During his attendance at the 2024 Russia-Africa Summit in Moscow, Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed officially confirmed that his nation has received a full fleet of 12 advanced Su-35 fighter jets from Russia, delivered far earlier than the timeline outlined in a bilateral military procurement deal first struck several years prior. Abiy framed the acquisition as a landmark milestone in Ethiopia’s long-term national defense modernization agenda, noting that the country has also formalized plans to procure four S-400 long-range air defense systems from Moscow in the near future. The delivery of the high-performance combat aircraft arrives as hostilities re-escalate in Ethiopia’s northern Tigray region, where clashes between federal government forces and the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) have reignited just weeks after the breakdown of a 2022 ceasefire agreement that ended a two-year brutal civil war. Both parties have publicly accused one another of violating the terms of that prior peace accord. Abiy went on to emphasize that Ethiopia has now become the first nation in sub-Saharan Africa to operate this tier of cutting-edge fourth-generation combat aviation technology, framing the hardware as a critical bulwark against external security threats. He specifically singled out long-simmering frictions with neighboring Eritrea, which gained formal independence from Ethiopia in 1993 after decades of armed conflict, leaving Ethiopia entirely landlocked. Abiy has previously described Ethiopia’s lack of direct maritime access as an “existential national priority,” a stance that Eritrea’s government has repeatedly denounced as a direct threat to its territorial sovereignty. Ethiopian federal authorities have also long accused Eritrea of providing military backing to the TPLF, a claim Eritrean officials have consistently rejected. Describing Russian President Vladimir Putin as a “close friend of Ethiopia,” Abiy noted that the Su-35 platforms are engineered for dual air-to-air and air-to-ground operational roles, with on-board systems capable of detecting and neutralizing incoming cruise missiles at ranges of up to 200 kilometers. He added that these new fighter jets will complement Ethiopia’s already extensive existing drone arsenal, which includes Turkish and Chinese unmanned aerial vehicles that have seen widespread deployment in recent domestic conflicts. “If we fail to build this layered, multi-domain defense capability, sustaining our sovereignty as a nation in our volatile region will become exponentially more difficult. States that invest in adequate defensive preparedness are far less likely to face unwarranted aggression,” Abiy stated. Local military intelligence analyst Qalaab Segatu, speaking to BBC Amharic, noted that the Su-35 delivery signals Ethiopia is preparing for potential cross-border conflicts beyond its ongoing internal security operations, pointing to the jets’ exceptional maneuverability, long-range coverage, and advanced radar systems that can secure full regional air superiority. When paired with the forthcoming S-400 air defense batteries, the combined system will create a robust defensive umbrella protecting major urban centers and critical national infrastructure, most notably the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam, a massive hydroelectric project that has been a source of regional diplomatic friction for years. This latest procurement builds on a series of steadily expanding bilateral military cooperation pacts between Russia and Ethiopia, including a 2021 agreement focused on joint military training and defense technology sharing.
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US sanctions Rwanda’s defence ministry over DR Congo conflict
Against the backdrop of prolonged, deadly unrest in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo that saw the M23 rebel movement seize control of key urban hubs Goma and Bukavu in January 2025, the United States has rolled out sweeping new punitive measures targeting Rwanda’s Ministry of Defence, ramping up diplomatic and economic pressure on Kigali to end its alleged backing for the insurgency and pull all its military personnel out of Congolese territory.
U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent issued a stark public directive alongside the announcement, stating unequivocally: “Rwanda must halt its support for M23 and withdraw its troops from eastern DRC.” The latest sanctions mark a major escalation of Washington’s efforts to enforce the terms of the U.S.-brokered Washington Accords, a landmark peace deal signed by the Rwandan and Congolese presidents in December 2025 that was designed to de-escalate cross-border tensions, end years of armed confrontation, and unlock expanded regional trade and investment opportunities. Despite the high-profile signing, widespread fighting has persisted across resource-rich eastern DRC, with M23 forces capturing swathes of mineral-dense land across North and South Kivu, including lucrative gold mining sites in South Kivu and Rubaya, the world’s top coltan producing region critical to global electronics supply chains.
