Penulis: Agus S

The documentary "Sabbath Queen" follows Amichai Lau-Lavie, the first openly queer rabbi in a long Orthodox rabbinic lineage, in his identity quest and calls for peace.

"Being gay and demanding my place at the Jewish table gave me the permission to talk back toJudaismoverhomophobiaand racism, overGazaand over misogyny," says Rabbi Amichai Lau-Lavie.

The Israel-born social activist and New York City community leader has been hailed as a "maverick spiritual leader" byThe Times of Israeland "one of the most interesting thinkers in the Jewish world" by theJewish Week. He is portrayed in the documentary "Sabbath Queen."

Lau-Lavie and director Sandi DuBowski were in Berlin to attend film screenings at theDoxumentalefilm festival, which runs until June 22.

Lau-Lavie was still a young man when he decided to leave Israel for New York in the late 1990s. His move was prompted by the backlash over a newspaper profile of him. The nephew of Israel's then-chief rabbi, the young man said he was exploring a path outside the Orthodox community before the piece outed him — without his consent.

In New York's gay subculture, Lau-Lavie found his chosen family, particularly an activist group known as the Radical Faeries that fused radical queerness and spirituality.

But beyond this freethinking community, Lau-Lavie also strived to honor his family's religious legacy. He is the heir to a 38-generation Orthodox rabbinic lineage going back to the 11th century.

One of his grandfather's last wishes before being deported to a Nazi concentration camp was that this rabbinic dynasty be upheld. The grandfather, along with many other members of the Lau-Lavie family, didn't survive the Holocaust.

Lau-Lavie's quest to find his life path is the subject of "Sabbath Queen," a documentary created over 21 years — the period director Sandi DuBowski spent with his subject.

"In the beginning, I was just very entranced by Rebbetzin Hadassah Gross, the drag character," DuBowski told DW, referring to Lau-Lavie's female alter-ego, the wise widow of six Hasidic rabbis. In her performances, Gross humorously and insightfully challenges patriarchy.

But beyond the colorful drag character, the film shows how Lau-Lavie developed various formats as a spiritual leader. These include Lab/Shul, an experimental community for sacred Jewish gatherings open to everyone where "God is optional," and the ritual theater company, Storahtelling.

Later, in order to take part in a larger conversation with Jewish thinkers beyond the progressive community, Lau-Lavie went a step further: In 2016, he got ordained as a rabbi by the Jewish Theological Seminary (JTS), a Conservative Judaism institution.

That didn't stop Rabbi Lau-Lavie from exploring the boundaries of traditional Judaism and pathways for religious renewal. He officially broke with the Rabbinical Assembly, the international association of Conservative rabbis, by officiating the wedding of two Buddhist gay monks — only one of them was also Jewish.

While Conservative Judaism has been approving same-sex marriage ceremonies since 2012, the movement continues to prohibit its rabbis from performing interfaith weddings. It's a topic of ongoing debate within the Jewish community, as some view mixed marriage as a threat to the future of Judaism.

But Lau-Lavie instead envisions a faith that embraces "plurality and pluralism." He calls it "a healthy ecosystem of different ways of being Jewish."

His publications and scholarly research also drive the conversation, including exploring the Hebrew Bible through a queer perspective in a project called "Below the Bible Belt."

"I'm trying to retrieve from the Bible the lineages and the narratives and the strands of justice and love and morality and humanity and dignity and fluidity that have always been there," he explains, aiming to offer a counternarrative to the "Jews first" policies of supremacist Jews.

The film ends after theOctober 7 Hamas attacks on Israel. Already in the early months of war, Lau-Lavie was critical of the Israeli government's reaction.

"I hold the pain of my Israeli family," he said. "And our trauma and need for safety do not justify Israel starving and killing tens of thousands of Palestinians in Gaza and the continued occupation. This horror must stop," he says in "Sabbath Queen."

On a political level, Lau-Lavie tells DW that he aims to "meet in the messy middle, not in the polarities."

But when he meets people without any empathy for Gazan children, he feels there's no longer room for debate. "It's not unlikely that we're going towards a cultural war, like a civil war in Israel. I can't see how it's avoidable."

A board member of different human rights groups and networks of Israeli and Palestinian peace advocates, Lau-Lavie regularly returns to Israel. He will soon be holding three weeks of back-to-back screenings of "Sabbath Queen" in different community centers, congregations and Israeli-Palestinian peace groups. The discussions held there are not only helpful to others, but also help ground him during an "increasingly painful situation."

