Tag: news

Pakistan cricketers told to ‘prioritise country’ after poor World Cup | Cricket News

Pakistan’s cricketers have been told to prioritise country over leagues with the new director of cricket warning against signing up for T20 franchises, two weeks after the South Asian nation wrapped up its poor run at the ICC Cricket World Cup.

Pakistan, who won the 50-over tournament in 1992, lost five of its nine matches at the World Cup, including the marquee clash against hosts India, and failed to make it to the semifinals.

After the dismal run, the team’s management underwent an overhaul. Star batter Babar Azam stepped down as captain across all formats, and the coaching staff has also been replaced by the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB).

Head coach Grant Bradburn, team director Mickey Arthur and batting coach Andrew Puttick were all let go while bowling coach Morne Morkel stepped down from his role as well.

Former captain and all-rounder Mohammad Hafeez has taken over the role of team director, and former Pakistan bowlers Umar Gul and Saeed Ajmal are also part of the new-look support staff as bowling coaches.

“Every player has to understand that they should be available for Pakistan and their first priority should be to play domestic cricket in Pakistan,” a PCB spokesperson told Al Jazeera on Wednesday.

‘Prioritise playing for the country’

Ahead of Pakistan’s departure for a series against Australia and New Zealand, Hafeez urged contracted players to “prioritse playing for the country” over franchise cricket.

“Contracted players must make themselves available for the national team,” Hafeez told reporters in Lahore on Tuesday.

Hafeez, who retired from international cricket in 2021, blamed the added workload of franchise leagues as a contributing factor for Pakistan’s poor performance in recent tournaments, including the Asia Cup, where it lost to India and Sri Lanka and failed to make it to the final.

He said players have suffered from fatigue and injuries with the increased frequency of T20 leagues.

“We experienced this in the Asia Cup and World Cup, where there was talk of fatigue, or players were getting injured because their workloads were too much, or they were not performing as they should.”

PCB officials believe that if cricketers play for international leagues after declaring themselves unavailable for the national team, they are inadvertently inflicting damage on the team.

“We have to watch our interests and do what is best for the team,” Hafeez said at the press conference.

According to the PCB, contracted players who were not selected for upcoming tours have been asked to play in the ongoing domestic T20 competition and for their first-class teams instead of searching for opportunities in the Abu Dhabi-based T10 League or other franchise tournaments.

Rauf was fit but chose not to play for Pakistan

Hafeez was questioned about PCB’s decision to deny fast bowler Haris Rauf the NOC (no objection certificate) to join his Melbourne Stars franchise in the upcoming Big Bash League in Australia after he declined to be part of Pakistan’s Test squad for Australia.

Rauf was expected to play in the three-match series, but he pulled out before the squad was announced on November 20 despite confirming his availability two days earlier.

“He [Rauf] told the chief selector [Wahab Riaz] that he wanted to play Test cricket but pulled out the following day,” Hafeez explained.

Riaz, who announced the squad, said Rauf changed his mind because he was “worried about his fitness and workload”. The PCB’s medical panel had declared him fit for the Test series.

Hafeez said Rauf seems reluctant to play the longest format of the game but added that the fast bowler was offered a contract with the understanding that he will “be available for Pakistan across all formats”.

It is not certain whether Rauf’s contract will be downgraded based on his decision, but Hafeez reiterated that the board’s NOC policy will be based on “what Pakistan needs”.

“It can never be the case that players treat [T20] leagues as first priority and Pakistan as second.

“If there is an opportunity that they can play [franchise cricket], that will be definitely considered.”

Rauf has not commented on his decision to opt out of the Test series.

The PCB declined Al Jazeera’s request to speak to the player and team director, citing its “no media interviews” policy during bilateral series and international tournaments.



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US says climate change threatens wolverines with extinction | Wildlife News

The North American wolverine will receive long-delayed federal protections under a Biden administration proposal released on Wednesday in response to scientists warning that climate change will likely melt away the rare species’ snowy mountain refuges.

Across most of the United States, wolverines were wiped out by the early 1900s from unregulated trapping and poisoning campaigns. About 300 surviving animals in the contiguous US live in fragmented, isolated groups at high elevations.

In the coming decades, warming temperatures are expected to shrink the mountain snowpack wolverines rely on to dig dens where they birth and raise their young.

The decision Wednesday by the US Fish and Wildlife Service follows more than two decades of disputes over the risks of climate change, and threats to the long-term survival of the elusive species.

