AI techniques will accelerate diagnostic-quality heart and liver scans, reducing time in scanners for patients and lowering healthcare costs. They will also improve Earth monitoring systems, enhancing sea level tracking and climate understanding.

The research will also enable scientists to directly measure black hole spin for the first time. The speed at which a black hole rotates determines how much energy can be extracted from matter falling into it, powering the enormous jets that influence how galaxies form and evolve.

The team will work with the proposed Black Hole Explorer (BHEX), a new mission that aims to discover and measure a black hole's photon ring, capturing light that has orbited a black hole. BHEX also aims to extend the Event Horizon Telescope into space. Precisely mapping these photon rings would provide the most stringent tests yet of Einstein's theory of general relativity in the extreme conditions immediately around a black hole event horizon.

The work will also reveal the mechanism behind jet formation. Matter spiralling into black holes generates magnetic fields that channel energy into enormous jets stretching across thousands of light years. Scientists can observe these jets but not how they form. Time-lapse 3D maps of magnetic fields and plasma will reveal this process in action for the first time.

The project will help design space-based systems capable of resolving hundreds of black holes, revealing how they form, grow and influence cosmic evolution.

Dr Akiyama currently helps operating the science projects of the international organisation The Event Horizon Telescope Collaboration as the EHT Deputy Project Scientist and has served as a research scientist at MIT’s Haystack Observatory. He said: "The first images of black holes were extraordinary steps forward, but they were only fragments of what these astronomical objects are doing. What excites me about joining Heriot-Watt University is the opportunity to work with Professor Wiaux and his research group which has developed some of the world’s most advanced approaches to computational imaging. Our collaboration brings together two expert communities, black hole astronomy and artificial intelligence, and it is at this interface that pathbreaking progress can now be made.

“By combining world-leading telescope capabilities with Heriot-Watt’s strengths in computational imaging, we will be able to follow the dynamics around black holes in a way that has never been possible before. Instead of a single blurred frame, we will see how plasma moves, how magnetic fields evolve and how gravity shapes everything around the event horizon. That shift, from still images to time-resolved structure, will fundamentally change the scientific questions we can ask and change our understanding of the universe."

Professor Yves Wiaux leads the Biomedical and Astronomical Signal Processing Laboratory based in the School of Engineering & Physical Sciences at Heriot-Watt University. He said: “TomoGrav is the encounter and synergy of the two scientific communities of radio astronomy and computational imaging. Dr Akiyama and colleagues bring world-leading expertise in the telescopes and observations that will bring exquisite black hole data, while our methods in AI and computational imaging provide the tools needed to interpret that data. Our collaboration built on complementary strengths positions both Heriot-Watt and the UK to contribute meaningfully to a field that is now taking shape worldwide.

“But progress in astronomy directly supports some of society’s most urgent challenges. Beyond black holes, this project is driven by a shared technical challenge. Imaging the universe from telescope data and imaging the human body with medical scanners both require turning very limited information into accurate, reliable images. Techniques developed to map plasma around black holes can also accelerate MRI scans or, in fact, improve measurements of the Earth’s rotation and sea level. This multi-disciplinary approach is precisely what my group has focused on for many years.”

Professor Chris Turney, Heriot-Watt University's Deputy Principal of Research and Impact, said: “This collaboration marks an important moment for UK science. Black hole astronomy is a rapidly developing field.  Bringing together Dr Akiyama's unique observational leadership with Professor Wiaux's world-class expertise in AI imaging gives us the capability to shape this field going forward.

“The timing matters. New observational campaigns begin within the next few years, and space missions for the 2030s are already in development. The TomoGrav project positions Heriot-Watt University and the wider UK research community to influence how these instruments are designed and how their data is understood. What is especially powerful is that the same technology will strengthen capabilities in healthcare and Earth monitoring. This exemplifies Heriot-Watt's commitment to solving global challenges through research that delivers real benefits for society. By bringing together research disciplines and partners across borders, we're not just advancing fundamental science but creating practical solutions that will improve lives, from faster medical diagnostics to better climate monitoring."