Referring to his peace activism and calls for compassion toward all Palestinians and all Israelis, he wearily points out: "What I'm saying is so old news. It's like so cliche: 'Both sides' 'Team Human.' But the erosion of empathy is just unbelievable."

Still, no matter how repetitive his message may feel, he has noticed that there is a strong interest in the discussion sparked by the documentary, especially in the current context where"the supremacist Jewish has hijacked the conversation,"he said.  "I'm bringing the side of Jewish that so many people want," he adds.

Amichai Lau-Lavie finds solace in the idea that he represents "a particular Jewish lineage that has always prioritized morality, and love of each other and universal values. And I'm not a minority."

Istanbul's jailed mayor has appeared in court charged with threatening the city's public prosecutor. Ekrem Imamoglu — the leading political rival to Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan — faces several investigations.

Ekrem Imamoglu, the imprisoned mayor of Istanbul and leading rival toTurkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, appeared in court Monday on charges of threatening and insulting a top judicial official.

Prosecutors have charged the 54-year-old mayor with threatening, insulting, and targeting a public official — serious allegations inTurkey's increasingly politicized judiciary.

The case centers on comments Imamoglu allegedly made about Istanbul's chief public prosecutor, Akin Gurlek, questioning his integrity.

Imamoglu faces more than seven years in prison and a political ban for allegedly "targeting, threatening and insulting persons working in the fight against terrorism."

Monday's hearing was held inside Istanbul's Silivri prison, where Imamoglu has been detained since late March after his arrest in a separate corruption investigation.

That earlier case, which authorities claim involves financial misconduct, triggeredTurkey's largest street protests in over a decade. Policearrested hundreds of people in response.

The numerous cases could result in prison sentences and a political ban.

When hetook to the stand in April, Imamoglu denied all allegations and claimed he had been targeted because he plans to run against Erdogan in the 2028 presidential election, according to Turkish media at the time.

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In a statement to the prosecutor in January, he argued that he had simply been exercising his right to free speech.

He said there was no threat or targeting in his remarks and described his comments as protected under freedom of expression.

Speaking before the court, Imamoglu claimed he was subjected to "psychological torture," along with other arrested party members.

"Today, all the opposition positions that displease the government and the will of tens of millions of people are being judged here," Imamoglu declared as he represented himself before a judge in an Istanbul court.

As the trial was taking place, a crowd gathered outside the prison.

"Turkey is proud of you," chanted Imamoglu's supporters.

"There is no salvation alone: ​​either all together, or no one," they added.

While unrelated to the corruption probe, the current trial adds to a growing list of legal cases facing Imamoglu — seen by many as the most formidable challenger to Erdogan's rule.

Rights groups and opposition parties have condemned Imamoglu's detention as politically motivated, accusing the government of using the courts to suppress dissent ahead of key national elections.

Boeing dominated the commercial passenger aircraft market for a long time, but it has lost its title as the world's biggest planemaker to Airbus because it's been making headlines for all the wrong reasons.

Air travelis widely regarded as the safest way to cover long distances. Statistically, the drive to the airport poses a greater risk to travelers than the flight itself.

But when there is a plane crash —such as that of Air India Flight 171 last week (June 12)— statistics offer little comfort. It killed 270 people, including 241 of the 242 people on board.

As tragic as such accidents are, their consequences also extend into the economic realm. Alongside efficiency and environmental compatibility, operational safety remains the most critical selling point for a passenger aircraft.

For decades,Boeingwas the global leader in commercial aviation. But in recent years, the company, which is based in Arlington, Virginia and employs 170,000 people, has struggled, often posting losses.

In 2024, itreported an operating lossof nearly $11.8 billion (€10.21 billion) on revenue of $66.5 billion.

Itdelivered 348 commercial passenger airplanes —a decrease compared to the 528 deliveries in 2023. The downturn is attributed to challenges that include a mid-air door plug blowout in January anda machinist strike in the fall, as well as ongoing supply chain issues.

Boeing's deliveries last year were significantly lower than those of its rivalAirbus, which delivered 766 aircraft.

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Airbus, which has about 160,000 employees,posted an operating profitof around €5 billion ($5.78 billion) on revenue of €69.2 billion in the same period.

However, production and sales figures for commercial aircraft only tell part of the story. Both companies are also active inspace systemsand defense manufacturing, which makes direct comparisons more complex.

The Air India crash is justthe latest setback for Boeing's safety record. In recent years, the American company has stumbled from one mishap to the next, repeatedly dealing with technical failures and production snags.

One of the clearest signs of Boeing's ongoing woes, especially compared to Airbus, is how each company handled its largest aircraft.