The animals resemble a small bear and are the world’s largest species of terrestrial weasels. They are sometimes called “mountain devils” for their ability to thrive in harsh alpine environments.

Protections were rejected under former President Donald Trump. A federal judge in 2022 ordered the administration of President Joe Biden to make a final decision this week on whether to seek protections.

A wolverine in Montana’s Glacier National Park [File: Jeff Copeland/Glacier National Park/The Missoulian via AP]

In Montana, Republican lawmakers urged the Biden administration to delay its decision, claiming the scientists’ estimates were not accurate enough to make a fair call about the dangers faced by wolverines. The lawmakers, led by hard-right conservative Representative Matt Rosendale, warned that protections could lead to future restrictions on activities allowed in wolverine habitats, including snowmobiling and skiing.

In September, government scientists conceded some uncertainty about how quickly mountain snowpacks could melt in areas with wolverines. But they said habitat loss due to climate change — combined with other problems such as increased development like houses and roads — will likely harm wolverine populations in decades to come.

“The best available information suggests that habitat loss as a result of climate change and other stressors are likely to impact the viability of wolverines in the contiguous US through the remainder of this century,” they concluded.

The scientists added that some of those losses could be offset if wolverines are able to recolonise areas such as California’s Sierra Nevada and Colorado’s Rocky Mountains.

Environmentalists argued in a 2020 lawsuit against the Fish and Wildlife Service that wolverines face localised extinction from climate change, habitat fragmentation and low genetic diversity.

Wolverine populations that are still breeding live in remote areas of Montana, Wyoming, Idaho and Washington state. In recent years, individual animals have been documented in California, Utah, Colorado and Oregon.

The wildlife service received a petition to protect wolverines in 2000 and the agency recommended protections in 2010. The Obama administration proposed protections and later sought to withdraw them but was blocked by a federal judge who said in 2016 that the snow-dependent animals were “squarely in the path of climate change.”

Protections were rejected in 2020 under Trump, based on research suggesting the animals’ prevalence was expanding, not contracting. Federal wildlife officials at the time predicted that despite warming temperatures, enough snow would persist at high elevations for wolverines to den in mountain snowfields each spring.

They reversed course in a revised analysis published in September that said wolverines were “less secure than we described”.

The animals need immense expanses of wildland to survive, with home ranges for adult male wolverines covering as much as 610 square miles (1,580sq kilometres), according to a study in central Idaho.

They also need protection from trapping, according to scientists. Wolverine populations in southwestern Canada plummeted by more than 40 percent over the past two decades due to overharvesting by trappers, which could have effects across the US border, scientists said.

Wolverine trapping was once legal in states including Montana. They are still sometimes caught inadvertently by trappers targeting other fur-bearing animals.

At least 10 wolverines have been accidentally captured in Montana since trapping was restricted in 2012. Three were killed and the others were released unharmed. In Idaho, trappers have accidentally captured 11 wolverines since 1995, including three that were killed.

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‘Save what remains of Gaza’, hospital director says, amid bombing | Israel-Palestine conflict News


Khan Younis, Gaza Strip – Ahmed Isleem wishes he were dead.

The 35-year-old’s wife and daughter were killed along with 10 other family members and neighbours in an Israeli attack on their home. He lies on a bed in the European Gaza Hospital in the southern city of Khan Younis, surrounded by sounds of other patients moaning and crying out in pain.

Isleem was pulled out from under the rubble of his home last month.

“I cannot believe that I am still alive,” he says. “Getting out from under the rubble was very difficult. I wished I had been martyred with my family instead of the suffering and pain I am experiencing now.”

Isleem suffered multiple shrapnel injuries on different parts of his body including his abdomen, and underwent surgery on his digestive system and another operation to insert platinum in his foot after it was broken.

“There is no safety, no treatment, nothing,” he says. “I cannot bear my pain and the screams of the other injured people around me as well.”

Due to the lack of fuel and medical supplies and the Israeli targeting of hospitals, the healthcare system in the Gaza Strip has all but collapsed. And as hospitals in northern Gaza and Gaza City have been rendered out of service, the burden on the few functional hospitals in the central and southern parts of the enclave has increased.

The European Gaza Hospital receives dozens of Palestinians killed and wounded on a daily basis, some of them referrals from other overwhelmed hospitals. It is also a place of shelter for displaced people, despite the lack of provisions.

