New world news from Time: In China’s Xinjiang, Forced Medication Accompanies Coronavirus Lockdown

(BEIJING) – When police arrested the middle-aged Uighur woman at the height of China’s coronavirus outbreak, she was crammed into a cell with dozens of other women in a detention center.

There, she said, she was forced to drink a medicine that made her feel weak and nauseous, guards watching as she gulped. She and the others also had to strip naked once a week and cover their faces as guards hosed them and their cells down with disinfectant “like firemen,” she said.

“It was scalding,” recounted the woman by phone from Xinjiang, declining to be named out of fear of retribution. “My hands were ruined, my skin was peeling.”

The government in China’s far northwest Xinjiang region is resorting to draconian measures to combat the coronavirus, including physically locking residents in homes, imposing quarantines of more than 40 days and arresting those who do not comply. Furthermore, in what experts call a breach of medical ethics, some residents are being coerced into swallowing traditional Chinese medicine, according to government notices, social media posts and interviews with three people in quarantine in Xinjiang.

There is a lack of rigorous clinical data showing traditional Chinese medicine works against the virus, and one of the herbal remedies used in Xinjiang, Qingfei Paidu, includes ingredients banned in Germany, Switzerland, the U.S. and other countries for high levels of toxins and carcinogens.

The latest grueling lockdown, now in its 45th day, comes in response to 826 cases reported in Xinjiang since mid-July, China’s largest caseload since the initial outbreak. But the Xinjiang lockdown is especially striking because of its severity, and because there hasn’t been a single new case of local transmission in over a week.

Harsh lockdowns have been imposed elsewhere in China, most notably in Wuhan in Hubei province, where the virus was first detected. But though Wuhan grappled with over 50,000 cases and Hubei with 68,000 in all, many more than in Xinjiang, residents there weren’t forced to take traditional medicine and were generally allowed outdoors within their compounds for exercise or grocery deliveries.

The response to an outbreak of more than 300 cases in Beijing in early June was milder still, with a few select neighborhoods locked down for a few weeks. In contrast, more than half of Xinjiang’s 25 million people are under a lockdown that extends hundreds of miles from the center of the outbreak in the capital, Urumqi, according to an AP review of government notices and state media reports.

Even as Wuhan and the rest of China has mostly returned to ordinary life, Xinjiang’s lockdown is backed by a vast surveillance apparatus that has turned the region into a digital police state. Over the past three years, Xinjiang authorities have swept a million or more Uighurs, Kazakhs and other ethnic minorities into various forms of detention, including extrajudicial internment camps, under a widespread security crackdown.

After being detained for over a month, the Uighur woman was released and locked into her home. Conditions are now better, she told the AP, but she is still under lockdown, despite regular tests showing she is free of the virus.

Once a day, she says, community workers force traditional medicine in white unmarked bottles on her, saying she’ll be detained if she doesn’t drink them. The AP saw photos of the bottles, which match those in images from another Xinjiang resident and others circulating on Chinese social media.

Authorities say the measures taken are for the well-being of all residents, though they haven’t commented on why they are harsher than those taken elsewhere. The Chinese government has struggled for decades to control Xinjiang, at times clashing violently with many of the region’s native Uighurs, who resent Beijing’s heavy-handed rule.

“The Xinjiang Autonomous Region upheld the principle of people and life first….and guaranteed the safety and health of local people of all ethnic groups,” Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesman Zhao Lijian said at a press briefing Friday.

Xinjiang authorities can carry out the harsh measures, experts say, because of its lavishly funded security apparatus, which by some estimates deploys the most police per capita of anywhere on the planet.

“Xinjiang is a police state, so it’s basically martial law,” says Darren Byler, a researcher on the Uighurs at the University of Colorado. “They think Uighurs can’t really police themselves, they have to be forced to comply in order for a quarantine to be effective.”

Not all the recent outbreak measures in Xinjiang are targeted at the Uighurs and other largely Muslim minorities. Some are being enforced on China’s majority Han residents in Xinjiang as well, though they are generally spared the extrajudicial detention used against minorities. This month, thousands of Xinjiang residents took to social media to complain about what they called excessive measures against the virus in posts that are often censored, some with images of residents handcuffed to railings and front doors sealed with metal bars.

One Han Chinese woman with the last name of Wang posted photos of herself drinking traditional Chinese medicine in front of a medical worker in full protective gear.

“Why are you forcing us to drink medicine when we’re not sick!” she asked in a Aug. 18 post that was swiftly deleted. “Who will take responsibility if there’s problems after drinking so much medicine? Why don’t we even have the right to protect our own health?”

A few days later she simply wrote: “I’ve lost all hope. I cry when I think about it.”

After the heavy criticism, the authorities eased some restrictions last week, now allowing some residents to walk in their compounds, and a limited few to leave the region after a bureaucratic approval process.

Wang did not respond to a request for interviews. But her account is in line with many others posted on social media, as well as those interviewed by the AP.

One Han businessman working between Urumqi and Beijing told the AP he was put in quarantine in mid-July. Despite having taken coronavirus tests five times and testing negative each time, he said, the authorities still haven’t let him out – not for so much as a walk. When he’s complained about his condition online, he said, he’s had his posts deleted and been told to stay silent.

“The most terrible thing is silence,” he wrote on Chinese social media site Weibo in mid-August. “After a long silence, you will fall into the abyss of hopelessness.”

“I’ve been in this room for so long, I don’t remember how long. I just want to forget,” he wrote again, days later. “I’m writing out my feelings to reassure myself I still exist. I fear I’ll be forgotten by the world.”

“I’m falling apart,” he told the AP more recently, declining to be named out of fear of retribution.

He, too, is being forced to take Chinese traditional medicine, he said, including liquid from the same unmarked white bottles as the Uighur woman. He is also forced to take Lianhua Qingwen, a herbal remedy seized regularly by U.S. Customs and Border patrol for violating FDA laws by falsely claiming to be effective against COVID-19.

Since the start of the outbreak, the Chinese government has pushed traditional medicine on its population. The remedies are touted by President Xi Jinping, China’s nationalist, authoritarian leader, who has advocated a revival of traditional Chinese culture. Although some state-backed doctors say they have conducted trials showing the medicine works against the virus, no rigorous clinical data supporting that claim has been published in international scientific journals.

“None of these medicines have been scientifically proven to be effective and safe,” said Fang Shimin, a former biochemist and writer known for his investigations of scientific fraud in China who now lives in the United States. “It’s unethical to force people, sick or healthy, to take unproven medicines.”

When the virus first started spreading, thousands flooded pharmacies in Hubei province searching for traditional remedies after state media promoted their effectiveness against the virus. Packs of pills were tucked into care packages sent to Chinese workers and students overseas, some emblazoned with the Chinese flag, others reading: “The motherland will forever firmly back you up”.

But the new measures in Xinjiang forcing some residents to take the medicine is unprecedented, experts say. The government says that the participation rate in traditional Chinese medicine treatment in the region has “reached 100%”, according to a state media report. When asked about resident complaints that they were being forced to take Chinese medicine, one local official said it was being done “according to expert opinion.”

“We’re helping resolve the problems of ordinary people,” said Liu Haijiang, the head of Dabancheng district in Urumqi, “like getting their children to school, delivering them medicine or getting them a doctor.”

With Xi’s ascent, critics of Chinese traditional medicine have fallen silent. In April, an influential Hubei doctor, Yu Xiangdong, was removed from a hospital management position for questioning the efficacy of the remedies, an acquittance confirmed. A government notice online said Yu “openly published inappropriate remarks slandering the nation’s epidemic prevention policy and traditional Chinese medicine.”

In March, the World Health Organization removed guidance on its site saying that herbal remedies were not effective against the virus and could be harmful, saying it was “too broad”. And in May, the Beijing city government announced a draft law that would criminalize speech “defaming or slandering” traditional Chinese medicine. Now, the government is pushing traditional Chinese remedies as a treatment for COVID-19 overseas, sending pills and specialists to countries such as Iran, Italy, and the Philippines.

Other leaders have also spearheaded unproven and potentially risky remedies – notably U.S. President Donald Trump, who stumped for the malaria drug hydroxychloroquine, which can cause heart rhythm problems, despite no evidence that it’s effective against COVID-19. But China appears to be the first to force citizens – at least in Xinjiang – to take them.

