PAS Youth warns of 'price to pay' if Malay-Muslim political split continues

PAS Youth warns of 'price to pay' if Malay-Muslim political split continues

Qistina Nadia Dzulqarnain
Published: Sep 3, 2026 2:23 PM
Updated: 5:53 PM



PAS MUKTAMAR | PAS Youth has warned that future generations will pay the price for political division among Malay-Muslims and linked it to the community’s “weak” economic control.

“We may not pay that price today, but that price may be paid by our children in the future,” said PAS Youth chief Afnan Hamimi Taib Azamudden when addressing the party’s youth wing muktamar today.

In a fiery speech before over 800 delegates, Afnan implied that the influence held by Malay-Muslims as the majority population in Malaysia may be affected by other racial and religious groups if the community fails to rally its strengths.

He theorised that economic weaknesses among Malay-Muslims are linked to political disunity, and strength, courage, and wisdom are needed to ensure better consensus.

Furthermore, Afnan said that when political strength is split into too many different directions, the ability to determine a shared agenda is impaired.

The PAS Youth muktamar in Kota Bharu, Kelantan, today


“It’s not that others don’t have a right to progress, (nor) do we want to deny anyone’s rights, but in politics and our nation, the majority is Malay-Muslims - the space we do not fill will be filled by others.

“National leadership (roles) we do not occupy will be replaced by other leaders (and) the agenda we fail to carry will be replaced by an agenda that may not align with the interests of the ummah we are fighting for,” the Alor Setar MP said.

He added that in explaining the concept of the ummah, PAS president Hadi Abdul Awang divided the matter into two groups -namely Ummah Al-Ijabah and Ummah Al-Dakwah.

The former refers to those who have embraced Islam, while the latter refers to those who are invited to Islam, whether as a practising believer or to live a life under “Islamic governance that is just to all”.

Strengthening pact with Umno

Afnan also announced that PAS Youth will be organising a “Himpunan Mega Penyatuan Ummah” (Mega Ummah Unification Rally) as part of its ongoing efforts to unite the Malay-Muslim electorate.

PAS has been pushing for stronger ummah unity via cooperation with BN lynchpin Umno, with the Islamist party framing the pact as a broader rallying of Malay-Muslim politics ahead of the 16th general election.

Today’s event was also attended by 25 Umno Youth figures, including its chief Dr Akmal Saleh, following an invitation from their PAS counterpart.

PAS Youth chief Afnan Hamimi Taib Azamudden (second, right) with his Umno counterpart Dr Akmal Saleh (right)


Addressing a press conference after the PAS Youth wing’s officiating ceremony, party deputy president Tuan Ibrahim Tuan Man affirmed that ummah unity is not solely “for the Malays”.

“Umno-BN ruled for a long time, and non-Malays were not sidelined - they had rights that were given. (Ummah unity) does not sideline the rights of non-Malays or non-Muslims.

“They are citizens of our country whom we need to celebrate together. Unity is an appreciation of the sacrifices of all races for our country,” he added.

He noted that PAS rejects “extremist groups who go overboard” by inciting controversy, doubt, and causing problems among the rakyat.

US issues US$1 coin featuring Trump despite law barring living presidents on currency

US issues US$1 coin featuring Trump despite law barring living presidents on currency



This handout image obtained on September 2, 2026, from the US Department of Treasury shows a rendering of a US$1 coin featuring the face of US President Donald Trump. The US Treasury on September 2 issued US$1 coins featuring the face of President Donald Trump, the latest move in an unprecedented campaign by the Republican billionaire to put his personal stamp on national institutions. — US Department of Treasury handout/AFP pic


Summary

• The US Treasury issued US$1 coins featuring President Trump's face for the 250th anniversary of the United States, marking them as both commemorative and in circulation.
• This initiative contradicts federal law prohibiting living presidents' images on currency, amidst Trump's broader efforts to change US institutions.
• Treasury Secretary plans to introduce a new US$250 bill with Trump's face, requiring legal changes, while Trump's signature will soon appear on US paper money.