Dr Akiyama's move from MIT to Heriot-Watt University follows the news that another black hole science pioneer, Professor Sera Markoff, will join the University of Cambridge. The new arrivals will significantly enrich and expand the UK’s research community in this field as well as working together on TomoGrav.

For Heriot-Watt University, this creates an opportunity to play a central role in global research efforts by providing the world-leading AI and imaging technology that is necessary to transform black hole science.

The Faraday Discovery Fellowship Accelerated International Route from the Royal Society is a prestigious long-term award supporting talented mid-career research leaders to undertake original research. The programme provides grants to support the development of world-leading research groups in the UK, making strategically important appointments and attracting leading researchers from overseas. The Accelerated International Route through which Dr Akiyama was awarded the Faraday Discovery Fellowship provides a fast-track option for mid-career researchers looking to relocate to the UK from overseas, providing up to £4 million over a five-year period.

By the end of the five-year award, Heriot-Watt will have delivered technology capable of creating high-resolution 3D movies of plasma around black holes from upcoming data, designed optimal configurations for future space telescopes and established a new UK-led research community at the interface of frontier astrophysics and cutting-edge artificial intelligence.

The project brings together a multidisciplinary team of 10 world-renowned partners whose combined expertise spans black hole science, machine learning and imaging technologies, with planned technology transfers within and beyond astronomy.

ENDS

Caption

Size comparison of the two black holes imaged by the Event Horizon Telescope (EHT) Collaboration: M87*, at the heart of the galaxy Messier 87, and Sagittarius A* (Sgr A*), at the centre of the Milky Way. The image shows the scale of Sgr A* in comparison with both M87* and other elements of the Solar System such as the orbits of Pluto and Mercury. Also displayed is the Sun’s diameter and the current location of the Voyager 1 space probe, the furthest spacecraft from Earth. M87*, which lies 55 million light-years away, is one of the largest black holes known. While Sgr A*, 27 000 light-years away, has a mass roughly four million times the Sun’s mass, M87* is more than 1000 times more massive. Because of their relative distances from Earth, both black holes appear the same size in the sky. This project “TomoGrav”, hosted by Heriot-Watt University, aims to dynamically capture plasma swirling around these two completely different black holes with EHT. The project will enable filming of such 3D movies for a population of other black holes with a future mission extending EHT to space, including the proposed Black Hole Explorer (BHEX) mission. 

Credit

Credit: EHT collaboration (acknowledgment: Lia Medeiros, xkcd)

 

Newly discovered Philippine pitcher plant already in danger from climate change, poaching

Ateneo de Manila University

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Photos of Nepenthes megastoma, a newly described critically endangered species endemic to Palawan, Philippines, showing its lower pitcher (a) and two distinct variant forms of its upper pitcher (b-c).

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Credit: Altomonte et al., 2025

Philippine scientists and an Australian expert have just confirmed a new species of pitcher plant found only on Palawan Island, but warn that it is already at risk of extinction due to frequent severe weather conditions and human encroachment.

A carnivorous vine that uses cup-shaped pitchers to trap insects, Nepenthes megastoma—from the Greek for “large mouth”—is found in only three locations in the steep and rocky karst terrain of the Puerto Princesa Subterranean River National Park.

"It's amazing that these plants have evolved to survive in such difficult and inaccessible conditions. And yet, despite their hardiness, their existence is threatened by human activity—directly by way of encroachment and poaching, and indirectly through the effects of anthropogenic climate change," said researcher John Charles Altomonte.

Well adapted to steep cliffs

The few areas where N. megastoma grows are so difficult to reach that the plant could only be properly documented using drones and long-range cameras. Ecologists first spotted them in 2013, but initially thought they were an already known species from nearby Borneo, N. campanulata. Only after detailed fieldwork, drone surveys, and close study were the researchers able to confirm the plant to be a previously unknown Philippine species. 

N. megastoma is well adapted to surviving on steep cliff sides, with upward-pointing female flowers that facilitate vertical pollination and a fuzzy coating that helps collect rainwater. The shape of the plant’s pitchers also seems to differ based on the seasons, transitioning between a wider, flared form and a slimmer, elongated form—an adaptation that may help with water retention, according to the researchers.