The Chinese government’s push for traditional medicine is bolstering the fortunes of billionaires and padding state coffers. The family of Wu Yiling, the founder of the company that makes Lianhua Qingwen, has seen the value of their stake more than double in the past six months, netting them over a billion dollars. Also profiting: the Guangdong government, which owns a stake in Wu’s company.

“It’s a huge waste of money, these companies are making millions,” said a public health expert who works closely with the Chinese government, declining to be identified out of fear of retribution. “But then again – why not take it? There’s a placebo effect, it’s not that harmful. Why bother? There’s no point in fighting on this.”

Measures vary widely by city and neighborhood, and not all residents are taking the medication. The Uighur woman says that despite the threats against her, she’s flushing the liquid and pills down the toilet. A Han man whose parents are in Xinjiang told the AP that for them, the remedies are voluntary.

Though the measures are “extreme,” he says, they’re understandable.

“There’s no other way if the government wants to control this epidemic,” he said, declining to be named to avoid retribution. “We don’t want our outbreak to become like Europe or America.”

New world news from Time: Qatar ‘Dismantles’ Kafala Employment System That Critics Say Allowed Abuse of Migrant Workers

(DUBAI, United Arab Emirates) — New labor rules in the energy-rich nation of Qatar “effectively dismantles” the country’s long-criticized “kafala” employment system, a U.N. labor body said Sunday.

The International Labor Organization said as of now, migrant workers can change jobs before the end of their contracts without obtaining the permission of their current employers.

Qatar also has adopted a minimum monthly wage of 1,000 Qatari riyals ($275) for workers, which will take effect some six months after the law is published in the country’s official gazette, the ILO said. The minimum wage rule requires employers to pay allowances for housing and food as well if they don’t provide those for their workers.

Amnesty International praised the move as “an encouraging sign that Qatar may finally be heading in the right direction,” although employers still can file criminal charges against “absconding” employees, meaning those who left their jobs without permission.

“We call on Qatar to go further with these reforms, including removing the charge of absconding, to make sure that the rights of all workers are fully protected,” Amnesty official Steve Cockburn said in a statement.

Qatar, whose citizens enjoy one of the world’s highest per-capita incomes due to its natural gas reserves, partially ended the “kafala” system in 2018. That system ties workers to their employers, who had say over whether they could leave their jobs or even the country.

Qatar is being transformed by a building boom fueled by its vast oil and natural gas wealth. Like other energy-rich Gulf nations with relatively small local populations, Qatar relies on well over a million guest workers, many of them drawn from South Asian nations including India and Nepal. Rights activists long have criticized the “kafala” system as allowing abuses of those foreign workers.

This comes as Qatar will host the 2022 FIFA World Cup in the Arabian Peninsula nation. Having the winning bid for the soccer tournament brought renewed attention to laborers’ rights in Qatar.

Meanwhile Sunday, the United Arab Emirates announced it now requires private employers to grant new fathers five paid days off after the birth of a child.

New world news from Time: New Zealand’s Largest City Exits Lockdown After Bringing Mystery COVID-19 Surge Under Control

New Zealand’s largest city has exited lockdown after the government said a Covid-19 outbreak there has been brought under control and it remains on track to again eliminate the virus from the community.

Auckland schools and customer-facing businesses re-opened on Monday and a ban on traveling out of the city was lifted, almost three weeks after the outbreak prompted the reintroduction of restrictions. Social distancing requirements remain in place for the whole country under level 2 restrictions and everyone from the age of 12 is now required to wear a mask on public transport.

“Our testing shows that it is highly unlikely there is Covid anywhere else in the country and we want to keep it that way,” Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said yesterday. “The last thing we want from re-opening Auckland is to spread the virus around the country, and that is one of the reasons we continue to have level 2 settings across New Zealand,” she said. The government expects to further review all alert settings by Sept. 6.

New Zealand became the envy of the world earlier this year when it succeeded in eliminating community transmission of the coronavirus by imposing a strict nationwide lockdown. Ardern said the government continues to pursue an elimination strategy and is confident it can stamp out the outbreak in Auckland, home to about a third of New Zealand’s five million people.

The Auckland cluster has grown to 141 cases in total, and the government expects new infections among close contacts to continue for some time. The source of the outbreak is still being investigated. New Zealand has 131 active cases, 24 of which are returnees from overseas who were quarantined on arrival.

Restrictions in Auckland remain slightly stricter than in the rest of the country, with gatherings limited to 10 and people encouraged to wear masks in public spaces. Ardern called Auckland’s settings “level 2.5” and wouldn’t rule out imposing broader mask-wearing requirements if people don’t abide by the current rules.

“Our system is good, it is designed to keep us on track with our elimination strategy at level 2, in the scenario we now have, but it will only work if people follow the guidance,” she said.

New world news from Time: Huge Protest on Belarus Leader’s Birthday Demands He Resign

KYIV, Ukraine — Tens of thousands of demonstrators gathered Sunday in the capital of Belarus, beginning the fourth week of daily protests demanding the resignation of the country’s authoritarian president after an election they call rigged gave him a sixth term in office.

The protest at the “hero city” monument honoring Minsk’s suffering and resilience in World War II attracted at least 100,000 people, according to the Nexta messaging app channel that is a main medium for the opposition.

Wide protests began after the Aug. 9 presidential election that officials say gave President Alexander Lukashenko a landslide 80% win over his main challenger, Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya, a former teacher and the wife of a popular jailed blogger.

Lukashenko, in office since 1994, has been defiant but beleaguered, unable to put down largest, most sustained wave of protests yet in this Eastern European nation of 9.5 million people. He has refused to rerun the election, which both the European Union and the United States have said was not free or fair, and refused offers to help mediate the situation from Baltic nations.

Lukashenko says he has reached an agreement with Russian President Vladimir Putin that Russia will send in security help if asked. But Russia has appeared hesitant to get involved deeply in the Belarus unrest.

Putin and Lukashenko talked by phone on Sunday, but a Kremlin statement gave few details of the conversation, other than noting that Putin congratulated the Belarusian leader on his 66th birthday.

Tsikhanouskaya, who fled to Lithuania after the election because of concerns about her security, gave a withering acknowledgement of the birthday.

“I wish him to overcome his fears, look truth in the eye, listen to the voice of the people and go away,” she told The Associated Press by telephone from the Lithuanian capital of Vilnius.

Lukashenko has consistently blamed Western countries for encouraging the protests and contends that NATO is repositioning forces along Belarus’ western border with the aim of intervening in the unrest, a claim the alliance strongly denies.

On Sunday, the Belarusian Defense Ministry said it was conducting military exercises in the Grodno region, near the borders of Poland and Lithuania, simulating defending against an invasion.

Belarus on Saturday cracked down hard on foreign news media that have been covering the protests, deporting at least four Russian journalists, including two from The Associated Press. The government also revoked the accreditations of many Belarusian journalists working for foreign new agencies, including journalists working for AP.

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Jim Heintz in Moscow contributed to this story.

New world news from Time: Shiite Muslims Mark Holy Day of Mourning in the Coronavirus’ Shadow

Shiite Muslims are observing the solemn holy day of Ashoura that they typically mark with large, mournful gatherings, in the shadow of the coronavirus pandemic.

Ashoura commemorates the seventh-century killing of Imam Hussein, the grandson of the Prophet Muhammad, in the Battle of Karbala in present-day Iraq with the army of then Caliph Yazid, to whom Hussein had refused to pledge allegiance.

“At its heart, It’s the story of the sacrifice of an extraordinary religious figure,” said Noor Zaidi, who teaches history at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County and researches Shiite Islam. “It’s (also) the story of familial love between Hussein and those who were with him in Karbala. …It also has this real, sort of revolutionary component to it,” she said.

“What has made it endure so powerfully … is the fact that it has at its core the ability to meld itself to what, I think, people need to get from it.”

The Day of Ashoura falls on the 10th of the Islamic month of Muharram and is preceded by days of commemorations and remembrance. The public expressions of communal mourning are generally associated with Shiites. For many Sunnis, Ashoura is a remembrance of more than one event, including the Moses-led exodus from Egypt.

In Iraq, pilgrims ordinarily converge on the holy city of Karbala, site of the battle and home to a shrine to Imam Hussein.

But with the pandemic, Iraq’s top Shiite cleric, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, encouraged people to observe the mourning in other ways such as watching online or televised commemorations from home.

Those attending public commemorations must adhere to health guidelines, including social distancing and wearing masks, with caps on the numbers of participants in accordance with the local regulations of different countries, a statement from his office said.

