INVESTIGATION

Resumption of $20bn Cabo Delgado gas project reignites both hope and resentment

The resumption of one of the world's biggest gas projects by French energy giant TotalEnergies, after a five-year suspension following a deadly jihadist attack, has raised hopes of jobs and prosperity in northern Mozambique. But this second instalment of Mozambique Exposed – an investigation coordinated by Forbidden Stories, to which RFI contributed – questions whether the country's vast gas wealth will benefit local communities.


Issued on: 12/06/2026 - RFI

The restarting of the world's largest gas field in northern Mozambique has brought both hope and concern. © Baptiste Condominas/RFI

It is barely 7am in the departure lounge at Pemba airport in northern Mozambique, on a day in early May. Around a dozen passengers sit quietly, some trying to recover from a short night's sleep.

Most are aid workers waiting for a United Nations-chartered flight to Mueda, Mocímboa da Praia or Palma, several hundred kilometres north of Pemba.

Suddenly, four heavily built men stand up. A pilot hands them unusual flat, brightly coloured life jackets. The group walks across the tarmac towards a helicopter.

"They're going to Afungi," one aid worker remarks. "A direct landing at the Total base."

A closed-off enclave

Afungi is a peninsula near the town of Palma in Mozambique's far north, in the Cabo Delgado province close to the border with Tanzania, whereTotalEnergies and its partners have established the Mozambique LNG (liquid natural gas) project.

The $20 billion project involves developing an offshore gas field in the Rovuma Basin and building facilities onshore to liquefy methane for export.

The reserves, estimated at 5,000 billion cubic metres, are among the largest ever discovered.

For this vast undertaking, TotalEnergies is being joined by several international partners, including three Indian oil companies, Japan's Mitsui and the Mozambican state, which holds a 15 percent stake.

The Afungi site covers 7,000 hectares behind perimeter fencing. At its centre is a paved airstrip surrounded by accommodation blocks and a maze of warehouses.

"Foreign companies isolate their workers. It does nothing for local development," says Abudo Gafuro, an activist with the human rights group Kundeleya.

Since 2017, Cabo Delgado has been gripped by an Islamist insurgency. Militants from the group Ansar al-Sunna (locally known as al-Shabaab), claim to be seeking to implement Sharia law and a new social order that would deliver a fairer distribution of wealth in the province.

According to the conflict-monitoring organisation Acled, more than 6,500 people have been killed, and a UN agency estimates at least 1 million people have been displaced.

TotalEnergies decided to suspend the Mozambique LNG project in 2020 due to security concerns. In April 2021 it officially announced the suspension after a series of deadly coordinated jihadist attacks. Work resumed only in January this year.

A map shows the position of Afungi in northern Mozambique. © Studio FMM

Mozambique relaunches TotalEnergies gas project after five-year pause
Compensation and frustration

Sitting beneath an acacia tree, José Cheila* looks exhausted. A few days earlier, he attended a community meeting on land issues.

"The Total representative didn't even turn up," says the Palma-based civil society co-ordinator.

For nearly a decade, compensation claims linked to the expropriation of hundreds of farmers and fishermen have remained unresolved.

In Mozambique, land belongs to the state – although collective, individual and customary land use rights are recognised. In 2012, the government granted a land use and benefit right, known as a DUAT, to the Texas-based company Anadarko, which discovered the Rovuma gas field.

TotalEnergies inherited the agreement when it took over the project in 2019. The deal provided for relocation housing, individual and collective financial compensation and material assistance, including motorcycles.

While Cheila deems the compensation package fair, many people are yet to receive what was promised.

"About 184 million meticais [roughly €2.5m] in compensation was planned in 2014, but some families are still waiting because the project was suspended," says Eduardo Caponde of the Cabo Delgado Community Development Forum.

The resumption of Mozambique LNG has boosted expectations.

"Discussions have restarted. But new questions have emerged," Caponde points out. "Is an amount agreed in 2014 still appropriate today, when the cost of living in Palma has changed so much?"

Contacted by the Forbidden Stories consortium, TotalEnergies said all 643 families affected by the project had been relocated to the village of Quitunda, a claim reporters confirmed during one of their visits.

"By the end of 2025, the land compensation activities foreseen in the resettlement plan had been completed," the company stated in an emailed response, adding that "livelihood restoration programmes" had also been implemented.

Mozambican President Filipe Nyusi, left, shakes hands with TotalEnergies CEO Patrick Pouyanne at a meeting in Maputo, Mozambique on 3 February, 2023. Mozambican Presidency via AP

TotalEnergies faces pressure at AGM over war gains and fossil fuel plans

Fortress economy

Another source of frustration is the project's isolation from the surrounding economy.

In September 2025, TotalEnergies signed a memorandum of understanding with Mozambique's Northern Integrated Development Agency (ADIN).

The €8.5m programme is intended to fund job creation and income-generating projects in the districts of Palma and Mocímboa da Praia, but many residents remain unconvinced.

"Communities expected gas workers to use local restaurants and hotels and travel by motorcycle taxi," says Aly Caetano, Cabo Delgado co-ordinator for the Centre for Democracy and Human Rights (CDD).

"Some entrepreneurs took on debt because they believed this development was coming. But they never see the people from Total."

The highly securitised nature of the project has added to local resentment, particularly as nearby communities continue to face attacks from insurgents.
Human rights concerns

On 24 March, 2021, Palma suffered the deadliest attack in its history when hundreds of militants looted property, killed residents and controlled the town for nearly two weeks. The death toll is estimated at around 1,500 people.

Residents say several hundred civilians managed to reach the Afungi peninsula. At the time, the gas project had already been suspended and only limited personnel remained on site. Nonetheless, evacuation boats were organised to transport people to Pemba.

Those who stayed behind say they later endured harsh reprisals by Mozambique's armed forces, known as the FADM, after government troops retook the town.

"Our own soldiers were killing us. Our brothers," says Cheila.

Two legal complaints have been filed against TotalEnergies in connection with the Palma attack.

The first was lodged in 2023 before a court in Nanterre, near Paris, by three survivors and four relatives of victims from the United Kingdom and South Africa. They accuse the company of involuntary manslaughter and failing to assist people in danger, alleging negligence in the management of security arrangements for staff and subcontractors.