Khawla Abu Daqqa, 40, is from the eastern Khan Younis area, near the Israeli fence which has been targeted frequently by bombings and artillery shelling. She fled with her five children to the hospital, saying she had no choice.

“Where do we go? We have no shelter,” she says. “Everything is difficult here, from finding food, water and even sleep. I wish I could sleep at least five hours a day. I cannot sleep or rest. I hope this war will stop for everyone.”

‘Extreme fatigue’

In a conversation with Al Jazeera, the director of the European Gaza Hospital, Dr Youssef al-Aqqad, says that displaced people – who come from all over the Gaza Strip – are having to find space wherever they can in the hospital: at the doors of patient rooms, in the corridors, on the stairs, and in the hospital garden.

“These displaced people need services, including food, water and electricity,” he says. “We also feel very concerned about the Israeli army targeting hospitals. This is an abnormal and terrifying thing for patients and displaced people as well.”

Al-Aqqad says dozens of wounded people arrive on a daily basis from the cities of Rafah and Khan Younis.

As a result, the number of infections is on the rise and has exceeded the capacity that the hospital can handle. Al-Aqqad says a field hospital has been set up in the Ras Naqoura School, which is adjacent to the hospital’s eastern wing and where patients with moderate or minor infections are treated.

“This is not an easy matter, but rather very complicated because the schools are not equipped and suitable to receive infected people and there is no medical equipment and devices there,” he says. “Furthermore, our medical staff is already stretched thin and have to follow up here and there, which had led to extreme fatigue.”

The hospital has 450 wounded patients. Some of them, he says, require multiple specialist doctors — such as a neurosurgeon, a vascular doctor, an orthopaedic doctor for broken bones, and another expert for burns.

The medical staff are exhausted from the non-stop work, and the volunteers who assist them have little to no experience.

“We need specialised doctors to work in intensive care rooms, operations and delicate surgical specialities,” al-Aqqad says. “We have reached a difficult stage in health services, and we feel that we are giving beyond our strength and ability to save the injured and try to treat them.”

‘Experiencing the worst of it all’

At least 26 out of the 35 hospitals in the Gaza Strip are not functioning due to the lack of fuel and attacks by the Israeli army.

In the northern Gaza Strip, the Indonesian Hospital has been bombed repeatedly by the Israeli army, which also ordered the evacuation of doctors and the wounded. This forced the Ministry of Health in Gaza to distribute the injured to hospitals in the central and southern Gaza Strip, including the European Gaza Hospital.

Medical equipment is scattered outside the emergency ward of the Indonesian Hospital at the edge of the Jabalia refugee camp in the northern Gaza Strip, after Israeli troops reportedly raided the medical facility, on November 24, 2023 [AFP]

Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital is also under great pressure, after exceeding its capacity to receive people wounded in the Israeli attacks on towns and refugee camps in the central Gaza Strip, including Deir el-Balah, Nuseirat and Bureij.

Al-Aqqad urges international health and human rights organisations to intervene to stop “this hideous war” on Gaza.

“I have never seen in my life hospitals that are besieged and bombed out of service and forced to discharge patients to leave their hospital beds before completing their recovery process,” he says. “What we are experiencing is the worst of all. Save what remains of the people of Gaza.”

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How Parthenon sculptures sparked a diplomatic row between Greece and UK | News

The UK prime minister cancelled a scheduled meeting with his Greek counterpart after Athens demanded permanent return of ancient sculptures.

Britain’s Prime Minister Rishi Sunak has cancelled a planned meeting with his Greek counterpart Kyriakos Mitsotakis, sparking a diplomatic row over the status of the 2,500-year-old Parthenon sculptures housed in the British Museum.

Greece has repeatedly asked for their permanent return to Athens, while the United Kingdom and the museum have refused to do so.

Here is what we know about the ongoing dispute that has triggered a social media storm in Greece:

What was the UK-Greece dispute about this time?