Saif Badr, spokesman for the Iraqi Ministry of Health and Environment, praised al-Sistani’s statement and call for adhering to health regulations.

“Our opinion is clear,” said Badr. “Generally speaking, we are against congregations in all their forms, including on religious occasions” due to the pandemic. Some Iraqis are not heeding the call to avoid congregating.

In Pakistan, thousands of minority Shiite Muslims rallied in various parts of the country ahead of tomorrow’s Day of Ashoura amid a decline in coronavirus deaths and infections. In his speech to a gathering of Shiite Muslims in the city of Multan, Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi asked people to adhere to social distancing rules when they observe Ashoura. Security forces deployed around Shiite places of worship to help secure public rallies which had been targeted by militant groups in the past.

In interviews with The Associated Press, several Shiite Muslims told of how they are observing commemorations this year.

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NAJAF, IRAQ

On a typical day in the mourning period leading up to the Day of Ashoura, Sayyid Sahib al-Yasseri buys rice, meat and other foodstuffs in the mornings for dinners served to those attending nighttime commemorative gatherings.

Clad in black clothes, he and others listen to recitations of the Quran, religious lectures and lamentations. Some bury their faces in their palms as they weep. Mourners rhythmically beat their chests in grief.

“There are tears and heartbreak for Imam Hussein,” al-Yasseri said.

This year the rituals were held outside, he said, and men distributed disposable masks and pumped sanitizer into outstretched hands.

Al-Yasseri wore a mask out of coronavirus considerations but didn’t consider skipping the commemorations.

“If God wants me to get infected, I will,” he said.

Al-Yasseri estimated that about 750 people have been taking part each night in the gathering, fewer than in previous years due to the pandemic.

On Ashoura Day — which in Iraq falls on Sunday — at least one tradition of his will remain unchanged: donating blood.

“I donate to benefit others,” al-Yasseri said, “and out of love for Imam Hussein.”

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NABATIYEH, LEBANON

Ashoura comes as Lebanon reels from not only the pandemic but economic hardship and the aftermath of a massive explosion that ripped through its capital this month.

Amid a partial coronavirus lockdown, the two largest Shiite groups in Lebanon, the militant group Hezbollah and the Amal movement of Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri, have urged people to mark Ashoura at home with the help of television and social media.

Yasser Qameh, who for decades in the past attended public gatherings every night during the mourning period, has been watching from home this year.

“I watch it on TV or YouTube — as long as I don’t mingle with people,” Qameh said by phone from his southern Lebanese city, which in normal years is a site of massive Ashoura observations. “The difference is like watching a football match on TV rather than being at the stadium.”

This year, Qameh said, despite a curfew, some people are gathering every night in a city square with masks, temperature checks and plastic chairs spaced out.

Typically, Nabatiyeh’s annual Ashoura ceremonies are attended by tens of thousands of people with some men cutting and beating their heads as blood drips soiling white clothes to symbolize and recall the pain of Imam Hussein. Such scenes are criticized by some Shiite clerics who denounce the ritual.

Qameh is also forsaking another tradition this year. Normally he would help distribute water, juice and a special dish called Harisa – that consists of wheat and chicken or beef – to participants who come from other areas.

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HICKSVILLE, NEW YORK

In the United States, some Shiite communities are broadcasting commemorations online.

In Hicksville, on New York’s Long Island, Fatima Mukhi-Siwji had been feeling sad that her 10-month-old daughter will miss out on the rituals.

“I have grown up in the mosque,” she said, her voice cracking with emotion. “How are we supposed to teach our children religion? How are we supposed to teach them (about) Imam Hussein?”

But shortly before the start of Muharram, a number of Shiite Muslims from different communities, including Mukhi-Siwji’s father, teamed up to organize drive-in commemorations to safely mark the occasion, she said.

Held at a movie theater’s outdoor parking lots, they feature scholarly sermons, poetry recitals, chanting and lamentations as families listen from their cars and watch on large screens. Some get out of their cars and watch or engage in chest beating mourning rituals while social distancing, she said.

The daily events have attracted hundreds of cars and, Mukhi-Siwji said, revived a feeling of togetherness she sorely missed.

“It’s such an electrifying experience,” she said. “It goes through your whole body.”

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Fam reported from Winter Park, Florida and Mroue from Beirut, Lebanon. Associated Press reporter Munir Ahmed contributed from Islamabad, Pakistan.

New world news from Time: China Restaurant Collapses During Birthday Party, Killing 29 People

BEIJING — Rescue efforts ended at a two-story restaurant in a northern Chinese village that collapsed during a local resident’s 80th birthday celebration, leaving 29 people dead, authorities said Sunday.

The Ministry of Emergency Management said another 28 people were injured, seven of them seriously, when the building suddenly crumbled on Saturday.

There was no immediate word on what caused the collapse or on the fate of the birthday guest and other celebrants.

Hundreds of rescue workers using sniffer dogs, cranes and high-tech sensors had searched the rubble, lifting slabs of concrete in hopes of freeing survivors.

The official China Daily newspaper said the building collapsed at 9:40 a.m. Saturday. It said the Cabinet’s Work Safety Commission would oversee the investigation into the accident’s cause.

While China has seen major improvements in industrial safety, building standards are sometimes ignored, particularly in rural areas such as Shanxi province’s Xiangfen county, about 630 kilometers (400 miles) southwest of Beijing, where the restaurant was located.

The region lies in the heart of China’s coal country, where thousands of miners have died in explosions, collapses and floods over the years.

New world news from Time: In Israel, Jared Kushner Says ‘Stage Is Set’ for Mideast Progress

JERUSALEM — White House adviser Jared Kushner on Sunday trumpeted the recent agreement by Israel and the United Arab Emirates to establish diplomatic relations as a historic breakthrough and said “the stage is set” for other Arab states to follow suit, but he gave no indication that any new deals were imminent.

Appearing alongside Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the U.S. National Security Adviser Robert O’Brien, Kushner spoke a day before he is to join a senior Israeli delegation on the first commercial flight from Israel to the UAE. The flight holds great symbolic value and is a key step in what is expected to be full normalization between Israel and the UAE.

The Aug. 13 announcement makes the UAE just the third Arab country to establish full diplomatic relations with Israel, and the first to do so in over 25 years. It reflects a shifting Middle East in which shared concerns over Iran have overtaken traditional wall-to-wall Arab support for the Palestinians.

“Today obviously we celebrate a historic breakthrough for peace,” Kushner said, adding that the deal will create “previously unthinkable” economic, security and religious cooperation.

“While this peace agreement was thought by many to be impossible, the stage is now set for even more,” he said, claiming he has heard optimism throughout the region since the deal was announced.

“We must seize that optimism and we must continue to push to make this region achieve the potential that it truly has,” said Kushner, President Donald Trump’s son-in-law and chief Mideast adviser.

Israel and the UAE have moved quickly to cement their ties over the past two weeks. Almost immediately, they opened direct phone lines, and Cabinet ministers have held friendly phone conversations.

On Saturday, the UAE formally ended its commercial boycott of Israel, although the two countries have quietly conducted business for years. Monday’s flight of an El Al plane from Tel Aviv to Abu Dhabi will be the first known flight of an Israeli commercial airliner from Israel to the Emirates. The two Mideast countries are expected to sign a formal agreement at the White House in the coming weeks.

But so far, predictions by Israeli and American officials, including Kushner, that other Arab countries would follow the UAE have not yet materialized.

U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo toured the region last week, stopping in Sudan, Bahrain and Oman — three countries widely seen as candidates to establish ties with Israel — but appeared to leave empty-handed.

The flurry of U.S. diplomatic activity comes as the Trump administration presses ahead with ambitious plans to promote Arab-Israeli rapprochement even in the absence of a settlement to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, which had long been seen as a prerequisite for Israel to reach peace deals with all of its Arab neighbors.

Gulf Arab countries, which like Israel share deep animosity toward Iran, have shown an increasing willingness to make back-channel ties with Israel public.

Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the agreement with the UAE would bring “unbridled” trade and opportunities.

“You will see how the sparks fly,” he said.

Trump unveiled a Mideast plan in January that has been rejected by the Palestinians, who say it unfairly favors Israel.

The Palestinians seek the West Bank, east Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip — areas captured by Israel in the 1967 Mideast war — for an independent state. The Trump plan offers them limited autonomy in 70% of the West Bank, leaving Israel in overall control of the territory, and a symbolic presence on the outskirts of Jerusalem, while handing Israel control of the city’s sensitive holy sites.