Precarious survival, dwindling numbers

Yet despite these remarkable adaptations, the researchers estimate that there are only some 19 mature clumps with about 12 non-flowering plants, making the species’ survival highly precarious. They warn that this already extremely limited population is highly vulnerable to threats like typhoons, drought, poaching, and deforestation in surrounding areas due to human activities and settlements.

With fewer than 50 individual mature specimens known, the plant is classified as Critically Endangered per International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) guidelines. This number is likely to decline even further, owing to “increasing frequency and severity of extreme weather events, particularly droughts and typhoons, as well as poaching,” the scientists warn in their paper. Illegally harvested specimens are already being sold in Metro Manila.

The imminent danger to N. megastoma’s survival despite its ability to adapt to a harsh cliffside environment underscores anew both the richness and fragility of Philippine biodiversity. 

John Charles A. Altomonte, John Paul  R. Collantes, Vernaluz Mangussad, Rene Alfred Anton Bustamante, and Alastair S. Robinson published their study, Nepenthes megastoma (Nepenthaceae), a micro-endemic pitcher plant from Puerto Princesa Subterranean River National Park, Palawan, Philippines, in November 2025 in the international journal, Phytotaxa. 

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Journal

Phytotaxa

DOI

10.11646/phytotaxa.728.2.1 

Article Title

Nepenthes megastoma (Nepenthaceae), a Micro-endemic Pitcher Plant from Puerto Princesa Subterranean River National Park, Palawan, Philippines

Model Campaign Platform

by David Swanson / December 20th, 2025

Candidates for the U.S. Congress usually have websites, and often those websites include some minimal platform (what they would do if elected). Sometimes there’s none at all. Sometimes there’s a great deal of substance on numerous topics. But the vast majority of Congressional candidates have no foreign policy whatsoever. They want to be given a job to oversee a discretionary budget of which some 60 percent goes to militarism, yet they make zero mention of war, peace, diplomacy, weapons sales, bases, treaties, international law, budgetary priorities, or 96 percent of humanity. They clearly do not think that the military spending and wars they will be responsible for will help them get elected.

Would a platform that was serious about peace help them get elected? It might. To the limited extent that it has been tried, it has tended to be a boost or at least not a burden.

This is what I think a decent and humane foreign policy section of a Congressional campaign website would look like: 

From the moment I am elected I will work to organize the public and my colleagues, regardless of their party or the party of the president, to move resources from military spending to urgent human and environmental needs at home and abroad. I will pull together a caucus publicly committed to voting no on any military spending that is not at least 10 percent lower than the previous year — and voting no on every related procedural vote and otherwise working to impede the current gargantuan levels of military spending or increases thereto.

I will also introduce and work to pass legislation to

• assist individuals, businesses, and localities in transitioning to peaceful industries,
• require compliance with the Treaty on Nuclear Nonproliferation,
• mandate both the elimination of U.S. nuclear weapons over the next 10 years and negotiations to effect the elimination of nuclear weapons by other nations,
• mandate the closure over the next 5 years of all U.S. military bases outside of the United States,
• end all military assistance to foreign governments,
• end all weapons shipments to foreign governments, with severe criminal penalties for violations of a practice already often done in violation of laws,
• establish a cabinet-level department of compliance with international law,
• introduce a privileged resolution to compel a vote on preventing any threatened or ending any current war,
• create a department of unarmed civilian defense to train the U.S. public in nonviolent noncooperation with foreign militaries,
• abolish draft registration, military advertising, ROTC, and JROTC,
• abolish joining the military as a path to citizenship,
• establish a global Marshall Plan to provide humanitarian aid,
• create, on the National Mall in Washington, D.C., a memorial to all the victims of all wars.

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David Swanson is an author, activist, journalist, and radio host. He is director of WorldBeyondWar.org and campaign coordinator for RootsAction.org. Swanson's books include War Is A Lie. He blogs at DavidSwanson.org and War Is a Crime.org. He hosts Talk Nation Radio. Follow him on Twitter: @davidcnswanson and FaceBook. Read other articles by David.

