Donald Trump’s sudden concern about starving Palestinians was a major shift for the US president, who had previously ignored the endless cries for help from aid groups. So what changed?In his words, it was images of emaciated children in Gaza that Trump saw on television — his main window into the world that has long shaped his political and diplomatic decision-making.Trump made clear his affection for the small screen in late July when asked if he agreed with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, a major US ally, that there was no famine in Gaza.”Based on television, I would say not particularly, because those children look very hungry,” said Trump, a former reality TV star.”That’s real starvation stuff. I see it, and you can’t fake that.”Since then, the 79-year-old has repeated that aid must be brought to people living in the war-ravaged Palestinian territory, though he has stopped of any major diplomatic moves.”Trump has a reputation for not reading anything, including the briefing papers that his aides prepare for him, and for always believing that he knows better than his staff or anyone else does,” said Dan Kennedy, a journalist professor at Northeastern University.”So it’s not surprising that he would be affected by images on television, especially since he is known to spend a lot of time watching TV.”- ‘I watch the shows’ -Trump has attended 22 intelligence briefings since taking office in January, according to an AFP tally, despite several reports having revealed that he lacks interest in written reports. However, his love for television is well-documented — even when it comes to major decisions.In 2015, before he first entered the White House, the billionaire told a journalist asking how he educates himself on military strategy: “Well, I watch the shows.”And a New York Times report recounted how Trump spent several hours a day in his first term glued to the television, mainly watching Fox News — his favorite channel — but also CNN, NBC and ABC news channels.His second term has been little changed, despite Trump leading an election campaign that deployed social media and podcasts. “Trump is a product of his generation,” Kennedy said. “He’s not sitting around looking at TikTok.”- ‘Great television’ -The Republican, who hosted 14 seasons of “The Apprentice” television series, knows better than most how images can be weaponized for political point-scoring.He was gleeful after his shocking clash with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky at the White House in February, which saw the pair rowing in front of the world’s press. “This is going to be great television,” Trump said. And in May he gave a similar public dressing down to South African leader Cyril Ramaphosa when he sat in the Oval Office for what turned into a diplomatic ambush. Trump hijacked the meeting by playing a video montage — one littered with inaccuracies — that purported to prove claims of a “genocide” against white farmers in South Africa. 

Japan marked 80 years since the atomic bombing of Hiroshima on Wednesday with a ceremony reminding the world of the horrors unleashed, as sabre-rattling between the United States and Russia keeps the nuclear “Doomsday Clock” close to midnight.A silent prayer was held at 8:15 am (2315 GMT), the moment when US aircraft Enola Gay dropped “Little Boy” over the western Japanese city on August 6, 1945.On a sweltering morning, hundreds of black-clad officials, students and survivors laid flowers at the memorial cenotaph, with the ruins of a domed building in the background, a stark reminder of the horrors that unfolded. In a speech, Hiroshima mayor Kazumi Matsui warned of “an accelerating trend toward military buildup around the world”, against the backdrop of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the chaos in the Middle East.”These developments flagrantly disregard the lessons the international community should have learned from the tragedies of history,” he said. Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba said it was Japan’s mission “to take the lead… toward a world without nuclear weapons”.The final death toll of the Hiroshima attack would hit around 140,000 people, killed not just by the colossal blast and the ball of fire, but also later by the radiation.Three days after “Little Boy”, on August 9, another atomic bomb killed 74,000 people in Nagasaki. Imperial Japan surrendered on August 15, bringing an end to World War II.Today, Hiroshima is a thriving metropolis of 1.2 million but the attacks live on in the memories of many. On the eve of the ceremony, people began lining up to pay their respects to the victims in front of the cenotaph.Before dawn on Wednesday, families who lost loved ones in the attack also came to pray.Yoshie Yokoyama, 96, who arrived in a wheelchair with her grandson, told reporters that her parents and grandparents were bomb victims. “My grandfather died soon after the bombing, while my father and mother both died after developing cancer. My parents-in-law also died, so my husband couldn’t see them again when he came back from battlefields after the war.”People are still suffering,” she added.Wednesday’s ceremony was set to include a record of around 120 countries and regions including, for the first time, Taiwanese and Palestinian representatives. The United States — which has never formally apologised for the bombings — was represented by its ambassador to Japan. Russia and China were absent.Nihon Hidankyo, the grassroots organisation that last year won the Nobel Peace Prize, is representing the dwindling number of survivors, known as hibakusha. As of March, there were 99,130 hibakusha, according to the Japanese health ministry, with the average age of 86.”I want foreign envoys to visit the peace memorial museum and understand what happened,” the group’s co-chair Toshiyuki Mimaki told local media ahead of the commemorations.Pope Leo XIV said in a statement that “in our time of mounting global tensions and conflicts”, Hiroshima and Nagasaki remained “living reminders of the profound horrors wrought by nuclear weapons”.United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres warned that “the very weapons that brought such devastation to Hiroshima and Nagasaki are once again being treated as tools of coercion”.- Younger generation -The attacks remain the only time atomic bombs have been used in wartime.Kunihiko Sakuma, 80, who survived the blasts as a baby, told AFP he was hopeful that there could eventually be a nuclear-free world.”The younger generation is working hard for that end,” he said ahead of the ceremony.But in January, the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists’ “Doomsday Clock” shifted to 89 seconds to midnight, the closest in its 78-year history.The clock symbolising humanity’s distance from destruction was last moved to 90 seconds to midnight over Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022.Russia and the United States account for around 90 percent of the world’s over 12,000 warheads, according to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI).SIPRI warned in June that “a dangerous new nuclear arms race is emerging at a time when arms control regimes are severely weakened,” with nearly all of the nine nuclear-armed states modernising their arsenals.Earlier this month, US President Donald Trump said that he had ordered the deployment of two nuclear submarines following an online spat with former Russian president Dmitry Medvedev.

