For the first time in the Arab world: The country that abolished the death penalty
Lebanon becomes the first Arab country to abolish the death penalty. Palestinian students at Columbia sue the university for discrimination. And the British infrastructure project that surrendered to the struggle of Harry Potter fans. Global Zoom.
The "Global Zoom" section of Globes presents every Thursday the stories making headlines around the world, from the most important news to those that may have flown under the radar. This time: the 93-year-old president of Cameroon is missing and causing a stir in the country, and in the UK, an imaginary grave led to changes in a massive project.
Lebanon
For the first time in the Middle East: Death penalty abolished
Lebanon took a step this week that has not been taken in any other Arab country: the parliament in Beirut voted to abolish the death penalty, making it the first among Arab world countries to replace the most severe sentence with life imprisonment with hard labor under aggravating circumstances.
Practically speaking, this is a formalization of a reality that has already existed for years. Lebanon has maintained an unofficial freeze on executions since 2004, but this freeze was fragile: over the years, death sentences continued to be handed down in courts, even if they were suspended or effectively commuted later. Now, for the first time, the law itself is changing.
The vote passed with a large majority of the 128 members of parliament - except for the Hezbollah parliamentary bloc, which did not support the decision. The Lebanese Minister of Justice described the moment as a "historic step," and human rights organizations, led by Human Rights Watch, were quick to welcome the decision.
But not all of the Lebanese public welcomes the move. Families of soldiers killed by armed organizations spoke out against the abolition, claiming they wanted to see the murderers of their loved ones executed, rather than punished with a reduced sentence.
The vote comes in the midst of a much larger struggle being waged by the Lebanese government led by Prime Minister Najib Mikati: the attempt to disarm Hezbollah and transfer the monopoly on weapons to the state alone. The abstention of the Hezbollah parliamentary bloc from the vote on abolishing the death penalty is another small marker of the broader dynamic currently taking place in Lebanon: a government trying to re-establish state authority and values against an armed organization that continues to operate as an independent power within its borders.
USA
"Biased hearings and harassment": Palestinian students turn to court
A group of Palestinian students and faculty members, current and former, filed a lawsuit against Columbia University, alleging systematic discrimination against the Palestinian community on campus since late 2023.
According to a complaint filed in a New York court and revealed by the Reuters news agency, the university failed to protect its Palestinian members from harassment, and even acted against them through what the plaintiffs call "biased and unfair disciplinary hearings." Columbia, for its part, has previously denied allegations of discrimination and stated that it condemns expressions of hatred of any kind.
The lawsuit is linked to the wave of protests that erupted on the Columbia campus and other universities across the US with the outbreak of the Iron Swords war. The protesters then demanded that the US stop its support for Israel and called on universities to divest from companies associated with it.
A peak point in the tension came in May 2025, when Columbia suspended more than 65 students following the takeover of the campus's main library as part of a pro-Palestinian demonstration. The suspensions came just as the university was negotiating with the Trump administration, after the latter cut its federal funding, claiming it was ignoring expressions of antisemitism on campus during the protests.
Free speech organizations at the time condemned the way Columbia handled the protests, as students faced arrests, suspensions, expulsions from the university, and even the revocation of degrees.
Cameroon
World's oldest president has been missing for two months
Cameroon's President Paul Biya, 93, the oldest serving president in the world, has not returned to his country for more than two months. Biya left Yaoundé, the country's capital, on June 7, apparently for a "short private visit to Europe," but this visit has turned into one of his longest trips outside Cameroon ever. The President's office never published an exact return date, and according to various sources, he is staying in Switzerland, a country where he tends to spend long periods.
His prolonged absence is raising difficult questions among the opposition. One opposition member claimed that while the constitution in Cameroon does not set a clear limit on the duration of presidential absence, that is exactly what is worrying: "Today, we don't know who is actually running the country, which is operating on autopilot."
What exacerbates the concerns is that precisely during his absence, Biya managed to carry out a significant reorganization of the military leadership: replacing commanders in four of the country's five joint military regions and promoting senior officers. Members of the public are asking how exactly presidential decrees are signed in Yaoundé when the president himself is estimated to be in Geneva. The ruling party, on the other hand, insists that Biya continues to fulfill his presidential duties as usual, even from afar.
This absence is not happening in a vacuum. Cameroon is simultaneously dealing with a number of serious crises: the terrorist organization Boko Haram continues to operate in the north of the country, a separatist conflict continues in the west, and the Central African country's economy is in a prolonged stagnation. Experts warn that precisely in such a period, Biya's prolonged stay abroad only intensifies social tension and public dissatisfaction.
UK
Giant infrastructure project halted. The reason: Harry Potter fans' protest
Sometimes even infrastructure projects worth hundreds of millions of pounds have to retreat in the face of one power - Harry Potter fans. A giant subsea power cable between the UK and Ireland had to change its route so as not to damage the "grave" of Dobby the house-elf, one of the beloved fictional characters in the book and film series.
The line, named Greenlink, is a £430 million project connecting the British national electricity grid to Ireland, using a cable about 200 kilometers long between County Wexford and Freshwater West beach in Pembrokeshire - a beach where the moving and sad moment where Dobby dies was filmed in the movies. Since then, fans have turned it into a place of pilgrimage, placing stones there with personal messages in memory of Dobby, as a kind of unofficial grave.
Project manager Simon Ludlam, founder of the company Etchea Energy, said that initially the cable was supposed to "go straight through" the site, until a television interview he gave to the BBC turned into a "PR nightmare. We received hundreds of phone calls. We had to redesign the cable route so that we wouldn't get anywhere near Dobby's grave. Many people were very happy with that, and the project is now moving forward, and Dobby is happy."
