CHARLOTTESVILLE, USA: The white nationalists behind last weekend’s violent rally found an appealing target in the historic town where Thomas Jefferson founded a university and an outspoken, progressive mayor declared his city the “capital of the resistance” to President Donald Trump.
For more than a year, the Charlottesville government has also been engaged in contentious public soul searching over its Confederate monuments, a process that led to the decision to remove a statue of Gen. Robert E. Lee. All those factors made this community a symbolically powerful backdrop for what’s considered the largest white nationalist gathering in at least a decade.
“We are a progressive, tolerant city. We are also a Southern city,” Mayor Mike Signer said. About a year and a half ago, Charlottesville “decided to launch on the difficult but essential work of finally telling the truth about race. That made us a target for tons of people who don’t want to change the narrative.”
On the eve of Saturday’s rally, hundreds of white men marched through the University of Virginia campus, holding torches and chanting racist and anti-Semitic slogans. The next morning, many looked like they were dressed for war as they made their way to Emancipation Park.
They clashed with counter-protesters in a stunning display of violence before authorities forced the crowd to disperse. Later, a car plowed into a crowd of demonstrators, killing 32-year-old Heather Heyer and injuring 19 others.
With a population of around 47,000, Charlottesville is a progressive island in a conservative part of Virginia.
The funky, cosmopolitan town is nestled in the rolling foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains. It’s known for being home to Jefferson’s plantation, Monticello, and the place where the Dave Matthews Band got its start.
The heart of its downtown is an open-air pedestrian mall lined with restaurants, bars and quirky boutiques. Tourists flock to Charlottesville not only for the history and culture but also to visit the wineries that dot the countryside just outside of town.
Charlottesville was easily overwhelmed by the numbers that showed up Saturday, said Ed Ayers, a leading Civil War scholar who taught at UVA for decades before moving to Richmond.
Despite Virginia’s bloody part in the Civil War, Ayers said, the Lee statue does not have a significant historical connection to Charlottesville. The city “did not play a central role in the war at all, he explained, and the statue was not erected until the 1920s, when Jim Crow laws were eroding the rights of black citizens.
Charlottesville was just “a very clear symbol they could go to and have a protest,” Ayers said.
The city is proud of Jefferson’s university, a prestigious school with graduates that include prominent figures such as Robert F. Kennedy. But UVA is also a school largely built by slaves and where professors had ideological connections to the resistance movement that followed the Brown vs. Board of Education school desegregation decision.
The university did not admit black students until 1950. Last year, figures provided by the school show only 6 percent of students were black.
White nationalist leader Richard Spencer — a UVA grad who was one of the most high-profile speakers lined up for the rally — echoed Ayers’ perspective. He said that the Confederate monuments are a metaphor for something “much bigger,” referring to “white dispossession and the de-legitimization of white people in this country and around the world.”
Saturday was not Spencer’s first demonstration in Charlottesville. In May, he was among another torch-wielding group that rallied around the statue at night, chanting, “You will not replace us.” Later that month, local right-wing blogger and UVA graduate Jason Kessler applied for the permit for Saturday’s event.
Then, in July, about 50 Ku Klux Klan members rallied at the statue, where they were met by more than 1,000 protesters. That, too, made national news.
Oren Segal, director of Anti-Defamation League’s Center on Extremism, said hate groups are eager to exploit media attention.
“When they saw a built-in opportunity to build off the other two rallies, it was clear they decided, ‘This is the place. We’re going to get more attention here,’” he said.
Virginia’s closely watched governor’s race, one of only two in the nation this year, also helped draw attention.
Republican Corey Stewart successfully made the statue’s proposed removal a key talking point in the GOP primary, which he almost won despite being an underdog.
Stewart, a one-time state chairman of Trump’s campaign, made several campaign stops in Charlottesville. At least one public appearance was with Kessler.
Katie Straight, who stood outside the downtown theater Wednesday where a memorial service for Heyer took place, agreed that the city’s “democratic” discussion about what to do with the statues had contributed to the scope of what happened Saturday.
“I also think that you have a group of angry people in this country who are looking for a place to physically terrorize those who might challenge their legacy of power,” Straight said. “And Charlottesville, in this historic moment, happens to be that place. I hope and pray it’s the last place, but I don’t think it will be.”
Why hate came to the progressive island of Charlottesville
Why hate came to the progressive island of Charlottesville
Rescuers in South Africa search for the missing after floods leave at least 49 dead
- The missing included four high school students who were swept away when their bus was caught up in the floods near a river on Tuesday
- The floods hit early Tuesday after an extreme cold front brought heavy rain, strong winds and snow to parts of eastern and southern South Africa
Authorities said they expected the death toll to rise.