A second complaint was filed in 2025 with France's National Anti-Terrorism Prosecutor's Office by the Germany-based European Centre for Constitutional and Human Rights (ECCHR).

The German human rights organisation is examining the relationship between TotalEnergies and the Mozambican armed forces tasked with protecting, among other sites, the Mozambique LNG project.

Rwandan soldiers guard the TotalEnergies LNG Project in Afungi in the Cabo Delgado province, Mozambique, on 29 September, 2022. AFP - CAMILLE LAFFONT

Victims take TotalEnergies to court over terror attack in Mozambique

Security agreement

In 2020, the Mozambique LNG project signed a memorandum of understanding with the Mozambican government regarding security.

The agreement provided for the deployment of a Joint Task Force of around 600 Mozambican soldiers in and around Afungi. Around 10 percent are elite troops known as fusileiros, trained by the United States.

Under the agreement, the project has to cover accommodation and food costs for the soldiers, who also receive a bonus linked to rank. Any involvement in abuses or human rights violations results in the automatic loss of that payment.

According to a 2023 internal audit commissioned by TotalEnergies and led in part by former French diplomat and humanitarian worker Jean-Christophe Ruffin, the arrangement was intended to reduce incentives for misconduct among troops, whose poor living conditions are widely recognised.

However, the report also raised concerns.

"The existence of a direct financial relationship with members of the Joint Task Force creates a direct link between Mozambique LNG and these troops," the report states. "It is doubtful that this conditional bonus can deter potential abuses. In the event of human rights violations, this relationship directly engages the responsibility of the consortium."

In 2021, payments to the Joint Task Force were suspended after local communities alleged human rights abuses. The allegations related to "abuse against two fishermen", according to TotalEnergies, and were not connected to the violence committed during the recapture of Palma.

Mozambican authorities have not opened an investigation into the events in Palma.

How Cabo Delgado's riches became fuel for the Islamist insurgency in Mozambique

For almost a decade, an Islamist group has terrorised Mozambique's northern province of Cabo Delgado. Despite vast reserves of rubies, timber and natural gas, the region remains the country's poorest. This first instalment of Mozambique Exposed – an investigation coordinated by Forbidden Stories to which RFI contributed – examines how exploitation of the region's wealth, corruption and alleged abuses by security forces helped fuel the insurgency.


Issued on: 11/06/2026 - RFI

Despite vast reserves of rubies, timber and natural gas, Cabo Delgado remains Mozambique's poorest province. © Baptiste Condominas/RFI

Rainy season had already begun in 2017 when thousands of artisanal miners working around Namanhumbir, near Montepuez in the northern Cabo Delgado province of Mozambique, saw security forces approaching.

Many were arrested for what the authorities called illegal mining. Most of the miners, known locally as garimpeiros, came from outside the region.

Some returned to their home districts or crossed into neighbouring southern Tanzania. Others joined a little-known armed group that was gaining strength in northern Mozambique – known locally as Al-Shabab and linked to the Islamic State group (although with no connection to the Somali militant group of the same name).

"From then on, it was war," one miner recalled in a 2021 report by the International Crisis Group, a conflict prevention organisation.

Grievances linked to natural resources became a powerful recruiting tool for the armed group.

Control of natural resources by foreign companies is one of the main themes in Al-Shabab's messaging, according to Joao Feijo, a researcher with the Observatório do Meio Rural, a Mozambican rural affairs research institute.

Ruby boom

Among Cabo Delgado's most valuable assets are rubies. Deposits discovered in 2009 helped make the province the source of around 80 percent of the world's ruby reserves.

One of the industry's main operators is Montepuez Ruby Mining (MRM), which received a 25-year concession in 2012, covering 10,000 square kilometres.

MRM is a subsidiary of British mining company Gemfields Limited, owner of luxury brand Fabergé. Twenty-five percent of the company is owned by General Raimundo Pachinuapa, a senior member of Frelimo, Mozambique's ruling party since it gained independence from Portugal in 1975.

In 2019, Gemfields agreed to pay €6.7 million in compensation to miners who dropped legal action accusing the company of human rights violations.

The case was brought in London by law firm Leigh Day on behalf of 273 garimpeiros. It said physical and sexual violence, degrading treatment and killings were carried out by MRM security personnel and Mozambican security forces.

Gemfields acknowledged violence had occurred around Montepuez, but did not accept responsibility.

Abuses linked to mining operations have not stopped, said Aly Caetano, Cabo Delgado coordinator for the Centre for Democracy and Human Rights, a Mozambican civil society organisation.

"Torture, illegal detention and killings continue," he said. "Meanwhile, the Montepuez-Pemba road remains the worst in the region. This feeling of being robbed feeds the terrorists' narrative."

Timber trail

Campaigners in Cabo Delgado also accuse authorities of profiting from the exploitation of the region's natural assets.

Far to the north lies Niassa Reserve, a protected area that has also become a centre for trafficking in ivory and valuable timber species.

In August 2020, Mozambican authorities seized 82 containers bound for China at the port of Pemba.

Inside were logs that investigators said had been cut illegally.

Four months later, the containers somehow escaped customs controls. The Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA), an international environmental watchdog, said 66 were later recovered while on their way to China.

Mozambique's timber industry is heavily dominated by Chinese operators, and is closely linked to the business interests of senior Frelimo figures.

One of them is José Pacheco, a former governor of Cabo Delgado and former agriculture minister.

An EIA investigation into Chinese forestry companies reported financial ties between Pacheco and a businessman identified as Liu. The two men met several times, including during a Frelimo congress in the port city of Pemba.

The World Resources Institute, a United States-based research organisation, said Mozambican timber worth more than $400 million reached Chinese markets in 2016.

Mozambican customs authorities declared only $100 million in exports that year.

Capitalising on inequality

More than 3,000 kilometres from the capital Maputo, Cabo Delgado remains Mozambique's poorest province.

The United Nations Development Programme reported that average income remains below one dollar per person per day. Illiteracy affects 61 percent of residents, and 45 percent of children suffer from chronic malnutrition.

Anger had been building for years in rural communities.