For Airbus, that was the A380, the largest passenger aircraft ever built. Airports around the world had to update infrastructure such as terminals, gates, and handling capacity just to accommodate the double-decker giant.

But Airbus ceased production in 2021, after it became clear that many airlines found the A380 too large and expensive to operate. With four engines, the aircraft was costly to maintain. In addition, with seating for between 500 and 850 passengers, it was difficult to fill, making it economically risky.

Boeing took a different approach. Afterending production of the iconic but outdated 747 Jumbo Jet, Boeing aimed to offer a competitive alternative to the A380 by developing the 787 — nicknamed the Dreamliner — based on an evolution of the 767.

While Airbus quietly phased out the A380, Boeing found itself mired innegative headlines about the Dreamliner. There were issues with new composite materials and coordination failures with suppliers. Test flights were canceled, first flights delayed, and delivery deadlines missed.

Then came safety concerns. In 2013, shortly after the first Dreamliners had entered service, two separate incidents involving battery fires led to the aircraft being grounded worldwide.

The rivalry between Airbus and Boeing has been ongoing since Airbus's official founding in 2000 under the name European Aeronautic Defence and Space Company (EADS). Their battle for market dominance has even drawn in theWorld Trade Organization (WTO)and the governments of both the US and Europe.

At the heart of the conflict was a dispute over who gets more in government subsidies — and are those subsidies justified.

That's a nearly impossible question to answer. While only one federal government is involved in the US, there are several players in Europe — the Netherlands, the UK, France, Spain, Germany, and theEuropean Commissionin Brussels.

Adding to the complexity is the fact that both firms also compete in space anddefense. While neither tops the global rankings in defense contracting, Boeing ranks sixth among the world's largest defense companies, well ahead of Airbus, which sits at number 13. Still, both are major players.

The challenge for the two defense contractors is that both rely heavily on government contracts, which don't just fund research and development, but governments are also their biggest customers. That makes it hard to quantify subsidies or assign them clearly to one business segment.

Brazil's Embraer focuses solely on smaller regional aircraft.Canada's Bombardier, based in Montreal, has shifted entirely to the niche market of business jets.

That leavesChina, one of the world's largest aviation markets, which now has a homegrown aircraft manufacturer worth watching: the Commercial Aircraft Corporation of China, or Comac.

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Founded in Shanghai in 2008 with backing from the Chinese government, Comac unveiled the first model of its C919 in 2015 — a twin-engine passenger aircraft entirely assembled in China.

In partnership with Russian aerospace and defense company UAC, Comac plans to develop a long-range version, the C929, by 2028.

At least until then, the market for wide-body commercial aircraft will continue to be dominated by the two titans from the US and Europe.

This article was originally written in German.

Most countries globally have agreed to set their own goals to keep the planet from overheating. The pressure is now on for them to do so.

At Kenya's Lake Turkana wind park, towering turbines line dirt roads as far as the eye can see.  And this is just one of the sites that has turned the country into arenewablespowerhouse.

From generating approximately half of its electricity using sustainable sources such asgeothermal, solar and wind power in 2000, Kenya has now increased that share to 90%. And it doesn't plan to stop there. As part of its new climate goals, the Sub-Saharan nation has pledged to be using 100% renewables by 2035.

It's a show of force and proof of concept for other countries meeting in the German city of Bonn this week to hash out sticking points ahead of the November UN climate summit in Brazil.

Discussions over how countries plan toreduce reliance on the fossil fuelsthat are heating the planet are not officially on the agenda. But experts say they are the elephant in the room.

Domestic climate targets — nationally determined contributions or NDCs, as they are known — are a key part of theinternational Paris Agreement. Under the accord, the world agreed to keep global temperature rise to 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit) with efforts to limit it to1.5 degrees Celsius.  Even small temperature increases are connected to more frequent and intense irregular weather events such asstorms, flooding, drought and extreme heat.

As part of the accord, the 195 signatories are obliged to submit ambitious non-binding goals every five years. These should outline both how they plan to reduce their carbon emissions and how they will adapt to theimpacts of climate change already being felt globally.

"It's also an opportunity for all countries to, in one policy document, combine their own economic and prosperity plans with climate policy in an integrated way that's charting a path forward for a sustainable economy," said Steffen Menzel, program lead for climate diplomacy and geopolitics at climate think tank E3G.

Nations should have filed their most recent climate goals to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change in February. But so far, only 22 countries have done so.

Among them are big emitters like the United Kingdom and Japan. Theformer Biden administrationalso submitted decarbonization plans for the United States, before President Donald Trump pulled out of Paris Agreement. But many countries are still solidifying their goals according to Jamal Srouji, associate in the Global Climate program at the research nonprofit World Resources Institute.