 

Western elites fear a ‘globalised intifada’ because they are its targets, not Jews

While western publics are being demonised as racists, the technology and strategies used today against Palestinians will become the walls of tomorrow’s prisons for us all

by Jonathan Cook / December 20th, 2025

Western establishments’ fear of the phrase “Globalise the intifada” has little to do with any danger supposedly posed to Jewish populations from its use.

The threat is posed by the slogan’s central idea, not by some specific target.

“Globalise the intifada!” is the modern equivalent of “Power to the people!” – a slogan long used by anti-colonial movements, by revolutionary socialist parties, by the ANC in its fight against South African apartheid, and by the Black Panthers in their struggle against white supremacy in the US.

The emblematic anti-colonial struggle of our times is in Palestine. It is hardly surprising that any emerging, popular mass movement against oppressive, unaccountable, increasingly anti-democratic Western elites should look to the language of that struggle.

“Intifada” refers to “shaking off” a system of oppression.

We can all see where Israel’s ethnic supremacist agenda has led for the Palestinians: to military occupation, apartheid, and genocide.

Many of us sense, too, that this is where our own societies are heading. The ultimate destination of the technological developments – from smartphones to social media – that have atomised and pacified us over the past two decades is absolute control over our lives through surveillance, facial recognition, and more militarised and robotic policing, and our ever-greater redundancy and powerlessness in the face of artificial intelligence and greater mechanisation.

These technologies have been tested and refined for at least a quarter of a century in the Palestinian territories illegally occupied and ruled by Israel.

Why is Israel viewed as so essential to Western elites that they are willing to be seen openly backing its genocide in Gaza? Because Israel is creating a vision of the near-future, it is developing the template for how they deal with surplus sections of western populations in a world of diminishing resources and an ever-more hostile climate.

And all the better for our rulers, any resistance on our part to the Palestinians’ enslavement and slow extermination – and to our own growing servitude and abuse – can be characterised as antisemitism. In outsourcing this project to Israel, Western establishments have devised the ultimate cover story.

Every time some deluded group or individual falls for this ploy and blames Jews collectively for what Israel and its patrons are really responsible for, the noose tightens a little more around the neck of those trying to liberate our minds before the confinement of our bodies becomes permanent.

While we are being demonised as racists, the technology and strategies used today against Palestinians will become the walls of tomorrow’s prisons for us.

“Globalise the intifada” isn’t a call for harming Jews, though Western establishments would love you to think it is. It’s a call for showing solidarity with Palestinians before it is too late for them, and for us. It is about throwing sand in the cogs of a machinery of oppression before it grows too powerful to be confronted.

Over decades, the Palestinians have moved between peaceful and violent intifadas, and found neither has won them greater freedom. That is not because intifada is necessarily the wrong path to liberation and justice. It is because the forces ranged against them have been insurmountable.

That is why we, at the heart of the imperial hub, must show them solidarity – and why we need to learn from their experience before we run out of time to act for ourselves.

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Jonathan Cook, based in Nazareth, Israel is a winner of the Martha Gellhorn Special Prize for Journalism. His latest books are Israel and the Clash of Civilisations: Iraq, Iran and the Plan to Remake the Middle East (Pluto Press) and Disappearing Palestine: Israel's Experiments in Human Despair (Zed Books). Read other articles by Jonathan, or visit Jonathan's website.

WHO: Around 80,000 people die on migration journeys since 2014

December 19, 2025 

Middle East Monitor 

Migrants depart by boat from Petit-Fort-Philippe Beach and head towards United Kingdom in Gravelines, France on January 17, 2025. 

[Joanna Chichelnitzky – Anadolu Agency]

Nearly 80,000 people have died while trying to migrate since 2014, according to the World Health Organization (WHO).

The UN agency said that “Most remain unidentified, leaving families in endless uncertainty.”

The announcement was made on Thursday to mark the International Migrants Day, observed on 18 December.