  • According to reports, the decision to cancel the UK prime minister’s meeting came after Mitsotakis told British broadcaster BBC that the Parthenon sculptures had been stolen and should be returned.
  • “If I told you that you would cut the Mona Lisa in half, and you will have half of it at the Louvre and half of it at the British Museum, do you think your viewers would appreciate the beauty of the painting?” Mitsotakis said in the interview.
  • The Greek government was told about the cancellation of the meeting at about 18:00 GMT, when Mitsotakis’s meeting with Keir Starmer, leader of the opposition Labour Party, was ending, according to a report by Bloomberg.
  • In a statement, Mitsotakis said he was dismayed that the meeting was cancelled. “Greece’s positions on the issue of the Parthenon Sculptures are well known,” he said in a release.
  • “I was hoping to have the opportunity to discuss them with my British counterpart as well, along with the major challenges of the international situation: Gaza, Ukraine, Climate crisis, migration,” the release added.
  • On Wednesday Mitsotakis also said this will not necessarily affect the relationship in the long term. “It is a relationship with historical depth.”

What are the Parthenon sculptures in dispute?

  • The Parthenon sculptures consist of more than 30 ancient stone sculptures from Greece dating back more than 2,000 years. They are held in the British Museum.
  • They are original parts of the temple dedicated to the goddess Athena, in the iconic Parthenon, completed in 432 BC as the crowning glory of Athens’s Golden Age.
  • London holds 17 pedimental figures and 15 panels.
  • The panels show scenes from Greek mythology. One of those stretches for 75 metres (247 feet) and shows a procession for the birthday of the goddess Athena.
Greece has repeatedly asked for the sculptures’ permanent return to Athens, while the UK and the museum have refused to do so [File: Toby Melville/Reuters]
  • All survived mostly intact despite war, earthquakes, foreign invasions and the temple’s makeover first as a church and then as a mosque under the Ottoman rulers. But in 1687, the Parthenon was blown up by a besieging Venetian army, and many of the works were lost.
  • “Of the 50 percent of the original sculptures that survive, about half are in the British Museum and half in Athens,” according to information on the British Museum webpage.
  • For decades, these were known as the Elgin Marbles, after the Scottish nobleman who took them more than 200 years ago. Now even the British Museum goes by the preferred Greek form – Parthenon sculptures.

Why are the Parthenon sculptures important?

  • Ancient Greek sculpture has been admired for millennia, serving as a key artistic point of reference. For many, Parthenon sculptures are its most striking example.
  • They form a coherent group designed and executed by top artists – the Leonardo da Vincis of the day – for a single building project meant to celebrate the height of Athenian glory.
Sections of a Greek temple that form part of the Parthenon sculptures [File: Toby Melville/Reuters]

How did they end up in the British Museum?

  • More than a century after the destructive explosion, British ambassador to the Ottoman Empire – of which Athens was still a part – Lord Elgin obtained a permit to remove some of the sculptures.
  • They were shipped to the UK and eventually joined the British Museum’s collection in 1816 – five years before the uprising that created an independent Greece.
A media representative films sections of the Parthenon sculpture [File: Toby Melville/Reuters]

What is Greece’s stance?

  • Athens has called for the permanent return of the treasures since its independence from the Ottoman Empire in 1832. It has accused Elgin of theft.
  • But the campaign became a major issue in 1983 when Greek Oscar-nominated actress Melina Mercouri, launched an official campaign for their return when she was culture minister during 1981-89.
  • The UK was irritated with the campaign but “staff were worried that Mercouri was winning the debate”, declassified documents on the spat said.
  • Mercouri argued that the Marbles “are an integral part of a monument that represents the national spirit of Greece”. The officials in the UK foreign office concluded that Mercouri “won the argument hands down”.
  • In her first declaration to British authorities, she wrote: “You must understand what the Parthenon Marbles mean to us. They are our pride. They are our sacrifices. They are the essence of Greekness.”
Then-Minister of Culture Melina Mercouri during the inauguration of the ‘Acropolis’ exhibition at UNESCO in Paris on February 10, 1986 [File: AFP]
  • In September 2019, Mitsotakis suggested Athens would be willing to loan antiquities to the British Museum in return for being able to temporarily exhibit them. Greece said the proposal did not alter its longstanding demand for their permanent return.
  • In December 2022, Greece said it was in talks with the UK over the repatriation of the sculptures to Athens but a deal was not imminent.

What’s the UK’s stance?

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Pro-Palestine Facebook post sparks CIA warning | Social Media News

The incident illustrates the deep divisions that the war in Gaza has opened up within US government institutions.

The CIA has stressed to its officers that they should refrain from political statements on social media after one of its top officers shared a pro-Palestinian photo on Facebook.

The intelligence agency’s associate deputy director for analysis changed their Facebook cover photo to a man waving a Palestinian flag on October 21, two weeks after Israel launched an all-out offensive against Palestinian group Hamas, the Financial Times reported.