One of the Al-Shabab movement's leaders, Maulana Ali Cassimo, was a former agriculture ministry official who travelled through the countryside on a motorbike denouncing forced evictions, police brutality and what he described as Maputo's control of Cabo Delgado's wealth.

Mozambican soldiers patrol past a burned-out truck bearing the words "Shabaab Chinja", a reference to the Islamist armed group, in Mocímboa da Praia on 22 September 2021. © AFP

Promises of a fairer system formed part of the group's appeal, said Vasco King of Kundeleya, a human rights organisation based in Pemba.

"Al-Shabab wants to establish an Islamic caliphate," he said. "They believe a fairer order should be put in place. They capitalise on a social situation marked by unemployment and underdevelopment."

Those tensions erupted into open violence in October 2017. Several police stations in the coastal town of Mocimboa da Praia were attacked and around 15 people were killed.

"It was a shock," resident Omar Sufo said. "We knew people were training in the bush, but nobody imagined there would be an attack."

Gas in the crosshairs

Mozambique's Al-Shabab pledged allegiance to the Islamic State group in 2019.

In a July 2020 edition, the group's propaganda newspaper Al Naba carried the headline: "Crusaders, beware of your investments in Mozambique."

Driving foreign economic players out of Cabo Delgado became a stated objective of the group.

Among those in its sights was the consortium developing a huge offshore gas field near the coastal town of Palma, in Cabo Delgado. The project contains reserves estimated at 5,000 billion cubic metres and involves French energy company TotalEnergies and its partners.

After years of its suspension, TotalEnergies announced this year that work on the project would resume.

The number of Al-Shabab fighters remains difficult to establish. The US National Counterterrorism Center estimated there were around 300 militants in 2025 – while the International Crisis Group put the figure at 3,000 in 2020.

The conflict has displaced at least 1 million people, a United Nations agency said.

This article has been adapted from the original version in French by Gaëlle Laleix, reporting from Cabo Delgado.

It is the first instalment of Mozambique Exposed, an investigation coordinated by Forbidden Stories, a global non-profit network of investigative journalists. The project is based on nearly 100 interviews and five months of reporting by 30 journalists from 10 media organisations, including RFI and Les Observateurs de France 24 (France), Evident Media (United States), Expresso (Portugal), M28 Investigates (Rwanda), Paper Trail Media (Germany), SourceMaterial (United Kingdom), ZDF (Germany) and Zitamar News (Mozambique).

NEUTERING NATO SERVES PUTIN

Washington plans to slash fighter jets and warships to NATO in Europe, US media report

Copyright AP Photo

By Shona Murray

Published on 12/06/2026 - EURONEWS

The reported cutbacks come as European nations race to bolster their defence capacities since Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022 sparked fears that Moscow could attack a NATO country.

The US is planning to withdraw access to deep strike capabilities for NATO allies as part of its wider plan to pull out of Europe's security architecture.

The Trump administration informed NATO allies last year it would cut military assets available to Europe even during times of war or invasion, but until now, the details of exactly how the Pentagon intends to scale back access to such assets were unclear.

According to sources, everything linked to deep strike capabilities will be cut, Euronews has learned. Specifically, this includes US long-range bombers such as the B2 and B-52. Naval assets, including missile-launching submarine and aircraft carriers, will also be withdrawn and re-directed to other theatres.

According to reporting from the New York Times, the US is also planning on reducing the number of F-16 and F-15E fighter jets available to NATO from roughly 150 to 100 and maritime reconnaissance aircraft from 26 to 15, as well as withdrawing all eight aerial refuelling tanker jets previously available to Europe.

A Turkish F16 fighting jet flies over naval ships during an annual NATO naval exercise in the Mediterranean, 15 September, 2022 AP Photo

The significant changes to US commitments are being undertaken within NATO’s so-called Force Model system, which allows allies and military planners identify troops and capabilities available to NATO operations based on deterrence and threat assessment.

Confirming its plans, the US European Command said in a statement last week that it would “right size” its contributions to the NATO Force Model.

'Paper tiger'

While senior NATO personnel have been planning for the downsizing of US assets available for Europe for several months, senior officials have publicly downplayed the implications, arguing that European allies are now contributing far more to the continent’s deterrence and will be able to compensate for gap left by the US.

"We know that adjustments will take place, the US has to pivot toward, for example, Asia,” Rutte told journalists last month.

However, the lastest announcement comes at a particularly difficult moment in US-NATO relations.

US President Donald Trump is still fuming at European allies' refusal to join in the US and Israel's war in Iran, issuing warnings that he will “remember” how countries such as Spain, Italy and France refused to allow US planes headed for Iran to use their airspace and bases on their territory.

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio speaks with reporters during a meeting of NATO foreign ministers in Helsingborg, 22 May, 2026 AP Photo

“The solution would be to open the Strait of Hormuz," Trump wrote on social media in March, complaining allies “don’t want to help" and warning that “Without the U.S.A., NATO IS A PAPER TIGER!”

“COWARDS,” he concluded. “We will REMEMBER!”

Since then, a coalition of NATO allies and other countries including South Korea and Australia have been formulating a strategy to reopen the strait once hostilities come to an end, with several countries sending frigates and personnel to the region for pre-positioning ahead of the war's end – though it remains unclear when that might come.

Everything you need to know about the Jared Kushner resort protests in Albania

By Nathan Rennolds

Published on 12/06/2026 - EURONEWS

The European Commission has warned Albania that it must act now to avoid jeopardising its bid to join the bloc, which requires it to comply with EU environmental rules.

Protests have been growing in Albania against a planned resort development backed by Jared Kushner, with thousands taking to the streets of Tirana on Thursday.

Kushner, the son-in-law of US President Donald Trump, and his investment firm Affinity Partners have been in negotiations to open an estimated $4 billion luxury resort in a protected area on Albania's Adriatic coast.

But protesters have pushed back at the plans, arguing it would damage the local environment. Some are also calling for Albanian Prime Minister Edi Rama to resign over the issue.

Here's everything you need to know about the protests.

Protesters take part in a rally in Tirana, Albania, Tuesday, June 9, 2026, against the construction of a massive coastal development project. Copyright 2026 The Associated Press. All rights reserved

The Vjosa–Narta Lagoon and Sazan island

The proposed resort would be situated in the Vjosa-Narta Lagoon, a protected wetland area of Albania.

