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Tag: annual report

  • Record number of journalists killed in 2025, two-thirds by Israel, claims CPJ report

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    The Committee to Protect Journalists’ annual report described 86 journalist deaths at the hands of Israel, figures that the IDF has since denounced.

    A record 129 journalists and media workers were killed in the course of their work in 2025, two-thirds of them by Israel, the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) detailed in its annual report on Wednesday.

    It was the second consecutive year-on-record for press deaths, according to the CPJ, an NY-based nonprofit organization whose aim is to promote press freedom worldwide.

    The report also claimed that the IDF has committed more targeted killings of journalists than any other government’s military since the CPJ began its documentation in 1992.

    The IDF strongly rejected the claims, stating that it “does not intentionally harm journalists or their family members.”

    “The report is based on general allegations, data of unknown origin, and predetermined conclusions, without considering the complexity of combat or the IDF’s efforts to mitigate harm to non-combatants,” it said.

    Mourners carry the body of Palestinian journalist and employee of the Egyptian Committee killed in an Israeli airstrike on Wednesday, during there funeral in Khan Yunis, in the southern Gaza Strip, January 22, 2026. (credit: Ramadan Abed/Reuters)

    The CPJ reported 86 journalist deaths caused by Israel in 2025, with 55 of them having been Palestinians in Gaza and the rest in a Houthi media center in Yemen, which the IDF described as a propaganda arm of the terror group.

    At least 104 of the 129 journalists died in connection with conflicts, according to the report.

    Apart from Gaza and Yemen, the deadliest countries for journalists include Sudan, where nine were killed, and Mexico, where six died. Four Ukrainian journalists were killed by Russian forces compared to 15 in 2022, and three died in the Philippines, the report said.

    Terrorists pose as journalists, IDF claims

    Among the killed journalists included in the report are Hussam al-Masri, a contractor for Reuters killed in an attack on Nasser Hospital in Khan Yunis, and Hossam Shabat, a sniper from Hamas’s Beit Hanoun Battalion posing as an Al Jazeera journalist.

    The IDF claimed that, alongside the Shin Bet, the military was able to expose Shabat’s ties to Hamas and the al-Qassam Brigades, the terror group’s military wing, by revealing internal Hamas documents proving his participation in military training in 2019.

    In August 2025, the IDF confirmed the death of Anas al-Sharif, a Hamas terrorist who also worked as an Al Jazeera correspondent inside the Gaza Strip.

    Al-Sharif, who was identified by the military as a member of Hamas since 2013, was killed near Shifa Hospital in Gaza City. He was found responsible for aiding the terror organization’s rocket attacks.

    According to a study conducted late last year, 60% of individuals who identified as journalists and were killed during the war in Gaza were members of or affiliated with terrorist organizations, primarily Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad, contradicting claims made by Hamas and various non-governmental organizations.

    The research was conducted by the Meir Amit Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center, and examined 266 media workers reported killed between October 7, 2023, and November 30, 2025.

    Shlomo Mofaz, the center’s director, said that “the issue of Hamas’s propaganda is a high priority, and it uses a lot of media outlets abroad to talk about it.”

    “The narrative of harming journalists is like the number of deaths – when you check the facts and figures, it’s not like that. About 60% is definitely a very high figure,” he said.

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  • Humanity is on path toward ‘climate chaos,’ scientists warn

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    Industries and individuals around the world burned record amounts of oil, gas and coal last year, releasing more greenhouse gases than ever before, a group of leading scientists said in a new report, warning that humanity is hurtling toward “climate chaos.”

    The surge in global use of fossil fuels in 2024 contributed to extreme weather and devastating disasters including heat waves, storms, floods and wildfires.

    “The planet’s vital signs are flashing red,” the scientists wrote in their annual report on the state of the climate. “The window to prevent the worst outcomes is rapidly closing.”

    Some of the most alarming of Earth’s “vital signs,” the researchers said, include record heat in the oceans ravaging coral reefs, rapidly shrinking ice sheets and increasing losses of forests burned in fires around the world. They said the extreme intensity of Hurricane Melissa this week is another sign of how the altered climate is threatening lives and communities on an unprecedented scale.

    “The climate crisis has reached a really dangerous stage,” said William Ripple, the report’s co-lead author and a professor at Oregon State University. “It is vital that we limit future warming as rapidly as possible.”

    There is still time to limit the damage, Ripple said. It means switching to cleanly made electricity, clean transportation, fewer beef and dairy cows and other sources of harmful gases. These transitions are happening in some places, though not nearly fast enough.

    For example, fossil fuel use actually fell in China in the first half of this year, a remarkable change for a country that remains the world’s biggest climate polluter. Renewable energy is being built out at a furious pace there, dwarfing installation in rest of the world. And in California, clean energy provided two-thirds of electricity in 2023.

    Yet total use of fossil fuels rose 1.5% in 2024, the researchers said, citing data from the Energy Institute. Energy-related emissions of carbon dioxide and other planet-heating gases also reached an all-time high — exactly the opposite of what needs to be happening to address climate change.