The U.S. Treasury’s formal investigation alleges that Rwanda’s defence ministry deployed thousands of its own active-duty troops to fight directly alongside M23 insurgents inside Congolese borders, while supplying the rebel network with heavy weaponry, military equipment, logistical support, and specialized combat training. U.S. officials further claim that minerals extracted from M23-held territories are systematically funneled into Rwandan domestic supply chains, pointing out that Kigali’s official export volumes for key minerals far outstrip the country’s domestic production capacity, a discrepancy that can only be explained by transit of conflict resources from eastern DRC.
In addition to targeting Rwanda’s defence ministry, the U.S. Treasury designated the Zigama Credit and Savings Society, a financial institution that exclusively serves Rwandan security and military personnel, for punitive measures. Washington accuses the lender of facilitating tens of millions of dollars in opaque transactions for M23 and its political affiliate, the Congo River Alliance, processing payments for Chinese-sourced military hardware for Rwandan forces, and enabling the smuggling of Congolese gold from rebel-held zones directly to Kigali. Under the terms of the sanctions, all assets belonging to the two designated entities that fall under U.S. jurisdiction are immediately frozen, and all U.S. citizens, companies, and organizations are prohibited from engaging in any form of transaction with the sanctioned parties unless granted explicit, case-by-case exemption by U.S. regulators. Violations carry heavy civil and criminal penalties for both U.S. and foreign entities that run afoul of the rules.
These new measures build on a series of earlier U.S. punitive actions dating back to March 2026, when Washington sanctioned Rwanda’s national army and four of its most senior operational military commanders, followed by additional sanctions in June 2026 targeting the Gasabo gold refinery and three Rwandan mining firms accused of running illegal conflict mineral smuggling rings.
Hours before the latest sanctions were publicly announced on 24 October, Congolese President Félix Tshisekedi made an urgent public plea to the global community to ramp up collective pressure on Rwanda. “We must firmly demand that the international community impose concrete sanctions against Rwanda and exert increased pressure, so that we may finally secure a lasting peace in our country,” Tshisekedi stated. The Congolese foreign ministry later issued an official statement formally welcoming the U.S. sanctions, and calling on Rwanda to abide by all of its commitments under the Washington Accords, respect the core tenets of the UN Charter, and fully withdraw all military personnel from sovereign Congolese soil.
Rwandan government spokesperson Yolande Makolo pushed back forcefully against the allegations in an official statement provided to the BBC, arguing that the unmet obligations under the Washington Accords fall on Kinshasa, not Kigali. “The Washington Accords contain clear commitments regarding Rwanda’s security, specifically the neutralization of the DR Congo-sponsored FDLR genocidal militia, which are wholly unmet, and with no accountability,” Makolo noted. The FDLR, a armed group whose leadership includes perpetrators of the 1994 Rwandan genocide, operates out of remote bases in eastern DRC, and Kigali has long cited its existence as an existential national security threat to justify its ongoing military deployments across the border. Makolo went on to confirm that “Rwanda remains ready to fully implement the Washington Accords, concurrently with the willingness of the DRC to fulfill those commitments, and with the mediator holding all parties accountable.”
Parallel to the diplomatic and financial pressure, Rwanda’s high-profile global sports partnerships are also coming under growing scrutiny. Two prominent U.S. senators, Jeff Merkley and Marsha Blackburn, sent a formal letter to National Basketball Association (NBA) commissioner Adam Silver on 23 October, urging the league to immediately review and reconsider its ongoing commercial partnership with Kigali, on the grounds that it may contradict the NBA’s publicly stated organizational commitment to upholding global human rights standards. The NBA has not yet released a detailed, substantive response to the senators’ inquiry.