Wetlands International, an NGO that works to protect and restore wetlands, described the wetland as "irreplaceable" and said it is home to more than 200 migratory bird species, flamingos, seals and nesting sea turtles.

Chris Baker, Wetlands International Europe’s director said: “The Vjosa–Narta Lagoon is a uniquely intact and very special Mediterranean wetland, sheltering over 200 bird species and more than 70 endangered species."

"Building luxury resorts inside this protected ecosystem – despite strong protest of local citizens and environmental groups – raises serious doubts about Albania’s readiness to join the EU," he added.

The European Commission has warned Albania that it must act now to avoid jeopardising its bid to join the bloc, which requires it to comply with EU environmental rules.

“Albania should refrain from actions that could undermine the fulfilment of the closing benchmark, in this case Chapter 27, and so we expect the Albanian authorities to act without any delay,” Commission spokesperson Guillaume Mercier said earlier this week.

As part of the plan, developers are also hoping to transform the uninhabited island of Sazan into a tourist hotspot.

The Albanian Association for the Protection of the Environment said the creation of a luxury resort on the island would present "serious risks to the biodiversity and critical habitats".

Demonstrations

Protests against the project have been ongoing for almost two weeks, with demonstrators holding signs reading "Albania is not for sale," chanting slogans and carrying inflatable flamingos to highlight the potential impact to wildlife in the Vjosa-Narta lagoon.

The Albanian government argues that the project would be transformational for the nation, helping drive fresh tourism in the former communist state.

Prime Minister Rama has also pushed back on environmental concerns.

"In this protest there are well-meaning people, young people interested genuinely to the environment that have been misled big time," he recently told CNN International. "There is not such a thing like a Trump family island. There is not such a thing like the family of the American president taking over protected areas where flamingos will be killed".

Flamingos are pictured over Narta lagoon area, western Albania, Saturday, June 6, 2026. Copyright 2026 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.

Hybrid war

Rama has also suggested that the protests and media attention are being driven in part by a hybrid war against Albania, pointing his finger at Iran.

"There is one malicious actor, Iran," Rama has said of the issue. "This is something that we know for a fact. I never said and I don't say that Iran invented it. I'm saying that Iran jumped in it. Right away. And we are at war with Iran, cyber, since some years now."

Iranian foreign ministry spokesperson Esmaeil Baqaei rejected Rama's claims.

"It was YOU, sir, who started this. So...you should 'face the music'!" he wrote on X.

Clashes erupt in Tirana as anti-government protesters confront Socialist Party supporters

Protesters have turned out daily in Tirana since the beginning of June. / Albania Ornithological SocietyFacebook

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By bne IntelliNews June 12, 2026

Brief clashes broke out in central Tirana on the evening of June 12 when supporters attending celebrations for the governing Socialist Party came into contact with anti-government demonstrators protesting outside the Prime Minister's Office, adding to tensions surrounding a campaign against a controversial tourism development project.

At the centre of the dispute are plans for high-end tourism investments in the Narta Lagoon area near the coastal village of Zvërnec and on Sazan Island, a former military installation off Albania's southern coast. The projects are linked to a company associated with Jared Kushner, the son-in-law of US President Donald Trump.

Police moved quickly to separate the groups and restore order after a scuffle erupted near the government building, where protesters had gathered to deliver speeches and demand the resignation of Prime Minister Edi Rama's administration.

The confrontations took place after celebrations marking the 35th anniversary of the founding of the Socialist Party concluded at Italia Square. According to local media reports, a group of party supporters later approached the nearby protest, where activists had been addressing the crowd through loudspeakers.

The two sides exchanged insults before the situation escalated into pushing and shoving. Video footage shared by local broadcasters showed police officers intervening as protesters and Socialist Party supporters jostled in the street.

One protest participant, speaking to local television station Top Channel, described scenes of confusion as dozens of people approached the demonstration. "They came running from that direction and started shouting all kinds of things," the protester said, estimating that around 30 to 40 people had entered the area. The participant also criticised the police response, claiming officers had initially failed to intervene effectively.

Organisers sought to calm the situation, urging demonstrators not to react to what they described as provocations. Earlier in the day, activists had appealed to participants to avoid confrontation with the Socialist Party anniversary events taking place elsewhere in the city.

After the disturbance subsided, protesters resumed their march through the streets of the capital. 

The demonstrations have become a daily occurrence in Tirana since the beginning of June. What began as a local environmental campaign opposing a planned luxury tourism project has developed into a wider anti-government movement, with participants calling for political reforms and the repeal of legislation they argue facilitates controversial developments.

The Albanian government has granted the investment "strategic investor" status, arguing that it will help attract foreign capital and strengthen the country's tourism industry. Rama has repeatedly defended the initiative, describing it as an opportunity to raise Albania's international profile and encourage large-scale international investment.

Environmental organisations and local campaigners, however, argue that the developments could damage one of Albania's most ecologically sensitive coastal regions. The Narta Lagoon, home to internationally significant wetlands and large populations of migratory birds, including flamingos, has become a focal point for opposition to the project.

Protest organisers have broadened their platform beyond the tourism development itself. They have issued five principal demands, including the resignation of the government, the repeal of the law regulating strategic investments, the cancellation of the so-called "Mountain Package" legislation, the reversal of recent amendments to the Law on Protected Areas, and the repeal of changes made to the Law on Cultural Heritage.

Public anger intensified after online videos appeared to show a security guard allegedly assaulting a protester near one of the proposed development sites. The footage circulated widely on social media and was cited by activists as evidence of increasing pressure on campaigners.

The controversy has also drawn the attention of Albania's anti-corruption authorities, which have opened an investigation into aspects of the projects, including issues related to land ownership and privatisation procedures.

BALKAN BLOG:  US U-turn on Albanian opposition leader comes at a dangerous moment for PM

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By Clare Nuttall in Glasgow June 12, 2026

The US decision to reverse sanctions on Albanian opposition leader Sali Berisha comes at a dangerous moment for Prime Minister Edi Rama’s government, which has been targeted by a wave of mass protests in Tirana.

