An Air Canada Express CRJ-900 regional jet operated by Jazz Aviation collided with a fire truck while landing at New York’s LaGuardia Airport (LGA) late Sunday night at 23:40 ET, instantly killing the pilot and co-pilot. There were approximately 76 people on board.

BREAKING: Several injuries after Air Canada plane and firetruck collide on runaway at New York’s LaGuardia Airport pic.twitter.com/cO6u5HD1YA

— BNO News (@BNONews) March 23, 2026

The flight-tracking website FlightRadar24 said data show Flight AC8646 from Montreal landed on Runway 4 and was rolling down the runway when it struck the fire truck.

FlightRadar24 shows that Flight AC8646’s groundspeed was around 24 mph at the time of the incident.

Early Monday, Kathryn Garcia, executive director of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, told reporters that 41 passengers and crew members were taken to the hospital, with 32 later released. She said some passengers sustained very serious injuries.

LaGuardia remains closed to operations following last night’s incident involving an Air Canada CRJ and a firefighting vehicle. The NOTAM is in effect until 18:00 GMT (2 PM local time).

More: https://t.co/RfxyZrWEtY pic.twitter.com/dqczhdcJB7

— Flightradar24 (@flightradar24) March 23, 2026

Local authorities said LaGuardia Airport is closed and may remain shut until 14:00 ET.

Authored by Jonathan Turley,

In Sweden, a Christian couple is going through a nightmare that captures the growing bias and targeting of religious families in Europe. Daniel and Bianca Samson have been fighting to regain custody of their daughters since 2022 after the government cited their regular church attendance and faith as warranting their removal.

The parents, with the help of the Alliance Defending Freedom International, were delivered another blow after the European Court of Human Rights refused to accept their appeal as “inadmissible.”

This saga began when their eldest daughter had a fight with her parents over being denied a smartphone and makeup.

She contacted police and made a false report of abuse.

However, Sara, quickly retracted the allegation and police found no evidence of abuse.

Nevertheless, the state took both girls — aged 10 and 11 at the time –and refused to allow them to return home.

The government alleged that they found evidence of “religious extremism” and, according to ADF, cited the family’s habit of attending church three times a week.

It also cited strict religious upbringing in the home.

In the United States, the findings would be glaring violations of the free exercise clause of the First Amendment. In Sweden, it is a viable basis for taking away your children.

So these girls want to go home and the parents want to restore their family.

The Swedish government and courts refuse to allow it.

They are still separated after the parents successfully completed state-mandated parenting courses.

They also were denied requests to move the girls into foster homes in Romania, where they live.

The Swedish Supreme Court refused to hear the case last year, but the European Court of Human Rights said that they had failed “to exhaust legal remedies in Sweden.”

Now, according to the ADF International, the government is moving to place the girls up for adoption.

The children have moved from foster home to foster home, including allegedly one placement that resulted in one of the girl’s suffering physical and mental health issues. She ultimately tried to commit suicide, according to the family.

I have only found articles attesting to the removal on the grounds of the family’s religious faith and practices. The implications are chilling if true. This family appears to have done everything demanded of them as their daughters begged to return home.

It is a case worthy of inquiry by the Administration in defense of religious liberty.

A report from the Permanent Citizens Advisory Committee suggests that congestion pricing in New York City is increasing subway use, according to Bloomberg.

The policy charges most drivers a $9 toll to enter parts of Manhattan, encouraging some commuters and leisure travelers to shift from driving to public transit.

Data from the Metropolitan Transportation Authority shows subway ridership reached 1.28 billion rides in 2025, a 7.7% increase from the previous year and more than double the 3.7% growth recorded in 2024. Even with the increase, ridership remains about 75% of what it was before the pandemic.

Most of the growth came from weekend and discretionary trips rather than weekday commuting. Weekend ridership rose by nearly 22 million rides, a 9.4% increase year over year. Morning rush trips into the tolled Manhattan zone rose by about 7%, while weekend entries climbed roughly 7.5%.