For years, Rwanda has leveraged high-profile international sports sponsorships and event hosting deals to boost its global soft power profile and attract international tourism and investment. Earlier in October 2026, the country secured a landmark 10-year agreement to host Formula 1’s long-awaited African Grand Prix starting in the early 2030s. However, two of its highest-profile European football partnerships have already collapsed, with its sponsorship deal with English Premier League side Arsenal expiring in 2026, and German Bundesliga giant Bayern Munich also terminating its commercial collaboration with the Rwandan tourism marketing initiative Visit Rwanda. -
El Salvador sends 2,000 troops to Haiti to rescue four missing soldiers
A convoy of El Salvadoran military armored vehicles has been spotted entering the Haitian capital of Port-au-Prince, marking the launch of an unprecedented large-scale overseas deployment announced by the Central American nation’s government this week. The operation, which mobilizes more than 2,000 active-duty Salvadoran troops, was formally communicated to Haitian Prime Minister Alix Didier Fils-Aime by El Salvador’s President Nayib Bukele earlier this week, the Salvadoran Ministry of Foreign Affairs confirmed in an official public statement released Wednesday.
The core immediate objective of the mission is to locate four Salvadoran air force technicians who vanished nearly two weeks prior while on active duty in Haiti as members of the UN-backed multinational Gang Suppression Force (GSF). The four service members were traveling back to their operational base in a fortified armored vehicle when their convoy was ambushed in Croix-des-Bouquets, a sprawling district on the outskirts of Port-au-Prince that is entirely dominated by heavily armed criminal gangs. No armed group has publicly claimed responsibility for the ambush or the subsequent disappearance of the four men as of press time.
Tensions between the two nations have surged dramatically in the days following the incident, after Haitian authorities turned over four unmarked corpses to Salvadoran special forces units earlier this week, asserting that the remains were those of the missing servicemen. President Bukele publicly rejected that claim, revealing that forensic and visual checks confirmed one of the recovered bodies belonged to a minor, while another corpse was clad in a military uniform belonging to a third, unidentified nation. Last week, Bukele issued a stark warning in a post on social media platform X, threatening to dismantle Haiti’s sprawling gang networks entirely by replicating the sweeping, controversial anti-gang security campaign he implemented in El Salvador over recent years, if the missing Salvadoran personnel were not safely returned.
The Salvadoran Foreign Ministry emphasized in its statement that the robust cross-border operation has received explicit backing from multiple partner nations and leading international organizations. Beyond the search for the missing nationals, the deployed 2,000 troops will also provide direct operational support to ongoing Haitian domestic and multinational anti-gang security efforts across the country.
The deployment comes against the backdrop of a years-long, spiraling security collapse in Haiti, which descended into a full-blown political and public safety vacuum following the 2021 assassination of sitting Haitian President Jovenel Moïse. In October of 2023, the United Nations Security Council voted to grant expanded operational powers to the UN-backed GSF multinational task force, which has faced persistent, widespread challenges penetrating gang-held territories across the country. Latest UN data shows that more than 5,700 people have been killed in gang-linked violent incidents in Haiti in the current calendar year alone, with armed criminal groups now exercising de facto control over the majority of Port-au-Prince’s urban territory. -
Spain begins three days of mourning after train crash kills dozens
Spain has plunged into an official three-day period of national mourning following one of Europe’s deadliest modern rail disasters, which claimed no fewer than 68 lives and left dozens severely injured after two passenger trains collided on a high-speed corridor connecting Madrid and Seville early Wednesday morning. The catastrophic incident unfolded when a state-owned Renfe service carrying 397 passengers barreled into a stationary private Iryo train that had halted on the tracks due to an unplanned computer system failure. The sheer force of the impact sent multiple carriages tumbling down a nearby embankment, igniting a blaze in one of the derailed units and plunging the crash site into immediate chaos. Eyewitnesses recounted harrowing scenes of trapped passengers screaming for help, bleeding commuters wandering through smoke-choked wreckage, and widespread panic as survivors scrambled to escape the mangled metal carriages. Emergency response teams, totaling more than 500 deployed personnel, worked nonstop through the night under blinding floodlights, using heavy cutting equipment, drone surveillance, and helicopter support to sift through rubble, extract trapped victims, and recover human remains, with dozens of deceased passengers still awaiting formal identification as of press time. Preliminary