While Morocco rushes to build football stadiums for the upcoming World Cup, thousands of its citizens are trying to leave the country to earn a better future. Among the images of these days from the breakwater of Tarajal, families with small children clinging to floats or toy vests attract attention. Don't forget that on this very beach, in 2014, about fifteen young sub-Saharan Africans drowned while the Spanish police fired rubber bullets at them.

Hamas announced on Monday the name of the man who will politically lead the Islamist organization after the internal election process to replace the last leaders killed by Israel. It is Khalil al-Hayya, a hawk from the old guard who participated in the founding of the organization in Gaza, on the eve of the First Intifada, in 1987. Al-Hayya was already part of the five-man council that was provisionally appointed after in 2024 Israeli soldiers killed Yahya Sinwar, the leader of the Islamists within the Strip, considered the mastermind of the October 7 attacks. In turn, Sinwar had replaced Ismail Haniyeh, the leader of the movement who died in an Israeli attack in Tehran in 2024, a few months before his successor.

The Moroccan journalist Ali Lmrabet, a neighbor from Barcelona, who had been detained since Sunday, has been released, as announced by the Casablanca Prosecutor's Office. "After reviewing and studying the various procedural documents, completing the investigation, and carrying out the necessary technical tests, the Prosecutor's Office has decided to release the individual and return the items that were confiscated from him, namely, two computers, a storage device, and a mobile phone," the statement details. Lmrabet has been interrogated and a medical examination has been performed on him. The investigation continues, but he has been informed that he can leave the country.

Moroccan journalist Ali Lmrabet, who has lived in Barcelona for more than twenty years, was arrested this Sunday in Morocco after landing at Tangier International Airport. According to his wife, Laura Feliu, dean of the Faculty of Political Sciences at the University of Barcelona, who spoke to ARA, the journalist has been transferred to the National Brigade of Judicial Police in Casablanca, and the charges against him have not been communicated.

The dam of cross-attacks between the United States and Iran this week has left the ceasefire signed on June 15 not dead, but with assisted breathing. At the center of the resumption of hostilities is, once again, the strategic Strait of Hormuz, the key passage for gas and oil and other strategic goods that Iran has brought under its control. A weapon of mass economic destruction that has served it, so far, to survive an attack that surpassed it militarily.

The Egyptian diplomat Nasser Kamel (Cairo, 1959) has been the Secretary-General of the Union for the Mediterranean (UfM) for the last eight years, the only forum that brings together the 43 countries of the region (including Palestine and Israel), under a European and Jordanian co-presidency. The organization, based in Barcelona, navigates in a very difficult context to try to facilitate cooperation between the two shores of a Mediterranean marked by political, social, and climate crisis. He has agreed to speak to ARA in the final days of his mandate, before retiring.

The Catalan psychiatrist and researcher Pau Pérez Sales was appointed this Wednesday as the UN's special rapporteur on torture. He will thus become the world's leading authority on torture and other ill-treatment, with the responsibility of ensuring compliance with the Istanbul Protocol, which obliges governments to investigate and document cases of torture. Pérez Sales will therefore have to visit and engage with states, national and international institutions, and civil society organizations in order to formulate recommendations and present reports to the Human Rights Council and the UN General Assembly. His appointment is exceptional due to his profile and comes at a critical time of questioning international law and multilateralism.

Hamas announced this Monday the resignation of the members of the provisional government of Gaza to cede it to a Palestinian technocratic committee, as foreseen in Donald Trump's plan. The measure remains, however, a symbolic gesture, because Israel has not allowed the committee members, who were constituted a few months ago in Cairo, to enter the Strip. The Islamists send the signal that the government of Gaza is not an obstacle to advancing the plan of the American president, which only carries peace in name, since the genocide of the Palestinians has not stopped.

Iran is preparing for the massive funeral celebration of Ali Khamenei, the supreme leader who died on the first day of the joint attack by the United States and Israel against the Islamic Republic. It will be six days of a ceremony that has had to be delayed and which finally arrives with a taste of victory that the regime will strive to exhibit as a demonstration of strength. Khamenei decided the political and spiritual destinies of Iran for 36 years and has risen to the rank of martyr.

