Paris (Imran Y. CHOUDHRY) :- Former Press Secretary to the President, Former Press Minister to the Embassy of Pakistan to France, Former MD, SRBC Mr. Qamar Bashir analysis : In a jarring move that sent shockwaves across the globe, the United States imposed sanctions on Francesca Albanese, the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the Occupied Palestinian Territories, accusing her of “systematic demonization” of the U.S. But behind this vague allegation lies a disturbing truth: Albanese’s real “offense” was exposing the industrial economy of genocide—one fueled not just by the Israeli government but by a vast network of corporations, hedge funds, universities, and pension systems across the West.
Her latest report, “The Economy of Genocide,” and a subsequent viral interview laid bare the machinery of death behind the war on Gaza. She revealed how weapons manufacturers, bulldozer suppliers, and construction conglomerates are not merely supporting genocide—they are profiting from it. Israeli bulldozers raze entire neighborhoods, while construction contracts to rebuild illegal settlements flow rapidly. For every bomb dropped, there’s a dividend earned; for every displaced family, a new high-rise emerges.
But what shocked the conscience of the global public was not merely her confirmation of genocide—it was the financial lifelines she traced. From American surveillance and cloud-computing firms to European pension funds and elite universities, Albanese exposed how deeply this war is sustained by capital flows. Norway’s Government Pension Fund alone holds over $122 billion invested in companies complicit in Israeli occupation and military operations. Similar financial trails lead to Sweden, Germany, France, and the United Kingdom.
Even Ivy League institutions like Harvard, Stanford, and NYU—often hailed for social justice advocacy—are enmeshed through opaque endowment investments and silent third-party fund managers. These universities, while professing solidarity with Palestine in student forums, funnel capital into firms that supply arms and equipment to Israeli forces.
Francesca Albanese did not stop at the economic trail. She painted an unflinching picture of Gaza’s humanitarian catastrophe. “More than 75% of those killed in Gaza and the West Bank are women and children,” she said, emphasizing that these victims cannot be labeled militants by any legal or moral standard. “Their only crime is being Palestinian.” This demographic devastation is not accidental. It is systematic, targeted, and genocidal.
Albanese called Gaza “a living textbook of genocide,” fulfilling every criterion under international law—deliberate killings, destruction of living conditions, forced displacement, and erasure of cultural identity. She described how Israeli raids have decimated Palestine’s knowledge ecosystem: universities bombed, professors assassinated, students slaughtered, libraries turned to dust. Gaza’s last remaining research centers and cultural hubs have been wiped out. It is not only the bodies, but the collective memory and future of a nation being erased.
Commerce and civil society lie in ruins. Shops, bakeries, factories, and schools have been obliterated. Gaza is left with no one to educate, to trade, or to heal. The goal is clear: to reduce an entire people to dependency, silence, or oblivion. And yet, this extermination campaign is not funded solely by Tel Aviv or condoned solely by Washington—it is driven by a war economy backed by multinational private contractors.
Security firms, tech companies, arms manufacturers, and logistics contractors have turned Gaza into a testing ground and a profit center. These corporations operate in sync with the IDF, often surpassing state authorities in reach and precision. Private surveillance firms now work alongside Mossad, analyzing data harvested by U.S.-built platforms. Francesca Albanese warned: “This is not just a war—it’s a joint venture. A business enterprise of destruction.”
She highlighted that decision-makers in boardrooms, not just war rooms, control this carnage. A faceless ecosystem of fund managers, politicians, and lobbyists keep the war alive. Private defense contractors mint money; lawmakers receive donations; media pundits get scripts. Israel’s military policy has become a business model. And what especially rattled the U.S. and Israeli establishments was Albanese’s courage in naming these links, not as bystanders but as primary beneficiaries and drivers of genocide.
The sanctions on her backfired spectacularly. Francesca Albanese became an instant global icon. Her voice, once confined to UN documents, exploded across media platforms. She became a symbol of defiance, truth, and moral clarity. “I have done my job,” she stated. “And for that, I was sanctioned. But if telling the truth is punishable, then justice is already dead.”
She revealed she had contacted 48 of the entities named in her report, offering them a right of reply. Only 15 responded—most with evasive statements. None denied the facts. None divested. “They stay in with full knowledge and full intent,” she said. “That makes them complicit.”
In her concluding message, Albanese offered not just a diagnosis but a remedy. She called for immediate divestment from Israeli-linked corporations, a complete boycott of products manufactured or distributed by complicit companies, and full transparency from universities and public institutions on their financial entanglements. Symbolic gestures are not enough, she argued—only strategic, financial, and civic disassociation from genocide will force change.
Yet, as Francesca’s voice grows louder, a larger consensus is forming across the political and analytical spectrum. Experts and former officials now agree: the key to stopping the Gaza genocide rests squarely with the United States. A policy reversal by the White House—if backed by public will—could alter the tide. President trump, or his successor, must face the moral and political reckoning of this complicity. No Israeli prime minister, not even Netanyahu, can sustain such a war without uninterrupted U.S. arms, aid, and vetoes.
Many now identify Netanyahu’s war-mongering policies as the root cause of perpetual conflict. His government must be forced, through sanctions and international legal pressure, to abandon expansionism and militarism. But there’s a third force equally dangerous: the war economy itself. Fueled by private contractors, weapon lobbies, and pro-Israel institutions like AIPAC, this machine funds lawmakers, shapes CNN and Fox coverage, and pressures legislatures globally to maintain the killing spree for profit.
The time has come for people—not governments—to act. The collective conscience of the world, including Americans, Israelis, and the global Islamic community, must rise. It is time to boycott Israeli goods, end all economic support to war profiteers, and demand democratic action from parliaments to stop the slaughter. If we remain silent now, history will not only condemn the leaders who enabled genocide—it will also judge the nations, societies, and individuals who watched, calculated, and did nothing.
Francesca Albanese showed us that genocide is no longer hidden—it’s televised, monetized, and outsourced. The question now is not whether we know, but whether we will act.