The officer reportedly deleted the post, along with another previously shared image with the words “Free Palestine”, after being contacted by the media.

The agency has since sent out an internal memo reiterating its policy against political messaging on social media, NBC News reported.

The CIA is the US’s top foreign intelligence agency, responsible for delivering intelligence and analysis to the president.

The official at the centre of the recent social media incident previously led the development of a top-secret document titled the President’s Daily Brief, the Financial Times reported.

Posting politically charged content on social media is highly unusual for officials with such sensitive intelligence roles.

Deep divisions

The social media post from the senior CIA officer underlines deep divisions within the US government over President Joe Biden’s handling of the Israel-Hamas war, which has killed some 15,000 Palestinians and left much of the besieged Gaza Strip in ruins.

While Biden has offered staunch backing to Israel’s government, despite the mounting death toll, hundreds of government officials and former campaign staffers have signed open letters urging him to lobby for a ceasefire to protect Palestinians.

The social media incident also comes after other US government officials faced backlash for their public comments about the Gaza war.

Last week, a former US State Department official was arrested after videos of him harassing a halal food vendor in New York and calling for more Palestinian children to die went viral on social media.

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How rat miners rescued workers from Indian tunnel after 17 days | Construction News

EXPLAINER

After machines broke down, rat miners successfully rescued 41 workers trapped in India’s Uttarakhand tunnel.

Forty-one construction workers. Seventeen days. A nation’s hopes.

On Tuesday, rescue workers managed to bring India a dose of good news, saving 41 men who had been trapped under a collapsed tunnel in India’s Himalayan Uttarakhand state since November 12.

But after days of attempts, it wasn’t just high-tech tools that brought success — a team of so-called rat miners, practicing a craft that’s officially illegal, proved saviours too.

Here’s how the workers were rescued.

What happened to the Uttarakhand tunnel?

The under-construction Silkyara Bend-Barkot tunnel collapsed in Uttarakhand early morning on November 12. Low-wage construction workers, mostly from other northern and eastern Indian states, were consequently trapped in a 4.5km (3-mile) space underground.

The tunnel was part of Indian PM Narendra Modi’s ambitious, $1.5m Char Dham pilgrimage program which aims to connect four Hindu pilgrimage sites.

Authorities did not confirm the exact reason for the tunnel caving in, but the region is prone to landslides, earthquakes and floods. Geologist CP Rajendran told Al Jazeera that the Himalayan terrain contains highly fragile rock and is “constantly plagued by stability issues”.

Additionally, the tunnel did not have emergency exits and was constructed through a geological fault, a member of a panel of experts investigating the disaster told Reuters.

How did the rescue unfold?

Even though contact was established with the men in the tunnel a day after the collapse, rescue operations faced several roadblocks that delayed the process.

Excavator teams deployed heavy auger machines to dig both vertically and horizontally through the debris. The first drilling machine broke down after developing snags, halting the operation until a second machine was brought in. However, after horizontally drilling about three-quarters worth of debris, the second machine also broke down.

After this, six miners from central India were tasked with drilling through the remaining rock with hand-held drills late on Monday, using a technique known as rat mining.

In an effort that took over 24 hours, the miners worked in two teams of three each, with one person drilling, the second collecting the debris and the third pushing it out of the pipe.

The rescue was successful on Tuesday evening when all the workers were retrieved from the tunnel, as they were wheeled out by rescuers on stretchers through a 90cm (3 feet) wide steel pipe.

“When we saw them inside the tunnel after the breakthrough, we hugged them like they were family,” said Nasir Hussain, one of the six miners.

The technique of manual drilling that finally rescued the workers is known as rat mining.

 

What is rat mining?

Rat mining or rat-hole mining is the process of narrow tunnel excavation by manually digging through.

The technique earns its name from its resemblance to rats burrowing holes into the ground. The practice was commonly used in the northeastern state of Meghalaya where the holes were typically just big enough for the workers to descend and extract thin seams of coal. For this reason, children were usually tasked with this job.

The lack of ventilation and safety measures brought controversy to the method, which was banned by an environmental court in 2014.

But the practice has continued to exist in the largely unorganised mining sector.

At least 15 miners were killed in one such mine in Meghalaya after being trapped for more than a month until January 2019. Rights groups say 10,000 to 15,000 have died in such mines between 2007 and 2014.