    The report notes that hotter temperatures are contributing to growing electricity demand.

    “Avoiding every fraction of a degree of warming is critically important,” the scientists wrote. “We are entering a period where only bold, coordinated action can prevent catastrophic outcomes.”

    The report, published Wednesday in the journal BioScience, is the sixth annual assessment that Ripple and his colleagues have compiled since they wrote a 2020 paper declaring a climate emergency — a statement that more than 15,800 scientists have signed in support.

    The scientists said the current pace of warming greatly increases the risks of crossing dangerous climate tipping points, including vicious cycles such as the collapse of ice sheets, thawing of carbon-rich permafrost and widespread dieback of forests.

    Ripple and his colleagues stressed that adopting solutions now to reduce emissions can swiftly bring benefits and that these solutions will be far less expensive than dealing with the consequences of uncontrolled climate change.

    Efforts by President Trump and his administration to boost production of oil, gas and coal seriously threaten to slow the shift toward clean energy, said Michael Mann, a climate scientist and professor at the University of Pennsylvania.

    He and co-author Peter Hotez argue in the recent book “Science Under Siege” that other nations must take on greater leadership now that the U.S. and other oil-promoting governments are working to block action on climate change.

    Other scientists who helped write the report said the Trump administration is turning a blind eye to threats including sea-level rise, worsening droughts and wildfires, and diminished agricultural output.

    “It’s a scandal that the U.S. is pulling back from any efforts to address environmental challenges,” said Peter Gleick, co-founder and senior fellow of the Pacific Institute, a think tank in Oakland. “The rest of the world should ignore efforts by the U.S. to delay progress on these problems … and I’m hopeful that other countries will continue to step up.”

    The upcoming United Nations climate conference in Brazil in November could be a turning point if countries commit to bold and transformative changes, Ripple said.

    Solutions must involve not only phasing out fossil fuels, the scientists said, but also addressing the fact that people are using up resources faster than nature can replenish them. Researchers, they noted, have estimated that two-thirds of the warming since 1990 is attributable to the wealthiest 10% of the world’s people because of “high-consumption lifestyles, high per capita fossil fuel use, and investments.”

    The scientists called for changes including “reducing overconsumption” among the wealthy, protecting and restoring ecosystems, and shifting away from meat-heavy diets to more plant-based foods.

    “It’s not just about cutting emissions. Dealing with climate change requires more,” Ripple said. “It calls for deep, systemic change in how societies value nature, design economies, consume resources and define progress.”

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    Ian James

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  • Pepper-balls, rifle rounds, drones: UC police get green light for military-grade weapons

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    SAN FRANCISCO — University of California police will be replenishing and increasing their stockpile of military-grade weapons and equipment — including drones, bullets and thousands of pepper ball rounds — as part of an annual request approved Wednesday by the governing board of regents.

    As UC’s handling of protests and campus security comes under scrutiny from the Trump administration, five campuses — UCLA, Irvine, Santa Barbara, San Diego and San Francisco — asked for more weapons, while those in Berkeley, Davis, Merced, Riverside and Santa Cruz did not seek to make new purchases.

    The biggest request came from UC San Diego, which said it needed 5,000 new 5.56-millimeter caliber rifle rounds to replace ones used in trainings. At UC Irvine, police asked for 1,500 pepper-ball projectiles. UCLA, which has a significant weapons inventory compared to other campuses — among it 39,500 rifle rounds and ammo — made relatively few requests, including four new pepper-ball launchers and 100 sponge foam rounds.

    California law enforcement agencies are required by state law to make annual reports on the acquisition and use of weapons that qualify as military equipment. The definition includes munitions, explosives and long-range acoustic devices, which are regularly used by U.S. law enforcement and are not exclusive to the military. Some equipment under the definition, such as drones, are not traditional weapons but used for patrol and special events.

    A report from the office of UC President James B. Milliken presented Wednesday to the board of regents, which approved the requests, added that the tools “are not used indiscriminately but with caution to protect the lives of UC community members/visitors and UC officers when bringing an incident to a conclusion with the least amount of force.”

    The report said “no UC campus uses or receives goods from the U.S. Department of Defense and Law Enforcement Support Office program for surplus military equipment.”

    Under the state law, police departments also have to disclose use of such weapons in the last year. In 2024, the report said weapons were primarily used during training and that new orders would help replenish supplies used in those exercises.

    There were dozens of non-training exceptions at UCLA:

    • On June 10, 2024, police deployed 240 pepper-ball projectiles “during an incident involving an aggressive crowd.” It added that none of the rounds were “aimed at individuals and there were no reports of these rounds directly affecting any person.” A single sponge foam round was also fired. Police were responding to a pro-Palestinian encampment and protest.
    • A long-range acoustic device was used for crowd management 71 times. The report described the device as “a portable speaker used to provide increased sound and clarity over public address systems, bullhorns, or megaphones so officers can effectively communicate with crowds and provide emergency directions to people in large areas so they can take immediate actions such as sheltering in place or evacuating.”
    • A sponge foam round was fired “during an arrest when a suspect put their hand near a police officer’s firearm.”