First Published: Thursday, 03 Sep 2026 2:27 PM MYT


WASHINGTON, Sept 3 — The US Treasury yesterday issued US$1 (RM4.04) coins featuring the face of President Donald Trump, the latest move in an unprecedented campaign by the Republican billionaire to put his personal stamp on national institutions.

The coins were minted to mark the 250th anniversary of the founding of the United States celebrated this year.


A roll of 25 US$1 coins was available for sale for US$61 — a mark-up of 144 per cent — with a 100-coin bag available for US$154.50.


When the Treasury announced the plan it was unclear if the coins would have monetary value or would be purely commemorative, but on Wednesday the US Mint said the coins were “also in circulation.”


The move to put Trump’s countenance on a coin with monetary value runs counter to federal law that says no living president may appear on US currency.


Trump has aggressively defied precedent and legal challenges in his push to remake US institutions in his second term, putting his name on the Kennedy Center for the Arts and demolishing the East Wing of the White House to make room for a new ballroom, among other moves.

The new coin features Trump’s face on one side, with the words “Liberty” and “In God We Trust.” It also features the dates 1776-2026, marking 250 years of US independence.


The other side of the coin features a version of the US presidential seal, depicting an eagle clutching arrows and an olive branch while covered by a shield that says “250.”

This is just the latest in Trump’s campaign to put his face and name on US currency.

In May, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said his department was pursuing a plan to issue a new US$250 bill with Trump’s face on it.

He conceded that the move would require Congress to change the law barring living persons from appearing on currency.

The US Treasury did not immediately respond to a request for comment on whether the new US$1 coin violates that law.

In March, the Treasury announced that US paper money would soon bear Trump’s signature — another first for a sitting US president. — AFP

 

Trump threatens more strikes as death toll in Iran rises to 18

Trump says US can hit Iran ‘anytime we want’ as Tehran says deadly strikes, including on wedding party, a war crime.

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Trump says US sees ‘everything’ Iran does, threatens further attacks

By Ali Mustafa and Reuters

Published On 3 Sep 20263 Sep 2026

United States President Donald Trump has threatened more attacks on Iran, warning that Washington could hit Iran “anytime we want”, as the death toll from the latest US strikes climbed to 18, with at least 108 others wounded.

Trump’s threat on Wednesday came after the US and Iran exchanged their biggest barrage since July. The US military struck cities and areas along Iran’s southern coast, near the blockaded Strait of Hormuz, including a wedding party in the city of Kuhestak.

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Iran retaliated with attacks on US bases across the Middle East, including Bahrain, Iraq and Jordan.

Speaking to reporters at the White House, Trump said, “We hit them very hard last night” and that the strikes “took out all of the new equipment that they tried to build along the Strait of Hormuz”.

“It was a very heavy attack last night. And we’re prepared to do another one. And anytime we want,” he said.

Iranian officials said at least 18 people were killed in the US strikes.

The victims included two children, according to Mohammad-Reza Zafarghandi, Iran’s health minister. One of them was a four-year-old who was killed in the strike on the wedding party in Kuhestak in Sirik county.

At least four people were killed in that strike.

Esmaeil Baghaei, the spokesman for Iran’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, described the Kuhestak attack as a “war crime” and hit back at US claims that it does not target civilians.

“The reality is so horrifying that even American propaganda has never dared make the claim [the US military] is making today. Sirik is not a story. The civilians are real. The victims are real”, Baghaei wrote on X.

Iranian media said the funeral for the four Kuhestak victims will be held on Thursday.

‘Uncomfortable strategic position’

The six-month war has led to a spike in oil prices, roiled the global economy and posed increasing political problems for Trump’s Republican Party ahead of November midterm elections in the US.