However, some of the miners in the rescue operation said they got their training in Delhi and were not coal miners.

Uttarakhand’s Chief Minister Pushkar Singh Dhami, met some of the workers before they were taken to hospital, presenting them with traditional marigold garlands. Ambulances and helicopters were on standby at the entrance of the tunnel. Sweets were distributed and firecrackers were set off in celebration.

Despite the deployment of ambulances for the construction workers, “Their condition is first-class and absolutely fine … just like yours or mine. There is no tension about their health,” said Wakil Hassan, a rescue team leader.

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Hamas invites Elon Musk to Gaza to witness ‘massacres and destruction’ | Israel-Palestine conflict News

As Palestinians take stock of the devastation wreaked by Israel’s military, Hamas says the world should do the same.

Hamas has invited Elon Musk to witness in person the scope of the violence and devastation heaped upon the Gaza Strip by Israel.

The invitation from senior Hamas official Osama Hamdan came on Tuesday. The previous day, the tech billionaire, who owns social media platform X, had visited a kibbutz targeted by Hamas gunmen during the October 7 attack and declared his commitment to do whatever was necessary to stop the spread of hatred.

Hamdan called on Musk, who recently met Israel’s prime minister and president, to also visit Palestine and acquire a more rounded perspective.

“We invite him to visit Gaza to see the extent of the massacres and destruction committed against the people of Gaza, in compliance with the standards of objectivity and credibility,” Hamdan said in a press conference in Beirut.

“Within 50 days, Israel dropped more than 40,000 tonnes of explosives on the homes of defenceless Gazans,” the official added.

Musk has recently faced criticism  that his social media platform is rife with anti-Semitism and white nationalist rhetoric promoting violence and hatred.

During his visit to Israel, the social media and technology mogul expressed shock upon seeing the decimated kibbutz of Kfar Aza, saying that Israel had “no choice” but to eliminate Hamas.

Musk also struck an agreement under which “Starlink satellite units [would] only be operated in Israel with the approval of the Israeli Ministry of Communications, including the Gaza Strip,” a sharp turn from his previous musing that he could provide Starlink to enhance communications in Gaza amid numerous telecommunications blackouts.

The Hamas official also called upon the US “to review [its] relationship with Israel and to stop supplying them with weapons,” and for the international community to quickly send specialised civil defence teams to help retrieve thousands of bodies from beneath the rubble.

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LGBTQ advocates cheer Thailand’s latest drive for same-sex marriage law | LGBTQ News

Bangkok, Thailand – Somphat Satanavat has big plans for his wedding day.

He has started looking for just the right hotel for the banquet, something in a neoclassical or colonial style. He knows the type of traditional Thai music he wants played and pondered the guest list.

But as a gay man in Thailand, where the law says that marriage must be between a man and a woman, it is still just a dream for him and his partner of 25 years.

For now, Somphat said, “I [am] planning just in my mind.”

That may soon change.

Last week the cabinet of the Thai government endorsed a bill that would amend the country’s Civil and Commercial Code to define marriage as between any two “individuals”.

If approved by Parliament, it would make Thailand the first country in Southeast Asia to legalise same-sex marriage and only the second in all of Asia, after Taiwan.

The government is hoping to move quickly and to hold the first of three votes the bill will need to pass to become law by next month.

“The prime minister [wants to] push [it] very much. He wants to see this bill appear in the Parliament debate as soon as possible,” government spokesperson Chai Watcharong told Al Jazeera.

If and when approved, “all legal rights after they marry will be 100 percent like man and woman,” he said.

“We consider that there is no reason to say no because people should have the right to decide their own way of living. Even though they are male and male, they love each other…so they should have the right,” he added.

Thailand has been here before

The previous two administrations each sponsored a same-sex union or marriage bill of their own. But they failed to make it out of the lower house before Parliament was dissolved to make way for national elections, setting the process back to square one each time.

LGBTQ rights advocates say this is the best chance Thailand has had yet to get the law passed.

Thailand’s current government is only months into a four-year mandate, which allows plenty of time to push the bill through barring a sudden coup or collapse. Major parties on both sides of the aisle are also in favour of the legislation.

Rapeepun Jommaroeng, an adviser and policy analyst for the Rainbow Sky Association of Thailand, which advocates for LGBTQ rights, expects pushback from some religious groups, mainly from the predominantly Buddhist country’s Christian and Muslim minorities. But, he says, they are unlikely to derail the bill.