"They want to make sure that their assumptions make sense and respond to the political realities and priorities of the country," Srouji said.

"Countries are now most concerned about competitiveness, making sure they stay ahead or are part of the new technologies that are really going to be driving economic growth…national energy security, especially what we've seen in recent years, is actually the main driver for why now policymakers still consider the climate as an important agenda because it intersects so well," he told DW.

Nafkote Dabi, climate change policy lead at Oxfam International, said some poorer countries, for example least developed nations like Chad, the Democratic Republic of Congo and Bangladesh, are wary of committing to ambitious goals on monetary grounds.

"They are afraid that they're committing to something, but there's no finance to help them achieve what they have outlined," Dabi said, adding that wealthier countries have a duty to help.

"It's not to put all the blame on rich countries, but it's about historical responsibility, financial capability, technological capability," she said.

At the international climate conference inAzerbaijanlast year, industrialized countries agreed toprovide $300 billion(€258 billion) in funding for developing nations, promising to mobilize a total of $1.3 trillion, although it is unclear where the money will come from.

While experts say climate targets need to come from all nations including low emitters like Kenya, it is action from the biggest states that will make the most difference.

The G20 group of countries, which includes China, Germany, Australia, Russia and the United States, are responsible for around 80% of global emissions overall and Dabi says they arenot doing enough to reduce their greenhouse gases.

"Certain groups need to do more to reduce their emissions and that should not fall on the poorest communities because the transformation required is huge," she said.

Still, almost a decade after the inception of the Paris Agreement, experts say that over time the targets have improved.

"I don't want to say things are looking bright at this point in time… but I do think that the mechanisms we agreed to 10 years ago have made a big change globally and also in many jurisdictions around the world," Menzel said.

Although pledges are non-binding, Srouji says that once a "country goes on the international stage and says, 'here's our plan', if they walk back on it, they are going to be getting a lot of international scrutiny."

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The trial of Norwegian double Olympic champion Jakob Ingebrigtsen's father has ended. Gjert Ingebrigtsen was found innocent of abusing his son but guilty of violence against his daughter. It's not an isolated case.

Sport has many famous examples of child prodigies who were pushed by their parents. GolferTiger Woodsis perhaps the most prominent. But the trial of Gjert Ingebrigtsen, father of double Olympic middle-distance running champion Jakob, who was accused of physically and mentally abusing his son and another one of his children, has forced the athletics world to reconsider what it means to safely parent children insport.

Bettina Rulofs is a professor of diversity studies in sport at the German Sport University Cologne. In January, Rulofs co-authored a book titled "Child Abuse in Sport: Critical Perspectives," a topic Rulofs has researched and worked on for many years. The challenge in high performance environments is managing a balance between improving performance and staying safe and healthy. Rulofs believes theenvironment of elite sport makes that much harder.

"I think we have to be aware that the prevalence of psychological violence in sports in general is very high. We did a European study on the frequency and forms of abuse and violence in sport, and we found that 65% of our respondents indicated to have experienced one form of psychological violence in their sporting career," Rulofs explained about a survey that had more than 10,000 participants across five European countries.

"This shows that psychological violations seem to be part of the game in sports. We have to be aware of the situation that sport has a lot to do with thepossibility of emotional violations," Rulofs continued. "I just want to make clear that being insulted, threatened, getting shamed or being violated on a psychological basis in the field of sport seems to be something very normal. That's not a positive result of our study, but that's something we have to deal with."

These were the sorts of behaviors that Gjert Ingebrigtsen was accused of by two of his children, with other siblings backing up their accounts.

Gjet's daughter, Ingrid, recalled an incident in court where she claimed Gjert forced her to keep running despite her having forgotten to take her asthma medication.

"I ended up jumping off the treadmill, ran up to my room and breathed," Ingrid told the court. "I tried to calm down. I expressed that I wanted to quit athletics."

There were also accusations of physical abuse, including whipping Ingrid in the face with a wet towel. This was the incident that Gjert was found guilty of. Despite a lack of evidence for other claims about a "culture of abuse" heard by the court, Gjert has been given a suspended prison sentence of 15 days and was handed a fine.

One way to deal with such cases is an effective system for reporting them, particularly non-criminal incidents. But that too remains a challenge in many elite sport environments where conditions that are not safe or healthy have been normalized.

Parents need to ask questions and make sure that they are active members of the sporting environment their child is in. More than anything though, they should look to give their children the chance to decide.