Bloomberg writes that traffic has also declined since the toll began. According to MTA data, about 72,600 fewer vehicles entered the congestion zone each day in 2025, an 11% drop.

Higher ridership has helped increase transit revenue. Subway fares generated $2.97 billion in 2025, up from $2.82 billion in 2024. That income helps service roughly $17 billion in long-term debt backed by transit fare revenue.

The policy has drawn criticism from opponents including Phil Murphy and Donald Trump, though a federal judge ruled that efforts to end the program were unlawful.

Authored by Chris Morrison via DailySceptic.org,

Over half a million balsa hardwood trees are being illegally logged in the Amazon rainforest every year to feed the massive demand for wind turbines in many parts of the world. Balsa is a lightweight but strong wood that is commonly used in the core of giant turbine blades. It can make up around 7% of the blade and each set of three can use up to 40 trees.

This discovery is a genuine shock and follows an exclusive investigation by the Daily Sceptic. It adds to the huge ecological toll that the ‘green’ wind turbines are taking on the natural environment.

These inefficient, unreliable, unsightly monsters require a large footprint on land and sea, kill millions of bats, decimate raptor populations, sweep the air of quadrillions of insects and alter local ecology on both land and sea. 

Nobody would install one in a free market, so they require vast financial subsidies to produce expensive electricity.

Given what is known about annual balsa production, the scale of illegal logging and the demands of wind turbine manufactures, it is not difficult to arrive at a possible Amazon forest yearly loss of over half a million trees. Most commercial balsa is exported by Ecuador and it has produced approximately 500,000 cubic metres annually in recent years, or about 80,000 metric tonnes. Around 55% of production is thought to end up in wind turbines and each group of three requires about 10.5m3 a set. Each set requires about 40 trees so annual balsa consumption for wind turbines equates to 1,047,619. Balsa is a relatively fast growing tropical wood and until the soaring demand from turbines kicked in, it was harvested in sustainable plantations. But since the turn of the decade, this sustainable harvest cannot keep up with demand. In a damning survey, the Environment Investigation Agency (EIA) found that exports were boosted by up to 50% following illegal logging in virgin rainforest.

Halve the turbine consumption of 1,047,619 trees and the illegal logging amounts to around 523,810 mature specimens. This figure is likely to be controversial so the Daily Sceptic has shown its workings-out in full. But any substantial annual cull is horrific, and far outstrips the one-off loss of 100,000 tropical rainforest trees logged to build a convenient road for delegates attending the recent ‘save the forest’ COP30 meeting in the Brazilian city of Belém.

Blind eyes are of course turned to the illegal logging, and have been for some time.

In 2020, it was reported that 20,000 balsa trees were illegally felled between March and September in the Achuar indigenous territory along Ecuador’s Copataza River. Other reports refer to intense illegal logging, with some estimates noting the removal of 75% of the trees in some areas.

The EIA report that was published in 2024 was damning. Investigators toured many of the illegal logging sites and charged that most, if not all, exporters turned to natural forests as a “convenient and immediate replacement” when plantations were quickly depleted of older trees. The areas under attack were noted to be some of the last intact forest landscapes in the country. They were said to be unique protected areas and emblematic indigenous territories. Traders are said to have told the EIA that the logging of balsa was taking place “from north to south across most of the Amazonian provinces of the country”. It is estimated that at least 50% of production is currently being supplied by these illegal means. Blending of plantation wood with illegal logging is thought to vary between 10% to 70% depending on the exporter.

The EIA report gained little mainstream media or political attention when it was published, although the body is an established NGO, founded in the UK in 1984 with offices in the UK and Europe. For the narrative-driven mainstream, this type of upsetting news is simply too hot to handle.