The organisation stressed that no journey should end in tragedy” and called for “safe, regular, dignified migration.”

In its statement on X, the World Health Organization added: “Let us protect their rights to health, prevent more deaths.

Nvidia to build $1.5B AI campus in Israel, calls it “second home”

December 18, 2025 

Middle East Monitor 

In this photo illustration, Nvidia logo is displayed on a mobile phone screen in front of a computer screen in Ankara, Turkiye on November 28, 2023.

 [Berke Bayur – Anadolu Agency]

Nvidia has confirmed it will establish a major new R&D campus in Kiryat Tivon, northern Israel, affirming the country’s role as a strategic “second home” for the company. The multiyear project represents an investment of several billion shekels and is anticipated to have a substantial impact on local employment, housing, and regional growth.

Construcgtion to begin in 2027, the campus is scheduled to open in 2031. Spanning 22 acres, it will feature roughly 160,000 square meters of building space, integrating laboratories, collaborative hubs, and extensive green areas. Inspired by Nvidia’s headquarters in Santa Clara, California, the design is intended to drive innovation internally and bolster Israel’s broader technology ecosystem.

NAKBA II

Israel carries out ethnic cleansing in West Bank, displacing 44,000 Palestinians

December 18, 2025

Middle East Monitor 

Israeli soldiers close the main entrance to the camp, preventing citizens from reaching the demolition site, as Palestinians react to the demolition decision of Israeli army for 25 more buildings in the Nur Shams Refugee Camp in Tulkarm, in Tulkarm, West Bank on December 15, 2025.

 [Nedal Eshtayah – Anadolu Agency]

Israel has been accused of carrying out a campaign of ethnic cleansing in the illegally occupied West Bank, displacing tens of thousands of Palestinian refugees in a sweeping military operation aimed at permanently altering the demographic and geographic reality of the territory, according to a detailed report by Israeli newspaper Haaretz.

Since the launch of “Operation Iron Wall” in January 2024, Israeli forces have forcibly evacuated over 44,000 Palestinians, including 22,000 from the Jenin area and 22,000 from Tulkarm and its Nur Al-Shams camp alone, under the pretext of dismantling “terrorist infrastructure.”

In reality, local officials, aid agencies and residents describe a policy designed to render key refugee camps uninhabitable and eliminate the right of return for generations of displaced Palestinians.

The demolitions have particularly targeted the Jenin and Nur Al-Shams refugee camps, where multi-storey buildings have been flattened and critical infrastructure destroyed. According to UNRWA’s West Bank director Roland Friedrich, 48 per cent of all homes in Nur Al-Shams have been damaged or destroyed, making return impossible without full-scale reconstruction.

“This is a serious violation of international law, with grave humanitarian and political consequences,” said Abu al-Rub, the governor of Jenin. He told Haaretz that some 800 buildings—nearly 40 per cent of all structures in the camp—have been levelled. “Thousands of families have been living in complete uncertainty for months, scattered across villages and towns, unable to return,” he said.

In Tulkarm’s Nur Al-Shams camp, the situation is similarly dire. Governor Abdallah Kamil said that at least 9,000 people had been displaced, and 1,514 families lost their homes entirely, while a further 2,200 homes were partially damaged, most of them now uninhabitable.

“These are not security operations,” Kamil insisted. “This is an intentional policy by the Israeli government to eliminate the camps and prevent the displaced from returning.”

The Israeli military has continued to issue new demolition orders, with plans announced this month to raze 25 additional buildings in Nur Al-Shams, some outside the official boundaries of the camp. Israeli forces have blocked access to displaced residents trying to protest the demolitions and raised Israeli flags inside the camp, a move seen by locals as a deliberate provocation.

One displaced resident, Abu Anas, told Haaretz that “there’s no explanation for the destruction except collective punishment.” He noted that no armed fighters had been seen in the camp for months.

Observers say the Israeli government’s goal is not security but demographic engineering—an attempt to erase the Palestinian refugee presence in key areas of the occupied West Bank.