An investigation led by the police forces of Germany and the United Kingdom has identified 158 cases of drug-facilitated rapes, a practice known as chemical submission. The so-called Operation Medusa, coordinated by Europol, has so far led to 57 arrests and provided protection to 158 victims, almost all of them women, who in many cases did not know they had been raped due to the effect of drugs. The investigation has opened leads in 274 more cases. This form of sexual assault came to light thanks to Gisèle Pelicot's denunciation, who in 2024 wanted to make public that her husband and 71 other men had raped her after sedating her for years.

History's ironies, Donald Trump chose Wednesday the Palace of Versailles to sign the understanding agreement with Iran, precisely the place where the German empire accepted its capitulation in 1919 after the First World War. The analogy is inevitable: the 14-point document that Washington has finally accepted after almost four months of war is a full-fledged surrender.

Mariam Barghouti (Atlanta, 1993) is a Palestinian journalist and researcher born in the United States who has become a reference for her articles from occupied West Bank in media such as The Guardian, the BBC, Al-Jazeeraand Mondoweiss. This year she is the international resident of the Centre de Cultura Contemporània de Barcelona (CCCB).

Trump celebrated his 80th birthday with a dantesque spectacle of almost no-holds-barred wrestling, a metaphor for the world he desires. And also with a poisoned gift from Tehran: the announcement of a ceasefire that, if it doesn't derail before being signed on Friday in Geneva, will put an end to more than 100 days of war against Iran. The American president needed to reach an agreement at all costs with a regime he had promised to annihilate and which has resisted the onslaught.

john a. powell (requests his name be written in lowercase) is the Director of the Othering and Belonging Institute at the University of Berkeley and Professor of African American Studies, Ethnic Studies, and Law. He visited Barcelona at the invitation of BCN4PEACE, the alliance of the Catalan Institute for Peace Studies, Novact, and the Delàs Centre.

A ceasefire is a pause in the war, a moment when the bombs fall silent, either to give a respite to exhausted civilians and soldiers or, in the best of cases, to open an opportunity for diplomacy. But in recent months, in the mouths of Donald Trump, Vladimir Putin or Benjamin Netanyahu, this concept has been completely emptied of content to become merely a smokescreen behind which the war continues.

Dressed in the yellow jersey of the Colombian national team, and addressing his followers, whom he calls "the tigers," lawyer and businessman Abelardo de la Espriella has celebrated the surprising victory in the first round of the presidential elections. With 43% of the votes, the far-right representative came ahead of Ivan Cepeda (40.9%), the candidate of the left and of continuity with President Gustavo Petro. The triumph of the leader of the new movement Defensores de la Patria has shaken politics in the Latin American country.

Ilan Pappé (Haifa, 1954) is one of the critical voices of Zionism worldwide. A member of the so-called new generation of Israeli historians, who debunked the foundational narrative of the State of Israel, he has visited Barcelona to participate in the Fira Literal.

Álvaro García Linera (Cochabamba, 1962) was vice president of Bolivia between 2006 and 2019, during Evo Morales' governments, and is one of the most influential intellectual figures of the Latin American left. A sociologist, former guerrilla fighter, and Marxist theorist, he combines political practice with theory on capitalism and social change. Author of Cuidar el alma popular (Bellaterra Edicions) has visited Barcelona at the invitation of Fira Literal.

The 18 Catalan activists who were part of the Global Sumud Flotilla landed this midday at El Prat airport from Istanbul, after having spent five days detained by Israeli authorities. With banners of "Welcome home" and shouts of "Long live, long live Palestine," nearly two hundred people awaited them in the Terminal 2 hall, and the reception left emotional images of reunion with their families. Dressed in gray Israeli prison tracksuits, flip-flops, and a Palestinian scarf, the activists denounced the mistreatment they suffered and demanded action from Western governments: "We are risking our lives because governments are silent and complicit," assured Ariadna Masmitjà, a teacher linked to the IAC union, who also asked the European Union to break relations with Israel.

The 438 activists of the Global Sumud Flotilla detained by Israel, including 44 Spaniards, arrived in Turkey on Thursday afternoon. The activists landed in Istanbul on three Turkish Airlines planes, and those who were injured were transferred by ambulances that were waiting for them at the airport, where relatives were also present. After the reception ceremony, they are expected to be transferred to the Istanbul forensic medicine institute to undergo examinations as part of an investigation initiated by the prosecutor's office of that city, according to the Turkish state news agency Anadolu.