Netanyahu said the deal with the UAE proves the Palestinians no longer have a “veto” over regional peace. The Palestinians have accused the UAE of treason.

“If we have to wait for the Palestinians, we will have to wait forever,” Netanyahu said. “As more Arab and Muslim countries join the circle of peace, the Palestinians will eventually understand their veto has dissipated and they will be hard pressed to stay outside the community of peace.”

New world news from Time: German Leaders Condemn Far-Right Attempt to Storm Reichstag

BERLIN — Senior German officials on Sunday condemned attempts by far-right protesters and others to storm the parliament building following a protest against the country’s pandemic restrictions.

Hundreds of people, some waving the flag of the German Reich of 1871-1918 and other far-right banners, breached a security barrier outside the Reichstag late Saturday but were intercepted by police and forcibly removed.

“Reich flags and right-wing extremist provocations in front of the German Bundestag are an unbearable attack on the heart of our democracy,” Germany’s president, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, said Sunday. “We will never accept this.”

Steinmer said people had the right to express their anger about the coronavirus restrictions and to question them publicly, including with demonstrations.

“My sympathy ends where protesters allow themselves to be used by enemies of democracy and political agitators,” he added.

Police used pepper spray to drive back the protesters, who earlier in the day had participated in a large rally through the capital.

About 300 people were arrested in front of the Reichstag and following an incident at the Russian embassy, according to police.

Berlin’s top security official, Andreas Geisel, praised three officers who had stood alone against the protesters outside the Reichstag until reinforcements arrived. Opposition parties criticized the police’s failure to station sufficient officers around Parliament despite public warnings from far-right extremists that they planned to try to enter the building.

Robert Habeck, the co-leader of Germany’s Green party, called for a thorough investigation into the incident.

“The fact that Nazis with imperial war flags try to storm the Bundestag recalls the darkest period in German history,” he told the Funke media group.

“An incident like on Saturday evening must not be allowed to happen again,” Habeck said. “I expect (federal) Interior Minister Horst Seehofer to decisively combat right-wing extremism at all levels.”

The head of Chancellor Angela Merkel’s center-right party, Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer, expressed anger at the incident. “That the Reich flag should fly again at the German Bundestag is intolerable,” she said.

The co-leader of the far-right Alternative for Germany party, Alice Weidel, described the protesters who tried to storm the building as “a few vandals” whose behavior was unacceptable. Members of her party had taken part in the rally against the pandemic restrictions earlier in the day.

Germany’s Vice Chancellor Olaf Scholz, who is seeking to succeed Merkel in next year’s election, said he was confident security forces would closely analyze what had happened Saturday and ensure it couldn’t occur again.

But he insisted that the incident shouldn’t distract from the fact that “the overwhelming, very big majority of citizens in this country are clever and sensible, and they agree with all of the decisions that we took to protect people’s health and for the benefit of the economy and social cohesion.”

Opinion polls show only one in 10 Germans reject the country’s current prevention measures, such as the requirement to wear masks on public transport, in stores and in some public buildings such as libraries and schools.

Police on Sunday ordered an anti-mask gathering of about 2,000 people at the Victory Column to disband, saying people weren’t respecting distancing rules. Several people were detained.

New world news from Time: Belarus Cracks Down on Foreign Journalists as Massive Protests Against Its Authoritarian President Continue

(MOSCOW) — Belarus, shaken by three weeks of massive protests against its authoritarian president, on Saturday cracked down hard on the news media, deporting some foreign journalists reporting in the country and revoking the accreditation of many Belarusian journalists.

Two Moscow-based Associated Press journalists who were covering the recent protests in Belarus were deported to Russia on Saturday. In addition, the AP’s Belarusian journalists were told by the government that their press credentials had been revoked.

“The Associated Press decries in the strongest terms this blatant attack on press freedom in Belarus. AP calls on the Belarusian government to reinstate the credentials of independent journalists and allow them to continue reporting the facts of what is happening in Belarus to the world,” said Lauren Easton, the AP’s director of media relations.

The Belarusian Association of Journalists said accreditation was also taken away from 17 Belarusians working for several other media. Germany’s ARD television said two of its Moscow-based journalists also were deported to Russia, a Belarusian producer faces trial on Monday and their accreditation to work in Belarus was revoked. The BBC said two of its journalists working for the BBC Russian service in Minsk also had their accreditation revoked and U.S.-funded radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty said five of its journalists lost accreditation

The program director for ARD’s biggest regional affiliate, WDR, which oversees coverage of Belarus, called the treatment of its camera team “absolutely unacceptable.”

“This shows once again that independent reporting in Belarus continues to be hindered and is made almost impossible,” Joerg Schoeneborn said.

German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas said “this attack on press freedom is another dangerous step toward more repression instead of dialogue with the population.”

The International Press Institute said “Authorities in Belarus must immediately drop all charges against journalists detained during recent police crackdowns, stop cancelling accreditation for foreign journalists and immediately halt interference with state-owned publishing houses,.”

Protests in Belarus began after the Aug. 9 election that officials said gave President Alexander Lukashenko a sixth term in office with 80% support. Protesters say the election results were rigged and are calling for Lukashenko, who has run the country since 1994, to resign.

The protests, some of which drew enormous crowds estimated at 200,000 or more, are the largest and most sustained challenge of Lukashenko’s 26 years in office, during which he consistently repressed opposition and independent news media.

On Saturday, hundreds of women dressed mostly in red and white — the colors of the former Belarusian flag that the opposition uses as an emblem — marched through the capital of Minsk in a protest.

The hard-line leader has cast about for a strategy to end the wave of protests, with little success. In the first days of demonstrations, around 7,000 people were arrested. Some protesters were killed and many detainees were beaten by police. The violence didn’t deter the protests and may have galvanized the opposition. Strikes have broken out in several state-owned factories, which are the backbone of Belarus’ economy.

The U.S. Embassy in Belarus on Saturday issued a statement saying “we are concerned by the continued targeting of journalists, the blocking of independent media and opposition websites, intermittent internet blackouts and random detentions of peaceful citizens exercising their rights of freedom of assembly and speech.”

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Frank Jordans in Berlin contributed to this story.

New world news from Time: United Arab Emirates Formally Ends Israel Boycott Amid U.S.-Brokered Deal

(DUBAI, United Arab Emirates) — The ruler of the United Arab Emirates issued a decree Saturday formally ending the country’s boycott of Israel amid a U.S.-brokered deal to normalize relations between the two countries.

The announcement now allows trade and commerce between the UAE, home to oil-rich Abu Dhabi and skyscraper-studded Dubai, and Israel, home to a thriving diamond trade, pharmaceutical companies and tech start-ups.

The announcement further cements the Aug 13 deal opening up relations between the two nations, which required Israel to halt its contentious plan to annex occupied West Bank land sought by the Palestinians. But Palestinians so far have criticized the accord as undercutting one of its few bargaining chips with Israelis in moribund peace negotiations.

The state-run WAM news agency said the decree formally ending the boycott came on the orders of Sheikh Khalifa bin Zayed Al Nahyan, the ruler of Abu Dhabi and the Emirates’ leader.

WAM said the new decree allows Israelis and Israeli firms to do business in the UAE, a U.S.-allied federation of seven sheikhdoms on the Arabian Peninsula. It also allows for the purchase and trade of Israeli goods.

“The decree of the new law comes within the UAE’s efforts to expand diplomatic and commercial cooperation with Israel,” WAM said. It lays out “a roadmap toward launching joint cooperation, leading to bilateral relations by stimulating economic growth and promoting technological innovation.”

Already, some Israeli firms had signed deals with Emirati counterparts. But the repeal of the law widens the likelihood of other joint ventures, such as in aviation or in banking and finance.

Dubai International Airport, home to the long-haul carrier Emirates, has been the world’s busiest for international travel for years. The Dubai International Financial Center also hosts major firms who trade in the hours between Asian and European markets. Dubai already has a major gold market and growing diamond trade.

Emirati firms likely also want to access Israeli technological know-how. Some already had even before the deal — with the cybersecurity firm DarkMatter reportedly hiring Israeli military-trained hackers.

On Monday, the first direct commercial flight by Israel’s flagship carrier El Al is expected in Abu Dhabi, carrying U.S. and Israeli officials including President Donald Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner. Telephone calls already can be made between the nations.