Several Palestinian officials explicitly describing the displacement as ethnic cleansing. Kamil says that the purpose is to “alter the geographic and demographic reality” and eliminate the refugee question altogether.

These developments have drawn comparisons to the Nakba of 1948, when over 750,000 Palestinians were ethnically cleansed from their homeland and more than 500 villages destroyed to make way for the establishment of the Israeli state.

Israel’s current military strategy, human rights advocates warn, is part of a wider apartheid policy rooted in Jewish supremacy, where the displacement of Palestinians, whether in Gaza, the West Bank or Jerusalem, is justified as a matter of “demographic balance.”

UNRWA’s Friedrich has warned that unless halted, Israel’s demolition campaign could result in permanent displacement for tens of thousands. “This is not about security,” he stated. “This is about long-term control.”

“This is not just a war on buildings,” said Abu Ahmed, displaced from Jenin. “It’s a war on our right to exist.”

Over $2.5 million raised for Syrian man who stopped Bondi Beach attacker

GO FUND ME 

Rudaw

19-12-2025

ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - More than $2.5 million has been raised for Ahmed al-Ahmed, a 43-year-old Syrian-born Australian who tackled and disarmed an attacker during the Bondi Beach shooting in Australia that killed 15 people.

GoFundMe campaign initiator Zachery Dereniowski visited al-Ahmed in hospital on Wednesday, presenting a cheque totaling $2,533,585. “Ahmed, the world loves you,” Dereniowski wrote on Instagram.

Al-Ahmed, a Muslim father of two and fruit shop owner, was hailed as a hero after footage of him confronting the attacker went viral. He was shot twice in the arm by a second gunman during the incident.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese visited al-Ahmed at St George Hospital in Sydney on Tuesday, praising his bravery.

“It was a great honour to meet Ahmed al-Ahmedi. He is a true Australian hero,” Albanese said. “He represents the best of our country.”

Ahmed has also been praised by international leaders, including US President Donald Trump, who described him as “a very, very brave person.”

“We’re seeing an outpouring of love for Ahmed al-Ahmed following his heroic actions at Bondi Beach,” GoFundMe said.

The attack occurred around on Sunday during a Hanukkah celebration attended by about 1,000 people.

Police said the suspects were a father and son; the father was killed at the scene, while the son is being treated in hospital.

Federal Police Commissioner Krissy Barrett said the shooting was a “terrorist attack inspired by Islamic State.”

‘Stand with each other:’ Global hero Ahmed calls for embracing humanity after Australia shooting

December 19, 2025 

Middle East Monitor 

Ahmed al-Ahmad, a Syrian man who disarmed a gunman during a shooting at Sydney’s Bondi Beach, at the St. George Hospital where he is being treated in Sydney, Australia on December 16, 2025. [Governor-General of Australia – Anadolu Agency]

Global hero Ahmed Al Ahmed called for “forgetting everything bad” and embracing humanity in the wake of Bondi beach shooting in Australia, Anadolu reports.

“Stand with each other, all human beings,” Ahmed said in a message to people across the world who donated to him some 2.5 million Australian dollars ($1.65 million). “And forget everything bad (in the past).”

Ahmed made global headlines and won hearts across the globe for his courage after he pounced on one of the two shooters last Sunday along Bondi Beach in Sydney, Australia’s largest city by population and the capital of New South Wales.

Fifteen people were killed in the attack, and one of the two shooters was shot dead while the other is critically wounded and being treated in hospital.

Ahmed’s act was hailed for saving lives.

Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese declared Syrian-born Ahmed “the best of our country.”

Ahmed, who moved to Australia in 2006 and is father of two daughters, was shot four to five times in his left shoulder and is receiving treatment at Sydney’s St. George Hospital.

Canadian social media influencer Zachery Dereniowski handed Ahmed a check of $1.65 million in public donations raised through GoFundMe on Thursday, according to a video of their meeting shared on Instagram.

“(Do) I deserve it?” Ahmed asked Dereniowski, who is also known as MDMotivator. “Every penny,” Dereniowski stressed.

Some 43,000 people made donations to support Ahmed and his family.