The missing included four high school students who were swept away when their bus was caught up in the floods near a river on Tuesday. Six students on the bus were confirmed dead, while three were rescued after clinging onto trees and calling out for help, according to the provincial government.
The floods hit the province early Tuesday after an extreme cold front brought heavy rain, strong winds and snow to parts of eastern and southern South Africa. Forecasters had warned about the damaging weather last week.
Eastern Cape provincial government officials said they believed people were still missing but did not give an exact number. They were working with families to find out who was still unaccounted for, they said.
On Wednesday, rescue teams brought bodies out of the water in blue body bags, while witnesses said many people had taken refuge on the top of buildings or in trees.
The floods centered on the town of Mthatha and its surrounding district, which is around 430 kilometers (267 miles) south of the east coast city of Durban.
Officials said at least 58 schools and 20 hospitals were damaged, while hundreds of families were left homeless after their houses were submerged under water or washed away by the floods. Critical infrastructure including roads and bridges has been badly damaged, Eastern Cape Premier Oscar Mabuyane said.
He said it was one of the worst weather-related disasters his province had experienced.
South African President Cyril Ramaphosa announced he had activated the National Disaster Management Center to help local authorities in the Eastern Cape, while national officials were expected to visit the province on Thursday.
Ukrainian pea prices may rise amid expected exports to China, producers say
- UAC said an increase in demand could push pea prices up to as much as 16,000 hryvnias ($385.33) per metric ton
KYIV: Prices for Ukrainian peas may rise significantly by mid-summer on the back of expected significant supplies to China, which opened its market to Ukrainian peas this spring, Ukrainian producers union UAC said on Thursday.
Farmers sowed 250,000 hectares of peas in 2025 compared with 212,000 hectares in 2024, farm ministry data shows.
“China has opened its market, and a significant part of the peas will probably go there,” UAC said in a statement.
UAC said an increase in demand could push pea prices up to as much as 16,000 hryvnias ($385.33) per metric ton ex works (EXW) in late summer against the current 14,000 hryvnias.
The farm ministry has said pea production in Ukraine could increase to 476,000 metric tons in the 2025/26 July-June season from 409,000 tons in 2024/25.
Ukraine exports its peas mostly to Turkiye, India, Italy, Malaysia, the ministry said.
Australia ‘confident’ in US nuclear sub deal despite review
- The 2021 AUKUS deal joins Australia, the United Kingdom and the United States in a multi-decade effort to balance China’s growing military might
SYDNEY: Australia said Thursday it is “very confident” in the future of a US agreement to equip its navy with a fleet of nuclear-powered submarines, after the Trump administration put the pact under review.
The 2021 AUKUS deal joins Australia, the United Kingdom and the United States in a multi-decade effort to balance China’s growing military might.
It aims to arm Australia with a fleet of cutting-edge, nuclear-powered submarines from the United States and provides for cooperation in developing an array of warfare technologies.
US President Donald Trump’s administration has advised Australia and the United Kingdom that it is reviewing AUKUS, a spokesperson for the Australian Department of Defense confirmed Thursday.
Defense Minister Richard Marles said he was “very confident” Australia would still get the American submarines.
“I think the review that’s been announced is not a surprise,” he told public broadcaster ABC.
“We’ve been aware of this for some time. We welcome it. It’s something which is perfectly natural for an incoming administration to do.”
Australia plans to acquire at least three Virginia Class submarines from the United States within 15 years, eventually manufacturing its own subs.
The US Navy has 24 Virginia-class vessels, which can carry cruise missiles, but American shipyards are struggling to meet production targets set at two new boats each year.
In the United States, critics question why Washington would sell nuclear-powered submarines to Australia without stocking its own military first.
Marles said boosting the US production of US Virginia Class submarines was a challenge.
“That’s why we are working very closely with the United States on seeing that happen. But that is improving,” he said.
Australia’s focus is on “sticking to this plan and on seeing it through,” Marles said.
He criticized Australia’s previous conservative government for “chopping and changing” its submarine choice.
On the eve of announcing its participation in AUKUS in 2021, the government of the time abruptly scrapped plans to buy diesel-powered submarines in a lucrative deal with France — infuriating Paris.
The AUKUS submarine program alone could cost the country up to $235 billion over the next 30 years, according to Australian government forecasts, a price tag that has contributed to criticism of the strategy.