The decree formally eliminates a 1972 law on the UAE’s books since just after the country’s formation. That law mirrored the widely held stance by Arab nations at that time that recognition of Israel would only come after the Palestinians had an independent state of their own.

Hanan Ashrawi, a senior Palestinian official, criticized the UAE’s decree Saturday as undercutting the efforts of the Boycott, Divest and Sanctions movement targeting Israel. Israel has accused BDS activists of seeking to delegitimize its existence.

“While (hashtag)BDS is proving to be an effective tool of peaceful resistance & responsible, ethical investment & consumer responsibility to hold Israel to account, this happens!” Ashrawi wrote on Twitter.

Hamas, the Islamic militant group governing the Gaza Strip since seizing it in 2007, has reiterated its rejection of the UAE-Israel deal and the ending of the boycott.

The decree “boosts the normalization with the Israeli occupation and legitimizes it on the Palestinian land,” Hamas official Bassem Naim said.

The decree shows the UAE’s eagerness to advance ties and maximize its potential benefits such as trade amid an economic slowdown, said Elham Fakhro, the senior Gulf analyst at the International Crisis Group.

“The decision sends a clear message that the UAE is committed to its decision to normalize relations with Israel,” Fakhro said. “It does also raise questions about possible repercussions for anyone in the country calling for the boycott of Israeli goods, now that doing so contradicts the state policy.”

The UAE is becoming the third Arab nation after Egypt and Jordan to currently have diplomatic relations with Israel. However, while widespread public distrust of Israel persists in those nations, the UAE never fought a war against Israel, nor did it have a historic Jewish population.

In recent years, the UAE has held quiet talks with Israel and allowed Israelis with second passports into the country for trade and talks. Opening ties may also help the Emirates access advanced American weaponry, like the F-35 fighter jet that right now only Israel flies in the Mideast.

Sheikh Khalifa has ruled the UAE since 2004. He suffered a stroke on Jan. 24, 2014, and underwent emergency surgery. He has been rarely seen since in public, though state media typically publishes images of him around Islamic holidays.

Abu Dhabi’s crown prince, Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, has served as the UAE’s day-to-day ruler since Sheikh Khalifa’s stroke. Sheikh Mohammed has focused on increasing the Emirates’ military might amid his suspicions of Iran — an enmity shared by Israel.

While Sheikh Khalifa holds the title of president, the UAE is governed by autocratic sheikhs. Abu Dhabi, as the country’s oil-rich capital, has grown increasingly powerful since the UAE’s founding in 1971 despite each sheikhdom largely governing its own affairs.

The decree comes after a trip through the Mideast in recent days by U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, who hoped to build on the UAE-Israel deal.

The accord also came as a major foreign policy win to Trump as he campaigns ahead of the November election against Democratic candidate Joe Biden. Both Israel and the UAE have viewed the Republican president as an ally.

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Associated Press writer Fares Akram in Gaza City, Gaza Strip, contributed to this report.

New world news from Time: How Dangerous Is Greece and Turkey’s Mediterranean Standoff?

The Eastern Mediterranean has become an increasingly crowded space, between precarious refugee crossings from Libya to Europe, the flow of arms and mercenaries in the other direction, and Russia’s new naval hub at the Syrian port of Tartus.

So when a Turkish seismic vessel began carrying out surveys in waters where Greece also claims jurisdiction, shadowed by Turkish warships, it added another dangerous element to the mix.

Since it began in mid-August, Turkey’s drilling program, and the gunboat diplomacy that has followed, has contributed to a situation so volatile German foreign minister Heiko Maas on Tuesday warned: “any small spark could lead to catastrophe.” It has prompted Turkey to announce new live-fire military drills to be held off Cyprus’s northern coast next week, with Greece planning rival navy exercises with France, Cyprus, and Italy. The dispute has divided E.U. leaders over how to manage Turkey and drawn in states as far-flung as Egypt and the UAE.

In a week in which Erdogan resolved to make “no concessions on that which is ours” and Greece announced it would extend its maritime territory around some of its islands unrelated to the dispute, the tensions are only escalating. Here’s what to know about the trouble brewing in the Mediterranean:

Why are tensions between Turkey and Greece flaring up right now?

On the surface, it’s a dispute over energy. Turkey and Greece have overlapping claims to areas of gas-rich waters in the Eastern Mediterranean. Greece’s position is that each of its islands—and there are thousands of them—is entitled to its own continental shelf with exclusive drilling rights. The E.U. has stood firmly behind Greece and last July sanctioned Turkey for carrying out seismic surveys off the north Cypriot coast. It has repeatedly warned Turkey against carrying out further exploration.

But Turkey says that is an unfair interpretation of international law that unjustly encroaches on its own exclusive economic zone. In recent months, Turkey and Greece have each sought to bolster their territorial claims by drawing up exclusive maritime economic zones with Libya and Egypt, respectively.

Beyond immediate territorial concerns, the dispute draws in historical grievances and contemporary military strategy. They include the conflicted status of Cyprus, the wars in Libya and Syria, and the ongoing power struggles in the region as U.S. influence wanes.

How have Greece–Turkey relations deteriorated in recent years?

Greek–Turkic enmity far predates the establishment of the Turkish Republic. It spans quotidian concerns such as the origins of the dessert baklava to grave disagreements over historical atrocities. But for the past half-decade, the most serious disputes have centered on the status of Cyprus.

Turkey’s 1974 invasion of the island, triggered by a Greek-backed military coup, led to Turkish troops occupying the island’s northern third and an exodus of Greek Cypriots from the area. In 1983 a Turkish-Cypriot politician declared a breakaway Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus (TRNC), recognized only by Turkey. The Republic of Cyprus joined the E.U. in 2004 despite its divided status. Tensions between Greece and Turkey have simmered ever since, and in 1996 the two countries came close to war over two uninhabited islets in the Aegean Sea, near Turkey’s western coast.

Cyprus’s unresolved status features in the Eastern Mediterranean dispute because Turkey considers any deals Cyprus signs on energy exploitation illegal unless the TRNC is also involved. Greece, meanwhile, considers Turkish gas exploration near Cyprus illegal.

What other factors are worsening relations?

One is the flow of migrants from the Middle East to Europe. Turkey hosts almost 4 million migrants and refugees as part of a 2016 deal with the E.U. In February, Erdogan briefly made good on a long-held threat to “open the gates” allowing tens of thousands of asylum seekers to cross over into Greece. Athens’ hardline response—including using violence against asylum seekers—drew criticism from human rights groups. Meanwhile, the E.U. accused Turkey of using migrants as a bargaining tool.

Relations further soured in July over the re-conversion of Istanbul’s Hagia Sophia into a mosque. That revived a centuries-long dispute over one of the world’s most contested religious buildings and irked Russia and Greece, the centers of Orthodox Christianity.

On Tuesday, Greece’s foreign minister Nikos Dendias accused Erdogan of advancing a “neo-Ottoman” strategy in the Eastern Mediterranean as part of an “attempt to implement expansionist aims against neighbors and allies.” That’s an allegation frequently leveled at the Turkish leader, whom critics have dubbed a “modern Sultan.”

But Turkey’s muscular approach to the contested waters enjoys bipartisan support. Turkey’s main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) voiced support for the Mediterranean drilling program. Securing lucrative energy resources in a region where Turkey finds itself increasingly isolated also enjoys popular social backing, experts say. “Erdogan’s adventure in the Eastern Mediterranean probably has more support than any of his other regional adventures,” says Emile Hokayem, a Middle East security expert at the International Institute for Strategic Studies.

Which other countries are involved?

It’s a long list, complicated by Turkey and European states’ entanglements in the Middle East, North Africa and beyond.

Last November, Turkey signed a maritime accord with Libya’s U.N.-backed government that would permit expanded Turkish drilling in the Eastern Mediterranean. Although it is not recognized by Washington or the E.U., the accord led to Turkey intervening militarily in Libya’s civil conflict against warlord Khalifa Haftar, who is backed by Russia. As in northwest Syria, Russia and Turkey have emerged as power brokers of the battlespace in Libya.

But it’s not only Russia that backs Haftar in Libya. France, the UAE, and Egypt have each provided military or financial assistance to his self-styled Libya National Army; and they’re all engaged in the Mediterranean dispute.