Only 31 percent of Americans approve of the war, while some 63 percent disapprove, according to a poll by the Reuters news agency and the Ipsos polling firm in August. Voters are particularly unhappy about high gas prices. Since the fighting resumed this weekend, the price of Brent crude oil, the international standard, has climbed to about $95, up more than 30 percent from the start of the war.

Trump’s approval rating has also fallen from 40 percent to 33 percent since the conflict began, according to Reuters/Ipsos polling.

On Wednesday, Trump said he did not think the renewed military campaign ⁠would last long. He also reiterated his position that the upcoming elections were not a factor in his Iran strategy.

“Number one, I’m not running. My party is running, and I’m going to help my party,” he told reporters in the Oval Office. “But I think my party respects the fact that we’re not allowing Iran to have a nuclear weapon.”

Iran has denied seeking a nuclear weapon.

3:28

War on Iran: US bombs a wedding, killing five guests

Tariq Khan, a retired Pakistani lieutenant-general and former commander of the Pakistan Army’s Frontier Corps, said the US “now finds itself in an increasingly uncomfortable strategic position in the Iran war”.

“The US has not succeeded in restoring the maritime environment that existed before the war, and is now expending military resources to deal with a problem the war itself helped create,” he told Al Jazeera, referring to Iran’s closure of the Strait of Hormuz.

The strait was a free-flowing international waterway carrying roughly one-fifth of the world’s traded oil before the war. Tehran shut the waterway in response to the US and Israeli strikes on February 18 that began the war. Despite repeated US claims that the strait remains open, only a handful of vessels now pass through each day, and Iran continues to target ships attempting the crossing.

On Wednesday, Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) said two oil tankers had struck mines and were disabled while attempting an unauthorised transit. Separately, Saudi shipping firm Bahri reported that two Filipino sailors were killed in an attack on their vessel earlier in the week.

Iran’s Persian Gulf Strait Authority (PGSA), which Tehran set up to police the Strait of Hormuz, added 11 more ships to its blacklist for alleged “noncompliance” this week, on top of the 45 blacklisted last week. The PGSA said the vessels will face fines, seizures or confiscation unless they submit required documentation to Iran before attempting to cross the strait.

Strait of Hormuz

At the same time, the US has intensified an economic isolation campaign against Iran, threatening to slap countries that ‌trade with Tehran with massive sanctions, while also maintaining its own blockade in the Strait of Hormuz.

Trump on Wednesday continued to insist that Washington was in control of the strait, saying US forces were helping bring “lots of boats out every day with millions of barrels of oil”.

“We are, for the most part, doing it without trouble. Every once in a while they shoot a drone, and we knock it down. We have control, very strong control,” he said.

On Tuesday, he had claimed the US Navy was helping escort some 30 ships out of the strait every day. Before the war, some 130 ships transited the waterway daily.

4:47

US is in a very confused state in terms of its strategic goals: Analysis

Khan, the former Pakistani general, said Iran understands it cannot defeat the US conventionally and is seeking to make the war costly for Trump.

“If Trump escalates, Iran can portray America as being drawn deeper into another Middle Eastern war; if he restrains himself, Tehran can claim that American military superiority cannot compel Iran to surrender,” he said.

“Iran does not need a battlefield victory; it needs to remain standing, keep the economic disruption alive, and make the war politically costly for the US. Tehran has to make American victory increasingly unaffordable – militarily, economically and electorally.”

US-Iran hostilities surge as strikes hit Gulf bases, shipping routes

US-Iran hostilities surge as strikes hit Gulf bases, shipping routes


Washington strikes Iranian military and maritime targets while Tehran launches missiles and drones at US facilities across the Gulf and wider Middle East


Updated 42 minutes ago · Published on 03 Sep 2026 8:56AM

The United States and Iran exchange their heaviest attacks since July raising fresh fears of a broader regional war - September 3, 2026



THE United States and Iran have reignited hostilities with their biggest exchange of attacks since July, as Washington struck Iranian military and maritime targets while Tehran launched missiles and drones at US facilities across the Middle East.