Berisha declared "America is great" on June 11 after announcing that the US had lifted the sanctions that barred him and his family from entering the country, ending a designation that has affected Albanian politics for more than five years.

The Democratic Party issued an official statement confirming that there had been "official communication regarding the lifting of sanctions by the US" and repeating Berisha's argument that he had never formally been declared persona non grata but had instead been subject to a visa ban.

The move, which had not been confirmed publicly by the US embassy in Tirana at the time of writing, would be a major political victory for the veteran politician, who has long argued that the sanctions were politically motivated and designed to weaken Albania's opposition.

The sanctions were imposed by the US State Department on May 19, 2021, shortly after parliamentary elections won by Rama's Socialist Party. Then secretary of state Antony Blinken announced that Berisha and members of his immediate family would be barred from entering the United States because of what Washington described as "significant corruption".

At the time, Blinken said Berisha had been involved in "corrupt acts" that had "undermined democracy in Albania" and declared that "Berisha and members of his immediate family are ineligible for entry into the United States."

The designation transformed Albania's political landscape. It deepened divisions within the Democratic Party, eventually leading to Berisha's exclusion from its parliamentary group before he regained control of the party after a prolonged internal power struggle. The sanctions also became a key argument used by Rama and the governing Socialists to question the opposition's credibility.

Berisha has consistently denied all allegations against him, describing the US decision as an abuse of power driven by political interests rather than evidence of wrongdoing.

The development follows a wider pattern under the Trump administration of reassessing sanctions imposed on political figures in Southeast Europe. Last year, the United States lifted sanctions against Milorad Dodik, the former president of Bosnia's Serb Republic, reversing measures originally imposed over allegations of corruption and actions viewed by Washington as undermining the 1995 Dayton peace agreement.

Legal troubles remain

Despite the reported lifting of US sanctions, Berisha remains under legal pressure in Albania. In September 2024, the Special Prosecution Against Corruption and Organised Crime (SPAK) charged him with corruption over allegations that he helped facilitate a lucrative property development benefiting his son-in-law, Jamarber Malltezi. Both men deny the accusations.

The politician is also subject to separate sanctions imposed by the United Kingdom in 2022 over alleged links to corruption. His appeal against those measures was rejected by a British court.

It therefore remains unclear whether his reputation will recover fully even if the US sanctions are lifted, or what lasting impact the decision will have on the Albanian political landscape.

The reported reversal comes at a particularly sensitive moment in Albanian politics. The country has seen days of anti-government demonstrations, initially sparked by opposition to a planned luxury tourism development associated with Jared Kushner, US President Donald Trump's son-in-law, but which have broadened into a wider expression of dissatisfaction with the government.

Demonstrators are now calling not only for the project to be halted but also for Prime Minister Edi Rama to step down, prompting comparisons with the "colour revolutions" that swept parts of Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union in the 2000s and 2010s.

The movement, dubbed the “Flamingo Revolution” has spread from the coastal village of Zvërnec, near the proposed development site, to the capital Tirana. For days, thousands of people have taken to the streets, making the protests one of the most significant public mobilisations Albania has seen in recent years.

The use of force against protesters in Zvërnec on May 30, combined with allegations of corruption and a lack of transparency surrounding the project approval process, helped transform the local environmental dispute into a broader political cause.

Environmental issues have increasingly become a catalyst for political mobilisation across the Balkans in recent years.

In neighbouring Serbia, repeated protests against pollution, mining projects and urban developments have drawn tens of thousands onto the streets. Demonstrations against Rio Tinto's planned lithium mine in western Serbia became one of the country's largest protest movements in years, eventually forcing the government to suspend the project in 2022, although debate over its future has continued.

The "Don't Drown Belgrade" movement and its symbol of a giant yellow duck also drew thousands of protesters into the streets in opposition to the controversial Belgrade Waterfront project. While the protests became a significant political force, they ultimately failed to halt the development. Another Kushner-linked project, planned on the site of the former Chinese embassy that was bombed by  Nato in 1999, was scrapped following mass protests and a corruption probe.

Rama's long dominance

The Albanian prime minister has become one of the longest-serving leaders in the region. Since first taking office in 2013, he has won four consecutive parliamentary elections, most recently in May 2025.

His victories have been aided in part by the Socialist Party's control of state resources and strong local political networks. However, the party has also won support through its steady progress towards EU accession, from securing candidate status in 2014 to overtaking fellow Western Balkan countries Serbia and North Macedonia to become one of the frontrunners in the process, with ambitions to join the bloc by 2030. Rama's charismatic presence has also helped raise the country's profile on the international stage.

Rama made progress on fighting corruption, especially in his early years in power, though more recently the government's reputation has been tarnished by a succession of scandals. These include the incinerators affair, allegations surrounding former deputy prime minister Belinda Balluku, until recently a key member of Rama's cabinet, and questions over the use of public-private partnerships for infrastructure projects and major investments such as the UAE-backed Porto Romano development.

Meanwhile, Rama's Socialists have benefited from years of infighting within the Democratic Party. The opposition has struggled to recover from internal divisions and leadership disputes following electoral defeats, while Berisha himself remained a polarising figure because of the US sanctions and the corruption allegations he denies.

The protests have also placed Berisha in a somewhat awkward political position. Early on, he publicly backed the Kushner-linked development, as broadcaster Top Channel TV reported earlier in June. However, he has since endorsed calls for Rama's removal, voicing support for protesters mobilising against the prime minister.

The demonstrations themselves have not rallied around the opposition leader. Instead, many protesters have directed their anger at the entire political establishment, with chants calling for both "Rama in prison" and "Berisha in prison”. 

The movement has no obvious political leader, having been driven initially largely by environmental groups rather than established opposition parties.

Whether the lifting of US sanctions strengthens Berisha politically may therefore depend less on Washington's decision than on whether he can successfully align himself with a protest movement that has so far emerged independently of the traditional opposition.

Behind JD Vance's bloopers, bungles and bonkers claims is a dead serious plan

U.S. Vice President JD Vance addresses the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) in National Harbor, Maryland, U.S., February 20, 2025. REUTERS/Nathan Howard

Robert Reich

June 11, 2026 

ALTERNET

I’ve been watching JD Vance as carefully as anyone can track a snake in the grass, which is to say, with some difficulty. He has seemed uncomfortable with Trump’s grandiose foreign ambitions, especially Trump’s failed war in Iran, but I’ve seen no evidence that JD has spoken out against any of it even inside Trump’s ego-echo chamber.