Paris (Imran Y. CHOUDHRY) :- Former Press Secretary to the President, Former Press Minister to the Embassy of Pakistan to France, Former MD, SRBC Mr. Qamar Bashir analysis : While the world is already grappling with multiple wars—Russia’s relentless campaign in Ukraine, and a raging trade war between the United States and China—a new front of confrontation is brewing, and it may prove to be the most perilous yet. That front lies in Iran’s uranium enrichment program, which has again placed the region, and perhaps the world, on the edge of catastrophic conflict.
The latest round of indirect nuclear negotiations between Iran and the United States, mediated through Oman, ended in a stalemate. The U.S. demanded that Iran completely cease enrichment of uranium, alleging it has already reached 50%—a level perilously close to weapons-grade. President Donald Trump, in his characteristic bluntness, declared such enrichment “unacceptable” and reiterated that bombing Iran’s nuclear sites remains “on the table”—especially if Israel takes the lead.
In response, Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei addressed a gender-segregated crowd—women dressed in black abayas, men seated apart—and rejected the U.S. proposal outright. He warned that accepting such terms would render Iran’s nuclear plants useless. “If we give up enrichment, our nuclear plants will be empty shells, reliant on the West for fuel,” he declared. “It would be the ultimate betrayal of our national interests.”
Indeed, despite crippling U.S. and EU sanctions, Iran’s nuclear program has persisted. Tehran insists it only seeks nuclear fuel for energy, not weapons. But the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) released a report indicating enrichment levels dangerously close to weapons-grade, stirring alarms in Washington, Tel Aviv, and beyond.
Yet this time, the geopolitical dynamics are drastically different. A surprising twist emerged when President Vladimir Putin of Russia declared Russia’s intent to join the negotiations, suggesting that excluding Moscow from talks with such far-reaching implications was unacceptable. Putin’s intervention has drastically shifted the equation. What was once a two-player confrontation between Washington and Tehran may now evolve into a global standoff, especially if Moscow pledges to defend Tehran militarily or diplomatically.
If Russia indeed aligns itself with Iran, an Israeli or U.S. strike on Iranian nuclear facilities could be interpreted by Moscow as an attack on its sphere of influence—provoking an unpredictable military response. Further complicating the matter, President Trump recently held a 90-minute phone conversation with Chinese President Xi Jinping. Officially, the talk focused on trade and investment, but Trump took the unusual step of explicitly stating that Iran was “not discussed.” This denial has only fueled speculation that Beijing, too, may be stepping into the shadows of the Iranian nuclear crisis.
If China and Russia jointly back Iran, it would create an unambiguous geopolitical divide: on one side, the U.S. and Israel; on the other, Iran with the diplomatic, economic, and possibly military support of two global powers. Such polarization could render any military action against Iran unthinkable and turn what was once a manageable regional tension into a global crisis with echoes of the Cold War.
The stakes are already high. Iran’s Foreign Minister warned Israel that any attack would be met with massive retaliation, and Khamenei himself vowed that “aggression will be punished proportionally.” Tehran’s position is firm: enrichment is a sovereign right, and the Western demand to halt it—without a concurrent lifting of sanctions—is fundamentally unjust.
It is this asymmetry that lies at the heart of Iran’s frustration. Washington demands denuclearization, but offers no meaningful economic relief in return. As Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Esmaeil Baghaei recently put it: “We must ensure that Iran will effectively benefit economically and that its banking and trade relations with other countries will return to normal.” Without these guarantees, he said, any deal would be one-sided.
Iran now plans to present a counter-proposal, which it calls “reasonable, logical, and balanced.” But the U.S. remains skeptical. Trump told reporters, “They’re just asking for things that you can’t do. They want to keep enrichment. We can’t have enrichment.” The next round of talks is tentatively set for Muscat this Sunday, although both Iranian and American officials have expressed uncertainty over the date.
Amid these tensions, Israel remains a wildcard. It is widely believed to possess nuclear weapons, though it neither confirms nor denies their existence. Iran accuses the West of hypocrisy: turning a blind eye to Israel’s nuclear arsenal while fixating on Iran’s civilian program. Tehran has even hinted at releasing classified Israeli documents allegedly proving Western complicity in bolstering Israel’s nuclear capacity.
This double standard resonates deeply in the Muslim world. If the U.S. and its allies are truly committed to nuclear non-proliferation, why the silence on Israel? Why is Iran—an NPT signatory and a member of the United Nations—denied what others enjoy freely? Iran argues that if nuclear capability is a sovereign right for the U.S., Russia, China, India, Pakistan, France, and even Israel, then denying that right to Iran is an unjustified discrimination rooted in geopolitical favoritism, not international law.
President Trump, for his part, continues to play both hawk and dealmaker. He insists his administration is guided by “common sense,” yet his threats are often maximalist and theatrical. He’s threatened to seize the Panama Canal, annex parts of Canada, and even buy Greenland—none of which materialized. His threat to bomb Iran could be a negotiating tactic to strengthen his hand at the table. But with Iran, such brinkmanship carries a heavier cost.
Iran is not Panama or Greenland. It is a civilization-state with a proud history, stretching back to the Achaemenid Empire, rivaling Rome in antiquity and influence. Its people are fiercely nationalistic and will not capitulate easily—especially not to threats.
So what lies ahead?
The most logical path forward—if we are to avoid catastrophe—is mutual recognition of each nation’s rights and responsibilities. If the West truly wants to avoid proliferation, it must apply the same standards across the board, including Israel. Iran, too, must commit transparently to peaceful nuclear development, with rigorous international inspections.
But any one-sided approach, which demands total Iranian compliance while ignoring Israeli capabilities and refusing to lift economic sanctions, is doomed to fail.
The world today is no longer unipolar. China and Russia are no longer silent spectators. With their involvement, the U.S. no longer enjoys uncontested leverage. This emerging multipolarity means diplomacy, not domination, must guide the next phase of the Iranian nuclear talks.
For the sake of global peace, let better sense prevail. Let every nation uphold international law, act with transparency, and above all, avoid nuclear brinkmanship. Because in a nuclear conflict, there are no winners—only mutual destruction, and irreversible loss for all of humanity.