The escalation has raised fresh concerns over the security of the Strait of Hormuz, a critical global energy route, after Iran said two tankers were struck by mines while being guided through the strait by US personnel.

Reuters reported on Thursday that the US military said its latest strikes targeted Iranian air defences, radar systems, maritime assets, mine-laying capabilities and communications sites along Iran’s southern coast.

Iran, meanwhile, said it had attacked US assets in Bahrain, Jordan, Kuwait and Iraq, declaring that its objective was to drive American forces out of the region.

"American evil in the region will be met with heavier, more widespread, and devastating responses, and any country that cooperates with the aggressive American army must accept its dangerous consequences," Iran's military command said.

US officials said initial assessments showed no American casualties despite Iran’s claims that it had killed US forces in Jordan and at a base in northern Iraq.

In Kuwait, Iran said it had targeted the US Ali Al Salem air base and a residential complex used by a US commander with missiles and drones. Kuwait’s fire service said it extinguished a blaze at a residential complex struck by a drone.

Bahrain said Iranian drones targeting the country were intercepted and destroyed, while Qatar said it held Iran responsible for attacks and their consequences.

The latest escalation came after both sides had largely withheld fire for weeks, raising fears that the conflict could once again intensify across the region.

US President Donald Trump said Washington had hit Iran "very hard" and described Tehran’s response as a "love tap".

"It was a very heavy attack last night, and we're prepared to do another one any time we want," Trump told reporters at the White House.

Iran also accused the United States of striking a wedding gathering in Sirik, on Iran’s southern coast, saying four people, including a four-year-old child, were killed and dozens wounded.

Iranian Health Minister later said 18 people had been killed and 108 injured in the latest wave of US strikes.

Reuters was unable to independently verify the reported wedding strike or the casualty figures.

U.S. Navy Captain Tim Hawkins, a spokesperson for Central Command, said: "We are aware of reports, which originated from Iranian state media. The U.S. military never targets civilians, unlike the IRGC," referring to Iran's Revolutionary Guards.

The renewed fighting is also threatening an already fragile global energy market.

The Strait of Hormuz handled around 20 per cent of global oil and liquefied natural gas shipments before the war, while US Energy Secretary Chris Wright said more than 17 million barrels of oil exited the strait on Monday.

Iran has also blacklisted 11 more ships, bringing the total to 56 vessels that Tehran says could face fines, confiscation or detention if they attempt to pass through the strait without its permission.

Trump, however, repeated his assertion that the waterway remains open to shipping.

The latest confrontation marks the most serious exchange since July, when Trump halted two weeks of intense US bombing after American military officials warned that munitions were being depleted and meaningful targets were becoming harder to find.

The conflict has continued since Washington launched its latest campaign against Iran in February under "Operation Epic Fury", with Trump saying its objectives included ending Iran’s nuclear programme, weakening its ability to attack neighbouring countries and creating conditions for political change in Tehran.

While US officials say American strikes have significantly degraded Iran’s conventional military capabilities and further weakened its economy, the latest exchange highlights the difficulty of containing a conflict that has already disrupted regional security and energy flows.

"It’s very difficult to live like this. We don’t know when America will strike,” Mahpari, 28, a woman in the southern port city of Bandar Abbas, told Reuters by phone. - September 3, 2026

Funding spat brews between Zahid's and Anwar's ministries

Funding spat brews between Zahid's and Anwar's ministries


Published: Sep 3, 2026 8:00 AM
Updated: 10:59 AM



A rare public dispute between ministries over funding has become the latest friction point in the Pakatan Harapan-BN alliance.

The spat began on Monday when Rural and Regional Development Minister Ahmad Zahid Hamidi vented his frustration over funding disbursements during his ministry’s monthly assembly.