JD hasn’t carved out a regressive policy specialty for himself, as have some other of Trump’s despicable underlings such as Stephen Miller, Russell Vought, and Harmeet Dhillon.

Nor has JD become much of a spokesperson for Trump. He rarely appears on television or even on social media. Nor has he been visible on Capitol Hill. He hasn’t cinched any deal in Congress.


JD seems to appear when and where a vice president is supposed to, but then disappears again into the daily effluence of Trump.

But there’s one particular area where JD seems to stand out (I was tempted to write “excel,” but it’s impossible to excel at something as execrable as JD’s specialty.) He is the regime’s strangest bigot.


Among all the bigots in the Trump regime — and there are many — JD’s bigotry stands out for a particular lunacy, combining magic realism with a unique ultra-wackiness.

We saw glimmers of this during the 2024 campaign when JD, then a U.S. senator from Ohio, insisted that the pets of upright Americans residing in Springfield, Ohio, were being “abducted and eaten” by Haitian immigrants “who shouldn’t be in this country.”

Despite being informed by city officials that Haitian immigrants were not in fact eating pets, Vance doubled down. He was sure Haitians were eating people’s pets. The publicity surrounding JD’s bizarre claims led to threats against Springfield’s Haitian community.


Not to let a disgusting lie about a minority group go unexploited, Trump amplified Vance’s pet-eating claim during his presidential debate with Kamala Harris.

Finally confronted by irrefutable evidence that Haitian immigrants were not eating pets in Springfield, Vance admitted publicly that he was speaking, shall we say, metaphorically: “If I have to create stories so that the American media actually pays attention to the suffering of the American people, then that’s what I’m going to do,” he told CNN.

Hello?


Now, JD is back.

“Henry Nowak died the same way a civilization dies: abandoned, handcuffed by authorities who neither trusted nor cared for him, and accused of hate crimes he did not commit,” JD declared on X last week. Nowak would still be alive “if the last few generations of European elites had stood their ground against the politics of self-hatred and the mass invasion of migrants, many of whom despise the West and the people who love it.”

If you’ve followed this sad story, you know that an 18-year-old British student named Henry Nowak was fatally stabbed in the British city of Southampton in December by Vickrum Digwa, who falsely claimed Nowak had racially abused him and that Digwa had acted in self-defense. After the truth came out, Digwa was jailed for life on June 1, with a minimum term of 21 years.

That, in turn, prompted JD’s jeremiad against “mass invasion of migrants.”


But inconveniently for JD, Digwa was born and raised in Britain. Which puts JD’s blaming Nowak’s death on a “mass invasion of migrants” roughly on par with his claims about the eating habits of Haitian-Americans in Springfield.

This hasn’t stopped JD, of course, who’s using the Nowak murder to bolster his narrative of Britain as a “once powerful nation” whose elites are now welcoming “migrants” who “despise the West.”

JD has become a mouthpiece inside the Trump regime for assailing what JD repeatedly terms the “decline of Western civilization,” especially in Europe. It’s part of the Trump regime’s increasingly shrill critique of Europe. Trump’s most recent National Security Strategy promises to push “Europe to remain European, to regain its civilizational self-confidence, and to abandon its failed focus on regulatory suffocation.”

In a sense, then, JD has stepped into the bigoted shoes of Viktor Orbán; Nigel Farage, the leader of the right-wing populist Reform UK party; and other resurgent European white Christian nationalists.


But there’s something more to this. JD wants to be the leader of the world’s anti-democracy movement.

Recall that JD would never have become a senator from Ohio in 2022 were it not for the billionaire tech financier Peter Thiel, who staked $15 million on JD’s election — a major portion of all the funds that went into JD’s Senate race.

Thiel knew what he was buying. Before running for the Senate, JD had worked for Thiel’s California venture capital firm and was part of Thiel’s libertarian community of rich crypto bros, tech executives, back-to-the-landers, and disaffected far-right intellectuals.

Because Thiel had been a major funder of Trump’s 2016 presidential run, he had significant influence with Trump when urging him to pick JD for his vice president.


Thiel was such a strong sponsor of JD because Thiel saw in his protege a future leader of a political movement to turn the U.S. away from democracy. “For Peter,” said one of the people familiar with his thinking, “Vance is a generational bet.”

Thiel is a self-styled libertarian who once wrote: “I no longer believe that freedom and democracy are compatible.”

Hello? Freedom is incompatible with democracy only if you view democracy as a potential constraint on your wealth and power.

That’s the point. Thiel and JD — along with Elon Musk, Steve Bannon, tech entrepreneur David Sacks, Palantir co-founder Joe Lonsdale, Palantir adviser Jacob Helberg, Sequoia Capital’s Doug Leone, blogger Curtis Yarvin, and others in the anti-democracy movement — believe that the only way true libertarians can win in the U.S. is for a Caesar-like figure to wrest power from the U.S. establishment and install a monarchical regime, run like a startup.

Yarvin — who’s something of a thinker behind this movement — has written that real political power in the United States is held by a liberal amalgam of universities and the mainstream press, whose commitment to equality and justice is eroding social order.

In Yarvin’s view, democratic governments should be replaced with sovereign joint-stock corporations whose major “shareholders” select an executive with total power, who serves at their pleasure. Yarvin refers to the city-state of Singapore as an example of a successful authoritarian regime.

How to achieve Yarvin’s vision? The first step, as JD offered in a 2021 podcast, is to replace “every single midlevel bureaucrat, every civil servant in the administrative state … with our people. And when the courts stop you, stand before the country, and say” — as did Andrew Jackson — that “the chief justice has made his ruling. Now let him enforce it.”

The next step, apparently, is to foment so much division and bigotry inside the U.S. and within every other major Western nation that people come to view those on the other side of the political divide as the source of everything that’s wrong with their lives. That way, they won’t look upward to see Peter Thiel, Elon Musk, and the other billionaire robber barons, plutocrats, and oligarchs of this second Gilded Age grabbing most of the wealth and power for themselves.