However there have been attempts by turbine manufactures and supporters to suggest that balsa is being replaced in parts of the turbine core by various synthetic polymer foam substitutes. This is true, but balsa remains in popular use due to its excellent strength-to-weight ratio. Hybrid designs are said to have become more common, with balsa used in high-shear and other critical areas. In these areas it still holds an advantage over foams. But overall production figures suggest wind turbines are still using a great deal of the wood. Ecuadorean production is said to have spiked around 2020 with a previous sustainable total of 33,000 tonnes rising to 75,000, driven by Chinese turbines manufactures. It is a little difficult to get exact production figures but sources such as the EIA and UN Comtrade suggest exports of 80-100,000 tonnes in 2021, 60-80,000 in 2022, and 50-80,000 in 2023 and 2024.

After the spike, production has stabilised but at levels that can only have been possible by massive looting of the rainforest. It is obvious that a great deal of this is supported by huge increases in Chinese wind turbine manufacture. Overall figures for both domestic and export production are not available in one place, but credible estimate suggest monetary total of $8-12 billion in 2021 has risen to nearly $16 billion in 2024 with the projection for 2025 edging towards $18 billion.

The annual loss of balsa trees in virgin rainforests is unnecessary ecological rape traceable back to ideologues driving a hard-Left Net Zero fantasy. The Daily Septic has attempted to put an annual number on the loss using known figures. Our workings-out are supplied so others, if they wish, can contest our assumptions and maths and arrive at different conclusions. But few will be able to cover up the fact that there are very significant and continuing annual illegal logging balsa losses.

Via Remix News,

Spain is facing mounting concern over the long-term consequences of years of large-scale Moroccan migration, as warnings grow that a sizable and increasingly organized community could begin to exert coordinated political influence.

Official figures cited by La Región show that nearly 900,000 Moroccan nationals were living in Spain in 2024, making them the largest Muslim group in the country.

More than 226,000 are concentrated in Catalonia, with numbers continuing to rise sharply.

What is now causing alarm is not just the scale, but the potential for political mobilization.

The Spanish news outlet referenced a 2023 speech by Enaam Mayara, then-president of the Moroccan parliament’s upper chamber, in which he openly called on Moroccans living in Spain to enter politics, join parties, and take part in elections.

His goal was clear: to build influence inside Spanish institutions and defend Moroccan national interests from within.

“The community in our northern neighbor should be encouraged to participate in that country’s political process,” Mayara said.

“Members of the Moroccan community should be encouraged to become members of parliament in the country of their nationality in order to defend the interests of their homeland whenever necessary.”

“The Moroccan community must integrate into Spanish political parties to form a lobby that defends Morocco,” he added.

The comments sparked fears that what began as migration could evolve into coordinated political leverage.

More recently, Morocco has moved to strengthen its grip on diaspora identity through education.

Earlier this month, in response to the suspension of the Arabic language and Moroccan culture program in the Spanish regions of Madrid and Murcia, Moroccan Foreign Minister Nasser Bourita called for reforms to overseas teaching programs that could trigger a “qualitative transformation” in how Arabic language and Moroccan culture are taught to children living abroad.

The changes will place greater responsibility for diaspora education under a new institutional structure, with a focus on expanding cultural and linguistic ties between Morocco and its citizens overseas.

The push comes as Moroccan-funded programs are already deeply embedded in Spain’s education system.

Hundreds of schools across the country offer Arabic language and Moroccan culture classes financed by Rabat, with teachers selected and paid by Moroccan authorities.

La Región notes that the Arabic Language and Moroccan Culture Teaching Program (PLACM) is already being implemented in 12 autonomous communities, with the most participating schools being in Catalonia at 125 institutions. This is followed by Andalusia with 96, and Madrid with 70.

The combination of expanding state-backed education and political messaging raises serious questions about long-term integration, and whether future generations will be shaped as much by Moroccan institutions as by Spanish society.

Read more here…

Alexandra Prokopenko, a fellow at the Carnegie Russia Eurasia Center and a former advisor at the Bank of Russia, warned on X that the near-shutdown of the Strait of Hormuz has triggered an energy shock that risks morphing into a “slower, more consequential story”: fertilizers.