“The country has been clear that we will not force any religious leaders or priests or monks to perform the [same-sex] marriage ceremony,” Rapeepun said.

“This law is not about forcing people to do things they don’t want to. This is purposefully broad to enable people to have equality,” he said.

“It’s just only to give the liberty and freedom for two people to be united.”

LGBTQ couples attend same-sex marriage registration at a department store in Thailand’s capital Bangkok after legislators passed at first reading of four different bills on same-sex unions in June 2022 [Athit Perawongmetha/Reuters]

Rapeepun passage of the bill will also be eased by the fact that Thailand allows Islamic law to replace some national laws – except those dealing with defence or security – for Muslims who live in the southernmost provinces, where they are in the majority. That should make the Civil and Commercial Code, and any amendments, inapplicable to southern Muslims.

Chai, the government spokesperson, confirmed to Al Jazeera that the code does not apply to Muslims in those provinces.

For the rest of the country, the LGBTQ community say the bill portends a new dawn for Thailand, one that promises to bring them a greater sense of respect, equality and freedom to be themselves.

If passed, “it means that the country has progressed to another level of civil liberty or civil freedom to recognize the diversity in Thai society,” Rapeepun said.

“This is a time that they can celebrate and they can be themselves and they don’t need to lie any more.”

It can literally mean the difference between life and death, says Tunyawat Kamolwongwat, who was among the first four openly LGBTQ lawmakers elected to Thailand’s Parliament in 2019.

Re-elected this past May, he recalled a trip to the north of the country last year, when a young woman approached him to share the story of a close friend, who was gay, driven to suicide by his family’s rejection.

“He decided to kill himself because his family [did] not accept his life[style]. She told me that story and I [was] crying, and I think it will [soon] change so people can come out,” Tunyawat said.

Tunyawat said recognition of same-sex marriage would give LGBTQ people a voice they had long been denied.

“We can stand up and talk to the one who bullies us that I’m a human because we all have equal rights.”

LGBTQ couple take photos of each other on a rainbow flag-themed path during pride month at Sam Yan MRT station in Bangkok, Thailand in 2021 [Soe Zeya Tun/Reuters]

The law would also allow same-sex couples to adopt children and open up a raft of other opportunities reserved for those who are married.

“It’s not only marriage status, to announce that they are a couple by law. But another thing is it’s related to social welfare and social services and other benefits combined with the law,” said Kath Khangpiboon, a trans woman and advocate who teaches gender studies at Thailand’s Thammasat University.

The benefits include tax deductions and the right for spouses to give each other medical consent, co-manage property and pass on wealth.

Such issues have weighed heavy on the mind of Somphat, who owns a confectionary company and worries about being able to pass on his stake in the operation to his life and business partner if he should die, or about his partner being denied to right to make medical decisions for him should he ever slip into a coma.

For LGBTQ employees of the government, marriage would also give them newfound access to a suite of public health benefits.

Most Thais seem ready

Somphat recalled a friend, a trans woman, who teaches at a government school whose partner needed thousands of dollars to pay for medical care to treat a life-threatening illness.

Because they could not get married, Somphat recounted, the woman could not add her partner to her health plan and they could not afford the treatment, and he died.

“I don’t want just to exchange the rings, have a beautiful day with flowers, with friends,” Somphat said. “We need … our country’s law [to] accept what I am,” he said.

Should Parliament pass the bill, advocates say the law can finally start catching up with Thailand’s image as a country that accepts, even embraces the LGBTQ community.

A 2022 survey by the government’s National Institute of Development Administration found that nearly 80 percent of those polled supported legalizing same-sex marriage.

Advocates blame the lack of progress to date on such a law on the outsize influence of conservative political donors or on the military, which aligns itself with the country’s deeply conservative monarchy and wields significant political power itself, whether directly or via proxy parties.

Rapeepun also ascribed the delay to pressure from some of Thailand’s neighbours.

In Southeast Asia, Brunei and Malaysia, both Muslim-majority countries, and Myanmar all outlaw gay or lesbian sex. He hopes Thailand will soon become a “beacon” of hope for those pining for change elsewhere, or at least a haven for those seeking respite from persecution for their sexual orientation.

Somphat is eager for the day that happens.

“The first day, if possible, I will go to the government office and sign up to get married,” he said.

Then, he added, “I can tell anyone, by the law he’s my husband… I think it will be a very happy time.”