investigative findings shared by Transport Minister Óscar Puente point to a critical, “inexplicable” operational failure at Madrid’s 24-hour national rail control hub: after the Iryo train stalled due to its onboard computer fault, controllers issued clearance for both trains to resume movement with no mandatory speed restrictions, a directive that directly contradicts standard safety protocols. Leaked audio recordings of radio communications between Madrid controllers and train drivers corroborate this lapse, showing the Renfe high-speed service was given full permission to proceed at regular operating speed even as the Iryo train remained stalled on the same stretch of track. The disaster marks the second fatal high-speed rail crash on the same Madrid-Seville line in less than 12 months, following a January incident near Córdoba that killed 46 people, a pattern that Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez described as “unacceptable” in a public address Wednesday. “The entire nation is grieving today: lives have been shattered, families torn apart, and the weight of this pain is almost too great to bear,” Sánchez stated, as nearly all major Spanish political parties suspended pre-election campaigning out of respect for the victims. The far-right Vox party was the sole exception, with leader Santiago Abascal arguing the pause amounted to an attempt to “exploit public mourning to stifle legitimate criticism of Spain’s crumbling rail infrastructure.” Public anger boiled over overnight in central Madrid, where roughly 1,500 demonstrators gathered outside the national Transport Ministry headquarters, calling for the resignations of both Sánchez and Puente over repeated safety failures. The otherwise peaceful protest turned violent after a small group of demonstrators threw glass bottles and lit flares, prompting police to deploy tear gas to disperse the crowd, though no arrests or reported injuries resulted from the clash. The national rail drivers’ union SEMAF confirmed it will proceed with a pre-scheduled strike planned for Thursday, framing the industrial action as a necessary stand for systemic rail safety overhauls rather than a standard labor action. Opposition People’s Party leader Alberto Núñez Feijóo echoed widespread public demands for full transparency, stating “the Spanish public has an undeniable right to a full accounting of what has gone so catastrophically wrong with our national rail network.” Spanish Civil Guard units have set up dedicated missing persons support and identification bureaus across Madrid, Toledo, Seville, and Córdoba, prioritizing DNA sample collection to match recovered remains with grieving family members who spent hours Wednesday scrambling for information about loved ones aboard the two trains. Local residents near the crash site in Toledo held a solemn candlelight vigil with a minute of silence to honor the victims, while the European Commission ordered all EU flags at its Brussels headquarters flown at half-mast as a formal gesture of pan-European solidarity with Spain during its mourning period. The collision is the deadliest rail disaster Spain has recorded since the 2013 Santiago de Compostela derailment that killed 80 people.
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Hello Kitty maker cuts ties with Japanese spy drama after China backlash
Global character licensing giant Sanrio, the Japanese entertainment firm behind world-famous IP including Hello Kitty, My Melody and Cinnamoroll, has formally issued a public apology and immediately severed all ties with the popular Japanese spy thriller series *Vivant*, following widespread public and state media pushback across China. The backlash erupted after Sanrio launched co-branded merchandise that dressed its iconic cute characters in costumes modeled after roles from the second season of *Vivant*, a 2024 summer premiere installment that depicts Chinese intelligence operatives inflicting graphic torture on a Japanese field agent, including acts of finger amputation and abdominal stabbing. Chinese state broadcasters such as CCTV and leading state-run tabloid *Global Times* have condemned the show’s narrative as a deliberate distortion of historical facts, noting that the brutal torture tactics portrayed closely mirror the atrocities committed by Japanese invading forces against Chinese civilians during World War II. The *Global Times* further warned that Sanrio risked eroding decades of accumulated consumer trust and emotional connection with its massive Chinese fanbase, far beyond any temporary revenue gains from the collaboration, explicitly stating that the beloved Hello Kitty IP “should not dance with Japan’s right wing.” In an official late Wednesday statement, Sanrio confirmed it had axed the partnership after an internal review found the show’s content included elements fundamentally misaligned with the company’s longstanding core values. The firm emphasized that since its founding, all its character properties have been designed to spread messages of mutual care, cross-cultural connection, and its overarching corporate mission to nurture harmony between people of all nationalities. Sanrio added that it has taken public feedback on the incident extremely seriously, and will implement significantly tightened multi-layer review protocols for