“Keep going to save lives,” Ahmed said in his message.

“When I… save(d) the people, I… (did) it from the heart,” Ahmed said. “Everyone was happy,” he said. “They deserve to enjoy (things). And it’s their right.”

Australia is “best country in the world,” said Ahmed, 43.

According to GoFundMe, the donations page for Ahmed saw “an outpouring of love… following his heroic actions at Bondi Beach.”

“You are an absolute hero,” Dereniowski told Ahmed, recovering in his hospital bed.

US intelligence chief faces criticism over linking Sydney attack to claims of ‘Islamising Australia’

December 19, 2025 

Middle East Monitor 

  


Tulsi Gabbard [Adam J. Dewey – Anadolu Agency]

US Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard has faced wide criticism after linking the terrorist attack in Sydney to what she described as an attempt to “Islamise” Australia.

Writing on her account on X on Tuesday, Gabbard said: “The tragic Islamist terror attack against those at a Hanukkah celebration in Australia sadly should not come as a surprise to anyone.”

She added: “This is the direct result of the massive influx of Islamists to Australia. Their goal is not only the Islamization of Australia but the entire world—including the United States.”

Gabbard went on to say: “Islamists and Islamism is the greatest threat to the freedom, security, and prosperity of the United States and the entire world. It is probably too late for Europe—and maybe Australia. It is not too late for the United States of America. But it soon will be.”

Thanking the US President, she concluded by saying: “Thankfully, President Trump has prioritized securing our borders and deporting known and suspected terrorists, and stopping mass, unvetted migration that puts Americans at risk.”

In response, artificial intelligence expert Farooq Zafar, an American of Pakistani origin, cited information published by the US Department of Homeland Security (DHS). He commented: “This is a false claim, Director Gabbard. Your own administration and many federal government agencies confirm that Muslims make up 1 per cent of domestic terrorists in the United States, while 75–80 per cent of terrorist attacks are attributed to white men.”

Opinion...

The unmasking of an illusion: Britain’s reckoning and America’s last stand

December 19, 2025 

Middle East Monitor 

Palestinians during a demonstration on the anniversary of Britain’s Balfour Declaration in West Bank city of Nablus on 2 November 2017 [JAAFAR ASHTIYEH/AFP/Getty Images]

by Jasim Al-Azzawi


The masks are off. Eight decades of American support to maintain the myth of a virtuous Israel have finally come crashing down. September 2025 marked a new stage in this brutal saga when Britain, the original sinner behind the Balfour Declaration, took a tangible step of admitting its guilt by recognising the State of Palestine.

Britain’s move was not a diplomatic gesture. In reality, this marked a pivotal moment in history. As confessed by Britain’s Foreign Secretary, David Lammy, “We are acting with ‘the hand of history on our shoulders,’ mindful of Britain’s central role in the 1917 Balfour Declaration,”

One power stands alone in political delusion. The United States, which puts the support of evangelical Christian Zionists above human rights, remains the frantic defender of a nation that, according to international bodies, acts in a manner consistent with genocide. This policy keeps this region in a state of constant instability and renders America an accomplice to a “war without limits,” according to UN officials.

The first grand illusion: ‘A land without a people’

A comforting fiction was offered in place of the truth: “Jews fleeing from persecution settled in a desert land, ‘a land without a people for a people without a land.” This comforting fiction allowed Western countries to sponsor this colonialism without being forced to assess its moral implications or shoulder its guilt.

Palestine was not a land devoid of people. At the time of the Balfour Declaration, the indigenous population already accounted for more than 90 percent of the population. A living culture with a productive peasantry and a history dating back thousands of years existed in this society.

The phrase encapsulates Terra Nullius ideology—the colonial mentality where lands not worked in a “modern” way were deemed to be empty and ripe for colonization. In his 1974 speech at the UN, Yasser Arafat said: ‘It pains our people greatly to see this legend proliferate: “Their homeland was a desert until they were forced to make it bloom with the efforts of settlers from other lands,” a land without a people.”