French President Emmanuele Macron—who labeled Turkey’s Libya incursion “criminal”—earlier in August briefly dispatched two Rafale fighter jets and a naval frigate in support of Greece. France, along with Greece and Cyprus, has taken a hardline stance against Turkey, compared to the more conciliatory approach favored by E.U. nations such as Germany, Spain, and Italy.

Meanwhile, Egypt earlier in August signed an accord with Greece on the development of a joint maritime economic zone that Turkey claims is “null and void.” Egyptian leader Abdel Fattah Al-Sisi has threatened to intervene militarily in Libya against Turkey. The UEA—which has deployed U.S. manufactured warplanes in Libya— reportedly sent four F16’s to Crete last week to participate in drills with the Greek military. “The adversarial positions of the UAE and Turkey across the Middle East and North Africa are spilling into the East Mediterranean dispute, as can be seen by the UAE dispatch of fighter jets,” says Nigar Goksel Turkey project director at the Brussels-based International Crisis Group.

What is Russia’s position on the crisis?

Russia has yet to make a public statement on the Greece–Turkey tensions but it is deeply entrenched in both the Eastern Mediterranean and the Black Sea, where Erdogan recently announced Turkey’s biggest ever gas find. The U.S. Navy’s top admiral in Europe warned last year that Moscow is in the process of turning the eastern Mediterranean into one of the world’s most militarized zones, in part as a result of building up a naval hub at the Syrian port of Tartus. Greek media reported this week that the Russian Navy has gathered nine military vessels between Cyprus and Syria, including three submarines.

And what has the U.S. said?

In phone calls on Wednesday, U.S. President Trump expressed concern to his Greek and Turkish counterparts over the rising tensions, urging the two NATO members to commit to dialogue, according to a White House Press Secretary. Still, although the USS Hershel Woody Williams recently arrived on the Greek island of Crete, the White House has largely left Germany to mediate the crisis. “The U.S. is not happy about being dragged into Mediterranean politics. They have enough on their plate trying to deter Russia and China,” says IISS’s Hokayem. “But the reality is that when the U.S. veers away from some of the issues and decides not to be implicated in their management, actually things get worse and the U.S. may be dragged back in.”

Is the tension likely to spill over into violence?

It’s increasingly plausible, if unlikely. War between two NATO members in the Mediterranean would be an unmitigated disaster, and both sides have voiced their desire for negotiations. But as the brinkmanship increases, so does the possibility of accidental escalation. “We invite our counterparts to smarten up and avoid mistakes that will cause their ruin,” Erdogan said on Wednesday. “Those who wish to confront us at the cost of paying a price, are welcome. If not, they should keep out of our way.”

There are few moderating voices. As Turkey’s E.U. membership prospects dwindled, it became increasingly difficult for more dovish politicians in Ankara to highlight incentives to compromise, says ICG’s Goksel. “The E.U. doesn’t have any carrots to offer Turkey that would override nationalist sentiments,” she says, “I think Ankara’s strategic thinkers sincerely want negotiations, but they don’t think they could get them unless they create havoc.”

New world news from Time: Japan’s Shinzo Abe Resigns for Health Reasons, Leaving Unfinished Political Business

Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe announced he was stepping down on Friday, citing health issues.

“Even though there is one year to go in my tenure and there are challenges to be met, I have decided to stand down as prime minister,” Abe told a press conference in Tokyo. He said he would stay on as prime minister until his successor is chosen. His right-leaning Liberal Democratic Party (LDP), which dominates the Japanese parliament, said it will hold a leadership contest by the end of September, and the winner will almost certainly replace Abe as prime minister.

Abe, 65, suffers from ulcerative colitis, a chronic bowel disease. He told reporters he had controlled the condition for years but that it had made a resurgence earlier this summer. He is now receiving treatment that would conflict with his duties as prime minister if stayed on to the scheduled end of his term, in September 2021, he said. The disease was also a factor in Abe’s 2007 resignation from his first term as Japan’s prime minister.

The departure, coming amid the COVID-19 pandemic and Japan’s first recession since 2015, adds “uncertainty to troubled times,” says Jean-Pierre Cabestan, a professor in political science at Hong Kong Baptist University.

Abe’s second period as prime minister, which began in 2012 and lasted through three elections and nearly eight years, was a period of unusual political stability for Japan. On Monday he became the country’s longest continually-serving prime minister. He led the recovery from the devastating Fukushima nuclear disaster in 2011, and succeeded in stalling Japan’s long-term economic stagnation through a strategy known as Abenomics. He also championed the elaboration of Japan’s Indo-Pacific strategy, a foreign policy effort aimed at expanding cooperation between countries across Asia and Africa, and countering Chinese hegemony. Abe’s establishment of a personal relationship with Donald Trump, even before he took office as U.S. president, is credited with maintaining strong U.S.-Japanese relations during a period of global political instability.

However, Abe missed key political aims, says Jeff Kingston, Director of Asian Studies at Temple University’s Tokyo campus. “His goal of [revising Japan’s pacifist post-war constitution] remains elusive as does his promise to make women shine,” he says, referring to the prime minister’s promise to address Japan’s gender gap and bring more women into the workforce.

Abe also failed to deliver fully on structural reforms to Japan’s rigid labor market – a crucial part of the Abenomics doctrine – and to address the looming threat of Japan’s rapidly ageing population, with 28% of the country now aged over 65. “He has little to show for being in power for seven years with a majority in the [legislature],” Kingston says.

His time in office was also marred by diplomatic disputes with neighbours in East Asia, some of them stemming from historic tensions over Japan’s early 20th Century imperialism. Relations with South Korea, a traditional Japanese ally, suffered during Abe’s term. South Korea’s demand for reparations for abuses committed during Japan’s 1910–1945 occupation of the Korean peninsula, including the use of forced labor by Japanese companies, sparked disputes over trade and territory in 2018 and 2019.

Duyeon Kim, senior adviser on North East Asia & Nuclear Policy at the International Crisis Group, says Abe’s “nationalist and personal worldview” contributed to complicating relations between the two countries. Abe angered South Koreans, as well as China and North Korea, with a 2013 visit to the controversial Yasukuni Shrine in Tokyo, which many consider a tribute to Japan’s imperial military past.

The change in leadership in Japan “might be a chance for the mood and atmosphere between Seoul and Tokyo to improve,” Kim says, “but translating into real improvements in relations is a different story.”

Yet despite the turbulence at home and abroad Abe may be remembered as Japan’s most important prime minister since the mid-20th century, says Michael J. Green, a Senior Vice President for Asia and Japan Chair, Center for Strategic and International Studies. “He did not accomplish everything Japan needed, but he accomplished more than any Japanese leader in many decades. And above all, he demonstrated that Japan can lead,” he says.

“More than any other democratic leader, he patiently kept Donald Trump away from his worst campaign promises and isolationist instincts. It is not clear which world leader will play that role if Trump is re-elected.”

New world news from Time: ‘There’s Still a Lot to Do.’ After Christchurch Shooter’s Sentencing, New Zealand Muslim Leader Urges Reforms

The day after a far-right terrorist was sentenced to life in prison for killing 51 people at two Christchurch mosques, the New Zealand Muslim Association president urged the country not to lose sight of much-needed reforms.

“There’s a whole lot of issues we still need to deal with,” Ikhlaq Kashkari tells TIME by phone Friday. “How do we ensure this doesn’t happen in the future, what went wrong and how do we ensure those things are rectified?”

Despite the distractions of COVID-19 and upcoming elections, he says New Zealand needs to think carefully about how to prevent further acts of extremism.

The shooter, a 29-year-old Australian man, was sentenced to life in prison without parole on Aug. 27 as grieving survivors watched. It’s the first time the sentence has been imposed in New Zealand, which does not have the death penalty.

“It’s a beginning to the closure,” Kashkari says of the sentencing. Still, he notes, right-wing extremists “haven’t disappeared, they are still there, they haven’t gone away.”

The killer had pleaded guilty to 51 counts of murder, 40 counts of attempted murder and one count of committing a terrorist act for the March 2019 attack, which he live streamed for 17 minutes. He also shared an 87-page white-nationalist “manifesto” online.

Within hours of the the worst mass shooting in the country’s modern history, New Zealand’s government jumped into action, pledging reform.

As the country reeled from the massacre, Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern proposed changes to gun legislation. Less than a month afterward, New Zealand’s parliament voted to ban military-style semi-automatic weapons. This June, the country passed legislation creating a new firearms registry which gun license holders will be required to update as they buy and sell weapons.