    The report also detailed non-training uses at two additional campuses: UC Davis deployed drones 11 times for “patrol and special events,” and UC Santa Cruz also used a long-range acoustic device for crowd management at least once.

    California Assembly Bill 481, which requires the disclosures, was signed into law in 2021. But public scrutiny of UC policing has grown since 2024, when pro-Palestinian protests grew across the 10-university system and officers clashed with demonstrators at several campuses.

    UCLA police, the LAPD and California Highway Patrol were faulted in internal and external reports, including one compiled by a congressional education committee, for a failure to coordinate and quickly respond to a violent attack on a UCLA encampment on April 30 and May 1, 2024. The agencies have also faced criticism and lawsuits by pro-Palestinian protesters after officers shut down multiple demonstrations that year.

    Since then, UCLA has created a new top campus safety post, installed new police leadership and instituted changes to protest rules, including zero tolerance of encampments.

    Speaking at the regents meeting Wednesday during a public comment period, UCLA associate professor Chelsea Shover encouraged regents to reject the purchases.

    “My concern is that it will be used against students and faculty,” said Shover, who works in the medical and public health schools. In an interview, Shover added, “I have no confidence military-grade equipment will make the campus safer, as last year’s UCLA campus protests made clear.”

    Together with demands President Trump has made recently to restrict protests and speech freedoms at UCLA — in exchange for the release of frozen federal research funding — “this sets a worrying and chilling effect on rights protected by the 1st Amendment,” Shover said.

    Graeme Blair, a UCLA professor of political science who was part of the 2024 encampment and additional pro-Palestinian protests, said he believed Wednesday’s presentation “obscures an extraordinary use of force that injured students and faculty” during the June 10, 2024, campus protest that ended in arrests.

    Blair said the police-fired projectiles ended up “hitting students and faculty, leaving them bruised and with burning eyes.” Police reported only using one foam round. Blair said he witnessed multiple rounds.

    “The fact that UCPD fails to describe these harms calls into question whether they can be trusted with more munitions and their deployment,” he said. “Less-lethal munitions like sponge rounds, rubber bullets, and pepper balls have no place on a college campus, much less to be deployed against students and faculty exercising their right to free expression.”

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    Jaweed Kaleem

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  • Uday Kotak reflects on time as head of bank in latest annual report

    Uday Kotak reflects on time as head of bank in latest annual report

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    An investor who invested ₹10,000 with Kotak Mahindra Group in 1985 would be worth about ₹300 crore today, according to Uday MD & CEO, Kotak, Kotak Mahindra Bank (KMB).

    “As I step down from my whole-time role soon, I would like to reflect on what that role means. I am a manager, a board governance member and a strategic shareholder defined in Indian terminology as a promoter.

    “Yes, I have spent most of my life here, starting from scratch with very little capital in 1985, 3 people and a 300 sq. foot office,” reminisced Kotak in the private sector lender’s latest annual report.

    He emphasised that the group is at the right place at the right time.

    “We are a quintessential product of the India growth story and the financial sector evolution. We are a quintessential product of the India growth story and the financial sector evolution.

    “We have created value for stakeholders and now provide about 1 lakh direct jobs and a multiple of that in indirect jobs,” the KMB chief said.

    Going forward

    Going forward, Kotak sees his role as a non-executive board governance member and a strategic shareholder with a long term perspective of nurturing a world class institution.

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    “It is unusual in today’s world of banking anywhere to have an individual with about 26 per cent skin in the game with disproportionate family assets in one stock, emotionally attached to living his dream of making India proud.

    “I am confident that the alignment and commitment of the shareholders, board and the management will navigate us through the changing times. And of course, dealing with the ever-evolving regulatory and policy landscape,” he said.

    Avoid accident-free roads mindset

    Kotak observed that the turbulent period post 2008 saw the Indian financial sector experiencing many crises till about 2020. That has created a certain backdrop.

    “We must avoid a mindset that we want accident-free roads hence we will restrict cars. Instead, to take this analogy further, we need more roads, more cars and better signals and traffic regulation.

    “Accidents have to be minimised and managed, and cannot be eliminated without having a significant impact on growth aspirations. The policy and regulatory framework needs to be aligned with this,” he said.

    Prevent bureaucratisation of financial services

    Kotak underscored that entrepreneurship must be allowed thrive and he was fortunate to see this in most of his career.

    “There is a need to build regulatory trust which requires action on both sides of the aisle. I feel the financial sector players risk becoming more robotic, curbing the entrepreneurial flair since the fear of making a mistake overrides the joy of creation and development.

    “While we need ‘Arjuna’s eye’ on risk management, we must prevent bureaucratisation of financial services,” he said..

    KMB, together with its subsidiaries, is a diversified financial services group providing a wide range of banking and financial services including Consumer Banking, Commercial Banking, Treasury and Corporate Banking, Investment Banking, Stock Broking, Vehicle Finance, Advisory Services, Asset Management, Life Insurance and General Insurance..

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