“A near-shutdown of the Strait of Hormuz is triggering a supply shock that will show up in food prices 6–9 months from now,” Prokopenko wrote on X, adding, “Putin’s gains here may be more long-term than simply lining his pockets with petrodollars.”

The Iran war coverage focuses on oil. The slower, more consequential story is fertilizers. A near-shutdown of the Strait of Hormuz is triggering a supply shock that will show up in food prices 6-9 months from now. Putin’s gains here may be more long-term than simply lining his…

— Alexandra Prokopenko (@amenka) March 19, 2026

For weeks, we have cited institutional desks warning about the emerging fertilizer shock, which is expected to ripple across the world’s food supply chain.

UBS analyst Claudio Martucci warned last week about the cascading effects of the energy shock rippling through fertilizer markets. This may only suggest that the next shoe to drop is the food supply chain later this year.

Bloomberg macro strategist Simon White recently warned, “But food prices are likely to be as troublesome for second-round inflationary effects. Less well-known is that the shock to food prices was worse than the oil price shocks in the 1970s, after the Arab oil embargo and the Iranian revolution. Food inflation in the US was already rising before both shocks, and contributed more to headline CPI than energy through almost all of the 70s.”

Prokopenko pointed out, “Consequences already material. Urea up 25-30% since Feb. 28. Gulf producers have declared force majeure on contracts to South America and Asia. ~1 million metric tons of fertilizer physically stranded in the Gulf. Force majeure means contracts are legally severed, not delayed. Buyers must find alternatives now.”

Consequences already material. Urea up 25-30% since Feb 28. Gulf producers have declared force majeure on contracts to South America and Asia. ~1 million metric tons of fertilizer physically stranded in the Gulf. Force majeure means contracts are legally severed -not delayed.…

— Alexandra Prokopenko (@amenka) March 19, 2026

Prokopenko noted how Russia benefits from the fertilizer disruption:

This is where Russia enters. Russia is a key supplier of ammonia and nitrogen fertilizers worldwide and, along with Belarus, covers about 40% of the global potash market. Russia, along with Qatar, is the prime exporter of urea to the US, and Russia exports the bulk of its fertilizer, more than 45 million tons a year, to the Global South. Nigerian and Ghanaian importers are already placing Q3 pre-orders with Russian suppliers.

Prokopenko provided the food-price shock timeline:

Wave 1 (now): fertilizer price spike, contract disruption.

Wave 2 (Q3-Q4 2026): reduced planting, lower yields, worst in Africa and South Asia where pre-purchasing is impossible.

Wave 3 (2027): food price inflation hitting retail in import-dependent economies.

As the Middle East conflict drags on, Fatih Birol, head of the International Energy Agency, warned on Friday that energy flows in the Gulf area won’t return to full capacity for six months, if not longer. He also warned that the world faces the biggest energy shock ever.

Remember that sulfur, chemicals, fertilizers, and diesel feed into almost everything, and the conflict further risks reigniting global food inflation if the Hormuz chokepoint stays paralyzed for months. Prokopenko’s view is that the fertilizer crisis won’t morph into a food crisis right now, but instead, later this year, only suggesting that readers should consider building out their backyard food supply chains – that being gardens and chicken coops – to weather the possible incoming food supply chain shock.

Readers who want to start small can begin with seeds. We offer a “Seed Vault” of 39 different varieties of hand-selected non-hybrid, non-GMO, open-pollinated heirloom vegetable seeds. 

Authored by Amir Taheri,

With the war between the Israel-US duo and the Islamic Republic in Iran entering its fourth week, two questions are asked in policy circles across the world.

The first is: how long will it last?

The answer is: how long is a piece of string?

Which means: because no one knows, no speculation is warranted.

The second question may be beyond a journalist’s bailiwick: how does it end?

As one of my mentors in journalism taught so many decades ago, we had better leave history to historians and guessing the future to futurologists.