Read More: A Year After Christchurch, Jacinda Ardern Has the World’s Attention. How Will She Use It?

The swift response earned Ardern praise globally. But still, some promised changes haven’t moved so quickly.

Two weeks after the attack, New Zealand’s justice minister Andrew Little said the government would fast-track a review of its “woefully inadequate” hate speech and human rights laws, but amendments have not yet been implemented.

“There’s a lot of things the government has done, and there’s still a lot to do,” says Kashkari, who is part of a group representing New Zealand’s Muslim community in the official investigation into the attack.

The inquiry, called the Royal Commission, was launched by the government in late March 2019 to “look at what could have or should have been done to prevent the attack.” It is expected to present a report on its findings on November 26, more than 20 months after the massacre.

Kashkari says he can’t comment on the specifics of his recommendations given his involvement in the ongoing investigation. But he shared more general advice on how he believes the world can combat the growing challenge of far-right extremism.

“Unfortunately some countries — in particularly larger, more powerful countries — are becoming more polarized,” he says. “That in itself is giving more air to right-wing type of stuff.”

Changing a country’s hate speech laws and enhancing the education system to promote cultural understanding can help, he says.

Read More: The New Zealand Attacks Show How White Supremacy Went From a Homegrown Issue to a Global Threat

Overall, he says, New Zealand is a very tolerant society, but the Muslim community still faces challenges.

For true closure and healing, he says the government must figure out how to support the victims of last year’s shooting on a long-term basis. Wider problems include a lack of representation in some decision-making organizations and stigma against Muslim people, who comprise about 1% of the population of the country of 5 million.

Kashkari called for continued momentum to tackle the underlying problems, even as the country navigates the pandemic and an election delayed until October because of the coronavirus.

“It’s really important that this doesn’t fall through the cracks, that we as New Zealanders and our future government really make sure that we learn and there are practical initiatives put in place to ensure this doesn’t happen again,” he says.

He remains hopeful.

“We are still reeling through this trauma, but we’re a very resilient community, so we will get through it,” he says.

New world news from Time: Japan’s Prime Minister Abe Reportedly Stepping Down Over Health Concerns

(TOKYO) — Japan’s Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has expressed his intention to step down due to his declining health, according to reports Friday by NHK and other Japanese media.

The Prime Minister’s Office said the report could not be immediately confirmed, but that Abe was believed to be meeting top ruling officials at the party headquarters. The Liberal Democratic Party spokesman did not answer the phone.

Concerns about Abe’s chronic health issues, simmering since earlier this summer, intensified this month when he visited a Tokyo hospital two weeks in a row for unspecified health checkups.

Abe, whose term ends in September 2021, is expected to stay on until a new party leader is elected and formally approved by the parliament.

He had abruptly resigned from his first stint in office in 2007 due to his health, which was fueling concerns about his recent condition.

Abe on Monday became Japan’s longest serving prime minister by consecutive days in office, eclipsing the record of Eisaku Sato, his great-uncle, who served 2,798 days from 1964 to 1972.

But his second hospital visit Monday eclipsed festivity for his record and has accelerated speculation and political maneuvering toward a post-Abe regime.

Abe has acknowledged having ulcerative colitis since he was a teenager and has said the condition was controlled with treatment. He has not made clear if it is related to his recent health issues or hospital visits.

After his recent hospital visits were reported, top officials from Abe’s Cabinet and the ruling party said Abe was overworked and badly needed rest.

His health concerns added to speculation that Abe’s days in office are numbered, when his support ratings are already at their lowest levels due to his handling of the coronavirus pandemic and its severe impact on the economy, on top of a slew of political scandals.

Shigeru Ishiba, a 63-year-old hawkish former defense minister and Abe’s archrival, is a favorite next leader in media surveys, though he is less popular within the ruling party. A low-key former Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida, Defense Minister Taro Kono, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga, and economic revitalization minister Yasutoshi Nishimura, who is in charge of coronavirus measures, are widely speculated in Japanese media as his potential successors.

The end of his scandal-laden first stint as prime minister was the beginning of six years of annual leadership change, remembered as an era of “revolving door” politics that lacked stability and long-term policies.

When he returned to office in 2012, Abe vowed to revitalize the nation and get its economy out of its deflationary doldrums with his “Abenomics” formula, which combines fiscal stimulus, monetary easing and structural reforms.

New world news from Time: Facebook’s Ties to India’s Ruling Party Complicate Its Fight Against Hate Speech

In July 2019, Alaphia Zoyab was on a video call with Facebook employees in India, discussing some 180 posts by users in the country that Avaaz, the watchdog group where she worked, said violated Facebook’s hate speech rules. But half way through the hour-long meeting, Shivnath Thukral, the most senior Facebook official on the call, got up and walked out of the room, Zoyab says, saying he had other important things to do.

Among the posts was one by Shiladitya Dev, a lawmaker in the state of Assam for Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). He had shared a news report about a girl being allegedly drugged and raped by a Muslim man, and added his own comment: “This is how Bangladeshi Muslims target our [native people] in 2019.” But rather than removing it, Facebook allowed the post to remain online for more than a year after the meeting, until TIME contacted Facebook to ask about it on Aug. 21. “We looked into this when Avaaz first flagged it to us, and our records show that we assessed it as a hate speech violation,” Facebook said in a statement to TIME. “We failed to remove upon initial review, which was a mistake on our part.”

Thukral was Facebook’s public policy director for India and South Asia at the time. Part of his job was lobbying the Indian government, but he was also involved in discussions about how to act when posts by politicians were flagged as hate speech by moderators, former employees tell TIME. Facebook acknowledges that Thukral left the meeting, but says he never intended to stay for its entirety, and joined only to introduce Zoyab, whom he knew from a past job, to his team. “Shivnath did not leave because the issues were not important,” Facebook said in the statement, noting that the company took action on 70 of the 180 posts presented during the meeting.

Eric Miller—World Economic ForumShivnath Thukral at the Moving to Better Ground session during the India Economic Summit in Mumbai, November, 2011.

The social media giant is under increasing scrutiny for how it enforces its hate speech policies when the accused are members of Modi’s ruling party. Activists say some Facebook policy officials are too close to the BJP, and accuse the company of putting its relationship with the government ahead of its stated mission of removing hate speech from its platform—especially when ruling-party politicians are involved. Thukral, for instance, worked with party leadership to assist in the BJP’s 2014 election campaign, according to documents TIME has seen.

Facebook’s managing director for India, Ajit Mohan, denied suggestions that the company had displayed bias toward the BJP in an Aug. 21 blog post titled, “We are open, transparent and non-partisan.” He wrote: “Despite hailing from diverse political affiliations and backgrounds, [our employees] perform their respective duties and interpret our policies in a fair and non-partisan way. The decisions around content escalations are not made unilaterally by just one person; rather, they are inclusive of views from different teams and disciplines within the company.”

Facebook published the blog post after the Wall Street Journal, citing current and former Facebook employees, reported on Aug.14 that the company’s top policy official in India, Ankhi Das, pushed back against other Facebook employees who wanted to label a BJP politician a “dangerous individual” and ban him from the platform after he called for Muslim immigrants to be shot. Das argued that punishing the state lawmaker, T. Raja Singh, would hurt Facebook’s business prospects in India, the Journal reported. (Facebook said Das’s intervention was not the sole reason Singh was not banned, and that it was still deciding if a ban was necessary.)

Read more: Can the World’s Largest Democracy Endure Another Five Years of a Modi Government?

Those business prospects are sizeable. India is Facebook’s largest market, with 328 million using the social media platform. Some 400 million Indians also use Facebook’s messaging service WhatsApp — a substantial chunk of the country’s estimated 503 million internet users. The platforms have become increasingly important in Indian politics; after the 2014 elections, Das published an op-ed arguing that Modi had won because of the way he leveraged Facebook in his campaign.

But Facebook and WhatsApp have also been used to spread hate speech and misinformation that have been blamed for helping to incite deadly attacks on minority groups amid rising communal tensions across India—despite the company’s efforts to crack down. In February, a video of a speech by BJP politician Kapil Mishra was uploaded to Facebook, in which he told police that unless they removed mostly-Muslim protesters occupying a road in Delhi, his supporters would do it themselves. Violent riots erupted within hours. (In that case, Facebook determined the video violated its rules on incitement to violence and removed it.)