Urging the Finance Ministry to expedite payments, Zahid (above, left) – who is also Umno president and deputy prime minister – said many contractors have completed their projects and achieved milestones, but are left without payment, and some have been forced out of business by the resultant cash flow issues.

“We cannot make payments because the funds have not been channelled to us. Yet, we are the ones who get blamed,” the New Straits Times quoted him as saying.

The Finance Ministry, which is under Prime Minister and Pakatan Harapan chairperson Anwar Ibrahim, is responsible for funding disbursements.

Treasury secretary-general Johan Mahmood Merican responded to Zahid yesterday by stating there are no sanctions imposed on the Rural and Regional Development Ministry’s allocation for rural roads, which has already been fully disbursed.

Johan Mahmood Merican

He also painted the Rural and Regional Development Ministry as consistently going over-budget, and said the Finance Ministry is working to identify cost savings in other ministries to support the Rural and Regional Development Ministry’s excesses.

“The problems in paying contractors arose because the allocation for the current year is almost fully expended.

“Since several years ago, the Rural and Regional Development Ministry has made commitments and spent in excess of the annual allocations approved for rural projects,” he said in a statement.

He added that the Finance Ministry is working with the Rural and Regional Development Ministry to resolve the matter, including restructuring its allocations and providing an additional RM300 million allocation to resolve outstanding payments to contractors.


Fuel to the fire

Several other prominent politicians also chimed in on social media.

Kamil Abdul Munim, who is Anwar’s political secretary in the latter’s capacity as finance minister, shared a copy of Johan’s press release and asked how there could be enough money if Zahid’s ministry overspent.

Kamil Abdul Munim


“This could doom the country,” he remarked.

Umno Youth chief Dr Akmal Saleh, on the other hand, turned his attention to another ministry that has allegedly also gone over-budget – the Education Ministry led by PKR Women’s chief Fadhlina Sidek.

“Some are spreading the malicious narrative that the Rural and Regional Development Ministry has gone over-budget. Does it mean that other ministries that go over-budget are also in the wrong?” he asked.

Akmal explained that supplementary budgets, which are approved every year, cover this, and ministers are not free to spend as they wish.

“How can you govern the country properly when you can’t even understand that?” he asked.

Dr Akmal Saleh


Meanwhile, the Rural and Regional Development Ministry said the rural road projects were allocated RM2.107 billion this year, and 415 projects have been implemented at the cost of RM1.995 billion up as of Sept 1.

It estimated that it needs RM4 billion per year to keep the projects on track.

“The situation shows active implementation of the project nationwide and the need to keep ongoing projects moving in an orderly manner until completion,” it said.


Zahid’s aide pushes back

Zahid’s press secretary Fadzmel Fadzil pushed back against the Finance Ministry statement more directly, calling it inaccurate and misleading.

He said federal financial procedures and the Integrated Government Financial Management Accounting System (iGFMAS) strictly prevent any ministry from spending unauthorised funds.

In addition, the allocation and spending data cited in Johan's press release, which covered the years from 2022 onwards, omitted the crucial years from 2019 to 2021.

Fadzmel Fadzil


During this period, Fadzmel said various projects were signed on but subsequently delayed by the Covid-19 pandemic.

As those delayed projects resumed, contractor claims rolled over into subsequent budget years, creating legal and contractual obligations that the government is obligated to honour.

He also rejected the Finance Ministry's portrayal of the RM300 million release as “additional funding”.

Instead, he contended that the sum is an already-due allocation approved via a Warrant to Spend on the afternoon of Sept 1 – shortly after Zahid raised the issue.

While the money is appreciated, he said it is not enough to settle all outstanding commitments to its contractors.

“Ideally, this matter should not become a dispute between ministries.

“What is more important is to seek immediate solutions to the spending commitments,” he added.