However, using a dose of sophistry, one might claim that op-eds represent a hybrid form of journalism that allows a measure of exemption from the mentor’s rule through pontification.

With that admittedly lame excuse, one could imagine five scenarios in which this war might terminate.

The first is for President Donald Trump to do what he has done many times: declare victory and move to something else.

When the US started firing Tomahawk missiles at Iran last month, many hoped it would be a quick, surgical operation, similar to last June’s strike against Iran’s nuclear facilities, allowing Trump to offer footage showing such sites as Natanz, Isfahan and Heron Mountain turned into a pile of rubble.

However, we are now told by many, including the IAEA’s Director Rafael Grossi, that Iran has many unidentified sites spread all over the country. Moreover, no one knows where Tehran is hiding its 400 kilograms of enriched uranium that could be upgraded to build nuclear warheads within a short time.

In that scenario, Trump wouldn’t be able to declare victory without Grossi giving Iran a clean bill of health. And that would put Trump in the same spot that four of his predecessors were when Hans Blix, Mohamed ElBaradei and Yukio Amano ran the IAEA and refused to say whether or not Iraq, and later Iran, were building the bomb.

Thus the first scenario appears too dicey.

The second scenario is for Trump to refocus on Iran’s arsenal of missiles by claiming it has been wiped out, thus enabling him to end the war.

However, that would mean becoming hostage to fortune.

It would be sufficient for Tehran to fire a ballistic missile or launch an attack drone just days after Trump’s declaration of victory to show that the leader of the mightiest power in history has thrown in the towel a bit too soon.

The third scenario, favored by some in Trump’s kitchen cabinet but absolutely hated by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, is the Venezuela model: having decapitated the regime, you allow it to squeal and survive under a second tier of leaders.

That scenario may not be applicable to Iran for two reasons.

First, the Venezuela of Hugo Chavez and Nicolas Maduro did not want to wipe Israel off the map and drive the Yankees out of Latin America. Nor did Venezuela have proxies in the American backyard and sleeping terror cells inside the US.

Chavez and Maduro were Che Guevara T-shirt revolutionaries who used leftist gibberish but were more interested in filling their pockets. The Islamic Republic of Iran, however, is built around anti-Americanism and antisemitism. As Iran’s former Foreign Minister Muhammad-Javad Zarif says: If we do not stand against America, no one would pay any attention to us. Even if we have the nuclear bomb, we would be something like Pakistan!

A second or third tier of Khomeinist leadership in Tehran might have to be even more radical to keep what is left of the regime’s base.

We caught a glimpse of that last week when regime propaganda cited four conditions supposedly set by the still invisible “Supreme Guide” Mojtaba Khamenei, to halt attacks on Iran’s neighbors.

The first is the closure of all American bases in the Middle East.

The second is for all OPEC members to terminate economic and commercial ties with the US and expel American businesses.

The third condition is for all Arab countries to withdraw their investments from the United States. Finally, oil prices from the region should no longer be quoted in dollars but in a basket of BRICS currencies.

More intriguing is the demand by the ayatollah or the ventriloquist behind him for the US to pay compensation for damage done to Iran’s infrastructure.

A putative Iranian Delcy Rodriguez wears pants, sports a bushy beard and sleeps with a Kalashnikov by his side.

The second reason why the Venezuela option, if one could call it that, might not work in Iran is that Israel is killing Rodriguez wannabes, the latest being Ali Larijani, alias Ardeshir.

Iran’s so-called New York Boys might have done a Rodriguez number before the war but now are in danger of being done for by more radical fellow-Khomeinists.

The fourth scenario is to just continue bombing and see what happens.

However, there, too, problems might arise.

After a week or two, the US and Israel may run out of military or dual-use targets to hit.

That would oblige the artificial intelligence algorithm, which we are told fixes the targets, to recommend hitting just anywhere and anything. That could create millions of displaced persons who would not be pleased with the US and Israel.