And average people will trade in democracy for strongman autocracy.

Behind JD’s bloopers about Haitian-Americans and British “migrants” is a deadly serious plan to unite the far-rights of America and Europe and rid much of the world of democracy. If JD ever becomes president, he’s intent on finishing the job.

Robert Reich is a professor of public policy at Berkeley and former secretary of labor. His writings can be found at https://robertreich.substack.com/

Palestine Defenders Say Western Nations’ New Sanctions on Israeli Settlers ‘Not Enough’

“These are tiny and piecemeal steps which will not prevent Israel from continuing to act with impunity in its genocide and crimes against the Palestinian people,” said one group.


Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich holds a map of an area near the illegal settlement of Maale Adumim outside Jerusalem in the occupied West Bank, on August 14, 2025.
(Photo by Menahem Kahana/AFP via Getty Images)

Brett Wilkins
Jun 09, 2026
COMMON DREAMS

While some advocates for Palestinian rights welcomed Tuesday’s joint announcement by a group of Western nations of new sanctions targeting “extremist” Israeli settlers amid their escalating ethnic cleansing efforts in the illegally occupied West Bank, many others called the measures inadequate and urged stronger action against Israel’s government for enabling settler violence.

The foreign ministers of Australia, Canada, France, Norway, and the United Kingdom issued a joint statement announcing “coordinated action to introduce sanctions and other measures to hold extremist settlers accountable for the horrific levels of settler violence against Palestinian civilians.”

France joined the other four nations and New Zealand—which is coordinating sanctions with the group—in banning Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, who seeks to annex the West Bank and Gaza and lives in the illegal settlement of Kedumim, from entering their countries. Members of the coalition also slapped an entry ban on four leaders of settler organizations and 21 individual settlers.

“We are today imposing new sanctions against those responsible for intensifying colonization and violence in the West Bank,” French Foreign Minister Jean-Noël Barrot said on social media. “Smotrich actively promotes the annexation of the West Bank, which he openly claims, the creation of new settlements in the West Bank, the recolonization of Gaza, the economic collapse of the Palestinian Authority, and its deleterious consequences on the Palestinian population.”

British Foreign Minister Yvette Cooper said Tuesday during a speech in Parliament that “settler expansion and violence is illegal and a fundamental threat to the viability of a two-state solution, and to long-term peace and security for Palestinians and Israelis.”

“I have strengthened our business risk guidance to make it clear and unambiguous: If you are a British citizen or business, you should not conduct any economic and financial activities in illegal Israeli settlements,” Cooper added.

Coalition countries previously banned Israeli National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir from entry. The International Criminal Court in The Hague has reportedly requested arrest warrants for Smotrich and Ben-Gvir for the crime of apartheid related to their plans, backed by the Trump administration in the United States, to expand illegal settler colonies in the West Bank and annex the occupied territory. The ICC issued warrants in 2024 for the arrest of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Yoav Gallant, his former defense minister, for alleged crimes against humanity and war crimes in Gaza.

“Extremist violent settlers, with the backing of their supporters, continue to attack Palestinians and abuse their human rights,” Tuesday’s announcement states. “They use violence to displace Palestinians, destroy property, and perpetuate the illegal settlement enterprise, undermining the viability of the state of Palestine and the prospects for peaceful coexistence.”

“For too long, violent settlers have been able to act with near impunity, and settlement expansion and creation of outposts continue with the support and facilitation of the government of Israel,” the ministers said. “In some cases, settler violence takes place under the protection of Israel’s security forces. We continue to urge the government of Israel to take action to ensure meaningful accountability for violence in the West Bank.”

The statement noted that the five countries “have all taken the historic decision to recognize the state of Palestine, reflecting the rights of the Palestinian people and as part of our common efforts to protect the viability of the two-state solution.”

“Today, we are acting together again in support of the same objectives,” the ministers asserted. “We stand ready to take more action if the government of Israel does not take urgent steps to address the situation on the ground.”

Many Palestinians and their advocates said the sanctions don’t go far enough.

“While this is a step in the right direction, it is woefully inadequate,” Palestinian Ambassador to the UK Husam Zomlot said on social media. “We are beyond words of condemnation. Israel has demonstrated, time and again, its disregard for international law.”



“Words without action are not diplomacy. It is abdicating responsibilities,” Zomlot continued. “What is needed now is clear: a ban on settlement products, comprehensive sanctions on those profiting from illegal settlements and the state sponsoring them, and guarantees that British companies, banks, and financial institutions are not contributing to Israel’s illegal occupation.”

“Justice cannot wait,” the ambassador added. “The time for meaningful action is now.”

Amnesty International UK crisis response manager Kristyan Benedict called the new sanctions “a step, but not enough.”

“If ministers are serious about sanctioning those ‘who support and sponsor violence against Palestinian communities in the West Bank’, they must act on the reality that settlements and settler violence are state policy—directed and funded from the top,” Benedict argued.

“Targeting settler financing networks while the ministers who run this campaign face no consequences is not meaningful accountability—it leaves the architects untouched,” he stressed, calling on the UK government to also sanction Netanyahu, Gallant, current Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz, and Settlement Minister Orit Strock.

“The legal obligation is clear, but the political will is still not strong enough,” Benedict added. “Successive UK governments have failed to take meaningful action to stop Israel’s crimes and those that enable them. That failure sends a dangerous message that Palestinian lives are not valued and that unlawful occupation and apartheid are acceptable. This must end now.”

The Palestine Solidarity Campaign said in a statement that “whilst any move towards additional sanctions is correct, these are tiny and piecemeal steps which will not prevent Israel from continuing to act with impunity in its genocide and crimes against the Palestinian people.”

“In addition to these limited sanctions, the government has announced that it will ‘firmly advise’ British businesses against illegal activity, sending the disgraceful message that acting according to international law is optional,” PSC added.

This week, around 140 Labour members of UK Parliament urged Cooper to take “urgent, concrete action to counter the escalation of violations against Palestinians” by “ending trade with illegal Israeli settlements.”