every future cross-brand collaborative project to prevent similar missteps. The controversy unfolds against a backdrop of sharply deteriorated China-Japan diplomatic relations, which have fallen to their lowest ebb in multiple years after Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi made remarks in parliament last November suggesting Tokyo would deploy its Self-Defense Forces in the event of a hypothetical Chinese military action against Taiwan. Since those comments, Beijing has rolled out a series of retaliatory measures targeting Tokyo, including restricted rare earth export quotas, curbs on inbound Chinese tourism to Japan, and the early repatriation of all giant pandas on loan to Japanese zoos. Adding further fuel to public sentiment, Takaichi publicly noted earlier this month that she had recorded full episodes of *Vivant* and planned to binge-watch the series during the year-end holiday break. The Tokyo Broadcasting System (TBS), the network that produces and airs the hit thriller, released a separate statement from its president Masamine Ryuho on Wednesday, defending the show as a completely fictional creative work with no intention to disparage any sovereign nation. The Sanrio controversy is not an isolated incident of international brands and public figures facing consumer backlash in China in recent days: earlier that week, multiple major Chinese domestic brands had cut their endorsement contracts with star French footballer Kylian Mbappé after he made widely condemned remarks referencing late Chinese leader Mao Zedong, for which the athlete later issued a formal public apology.
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‘Like cutting up a Picasso’: AI microdrama edit of Neighbours worries actors and crew
The iconic long-running Australian soap opera *Neighbours*, which wrapped its decades-long broadcast run in 2023, is at the center of a heated creative and ethical debate after rights holder Fremantle announced a partnership with U.S.-based RoseBerry Media to produce AI-assisted vertical micro-dramas tailored for mobile audiences. The project, framed by its creators as a way to breathe new life into the beloved series for Gen Z and mobile-first viewers, will deploy proprietary AI software to scan over 9,300 archived episodes, map out character journeys, plot beats, and fan-favorite moments to streamline the curation of short-form content. The first slate of micro-episodes will center on the character Donna Freedman, portrayed by Oscar-nominated star Margot Robbie during her breakout three-year tenure on the show from 2008 to 2011. Representatives from both Fremantle and RoseBerry Media have emphasized that the AI tool will not generate synthetic performances, alter actors’ likenesses, or fabricate new storylines: all clips featured in the micro-dramas will be pulled directly from original, previously aired footage, with every step of the editing process overseen and signed off by human creative staff. The companies maintain the initiative will unlock untapped value from the show’s vast catalogue, introducing *Neighbours* to a whole new generation of fans who never watched its traditional linear broadcast. But a cohort of former cast members and production crew who worked on the series for years have pushed back, raising urgent concerns that they were never consulted, nor gave explicit consent, for their images, voices, and original creative labor to be repurposed for this unannounced project. Matt Werkmeister, who was 13 when he joined the *Neighbours* cast as regular character Zeke Kinski in 2005 and shared dozens of scenes with Robbie’s on-screen persona, noted that his original 20-year-old contract was drafted long before streaming, short-form social media content, and AI-powered media repurposing were even conceivable, leaving him unclear on his legal rights to the footage he appeared in. Sam Clark, who portrayed Ringo Brown, the on-screen love interest who marries Robbie’s character Donna, echoed that sentiment, stating he only learned of the micro-drama plan via a social media post from a friend, and that while he is not opposed to the show’s legacy finding new audiences, he draws the line at unapproved reconfiguration of the original narrative. Veteran sound recordist Bruce Findlay, who worked on the very first episode of *Neighbours* and dedicated decades to the production, compared the AI-assisted curation process to slicing up a Picasso painting and rearranging the fragments, arguing it trivializes the years of meticulous, collaborative effort the entire team poured into making each episode. While Fremantle has confirmed it is in active negotiations with industry unions including the Media, Entertainment and Arts Alliance (MEAA), and has committed to paying residual royalties to cast and writers for the reuse of their work, no such compensation framework has been extended to behind-the-scenes crew. MEAA acting CEO Adam Portelli stressed that all creative workers deserve transparent consultation before their likeness and professional output are exploited for commercial use cases that did not exist when they signed their original employment agreements. As of press time, Margot Robbie has not made any public statement regarding the project, and the BBC has reached out to her talent agency for an official comment.