WhatsApp, too, has been used with deadly intent in India — for example by cow vigilantes, Hindu mobs that have attacked Muslims and Dalits accused of killing cows, an animal sacred in Hinduism. At least 44 people, most of them Muslims, were killed by cow vigilantes between May 2015 and December 2018, according to Human Rights Watch. Many cow vigilante murders happen after rumors spread on WhatsApp, and videos of lynchings and beatings are often shared via the app too.

Read more: How the Pandemic is Reshaping India

TIME has learned that Facebook, in an effort to evaluate its role in spreading hate speech and incitements to violence, has commissioned an independent report on its impact on human rights in India. Work on the India audit, previously unreported, began before the Journal published its story. It is being conducted by the U.S. law firm Foley Hoag and will include interviews with senior Facebook staff and members of civil society in India, according to three people with knowledge of the matter and an email seen by TIME. (A similar report on Myanmar, released in 2018, detailed Facebook’s failings on hate speech that contributed to the Rohingya genocide there the previous year.) Facebook declined to confirm the report.

But activists, who have spent years monitoring and reporting hate speech by Hindu nationalists, tell TIME that they believe Facebook has been reluctant to police posts by members and supporters of the BJP because it doesn’t want to pick fights with the government that controls its largest market. The way the company is structured exacerbates the problem, analysts and former employees say, because the same people responsible for managing the relationship with the government also contribute to decisions on whether politicians should be punished for hate speech.

“A core problem at Facebook is that one policy org is responsible for both the rules of the platform and keeping governments happy,” Alex Stamos, Facebook’s former chief security officer, tweeted in May. “Local policy heads are generally pulled from the ruling political party and are rarely drawn from disadvantaged ethnic groups, religious creeds or castes. This naturally bends decision-making towards the powerful.”

Some activists have grown so frustrated with the Facebook India policy team that they’ve begun to bypass it entirely in reporting hate speech. Following the call when Thukral walked out, Avaaz decided to begin reporting hate speech directly to Facebook’s company headquarters in Menlo Park, Calif. “We found Facebook India’s attitude utterly flippant, callous, uninterested,” says Zoyab, who has since left Avaaz. Another group that regularly reports hate speech against minorities on Facebook in India, which asked not to be named out of fear for the safety of its staffers, said it has been doing the same since 2018. In a statement, Facebook acknowledged some groups that regularly flag hate speech in India are in contact with Facebook headquarters, but said that did not change the criteria by which posts were judged to be against its rules.

Read more: Facebook Says It’s Removing More Hate Speech Than Ever Before. But There’s a Catch

The revelations in the Journal set off a political scandal in India, with opposition politicians calling for Facebook to be officially investigated for alleged favoritism toward Modi’s party. And the news caused strife within the company too: In an internal open letter, Facebook employees called on executives to denounce “anti-Muslim bigotry” and do more to ensure hate speech rules are applied consistently across the platform, Reuters reported. The letter alleges that there are no Muslim employees on the India policy team; in response to questions from TIME, Facebook said it was legally prohibited from collecting such data.

Facebook friends in high places

While it is common for companies to hire lobbyists with connections to political parties, activists say the history of staff on Facebook’s India policy team, as well as their incentive to keep the government happy, creates a conflict of interest when it comes to policing hate speech by politicians. Before joining Facebook, Thukral had worked in the past on behalf of the BJP. Despite this, he was involved in making decisions about how to deal with politicians’ posts that moderators flagged as violations of hate speech rules during the 2019 elections, the former employees tell TIME. His Facebook likes include a page called “I Support Narendra Modi.”

Former Facebook employees tell TIME they believe a key reason Thukral was hired in 2017 was because he was seen as close to the ruling party. In 2013, during the BJP’s eventually successful campaign to win national power at the 2014 elections, Thukral worked with senior party officials to help run a pro-BJP website and Facebook page. The site, called Mera Bharosa (“My Trust” in Hindi) also hosted events, including a project aimed at getting students to sign up to vote, according to interviews with people involved and documents seen by TIME. A student who volunteered for a Mera Bharosa project told TIME he had no idea it was an operation run in coordination with the BJP, and that he believed he was working for a non-partisan voter registration campaign. According to the documents, this was a calculated strategy to hide the true intent of the organization. By early 2014, the site changed its name to “Modi Bharosa” (meaning “Modi Trust”) and began sharing more overtly pro-BJP content. It is not clear whether Thukral was still working with the site at that time.

In a statement to TIME, Facebook acknowledged Thukral had worked on behalf of Mera Bharosa, but denied his past work presented a conflict of interest because multiple people are involved in significant decisions about removing content. “We are aware that some of our employees have supported various campaigns in the past both in India and elsewhere in the world,” Facebook said as part of a statement issued to TIME in response to a detailed series of questions. “Our understanding is that Shivnath’s volunteering at the time focused on the themes of governance within India and are not related to the content questions you have raised.”

Now, Thukral has an even bigger job. In March 2020, he was promoted from his job at Facebook to become WhatsApp’s India public policy director. In the role, New Delhi tech policy experts tell TIME, one of Thukral’s key responsibilities is managing the company’s relationship with the Modi government. It’s a crucial job, because Facebook is trying to turn the messaging app into a digital payments processor — a lucrative idea potentially worth billions of dollars.

In April, Facebook announced it would pay $5.7 billion for a 10% stake in Reliance Jio, India’s biggest telecoms company, which is owned by India’s richest man, Mukesh Ambani. On a call with investors in May, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg spoke enthusiastically about the business opportunity. “With so many people in India engaging through WhatsApp, we just think this is going to be a huge opportunity for us to provide a better commerce experience for people, to help small businesses and the economy there, and to build a really big business ourselves over time,” he said, talking about plans to link WhatsApp Pay with Jio’s vast network of small businesses across India. “That’s why I think it really makes sense for us to invest deeply in India.”

Read more: How Whatsapp Is Fueling Fake News Ahead of India’s Elections

But WhatsApp’s future as a payments application in India depends on final approval from the national payments regulator, which is still pending. Facebook’s hopes for expansion in India have been quashed by a national regulator before, in 2016, when the country’s telecoms watchdog said Free Basics, Facebook’s plan to provide free Internet access for only some sites, including its own, violated net neutrality rules. One of Thukral’s priorities in his new role is ensuring that a similar problem doesn’t strike down Facebook’s big ambitions for WhatsApp Pay.

‘No foreign company in India wants to be in the government’s bad books’

While the regulator is technically independent, analysts say that Facebook’s new relationship with the wealthiest man in India will likely make it much easier to gain approval for WhatsApp Pay. “It would be easier now for Facebook to get that approval, with Ambani on its side,” says Neil Shah, vice president of Counterpoint Research, an industry analysis firm. And goodwill from the government itself is important too, analysts say. “No foreign company in India wants to be in the government’s bad books,” says James Crabtree, author of The Billionaire Raj. “Facebook would very much like to have good relations with the government of India and is likely to think twice about doing things that will antagonize them.”

The Indian government has shown before it is not afraid to squash the dreams of foreign tech firms. In July, after a geopolitical spat with China, it banned dozens of Chinese apps including TikTok and WeChat. “There has been a creeping move toward a kind of digital protectionism in India,” Crabtree says. “So in the back of Facebook’s mind is the fact that the government could easily turn against foreign tech companies in general, and Facebook in particular, especially if they’re seen to be singling out major politicians.”

With hundreds of millions of users already in India, and hundreds of millions more who don’t have smartphones yet but might in the near future, Facebook has an incentive to avoid that possibility. “Facebook has said in the past that it has no business interest in allowing hate speech on its platform,” says Chinmayi Arun, a resident fellow at Yale Law School, who studies the regulation of tech platforms. “It’s evident from what’s going on in India that this is not entirely true.”

Facebook says it is working hard to combat hate speech. “We want to make it clear that we denounce hate in any form,” said Mohan, Facebook’s managing director in India, in his Aug. 21 blog post. “We have removed and will continue to remove content posted by public figures in India when it violates our Community Standards.”

But scrubbing hate speech remains a daunting challenge for Facebook. At an employee meeting in June, Zuckerberg highlighted Mishra’s February speech ahead of the Delhi riots, without naming him, as a clear example of a post that should be removed. The original video of Mishra’s speech was taken down shortly after it was uploaded. But another version of the video, with more than 5,600 views and a long list of supportive comments underneath, remained online for six months until TIME flagged it to Facebook in August.