Nice ( Imran Y. CHOUDHRY):- The Ocean is our planet’s life support, but it’s under threat.

World leaders, investors, youth, Indigenous Peoples and scientists unite at the UN Ocean Conference in Nice to accelerate global action to Save Our Ocean.

The third United Nations Ocean Conference (UNOC3) opened today in Nice, France, bringing together world leaders, scientists, and environmental advocates to address urgent challenges facing the world’s oceans, from pollution to overfishing and climate change.

France and Costa Rica co-hosted the five-day conference, which aims to accelerate global efforts to protect marine ecosystems. These ecosystems sustain over three billion people and play a critical role in regulating the Earth’s climate.

“The ocean, if we protect it, can help us fight climate change. So if we protect seagrass beds, for example, seagrass beds are like amazing heroes in catching carbon. If we protect whales, they also capture carbon. And healthy fisheries are also part of the carbon capture. And the deep sea, which we know is vital for carbon capture and storage.

Key priorities for the conference include advancing the target, a global commitment to protect 30 percent of the world’s oceans by 2030. Currently, only 8.4 percent of marine areas are under some form of protection.

“The action needs to start now and we need to put money and action behind these pledges and that is really what we are looking for at this ocean conference,” Battle said.

Another primary focus is securing enough ratifications for the High Seas Treaty, formally known as the BBNJ Agreement, which would enable the creation of marine protected areas in international waters. The treaty requires approval from at least 60 countries to take effect, but only 32 have ratified it so far.

French President Emmanuel Macron stressed the urgency of reaching the ratification threshold by the September 2025 deadline, while also calling for stronger measures against illegal fishing and harmful fisheries subsidies.

The conference features high-level discussions on sustainable financing mechanisms, including “blue bonds” and “blue loans,” to support ocean conservation efforts.

Scientists warn that rising ocean temperatures, acidification, and sea level rise threaten marine biodiversity and coastal communities, underscoring the need for coordinated global action.

Ambassador Mumtaz Zahra Baloch is leading the Pakistan delegation to the Third United Nations Ocean Conference (UNOC3). Pakistan remains strongly committed to the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS); and conserving and sustainably using the ocean, sea and marine resources for sustainable development, in line with the Sustainable Development Goal 14 (Life Below Water).

This Conference continued until the 13th of June for taking the decisions and strict actions to save Oceans.