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US Health Secretary RFK Jr to expand access to unapproved peptides
US Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has formally tabled new regulatory proposals that would roll back existing restrictions on a set of highly controversial, unapproved peptides, a move that bypasses the standard Food and Drug Administration rulemaking process and has raised alarms among public health experts. The draft framework, published for public review in the US Federal Register this Wednesday, would grant licensed compounding pharmacies explicit permission to manufacture and dispense six widely circulated peptides that have never completed full FDA safety and efficacy testing: BPC-157, TB-500, KPV, MOTS-c, Semax, and a sixth unlisted formulation, allowing pharmacies to combine these substances into custom compounded medications for consumer access. In a marked break from longstanding administrative protocol, the draft rule originated directly from Kennedy’s executive office rather than the FDA’s internal regulatory team, a departure that has drawn scrutiny from public health observers. Following its full official publication later this week, the proposal will open a 14-day window for public feedback before final review. The policy shift follows a narrow July vote by an FDA external advisory panel that supported loosening curbs on these six substances, even as the agency’s own full-time career scientific staff formally recommended against the change, citing insufficient safety data. Kennedy has openly stated he is a vocal proponent of these peptide products, and previously pledged to roll back regulatory barriers targeting the booming unregulated peptide market that the Biden administration moved to crack down on in its final months in office. Peptides are naturally occurring short chains of amino acids, functioning as cellular messengers that support core bodily processes ranging from immune response to hormone balance and skin maintenance; regulated, rigorously tested peptide formulations such as insulin have been standard of care for diabetes management for over 100 years. However, a largely unregulated wellness market for untested peptides has exploded in popularity in recent years, driven by the mainstream success of GLP-1 weight loss peptide drugs. Social media influencers across platforms including TikTok have heavily marketed bundled peptide “stacks” for a range of unproven, off-label benefits, touting them as fast-acting remedies for anti-aging, rapid injury healing, and skin improvement. The trend has particularly taken root among teenage boys on TikTok, who have embraced untested peptides as part of viral “biohacking” and “looksmaxxing” trends that falsely claim the substances can deliver accelerated muscle growth. Leading medical and public health experts have repeatedly issued stark warnings against the unmonitored use of these unapproved peptides, emphasizing that none of the six substances covered by Kennedy’s proposal have completed comprehensive human clinical trials, leaving their long-term health impacts, potential side effects, and safe dosing parameters entirely unknown. The BBC has reached out to the FDA for an official statement on the unprecedented proposed rule change, as stakeholders across the public health and pharmacy sectors prepare to submit feedback during the upcoming public comment period.
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King Charles shows off dance moves on second day of Caribbean tour
On the second leg of his nine-day official Caribbean tour, King Charles III stepped away from rigid royal protocol to fully immerse himself in Bahamian local life, balancing solemn commemorations, cultural celebration, and critical conversations around historical harms and climate action. The day opened with a solemn tribute at the Flamingo Monument, where the King, adorned with his service medals, laid a wreath to honor four Royal Bahamas Defence Force marines killed in 1980 when Cuban MiG fighters sank the HMBS Flamingo. He spent extended time speaking with active service members, veterans, and RBDF personnel to recognize their sacrifice and ongoing commitment to national security.
Later, the King toured the Bahamas Boxing Academy, a community program that trains young people aged 8 to 18 in the sport. He was greeted by staff and young athletes wearing custom t-shirts emblazoned with his cartoon likeness, complete with a crown, boxing gloves, and championship belt. Delighted by the playful gesture, Charles accepted his own custom shirt, watched a youth sparring session, and encouraged the young participants, telling one group he hoped to see them compete at a future Commonwealth Games.