"I think that a very important question is in how far parents are able to create a situation where children are in the position to take their own decisions and to develop an autonomy-based approach in realizing their own wishes and in developing their own competencies," Rulofs told DW.

In sport, children are somewhat dependent on adults for ways to improve their skills and performance, she added. But the question is how to find a balance in that path towards development that includes the child along the way.

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"In our work we try to create safe sport environments," Rulofs said. "We always apply the principle of voice, choice and exit. Athletes need to get possibilities to voice their needs and expectations. Athletes also need to be offered various options so that they can make their own choices. And athletes need to have exit options. But that's a big issue in elite sport because usually when you have invested so much in an elite sports career, your whole family is involved and an exit-option is missing."

In elite sport, the focus is more often than not on athletes and coaches, but parents are a key figure in the shaping of a young person.

"I think that in the discussions and studies dealing with safe sport, parents are kind of neglected," Rulofs said. "Parents, especially when their kids are at minor age and are performing in elite sport, are very, very important actors for creating safe sport environments. We have to include them in all steps of safeguarding."

Together with colleagues at the German Sport University Cologne, Rulofs has done just that by helping create a project called Safe Clubs, which offers specific training and education to adults in sports clubs, and includes an educational tool for parents. After a long period of design, application and evaluation, the hope is that many of the 90,000 sports clubs in Germany will now use the project.

This is perhaps most pressing in the sports that use talent scouting systems, where there is an increased systematic risk that families livingon or below the poverty lineare exploited by the promises sport provides.

"We know from cases that for example, especially young children with refugee backgrounds, are being selected by talent scouts getting promised a secure home base, offering chances for careers in sport," Rulofs said. "And this is, of course, a situation that can be easily exploited."

For all of these concerning cases though, there is hope. Clubs, associations and federations are more proactive in their handling of the subject. There are people employed in organizations specifically to protect the safety of young athletes. Education and access to child safety has improved. Perhaps most importantly though, is that many parts of wider society are more open to the topic.

"It's obvious we always had cases ofabuse and violence in sport, but nobody talked about those cases," Rulofs said. "That we nowadays are in a position to talk about this, to raise our voices, make a report and to be listened to, that's very important."

This article was originally published in April and updated on June 16 to reflect the verdict handed down at the end of the trial.

Israeli airstrikes in Iran have entered a fourth day. With civilians "caught in the middle" and Iran's regime under mounting pressure, could the conflict mark a turning point in the Islamic Republic's future?

The Israeli army said on Monday that its air force had struck command centers belonging to Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), as well as Iranian military centers, in the Iranian capital Tehran, as the latestIsrael-Iran conflictentered its fourth day.

Since Friday,Israelhas carried outwidespread airstrikesacrossIran, killing senior military officials and nuclear scientists, as well as civilians, and hitting military bases and nuclear sites. It says that its central aim is to prevent Iran fromdeveloping nuclear weaponsand long-range missiles.

Iranian media reported scores of people have been killed across the country — including women and children. Hundreds more have been wounded.

One resident of Tehran said: "We don't have access to a shelter. There are no shelters in the whole city. I don't think there are any places people can go to in an emergency."

Iranian civilians are "caught in the middle" of the ongoing conflict between Israel and Iran, Iranian-American analyst Holly Dagres told DW.

Ordinary Iranians are "powerless" in this conflict, the senior fellow at The Washington Institute think tank said in an interview with DW TV on Sunday. "Iranians are very shaken and scared right now," she added.

Mehdi Chamran, a spokesperson for Tehran's city council, suggested that local residents should consider sheltering in underground parking garages. Iranian officials say schools and mosques are being used as makeshift shelters.

However, mosques in Iran are not known for their structural strength, and it remains unclear how they could protect civilians from missile strikes.

Some Iranians pointed out that while the Islamic Republic has spent the past 46 years since the 1979 Islamic Revolution declaring its readiness for war and saying that it seeks the destruction of Israel, it has made no meaningful effort to build shelters for its own people.

Sara Bazoobandi, a non-resident research fellow at the Institute for Security Policy at the University of Kiel, suggested that many Iranians may even have more confidence in the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) than in their own government.

"They are much more confident that the IDF is not going to attack civilians than the Iranian government itself," Bazoobandi said on Sunday. "Last night in Narmak, in one of the neighborhoods in east of Tehran, an Iranian projectile just fell into a residential area, not an Israeli one."

Israel's military spokesperson Effie Defrin said the current goal of the campaign is not regime change, but the dismantling ofIran's nuclear and ballistic missile programsand removing its capabilities "to annihilate us."