Donald Trump is pulling hard on the levers of power to strengthen Republicans through redistricting in Texas and other states — the latest offensive in escalating moves by both sides to shape the battlefield of US democracy for the midterm elections.The president’s efforts have lit a fuse in multiple states, triggering a high-stakes tussle over election law that could upend what is expected to be a fierce fight for control of the House of Representatives in 2026.Partisan redistricting — or gerrymandering — operates under a principle that has become known as “packing and cracking.”Officials redrawing the districts in any given state “pack” opposition voters together so that they win big in a tiny number of districts. Then they “crack” the rest more thinly across the remaining districts to ensure losses there.It isn’t inherently illegal at the federal level unless electoral districts are redrawn along racial lines and both parties have been guilty of excessive manipulation to maximize their vote.”I’d be happy to outlaw gerrymandering,” Democratic strategist Mike Nellis, a former top aide to 2024 presidential candidate Kamala Harris, posted on X.”I think it’s ridiculous for politicians to draw their own maps, but I’m not for unilateral disarmament when Republicans are trying to rig the midterms.”Redistricting typically happens once a decade after the census, but lawmakers have increasingly been inclined to break with that tradition.While Trump coasted to victory in 2024, his success wasn’t contagious, and his party was left clinging to the House by a threadbare 219–212 margin. Historically, the party in the White House loses ground in midterms, and Trump’s team knows the clock is ticking. To tighten his grip, the president has leaned on Texas to redraw its congressional map to create five new Republican-friendly seats.  But Trump and his party are not stopping with the Lone Star State, according to US media.Republicans in Missouri and Ohio are planning their own redistricting to boost their representation in Washington, while Florida Governor Ron DeSantis has made noises about addressing the “raw deal” conservatives got in the last Sunshine State redistricting round.- Democratic counteroffensives -Meanwhile, Democratic governors are preparing their own counteroffensives.In California, Gavin Newsom has floated a potential special election to redraw the map — a dramatic reversal in a state where redistricting power has belonged to an independent commission since the 2010s. In Illinois, JB Pritzker recently hosted a delegation of Texas Democrats to talk strategy. And in New York, Kathy Hochul hinted at a redistricting push of her own, telling a Buffalo crowd, “If other states are violating the rules, I’m going to look at it closely.”Gerrymandering is hardly a new phenomenon in US elections, but the latest escalation has sparked fears of what Hochul cast as a nationwide partisan “war.”Opponents say gerrymandering entrenches politicians, pushes candidates toward ideological extremes and erodes public trust in the democratic process.It is also a risky business, and even the best-laid maps can collapse under the shifting ground of demographic changes and political overreach that tends to spark a legal backlash. The term “gerrymandering” dates back to 1812, when Massachusetts Governor Elbridge Gerry approved a salamander-shaped district that sparked the term.As the salamander digs in for 21st century elections, the consequences are more far-reaching.According to the Cook Political Report, just one in 16 House seats were competitive in 2024 — 12 held by Democrats and 15 held by Republicans, out of a total of 435.Democrats believe Trump’s latest push may have crossed a legal line by coordinating with local Texas officials, citing the president’s July 15 comment that with “just a simple redrawing, we pick up five seats.” They also point to reports that senior Trump aides met with Texas Republicans to finalize plans.But Daron Shaw, a politics professor at the University of Texas, said it was “curious” to blame Trump for the problem, given that deeply Democratic California is the country’s most “egregious gerrymander.” Liberal Illinois, Maryland and Massachusetts were also at fault, he told AFP.”It’s especially kind of rich coming from people in California and Illinois that have gerrymander significantly more egregious than exists in Texas,” he added.