Adil Haque, executive editor at Just Security and distinguished professor at Rutgers Law School in New Jersey, said on X: “Better something than nothing, but if the aim is the removal of *all* illegal settlements, then targeted sanctions against a few groups and individuals will not do much.”

Iranian-Canadian journalist Samira Mohyeddin replied to a social media post from Canadian Foreign Minister Anita Anand saying her country’s government “continues to oppose the expansion of settlements,” asking, “How?”

“How do you oppose them? Sanction ISRAEL,” Mohyeddin asserted. “Those supporting the settlers are the Israeli state. Those who are arming them are the Israeli state. And it is Canadian Zionist charities that are funding them.”





Israel’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs said the country’s government “firmly rejects the disgraceful measures adopted by foreign governments against Israeli citizens, entities, and a government minister,” accusing the six nations of attempting to “impose a political stance regarding the right of Jews to settle in the Land of Israel and concerning the Israeli-Palestinian conflict—camouflaged as measures against violence.”

The ministry also blasted what it called the countries’ “resounding failure” to “combat the antisemitism that is rampant in their own countries,” adding that “anti-Israeli policies of the kind adopted today only serve to fuel that antisemitism.”

In July 2024, the International Court of Justice—where Israel is currently facing a genocide case related to the Gaza war, which has left more than 250,000 Palestinians dead or wounded—found the occupation of Palestine to be an illegal form of apartheid that must be ended as soon as possible. The ICJ also ruled that Israeli settler colonization of the West Bank amounts to annexation, also a crime under international law.

Efforts by the Israeli government, military, and settlers to expand West Bank settlement activity have accelerated dramatically since the Hamas-led attack of October 7, 2023. With the world’s attention focused on Israel’s genocidal assault on Gaza, Israeli soldiers and settlers have ramped up the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians from the occupied territory.

Attacks on West Bank Palestinians, including pogroms carried out by mobs of settlers protected and sometimes joined by Israeli troops, have killed at least 1,098 Palestinians between October 7, 2023 and May 18, according to the UN agency for Palestinian refugees. At least 240 of the slain victims were children.

Israeli settlers frequently attack Palestinian homes, businesses, and farms, and other critical infrastructure. The attackers burn homes, destroy crops, kill or steal livestock, and sometimes forcibly expel residents. Journalists who document the assaults and international activists trying to protect locals from the rampaging assailants have also been attacked.

Israel Escalating Ethnic Cleansing in West Bank ‘Before the Eyes of the Entire World’: Amnesty

“This is not the work of rogue actors,” said the human rights group’s secretary general. “What we are witnessing is deliberate, state-led annexation.”


Palestinians attempt to extinguish a fire in an agricultural field set by Israeli settlers in the town of Huwara, near Nablus, West Bank, Palestine on June 6, 2026.
(Photo by Nedal Eshtayah/Anadolu via Getty Images)

Stephen Prager
Jun 10, 2026
COMMON DREAMS

The international community is allowing the Israeli government to carry out an explicit policy of “ethnic cleansing” against Palestinians in the West Bank that is rapidly accelerating, according to a report out Wednesday from Amnesty International.

The human rights group said the world must intervene to stop what it described as a campaign of forcible displacement, rampant state-backed violence by Israeli settlers, demolitions of Palestinian homes, and tightening restrictions on Palestinian access to land and water.

Using United Nations data, Amnesty determined that at least 117 predominantly Bedouin and herding communities faced full or partial displacement between January 2023 and April 2026, with about 45 communities totally depopulated.

Nearly 6,000 people were forced from their homes during that time, roughly 17% of the Palestinian population in the Israeli-controlled Area C’s Bedouin and herding communities.




Amnesty found that Israeli authorities demolished more than 3,400 Palestinian homes and structures in Area C during that time, displacing more than 3,000 Palestinians.

The group describes this systematic displacement as explicit Israeli state policy. The government advanced plans for more than 50,000 settler housing units from 2023-25 and authorized 102 new settlements by April 2026, the largest number ever approved by an Israeli government.

This has coincided with a dramatic increase in violence by armed Israeli settlers, who have set fire to homes and farmlands, vandalized schools and agricultural equipment, cut electricity lines and dumped water tanks, and beaten and killed Palestinian residents.

The UN’s Office on the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs calculated that four settler attacks have occurred per day on average in the roughly two years following October 7, 2023, and have only grown more frequent this year, particularly after Israel and the US’s joint attack on Iran, which was followed by an invasion of Lebanon that has also entailed mass destruction of homes and the forced displacement of over a million residents.

In several documented cases, armed settler attackers have been escorted or accompanied by Israeli soldiers, who have at times taken part in the destruction.

“Over the past three and a half years, Israeli authorities have accelerated a state-sponsored campaign of ethnic cleansing in the West Bank, uprooting, dispossessing, and forcibly transferring Palestinian communities,” said Agnès Callamard, Amnesty International’s secretary general.

“This is not the work of rogue actors or what the international community has repeatedly labeled as extremist settlers, organizations or one or two ministers,” she said. “What we are witnessing is deliberate, state-led annexation, in complete violation of international law unfolding before the eyes of the entire world.”

The report comes just a day after a group of Western nations—including the UK, Canada, France, Australia, New Zealand, and Norway—announced coordinated sanctions against Israeli individuals and organizations accused of financing and enabling settler violence in the West Bank.

However, Amnesty argued that these measures were too narrow.

“These limited measures are woefully insufficient to address the state campaign of ethnic cleansing and the systemic violations that have been rapidly increasing before the eyes of the international community,” Callamard said.

She said states, “particularly those with influence over Israel,” including the US, the UK, Germany, Italy, and other European Union and Arab States, needed to “ban all trade, investment, and any form of cooperation or financial assistance that contribute to Israel’s unlawful occupation, system of apartheid, and ethnic cleansing of Palestinians.”

Callamard added that states “must impose targeted sanctions, including travel bans and asset freezes, against Israeli officials directly implicated in these acts.” She included Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and far-right settler politicians like Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich and National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, as well as settlers who have allegedly committed acts of murder, like Yinon Levi, who was filmed last year shooting and killing human rights activist Awda al-Hathaleen and was released from custody after a day.

Callamard said, “Without accountability, Palestinian communities across the West Bank will vanish before our eyes.”