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However, when asked by the US television channel Fox News whether regime change in Iran was one of Israel's objectives, Israeli Prime MinisterBenjamin Netanyahusaid: "It certainly could be the result, because the Iran regime is very weak."

In recent years, Iran has witnessed several waves of anti-government protests, most notably the "Woman, Life, Freedom" movement, which erupted in 2022 after the death ofMahsa Aminiin police custody.

The 22-year-old had been arrested by Iran's morality police and was accused ofviolating the country's strict dress code.

That movement saw widespread participation across Iran and abroad, and was met with abrutal crackdown, leaving at least 600 dead and nearly 20,000 arrested, according to reports.

Public discontent has continued to rise, as demonstrated by historically low turnout in last year's presidential election. Even before the latest military confrontation with Israel, many observers anticipated a resurgence of large-scale protests.

Following recent Israeli strikes, opposition parties claim that the Islamic Republic is at its weakest point, calling on citizens for renewed mass mobilization.

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Netanyahu echoed this sentiment in a video address to the Iranian people on Friday, highlighting their opportunity to "stand up and let your voices be heard," repeating the phrase "Woman, Life, Freedom."

As the likelihood of further Israeli strikes on Iran's infrastructure increases, economic experts are warning of anunprecedented currency crisis.

The US dollar could reportedly surpass 200,000 Iranian tomans in the open market — a development that could trigger a new wave of inflation and impose severe economic hardship on ordinary Iranians.

For a regime already grappling with deep legitimacy issues, such a scenario could spark mass unrest on a scale even larger than previous uprisings.

Amid the turmoil, many political analysts and social media users are framing the war not only as a geopolitical conflict but also as a historic opportunity for the Iranian people to bring about fundamental political change and move beyond the Islamic Republic.

Middle East analyst Simon Mabon suggested that Netanyahu has perhaps concluded "that the only way for Israel to ensure its own security in the longer term is to destroy the very notion of the Islamic Republic of Iran."

"That's not to say to kill the Iranian population, let's say, but rather to eradicate the system of government," he told DW.

However, regime supporters and hardline groups are also echoing nationalistic sentiment to shore up their support.

The Israeli Defense Ministry posted pictures of defense industry stands covered by black partition walls. The ministry slammed the move as "outrageous and unprecedented."

Israeli defense industry exhibitions have been covered in black partition walls at the prestigious Paris Air Show, after reportedly failing to comply with a directive to remove offensive weapons from being displayed.

Israel's Defense Ministry posted up a statement on social media along with pictures, showing Israeli defense company stands sealed off with black walls, preventing anyone from seeing what lay behind the walls.

Rafael, Elbit and IAI produce guided bombs and missiles, while Uvision and Aeronautics produce drones.

Pictures posted up along with a statement by the Defense Ministry showed various weapons systems on display.

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The incident comes asIsrael trades deadly airstrikes with Iranand almost two years into its campaign inGaza, which has killed more than 55,000 Palestinians, according to the Hamas-run Health Ministry.

"The French are hiding behind supposedly political considerations to exclude Israeli offensive weapons from an international exhibition  — weapons that compete with French industries," the ministry said in a statement Monday, calling the action "ugly and improper."

The Reuters news agency cited a source familiar with the matter as saying the instruction to seal off the exhibits came from French authorities after Israeli firms failed to comply with a directive from a French security agency to remove offensive or kinetic weapons from the stands.

Israel's Defense Ministry said its director general, Amir Baram, had rejected the request.

In a statement, the ministry called the move an "unprecedented decision, that gives off the scent of political and commercial considerations."

Sylvain Pavillet, a lawyer working with the air show organizers, said the final decision on who is allowed to exhibit lies with the French government, not the show itself.

"The fair is not the one who decides which countries are allowed to go to the show or not," he told the Associated Press.

"That decision belongs to the government. We are not a state. We are a commercial company."

While there has been no immediate comment from the French government regarding any move to block Israeli exhibitions, the air show's organiser said in a statement that it was in talks to try to help "the various parties find a favourable outcome to the situation."

Friday saw a French appeals court rule against activists who had been seeking to block Israeli companies from participation at the show due to theongoing war in Gaza.

In recent weeks, French PresidentEmmanuel Macronwarned that a tougher position against Israel may be needed in light of the humanitarian situation in Gaza. Macron at the time warned that France would even consider sanctioning Israeli settlers.

Edited by: Jenipher Camino Gonzalez

After former Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina's fall after mass protests last year, Bangladesh is preparing to hold elections. While the interim government promises a credible poll, law and order remain a concern.