That, in turn, might turn Iran, one of the few nations where the US and even Israel enjoyed a good image, partly because of historic reasons and partly as a result of opposition to the Khomeinist regime, into another market for anti-American and antisemitic discourse we see in Western Europe.

That scenario entails another risk that one could label the Sonny Liston conundrum.

In his memorable fight with Muhammad Ali (Cassius Clay), Liston, reputed to be the strongest prize fighter in history, pushed his adversary to the ropes and kept hitting him with all his force.

Clay took the blows and waited until Sonny was exhausted and ready for a knockout by a weaker adversary.

In the case of the current war, that exhaustion may not take a physical form but could come in political, economic and morale forms.

The fifth scenario, though based on a fantasy inspired by a puff at a non-existent calumet, merits being mentioned.

Trump will hold his rescheduled summit with Chinese President Xi Jinping in Beijing in April.

Would that not be a good occasion to declare victory and end the war in exchange for Xi guaranteeing to keep the moribund Khomeinist regime on a tight leash until Iranians themselves find a way out of the deadly maze created by the ayatollahs almost half a century ago?

Marine Le Pen’s National Rally delivered its strongest performance ever in French local elections on Sunday, capturing dozens of municipalities and installing an ally as mayor of Nice – while socialists predictably held onto key urban centers, including Paris, Marseille, Lyon and Lille. 

NR celebrates in 2024

The results of the second-round municipal vote on Sunday mark the clearest sign yet that the populist party is no longer a protest movement but a genuine governing force in parts of France – and a growing threat to President Emmanuel Macron’s centrists and the traditional right ahead of the 2027 presidential election.

Jordan Bardella, the 30-year-old RN president widely seen as the party’s next presidential standard-bearer, hailed the night as “the greatest breakthrough in its entire history.” Speaking to cheering supporters, he said voters had delivered “a message of deep aspiration for change.”

Le Rassemblement National réalise ce soir la plus grande percée de son histoire.

Après le premier tour, à l’issue duquel nos maires sortants ont été plébiscités, nous comptons ce soir de nouvelles victoires par dizaines ! #Municipales2026 pic.twitter.com/FclSlPTyKM

— Jordan Bardella (@J_Bardella) March 22, 2026

Marine Le Pen, still battling a conviction that could bar her from running in 2027, struck a similar note: the party is now “implanted everywhere” and ready to govern.

C’est par dizaines que le Rassemblement national remporte ce soir des communes à l’issue du second tour des élections municipales. C’est une immense victoire, et la confirmation de la stratégie d’implantation locale du Rassemblement national.

Bravo à tous nos candidats, quelle…

— Marine Le Pen (@MLP_officiel) March 22, 2026

Yet the evening was far from a rout. While the RN and its allies picked up control of smaller and mid-sized towns – including Carcassonne, Castres, Agde, Liévin, Vierzon and La Flèche – and as noted above, it lost high-stakes runoffs in Marseille, Toulon and Nîmes after left-wing and center-right candidates formed tactical alliances against it. In Paris and other major cities, the party remained marginal.

The party did secure one major symbolic prize: former Les Républicains leader Éric Ciotti, who defected to the RN orbit, won the mayor’s office in Nice, France’s fifth-largest city.

🚨BREAKING: Thousands are gathering in Nice, France now to celebrate the unprecedented victory of the RN/UDR nationalist candidate Éric Ciotti

HOPE is restored to the French! ⚜️ pic.twitter.com/qOVd10cyjF

— Inevitable West (@Inevitablewest) March 22, 2026

What Happened: Full Results Breakdown

First Round (March 15): The RN posted record scores in many areas, especially in the south. It led or tied in key races including Marseille (neck-and-neck with the incumbent Socialist mayor) and performed strongly in Toulon, Nîmes, and Carcassonne.
Second Round Runoffs (March 22):
Wins and Holds: Retained Perpignan (its largest city). Secured new victories in mid-sized and smaller towns including Carcassonne, Castres, Agde, Liévin, Vierzon, and La Flèche. Overall, the party and its allies are set to govern dozens more municipalities than before.
Major Symbolic Victory: RN ally Éric Ciotti (a former mainstream conservative who defected) won Nice, France’s fifth-largest city — a landmark urban gain.
Setbacks in Big Cities:
Marseille: Incumbent left-wing mayor Benoît Payan cruised to re-election with ~54% against RN candidate Franck Allisio (~39%).
Toulon and Nîmes: RN candidates lost despite strong first-round leads, defeated by united opposition slates.
Paris, Lyon, and other major urban centers: RN remained marginal (e.g., just 1.6% in Paris).