A core priority of the day’s itinerary centered on climate resilience, as the King visited Bonefish Pond National Park, a restored 1,235-acre mangrove wetland that was once a decommissioned rubbish dump. Walking along a newly constructed boardwalk through the coastal ecosystem, he spoke with local university students conducting field research on marine conservation, asking about their academic progress and aspirations to become marine biologists. Joanne Smith, President of the Bahamas National Trust Council, noted that the royal visit would help drive more local community engagement in national park stewardship, calling the stop a deeply meaningful milestone for the country’s conservation efforts.
The day’s most viral moment unfolded at the iconic Junkanoo carnival, a vibrant cultural parade rooted in the island’s African diaspora heritage. Wearing a tailored suit and sunglasses, the King took to the front of the parade route, shaking maracas painted in the national colors of the Bahamas and dancing alongside performers in elaborate feathered headdresses and bright, handcrafted costumes to the roar of cheering onlookers. Historians trace Junkanoo’s origins to the era of chattel slavery, when enslaved people were granted limited time off over the Christmas period to celebrate their own cultural traditions.
The festive atmosphere was punctuated by a small, peaceful demonstration organized by the Bahamas National Reparations Committee, whose members held placards reading “Pay us what you owe us” before being escorted away by local police. The group is demanding a formal, unreserved apology from the British Crown for the transatlantic slave trade, as well as targeted reparations for intergenerational harm inflicted by the system. This demonstration came on the heels of the King’s official arrival speech the previous day, in which he explicitly acknowledged the profound, enduring pain of the slave trade, noting that modern Bahamian culture was “born out of darkness” and that acknowledging these historical injustices was an essential moral obligation. Charles has already confirmed that Commonwealth heads of government will hold formal discussions on the legacy of chattel slavery during the upcoming Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM) hosted in Antigua next week.
The day drew to a close with a formal garden reception at Nassau’s Government House, where the King met dozens of Bahamian community leaders who have made outstanding contributions to public life, education, and civil society. Dame Cynthia A. Pratt, Governor-General of the Bahamas, welcomed Charles warmly, noting that this was the first royal visit to the nation since its independence in 1973, and expressing hope that the tour would deepen long-standing ties between the Bahamian people and the Crown. The King will depart the Bahamas on Thursday to travel to Guyana, where his engagements will center on biodiversity protection, before proceeding to Antigua and Barbuda to join Queen Camilla for the biennial CHOGM summit, which will convene leaders from 56 Commonwealth nations to address shared global challenges ranging from climate change to economic equity.
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Will Israeli opposition parties join forces to eject Netanyahu?
Preliminary vote tallies from Israel’s Tuesday national elections, with 86% of ballots processed by Wednesday morning, have set the stage for a seismic political shakeup that could unseat long-serving Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu after a four-year tenure defined by devastating military campaigns in Gaza and accelerating dispossession and displacement of Palestinian communities across the occupied West Bank. Netanyahu’s far-right religious governing bloc is projected to lose 11 Knesset seats, landing at just 53 seats — eight short of the 61-seat threshold required to form a governing majority. The centrist Jewish opposition faction, led by former Yashar party chief Gadi Eisenkot, is on track to secure 48 seats, putting it in prime position to claim control of the 120-seat parliament, but only if it can lock in support from the newly empowered Arab minority parties, which won a historic 19 seats on the back of record voter participation. Arab voters defied a sustained campaign of racist incitement from Netanyahu’s electoral camp and widespread ballot access suppression efforts to turn out in unprecedented numbers, a milestone analysts are framing as a transformative moment for Israeli politics. Ameer Fakhoury, a researcher at Jerusalem’s Van Leer Jerusalem Institute think tank, called the mobilization of Palestinian citizens of Israel a “truly historic development,” noting that voters turned out en masse to reject a government they hold responsible for widespread devastation in Gaza, de facto ethnic cleansing operations in the West Bank, and decades of systemic persecution and intimidation targeting their communities. “History has placed Palestinian citizens of Israel in an extraordinary position,” Fakhoury told Middle East Eye. “Having mobilized first and foremost to protect their own people, they may