Bangladesh'sinterim leader, Muhammad Yunus, recently met the leader of the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP), which is expected to be the frontrunner in elections next year.

Tarique Rahman, who has lived in exile in the United Kingdom for over 15 years, is the acting chairman of the BNP, a major party which his mother, ex-Prime Minister Khaleda Zia, led for decades.

The meeting in the UK capital London was held amid rising tensions in Bangladesh, which has been locked in a tense political limbo since an uprisingculminated in former Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina's resignation in August 2024.

The BNP wanted an election by December 2025, while theinterim government had been aiming for April 2026, saying it needs time to implement a host of reforms.

Yunus and Rahman have now agreed that polls could be held in February — if sufficient progress on reforms is made.

These include constitutional reforms, changes to the electoral process and boosting judicial independence and press freedoms.

Authorities also need to deliver justice for the victims of last year's mass protests, in which hundreds were killed, mostly by the security forces loyal to Hasina and her Awami League.

Tasnim Jara, a leader of the National Citizen Party (NCP),newly formed by the student leaders of last year's protests, thinks that while the government has taken initial steps for an election, "institutional readiness remains uneven."

"Key election infrastructure, such as an impartial election commission, a neutral civil administration, and an independent judiciary, requires urgent reform. A credible election will depend on whether the political parties can agree on a reform package soon and whether that package is visibly implemented in time," she told DW.

While the agreement between the BNP and Yunus is a welcome development for many observers, they say that the restoration of law and order to allow fora credible election that includes all major parties remains a priority.

Saimum Parvez, a special assistant to the BNP Chairman, thinks that "the dismal law and order situation, unchecked unruly mobs, and encouragement of depoliticization" are the obstacles. "However, as common people of Bangladesh are usually enthusiastic about participating and engaging in electoral campaigns, it is possible to overcome these obstacles with community support," he told DW.

The Dhaka-based political historiographer Mohiuddin Ahmed, however, was less optimistic. "Bangladeshi political parties don't behave peacefully during elections. They tend to use force whenever possible to control polling centers. Maintaining an orderly situation during the polls will be challenging if the administrations and police forces don't work properly," he told DW.

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AUN fact-finding mission this yearfound that officials from Bangladesh's former government and security apparatus had systematically committed serious human rights violations against protesters last summer and that crimes against humanity may have been carried out.

Hundreds of cases have been filed against Hasina and her allies since she fled to India on August 5, 2024. Her Awami League party claims that the cases are politically motivated.

Observers say that the country's security forces have lost credibility since last year's crackdown, which has contributed to the deteriorating security situation.

Naomi Hossain, a political sociologist and a professor at London's SOAS University, said that Bangladesh was tough to govern and that order had always been "difficult to achieve."

"It is one reason why people put up with Sheikh Hasina so long — at least she wielded the power to maintain some semblance of order,violent and repressive though it was for anyone who wanted to dissent," Hossain told DW.

She added that given the political vacuum since Hasina's ouster, it was "no surprise" that law and order was currently "a problem."

"I think that the army is probably feeling the need to act with caution given the human rights violations they allegedly participated in last year. That means not being too heavy-handed with the mobs and Islamist gangs we see news reports about," she said.

Bangladesh's interim government has empowered army officers with the rank of captain or higher to help police maintain law and order in the country.

However, Tasnim Jara, a former doctor who is now a politician, told DW that the army's deployment had not resolved the crisis and only "exposed deeper issues."

"State-sanctioned violence and repression over the past 16 years deeply undermined public trust and destabilized the foundations of governance," Jara said, calling for that legacy to be addressed.

"Lasting stability will only come through institutional reform of the police and security agencies. We have yet to see these reforms," she added.

The Awami League was bannedlast month pending trials by a special tribunal into the party and its leaders for alleged crimes against humanity and human rights violations.

But observers, including Hossain, think Bangladesh's oldest party should be allowed to participate in the upcoming polls because it still enjoys broad support, despite the fact that many of its leaders are "credibly accused of numerous crimes."

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"The party is a huge national body and still seems to command a lot of support across the country, perhaps particularly in rural areas and among minority groups and women. Banning them serves no good purpose," Hossain told DW.

She warned that such a move would likely lead to "a super-majority landslide" for the BNP, "who will then be empowered to behave exactly as the Awami League did when it won its super-majority back in 2008."

Jara, on the other hand, thinks that before the Awami League can be allowed to participate in elections, its leaders must first be held accountable for their alleged human rights violations which include "enforced disappearances, torture, election rigging, and widespread killings."