The Balfour Declaration: Colonial arrogance

Lord Curzon, who sat in the 1917 British cabinet which authorized the declaration, alone predicted a future in which there would be “decades of Arab–Jewish hostility.” Curzon described this commitment “as perhaps the worst which has fallen to our lot in the Middle East and a striking contrast to our publicly declared principles.”

The colonial arrogance embodied in the Balfour Declaration is breathtaking. The document was issued on November 2, 1917, a whole month before British troops occupied Jerusalem on December 11, 1917.

As noted by Professor Rashid Khalidi of Columbia University: “This document not only gave this project the imprimatur of the preeminent international organization of its time but elevated a colonial ambition into a ‘legal document.”

The second grand illusion: Israel as “strategic asset”

The delusion that Israel is a strategic asset has reduced America’s foreign policy to its knees. The reality would be far more incriminating in pointing out that America had a liability in her obligations towards Israel because this relationship has precipitated a great measure of anti-Americanism in the world.

The USS Liberty: Contempt for American lives

The USS Liberty, a US Navy technical research vessel, was deliberately attacked on June 8, 1967, in international waters by Israeli troops, killing 34 Americans and wounding 171. The ship had a US flag painted on it, with its identification numbers prominently displayed. An inquiry conducted by Israel established that their naval headquarters knew of the vessel’s US identification at least three hours before the attack. Such an attack wasn’t a tragic mistake but a blatant act of betrayal by a self-proclaimed friend.


The Pollard Affair: Theft of America’s secrets

Jonathan Pollard, a US Navy intelligence analyst, delivered a variety of state secrets to Israel, including a ten-volume manual on NSA signal intelligence operations and the names of thousands of intelligence cooperators. Based on a 1987 CIA damage assessment, the US intelligence community thought a good part of this intelligence could have gotten into the hands of the Soviet Union. In 1998, Israel admitted paying Pollard.

The 1973 oil embargo

After President Nixon’s plea for emergency assistance of $2.2 billion to aid Israel during the 1973 October War, the Arab members of OPEC imposed an oil embargo, which led to a staggering increase in oil prices from $2.90 to $11.65 per barrel. Gasoline prices rose from 34 cents to 84 cents a gallon. The disastrous oil embargo plunged America into stagflation, with ripple effects that hurt the economy in the latter part of the 1970s.

Marshall’s prophetic warning: “The greatest living American” ignored

Secretary of State George C. Marshall strongly advised President Truman that “grave obligations” in a never-ending war with a hostile state were in store for America if a Jewish state were recognized. At a very contentious May 12, 1948, cabinet meeting, Secretary of State Marshall, “whom Truman considers ‘the greatest living American, advised Truman very directly: “If the President were to follow Mr. Clifford’s advice, and if I were to vote in the election, I would vote against the President.”

Marshall stated, “The transparent dodge to win a few votes would not, in fact, achieve this purpose. The great dignity of the office of the president would be seriously damaged.”

The path forward: Breaking the unholy alliance

The bell rang. The world awoke. Yet the war without limits continues. The acknowledgment by Britain, in tandem with Canada, Australia, and more than 140 other nations worldwide, underscores that a philosophy of American exceptionalism cannot prevent the course of history.

Trump, the last holdout, puts the survival of his political fortunes and those of Christian Zionist evangelicals above the lives of an entire people and the moral credibility of the United States. As for those who have finally seen the light and those whose heads were in the sand but whose eyes have now opened, there can be only one course: an all-out struggle to make up for eighty years of misery and brutal injustice. While the exact timing is uncertain, history suggests the current unholy alliance will inevitably end.

Marshall was right. The alliance he rejected has produced precisely the despair and destruction he foresaw. The question is whether successive U.S. administrations will continue to disregard his counsel and recognize that sound foreign policy can never be made a tool of domestic politics.

History will hold in deep disgrace those nations and institutions that facilitated atrocities recorded by international and human rights bodies as crimes against humanity. The masks are removed; illusions have shattered. What remains is a moral reckoning that cannot be postponed or dodged.

The views expressed in this article belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Middle East Monitor.

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