Australia should conduct its own review of AUKUS, said former conservative prime minister Malcolm Turnbull, noting that Britain and now the United States had each decided to re-examine the pact.
“Australia, which has the most at stake, has no review. Our parliament to date has been the least curious and least informed. Time to wake up?” he posted on X.
Former Labour Party prime minister Paul Keating, a vehement critic of AUKUS, said the US review might “save Australia from itself.”
Australia should carve its own security strategy “rather than being dragged along on the coat tails of a fading Atlantic empire,” Keating said.
“The review makes clear that America keeps its national interests uppermost. But the concomitant question is: Why has Australia failed to do the same?”
Any US review of AUKUS carries a risk, particularly since it is a Biden-era initiative, said Euan Graham, senior analyst at the Australian Strategic Policy Institute.
But it is “fundamentally a good deal for the US,” he said, with Australia already investing cash to boost American submarine production as part of the agreement.
“I just do not think it is realistic for Australia, this far backed in, to have any prospect of withdrawing itself from AUKUS,” Graham said.
“I don’t think there is a Plan B that would meet requirements and I think it would shred Australia’s reputation fundamentally in a way that would not be recoverable.”
Few minutes to pack up a lifetime: Pakistan’s foreigner crackdown sends Afghans scrambling
- The nationwide crackdown on foreigners has led to the departures of almost 1 million Afghans already
- Pakistan set several deadlines earlier this year for Afghans to leave or face deportation
TORKHAM, Afghanistan: The order was clear and indisputable, the timeline startling. You have 45 minutes to pack up and leave Pakistan forever.
Sher Khan, a 42-year-old Afghan, had returned home from his job in a brick factory. He stared at the plainclothes policeman on the doorstep, his mind reeling. How could he pack up his whole life and leave the country of his birth in under an hour?
In the blink of an eye, the life he had built was taken away from him. He and his wife grabbed a few kitchen items and whatever clothes they could for themselves and their nine children. They left everything else behind at their home in Pakistan-controlled Kashmir.
Born in Pakistan to parents who fled the 1979 Soviet invasion of Afghanistan and the ensuing war, Khan is one of hundreds of thousands of Afghans who have now been expelled.
The nationwide crackdown, launched in October 2023, on foreigners Pakistan says are living in the country illegally has led to the departures of almost 1 million Afghans already.
Pakistan says millions more remain. It wants them gone.
Leaving with nothing to beat a deadline
“All our belongings were left behind,” Khan said as he stood in a dusty, windswept refugee camp just across the Afghan border in Torkham, the first stop for expelled refugees. “We tried so hard (over the years) to collect the things that we had with honor.”
Pakistan set several deadlines earlier this year for Afghans to leave or face deportation. Afghan Citizen Card holders had to leave the capital Islamabad and Rawalpindi city by March 31, while those with Proof of Registration could stay until June 30. No specific deadlines were set for Afghans living elsewhere in Pakistan.
Khan feared that delaying his departure beyond the deadline might have resulted in his wife and children being hauled off to a police station along with him a blow to his family’s dignity.
“We are happy that we came (to Afghanistan) with modesty and honor,” he said. As for his lost belongings, “God may provide for them here, as He did there.”
A refugee influx in a struggling country
At the Torkham camp, run by Afghanistan’s Taliban government, each family receives a SIM card and 10,000 Afghanis ($145) in aid. They can spend up to three days there before having to move on.
The camp’s director, Molvi Hashim Maiwandwal, said some 150 families were arriving daily from Pakistan – far fewer than the roughly 1,200 families who were arriving about two months ago. But he said another surge was expected after the three-day Islamic holiday of Eid Al-Adha that started June 7.
Aid organizations inside the camp help with basic needs, including health care. Local charity Aseel provides hygiene kits and helps with food. It has also set up a food package delivery system for families once they arrive at their final destination elsewhere in Afghanistan.
Aseel’s Najibullah Ghiasi said they expected a surge in arrivals “by a significant number” after Eid. “We cannot handle all of them, because the number is so huge,” he said, adding the organization was trying to boost fundraising so it could support more people.
Pakistan blames Afghanistan for militancy
Pakistan accuses Afghans of staging militant attacks inside the country, saying assaults are planned from across the border – a charge Kabul’s Taliban government denies.
Pakistan denies targeting Afghans, and maintains that everyone leaving the country is treated humanely and with dignity. But for many, there is little that is humane about being forced to pack up and leave in minutes or hours.