Turnout hit a historic low (~48%), underscoring voter fatigue but also strategic bloc voting against the far right.

A new local power base – and a launchpad for 2027

Until now, the National Rally’s weakness has always been local: it struggled to field experienced candidates, build alliances or win runoffs. That changed Sunday. The party enters the next electoral cycle with real administrative experience, control of budgets in dozens more towns, and a proven ability to turn first-round strength into second-round wins in its southern heartlands.

Analysts say the gains reflect deep voter frustration over immigration, crime and the cost of living – issues the RN has hammered relentlessly while softening its image under Le Pen and Bardella. In Marseille, where drug-related violence has made headlines for years, the RN candidate came within striking distance before the left held on.

The results also expose the continuing fracture on the traditional right. Ciotti’s victory in Nice – after he was essentially expelled from Les Républicains for moving too close to Le Pen – underscores how the mainstream conservative camp is splintering, with pieces drifting toward the RN.

What it means for Macron – and for Europe

Macron’s centrist bloc, already reeling from the 2024 legislative elections that left parliament hung, now faces another warning. The president has 13 months to rebuild credibility before voters choose his successor. His prime minister, Michel Barnier, offered a cautious reaction, saying the results “confirm the fragmentation of our political landscape.”

For Europe, an RN victory in 2027 would be massive – as the party has pledged to challenge EU migration rules, renegotiate France’s relationship with Brussels, and take a harder line on support for Ukraine. A Le Pen or Bardella presidency would align Paris more closely with populist governments in Italy, Hungary and the Netherlands – and put new pressure on the transatlantic alliance.

Of course, Le Pen’s own legal fate looms over the festivities. She is appealing a conviction for misusing European Parliament funds, which carries a potential five-year ban from public office. A decision is expected this summer. If the ban stands, Bardella – younger, smoother and less burdened by the party’s toxic history – would almost certainly become the candidate.

Authored by Mohamed A. Hussein,

The United States-Israeli war on Iran has exposed the vulnerability of critical water infrastructure in a region that is among the most water-scarce in the world.

Last week, Iran’s foreign minister accused the US of striking a desalination plant on Qeshm Island off the coast of Iran in the Strait of Hormuz.

The strike reportedly cut off the water supply to 30 villages. Just 24 hours later, Bahrain said an Iranian drone had caused material damage to one of its desalination plants near Muharraq.

The six Gulf states – Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates – are among the most water-scarce countries in the world and rely heavily on desalination to meet the needs of their combined populations, which exceed 62 million people.

In this visual explainer, Al Jazeera unpacks how dependent the region is on desalination, how much water is produced each year and how various desalination processes work.

The Gulf has no permanent rivers

The Gulf states are deserts with no permanent rivers. While they lack rivers, they do have seasonal waterways called wadis, which carry water during rare rainfall.

These nations rely primarily on groundwater and desalination to supply water to their rapidly growing cities, industrial zones and agricultural areas.

The map below shows the major rivers and waterways in areas surrounding the Gulf.

(Al Jazeera)

7.2 trillion litres from desalination

The Gulf countries produce roughly 40 percent of the world’s desalinated water, operating more than 400 desalination plants along their coasts.

The threshold the United Nations has set for absolute water scarcity is 500 cubic metres (655 cubic yards) per capita per year.

With an average per-capita share of natural freshwater of only 120 cubic metres (155 cubic yards) per year, therefore, Gulf countries rely heavily on desalination to fill the gap between supply and demand.