***

Lawan pukul hentam 👍👍👍😂😂😂

Explain Ulu Gua Musang deforestation, K'tan govt urged

Explain Ulu Gua Musang deforestation, K'tan govt urged

Malaysiakini Team
Published: Sep 2, 2026 9:17 PM
Updated: 11:18 PM



Environment

The Peninsular Malaysia Orang Asli Villages Network has expressed concern over widespread deforestation in permanent forest reserves in Ulu Gua Musang, and urged the Kelantan government to explain.

“We are seeing a reality very different from claims that our forests are being preserved. That is why we are calling for an independent audit and for land status data and maps to be disclosed to the public,” Bernama quoted the group’s representative Nur Syafiq Dendi Abdullah as saying.

He said the clearing of forests for commercial crops has affected Orang Asli customary land rights, threatened water sources, and escalated human-wildlife conflict.

He urged the state government to publish comprehensive maps of the affected areas, and to impose a moratorium on approving new developments in areas claimed by the Orang Asli pending an independent audit and investigation.

 

The sanctions illusion

The sanctions illusion

2 hours ago

Jamal Ibrahim Haidar and Seyed Mohammad Karimi

Financial sanctions rarely achieve their strategic objectives, and they inflict predictable, severe, and regressive harm on civilian populations.

When governments impose economic sanctions, like the “economic D-Day” US president Donald Trump is now imposing on Iran, they portray them as a precision instrument—a scalpel rather than a sword—capable of pressuring ruling elites while sparing ordinary citizens.

This narrative has been used to justify some of the most sweeping acts of economic coercion in modern history. The only problem is that the central premise is untrue.

The case against sanctions is not merely strategic—that they rarely achieve their stated foreign-policy objectives—but also moral. Sanctions, particularly financial ones, do not fall equally on a population.

They fall hardest on those least able to bear them: low-income, wage-dependent, and publicly employed people. Thus, anyone who claims to care about the ethics of coercive statecraft must confront its distributional realities with the same rigour applied to questions of military tactics.

Cross-country research spanning decades has documented that economic sanctions reduce GDP growth, widen income inequality, increase child mortality, limit access to healthcare, and expand food insecurity in target states. These are not marginal effects.

One study found that US sanctions produced a poverty gap more than 3.8 percentage points larger in targeted countries than in comparable unsanctioned ones.

Another documented that UN sanctions reduced life expectancy by 1.2–1.4 years. These are statistics of mass harm, describing damage done to households, not palaces.

Yet the cross-country evidence, while damning, did not always tell us precisely who bears what burden within a sanctioned society.

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In a new study using detailed microdata from Iranian household income and expenditure surveys and consumer-theoretic welfare metrics, we quantify the monetary welfare losses inflicted on Iranian households by the US-led 2012 SWIFT financial sanctions.

The 2012 sanctions severed all Iranian banks from the global payments system in the most comprehensive financial decoupling ever imposed on a major economy.

As a result, poorer Iranian households lost 2.3–2.8 times more, as a share of their pre-sanctions real (inflation-adjusted) expenditures, than higher-income households, and the average household lost 13%–42% of its pre-sanctions purchasing power.

Thus, financial sanctions reverse the distributional predictions typically associated with trade or commodity sanctions. They are not merely harmful but regressive.

The regressivity is not incidental. It reflects the mechanics of how financial sanctions function. When a country is cut off from the global payments system, it loses the ability to process international transactions, import intermediate goods, and maintain foreign-exchange reserves.

The immediate consequence is inflation, which disproportionately affects imported consumer goods and inputs that ordinary households depend on.

Since wealthier households tend to have more diversified assets, foreign-currency holdings, and access to informal financial channels, they can partly insulate themselves as poorer households absorb the price shock in full.

The sectoral impact is similarly unequal. Workers in manufacturing and services, which are deeply integrated into international supply chains and depend on imported inputs, suffer disproportionately.

Public-sector employees, whose salaries are denominated in a currency whose real value collapses as sanctions bite, also bear an outsize burden.