Iran, too, has been expelling Afghans, with the UNHCR, the UN’s refugee agency, saying on June 5 that 500,000 Afghans had been forced to leave Iran and Pakistan in the two months since April 1.
Rights groups and aid agencies say authorities are pressuring Afghans into going sooner.
In April, Human Rights Watch said police had raided houses, beaten and arbitrarily detained people, and confiscated refugee documents, including residence permits. Officers demanded bribes to allow Afghans to remain in Pakistan, the group added.
Searching for hope while starting again
Fifty-year-old Yar Mohammad lived in Pakistan-controlled Kashmir for nearly 45 years. The father of 12 built a successful business polishing floors, hiring several workers. Plainclothes policemen knocked on his door too. They gave him six hours to leave.
“No way a person can wrap up so much business in six hours, especially if they spent 45 years in one place,” he said. Friends rushed to his aid to help pack up anything they could: the company’s floor-polishing machines, some tables, bed-frames and mattresses, and clothes.
Now all his household belongings are crammed into orange tents in the Torkham refugee camp, his hard-earned floor-polishing machines outside and exposed to the elements. After three days of searching, he managed to find a place to rent in Kabul.
“I have no idea what we will do,” he said, adding that he would try to recreate his floor-polishing business in Afghanistan. “If this works here, it is the best thing to do.”
UN: 122 million forcibly displaced worldwide ‘untenably high’
- UNHCR: A record 123.2 million people worldwide were forcibly displaced from their homes at the end of 2024
- Sudan is now the world’s largest forced displacement situation with 14.3 million refugees and IDPs
GENEVA: The number of people forcibly displaced from their homes worldwide has dropped slightly from a record high but remains “untenably high,” the United Nations said Thursday.
A record 123.2 million people worldwide were forcibly displaced from their homes at the end of 2024, said UNHCR, the UN refugee agency.
But that figure dropped to 122.1 million by the end of April this year, as Syrians began returning home after years of turmoil.
Nearly two million Syrians have been able to return home from abroad or from displacement within the war-ravaged country.
But the UNHCR warned that how major conflicts worldwide played out would determine whether the figure would rise once again.
The agency said the number of people displaced by war, violence and persecution worldwide was “untenably high,” particularly in a period when humanitarian funding is evaporating.
“We are living in a time of intense volatility in international relations, with modern warfare creating a fragile, harrowing landscape marked by acute human suffering,” said Filippo Grandi, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees.
“We must redouble our efforts to search for peace and find long-lasting solutions for refugees and others forced to flee their homes.”
The main drivers of displacement remain sprawling conflicts like those in Sudan, Myanmar and Ukraine, UNHCR said in its flagship annual Global Trends Report.
Syria’s brutal civil war erupted in 2011 but president Bashar Assad was finally overthrown in December 2024.
The report said the first months of this year saw rising numbers of Syrians returning home.
As of mid-May, more than 500,000 Syrians are estimated to have crossed back into the country since the fall of Assad, while an estimated 1.2 million internally displaced people (IDPs) have returned to their areas of origin since the end of November.
UNHCR estimates that up to 1.5 million Syrians from abroad and two million IDPs may return by the end of 2025.
Sudan is now the world’s largest forced displacement situation with 14.3 million refugees and IDPs, overtaking Syria (13.5 million), which is followed by Afghanistan (10.3 million) and Ukraine (8.8 million).
“During the remainder of 2025, much will depend on the dynamics in key situations,” the annual report said.
“This includes whether peace, or at least a cessation in fighting, is possible to achieve, particularly in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Sudan and Ukraine.”
It also depends on whether conditions for returns improve in Afghanistan and Syria.
Another factor was “how dire the impact of the current funding cuts will be” on responding to displacement and creating conditions for safe and dignified returns.
The number of people forced to flee persecution, conflict, violence, human rights violations and events seriously disturbing public order has almost doubled in the last decade.
The figure of 123.2 million worldwide at the end of last year was up seven million compared to the end of 2023.
“One in 67 people globally were forcibly displaced at the end of 2024,” UNHCR said.
In total, 9.8 million forcibly displaced people returned home in 2024, including 1.6 million refugees — the most for more than two decades — and 8.2 million IDPs — the second highest ever.
“We have seen some rays of hope over the last six months,” said Grandi.
But countries such as the DR Congo, Myanmar and South Sudan saw significant new forced displacements as well as returns.
Two-thirds of refugees stay in neighboring countries.
Iran (3.5 million), Turkiye (2.9 million), Colombia (2.8 million), Germany (2.7 million) and Uganda (1.8 million) host the largest refugee populations.