According to a 2023 report from the GCC Statistical Center, the six Gulf states produced 7.2 billion cubic metres, or 1.9 trillion gallons, of freshwater through desalination. This volume translates to about 122 cubic metres per capita per year, or about 334 litres (88 gallons) per day. However, their total installed capacity is much higher, estimated at 26.4 billion cubic metres annually.

One billion cubic metres is equivalent to one trillion litres.

The largest and most populous of the states – with 37 million inhabitants – is Saudi Arabia. It produced 3 billion cubic metres of desalinated water in 2023, followed by the UAE with 1.9 billion cubic metres, Kuwait with 0.8 billion cubic metres, Qatar with 0.7 billion cubic metres, Oman with 0.5 billion cubic metres and Bahrain with 0.3 billion cubic metres.

(Al Jazeera)

Gulf states’ reliance on desalination

Limited rainfall, the absence of permanent rivers and depletion of groundwater reserves have rendered natural freshwater resources insufficient for the rapidly growing populations of the Gulf.

Without desalination, water for drinking and for industrial and agricultural purposes would be impossible to maintain. According to data from the GCC Statistical Centre on water production and consumption, here is the reliance on desalination for total water supply in each country:

(Al Jazeera)

Qatar

At 61 percent, Qatar is the most dependent of the Gulf states on water from desalination. About 22 percent of its combined 1.1 billion cubic metres of annual water supply comes from groundwater and 18 percent from rainwater. However, when it comes to drinking water alone, Qatar relies nearly exclusively on desalination, which constitutes more than 99 percent of its drinking water supply for its 3.2 million people.

Bahrain

Bahrain is the second most dependent on desalinated water with 59 percent of its total 0.5 billion cubic metres of annual national water supply coming from desalination. For drinking water, this figure jumps to more than 90 percent. Additionally, 32 percent comes from groundwater and 11 percent from rainwater, respectively, for its 1.6 million inhabitants.

Kuwait

Kuwait follows with 47 percent of its 1.7 billion cubic metres of water used annually obtained through desalination while 51 percent comes from groundwater with rainfall making up the remainder.

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The UAE

The UAE has a roughly equal mix with 41 percent of its water derived from desalination and 46 percent from groundwater with the remainder coming from rainwater and treated wastewater. This totals 4.8 billion cubic metres annually for its 11.5 million inhabitants.

Oman

Oman produces 23 percent of its total 2.2 billion cubic metres annually from desalination for its 4.7 million inhabitants, followed by groundwater at 69 percent with the remainder coming from rainfall and treated wastewater.

Saudi Arabia

Saudi Arabia produces more desalinated water than any other country, but with 18 percent of its total usage coming from desalination, Saudi Arabia is the least dependent of the Gulf states on water from desalination, relying instead on groundwater for 79 percent of its total water needs. Rainfall accounts for the remainder of the 17.3 billion cubic metres the kingdom produces annually for its 37 million inhabitants.

How desalination works

Desalination is the process of removing salt and minerals from seawater to make it suitable for human consumption and irrigation. This is primarily achieved through thermal distillation or reverse osmosis.

(Al Jazeera)

Historically, the only way to desalinate water was to boil it and then collect the steam to obtain freshwater, which is essentially how thermal distillation works.

Seawater is pumped into desalination plants. From there, filters remove sand, algae and particles before the water is heated until it forms steam, leaving salt and minerals behind. The steam is then cooled and condenses into pure distilled water. After this, minerals are added, and the water is disinfected to ensure it is safe for drinking. Finally, the water is pumped into municipal pipelines or bottled for use in homes, businesses and industries.

Reverse osmosis, on the other hand, uses high-pressure pumps to force seawater through a semipermeable membrane that captures salt and minerals while allowing water molecules to pass through.

This method has become the more popular form of desalination because it is significantly cheaper to operate, uses less energy and does not cause thermal pollution through the discharge of hot water into the sea.