"A credible legal process must address these before any accused entity can participate. If justice is bypassed, it will destroy public trust and risk returning the country to the very repression people rose up against. No party can be above the law," she told DW.

In a precision flying formation, the European Space Agency mission revealed new insights into the sun's mysterious outer atmosphere, or solar corona.

First came Solar Orbiter, theEuropean Space AgencyandNASAmission that revealed the sun's poles for the first time in early June.

Then cameProba-3, less than a week later. It's another European mission, launched from India in December 2024, to observe the solar corona — the outer atmosphere ofthe sun.

To do that, Proba-3 achieved yet another first.

The mission consists of two spacecraft flying 150 meters (490 feet) apart. Together, they performed a millimeter-precision flying maneuver so that one cast a shadow over the other — creating an artificial solar eclipse.

It allowed Proba-3 to block out the fierce face of the sun, leaving only its surrounding corona in view. No other spacecraft has observed the sun's corona as close to the solar rim.

Scientists are somewhat baffled by the solar corona, and there are relatively few opportunities to observe it in its entirety.

The solar corona has three distinct regions: the high corona, low corona and a gap in between. Though there are instruments to study the high corona and the low coronas, the gap is usually only possible to see from Earth during a natural solar eclipse.

Another mystery: The solar corona is much hotter than the sun at its surface.

Temperatures in the corona can reach higher than 1.1 million degrees Celsius (almost 2 million degrees Fahrenheit). The surface of the sun, however, rests at acool5,500 °C (around 10,000 °F). Perhaps stranger still, the sun's core is a blistering 15 million °C.

Astronomers think that because the solar corona is far from the surface — and reaches far into space — it should be cooler, not hotter.

Proba-3's two spacecraft — Occulter and Coronagraph — create artificial solar eclipses every 19 hours and 36 minutes in orbit and hold their precision flying formation for six hours.

Conventional telescopes would be blinded by the sun's light, unable to see the corona. But the Occulter blocks the light accurately. With a disc measuring just 1.4 meters (4.5 feet), it casts a mere eight centimeter (3.15-inch) wide shadow — enough to create an artificial eclipse.

"It is exciting to see these stunning images validate our technologies," said Dietmar Pilz, ESA director of technology, said in a press release on Monday.

They fly autonomously, using star trackers that help them recognize constellations and GPS for further positioning.

Astronomers are quickly gaining new insights into the sun. In early June 2025, ESA and NASA released the first images of the solar poles as captured by the Solar Orbiter.

TheSolar Orbiteruses a newly designed orbit to see the poles and gathers data on the sun's magnetic field, solar cycle and how solar weather works.

"The sun's poles are literally terra incognita," Sami Solanki, of the Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research, said in an ESA press release on June 11.

NASA'sParker Solar Probebecame the first spacecraft to fly through the solar corona in 2021. The probe was built to face the sun's heat and radiation and deliver some of the closest observations of our star.

The Proba-3 mission also aims to improve scientific understanding of solar weather, such as coronal mass ejections and solar storms. Extreme solar weather can affect telecommunications satellites and power grids on Earth.

The death in custody of blogger Albert Ojwang has triggered protests calling for the resignation of deputy police chief Eliud Lagat. An autopsy showed Ojwang's wounds pointed towards assault as the cause of death.

AKenyandeputy police chief has resigned amid an investigation into the death of a blogger in police custody.

Deputy Inspector General Eliud Lagat said on Monday that he was stepping down as investigations continue into the death of Albert Ojwang.

Ojwang was found dead in his cell after being arrested over social media posts accusing Lagat of corruption.

Hisdeath has sparked protestsin Nairobi, with demonstrators calling for Lagat’s resignation.

On Friday, Kenyan President William Ruto stated that his government would "protect citizens from rogue police officers," and called for a thorough investigation into Ojwang’s death.

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Lagat said he has "opted to step aside… pending completion of investigations" into Ojwang's death.

"I undertake to provide any support that may be required of me during the investigations of the unfortunate incident," he said in a statement.

Ojwang was arrested on June 6 for publishing "false information" on social media. He was then transported 400 kilometers (248 miles) to Nairobi.

Two days later, he was found dead at the Central Police Station.

Police claimed he died after "hitting his head against the cell wall," but a pathology report indicated he had sustained "head injury, neck compression, and other injuries spread all over the body that are pointing toward assault."

Two officers were arrested last week in connection with the death, but the investigation is still ongoing.

The outrage over Ojwang’s death coincides with the anniversary of large-scale youth-led anti-government protests, during which scores were killed in nationwide violence.

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