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Group stages ‘die-ins’ across Washington, DC, to raise awareness for Gaza | Israel-Palestine conflict News

Washington, DC – Julia Fawzi Saeed Al-Kurd was one year old. She was killed along with several members of her family in an Israeli air raid on Deir al-Balah in central Gaza on October 11.

Her name appeared in local reports on the day of the bombing and later on a list of people killed in Israeli attacks, released by the Palestinian health ministry in Gaza.

As with thousands of other Palestinians who have been wiped out in the Israeli offensive, little is publicly known about Julia beyond her death.

Had she uttered her first word? Did she take her first step? What was her favourite toy? What lullaby did her parents sing to put her to sleep?

But in Washington, DC, some activists are trying to keep the memory of children like Julia alive, with a provocative reminder of the young lives lost during the war in Gaza.

On a chilly Sunday morning in the Capitol Hill neighbourhood, the activists protested silently, passing out leaflets to passersby. At their feet were a row of small figures wrapped in white shrouds, each splattered in blood — and each bearing the name of a real child killed in Gaza. Julia’s name was on one of them.

“We are witnessing a genocide in Gaza. End the injustice NOW,” the flyer read, urging a ceasefire and an end to United States military support for Israel.

White body bags depict victims of the war in Gaza at a silent protest in Washington, DC, on November 26 [Ali Harb/Al Jaeera]

The protest was one of daily demonstrations across the Washington area led by an informal group called Die-in for Humanity.

Hazami Barmada organised the protests in an effort to break through pre-conceived notions about the Gaza war, with stark reminders of the humanity of those under siege. Barmada, who is of Palestinian and Syrian descent, estimates the group has handed out more than 14,000 flyers so far.

“The reality is our social media turns into echo chambers and people read the news they want to read,” she said. “So we go into places where your average person is walking around and try to provoke deeper questions and reflections on what’s happening and more awareness about what’s happening to Palestinians.”

Israeli attacks have killed more than 15,000 Palestinians since October 7, making the war one of the deadliest conflicts for civilians and children in modern history.

Where possible, Barmada and her fellow volunteers lie on the ground during protests to mirror the bodies of Palestinians killed in Israeli raids.

“We really hope that people will stop and actually start to question the toll of war, the toll of endorsing this with our tax dollars,” Barmada told Al Jazeera, referring to Washington’s military aid to Israel.

She said the protesters want to make people feel “uncomfortable within a controlled environment” in order to spark meaningful conversations.

“It’s really easy to see statistics online and to divorce yourself from it,” Barmada said.

“Our goal is when someone walks by with their own kids, when you see body bags with children’s names and ages written on them that are the same age as your kids, it provokes a different type of emotional reaction.”

The group has held so-called die-in protests at the White House, State Department and various neighbourhoods throughout the US capital.

Part of the group’s goal is to prompt questions about the US role in the conflict. President Joe Biden and his top aides have expressed staunch support for Israel and Washington has not drawn any “red lines” to limit how Israel can use the military aid it receives, according to officials.

Israel, which leading rights groups accuse of imposing apartheid on Palestinians, receives at least $3.8bn in US aid annually, and Biden is seeking $14bn in additional assistance for the country this year.

Barmada called Biden’s stance disappointing, saying that the war will be a “stain” on his legacy.

“Their handling of this entire issue has not only fuelled fear-mongering, it’s also dehumanised Palestinians. It’s also fuelled animosity and hatred,” she said.

On Capitol Hill on Sunday, many pedestrians nodded approvingly at the protesters or gave them a thumbs up. But Barmada said the reactions were not always positive.

Just a day earlier, the protesters faced a profanity-laden, racist tirade from a woman who accused them of terrorism and told Barmada to “go back to whatever f***ing country” she came from. A video of that interaction has gone viral on social media.

Barmada said she tries to absorb such anger and hatred without reacting to it.

She told Al Jazeera that she started the die-ins after seeing footage of a Palestinian mother whispering in her dead child’s ear in Gaza. It reminded her of how she puts her own child to sleep.

“All I could imagine in that moment was: What would I do if that was my son?” she said, struggling to hold back the tears.

Barmada added that her sorrow made her spring into action.

“There was no conscious decision. There was no process or plan. It was in that moment of deep despair, I couldn’t unsee my own child. And if I can get people here to see their own children, if I can get people here to see their own humanity tied to these body bags, then that to me is a success.”

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