In the Iranian case, households headed by public-sector workers needed 35%–41% more compensation than their private-sector counterparts to maintain their pre-sanctions standard of living. Those employed in manufacturing and services required 37%–42% more than workers in agriculture and construction.

These are not abstractions. They represent real losses in nutrition, health, education, and dignity for millions of families who have no voice in the geopolitical disputes that triggered their impoverishment.

In the perverse political economy of sanctions, this popular suffering is justified as a means of pressuring the target government. But that rarely happens. Authoritarian regimes have proven remarkably adept at insulating themselves from the economic pain felt by marginalised populations.

After the 2012 sanctions, politically connected Iranians maintained real purchasing power while public-sector wage earners—teachers, nurses, civil servants—experienced a collapse in their living standards.

Some will argue that without sanctions, policymakers have no tool short of military force to impel a government to change its behaviour. But this, too, is false.

Diplomatic isolation, multilateral condemnations, targeted asset freezes, visa restrictions on ruling elites, and the patient construction of international mechanisms of legal accountability all carry far lower humanitarian costs.

The question is not whether states should have foreign-policy tools, but whether any tool that imposes the scale of civilian harm documented in the sanctions literature can be considered legitimate under the same ethical and legal frameworks we apply to armed conflict.

In wartime, the principle of proportionality limits permissible harm to civilians in pursuit of military objectives. Yet no equivalent principle governs economic coercion.

Sanctions are routinely imposed, tightened, and maintained for years or decades with little systematic accounting of their human costs. The civilian harm they inflict is treated as regrettable collateral damage rather than a direct moral consequence of the sanctioning state’s choices.

This inconsistency is indefensible. If it is impermissible to bomb a civilian water treatment plant, it should also be impermissible to sever a country from the global banking system when the foreseeable and documented effect is to deprive low-income families of one-third or more of their real income.

This is not an argument for passivity in the face of aggression or human-rights violations. But financial sanctions, as currently practiced, rarely achieve their strategic objectives, and they inflict predictable, severe, and regressive harm on civilian populations who bear no responsibility for the policies sanctions are meant to punish. Such harms are not more humane; they are harder to see and easier to ignore.

But policymakers now have the analytical tools to measure these harms precisely. What is still missing is the political will to take such measurements seriously.

That requires acknowledging that low-income people in Tehran, Caracas, Pyongyang, and Moscow are human beings whose welfare imposes obligations on those who would use their suffering as an instrument of geopolitical leverage.

Until sanctions regimes are held to the same humanitarian standards as military operations—with the same requirements to demonstrate proportionality, minimise civilian harm, and account for foreseeable consequences—their supposed ethical superiority to war will remain a convenient moral fiction for those who bear none of their costs.

Jamal Ibrahim Haidar is chair of the economics department at the Lebanese American University. Seyed Mohammad Karimi is interim chair of the health management and systems sciences department at the University of Louisville.

***

The British medical journal The Lancet has published landmark, highly debated data regarding the devastating public health effects of international economic sanctions on Iraq. [1]

The 1995 FAO Letter and the "500,000 Child Deaths" Claim

The controversy surrounding Iraq's sanctions dates back to 1995, when researchers working with a United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) study published a prominent letter in The Lancet. [1]

The Finding: The report asserted that the UN-imposed trade embargo was directly responsible for the premature deaths of approximately 567,000 Iraqi children under the age of five. [1, 2]
Public Outrage: The figures, which were subsequently cited on major global news programs like 60 Minutes and covered in The New York Times, became the focal point of intense anti-sanctions campaigning. The controversy dates from 1995, when researchers with a Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO) study in Iraq wrote to The Lancet... asserting that sanctions were responsible for the deaths of 567,000 Iraqi children. [1]
Subsequent BMJ Reporting: The findings were heavily broadcasted by British medical media, with The BMJ noting that high food prices, low purchasing power, and a collapsed water infrastructure left hospitals operating at only 40% capacity. []