now also help rescue Jewish Israelis from their country’s destructive trajectory.” The newfound leverage held by Arab parties has sparked fierce negotiations and deep rifts across the Israeli political spectrum, with a tight legal deadline to form a new government before a fresh round of elections is automatically triggered. The leader of the smaller Arab faction Ra’am, Mansour Abbas, signaled his willingness to compromise shortly after preliminary results were released, stating his core priority was to oust Netanyahu, far-right Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, and extremist National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir in this electoral cycle. Ra’am previously backed a narrow right-wing coalition led by former Prime Minister Naftali Bennett in 2021, but its 7 projected seats alone are insufficient to push the opposition bloc across the 61-seat majority line. The larger left-wing Arab alliance, the Joint List, has also offered to back an Eisenkot-led government, but its parliamentary leader Ahmad Tibi has laid out a clear set of non-negotiable demands: targeted action to curb soaring violent crime in Arab-majority communities, an immediate end to state-ordered home demolitions disproportionately targeting Arab families (most of whom are denied construction permits under systemic discriminatory policies), a crackdown on state-sanctioned racist incitement against Arab citizens, and a formal policy roadmap to advance Palestinian self-determination. Tibi summed up the historic choice facing Israeli voters with the widely circulated catchphrase “either Bibi or Tibi.” Eisenkot, who has framed forcing Netanyahu’s full retirement from political life as a core campaign goal, has attempted to court skeptical right-leaning Jewish voters who hold hostile views of Arab political participation by imposing preconditions for formal cooperation with Arab parties: that they formally recognize Israel as an explicitly Jewish state, support mandatory military conscription for Palestinian citizens of Israel, and publicly designate Hamas as a terrorist organization. The socialist Hadash party, the largest faction within the Joint List, has rejected these terms outright. “Laying down conditions won’t work with the Joint List,” said Amjad Shbita, Hadash’s general secretary. “We will negotiate as equals because we need each other.” Deep internal fractures are also roiling Eisenkot’s own opposition bloc. Former Prime Minister Naftali Bennett and ex-Defense Minister Avigdor Liberman have both rejected any government that relies on explicit support or even abstention from Arab parties to secure a majority. Liberman has gone so far as to urge disaffected hardline members of Netanyahu’s Likud party to defect to the opposition to form a “true right-wing government,” with the most promising opening centered on peeling away Likud lawmakers who oppose Netanyahu’s longstanding concessions to ultra-Orthodox parties, most notably the controversial draft exemptions for seminary (yeshiva) students. On the opposite end of the opposition spectrum, Yair Golan, leader of the left-wing Democrats party, has pushed Eisenkot to embrace a full partnership with Arab parties to permanently oust Netanyahu. In a widely shared social media post Wednesday, Golan wrote, “Netanyahu lost. I know how to count to 120. Sixty-five is more than 55. That’s how Israeli democracy works. Period. The reality must teach us one resounding lesson: We have no future here if we don’t stop being afraid. And if we don’t stop with the racism. We must no longer accept Netanyahu’s racist division between Jewish votes and Arab votes. Anyone who tries to erase the voices of Arab citizens is surrendering to Netanyahu and giving up on Israel.” Another possible outcome being floated by insiders is a so-called “national unity government” that would see the Eisenkot and Netanyahu factions strike a power-sharing deal that completely excludes Arab parties from any governing role. Eitan Tzelgov, a leading expert on Israeli populism and democratic backsliding at the United Kingdom’s University of East Anglia, framed the choice facing Eisenkot’s change bloc as a stark binary: “govern with the Arab parties, or with Netanyahu.” “Israel is a tribal society, with cohesive right-wing tribes and a shrinking liberal tribe that will need to make a decision,” Tzelgov explained in a note to Common Dreams. “Over the years, Netanyahu and the far right have built an ideological firewall around the Arab parties by presenting any Jewish-Arab collaboration as support for terrorism. The leaders of the change bloc, representing Israel’s liberal camp, now must decide if they are willing to break it. That is the only way to bring about a U-turn from the current government’s policies in Gaza and the West Bank.” Tzelgov cautioned that he was not optimistic the liberal bloc would have the political will to take that step, noting that “a more likely outcome at the moment is a split within the change bloc and collaboration of some of its components with Netanyahu, a result US President Donald Trump reportedly supports.” Joint List chair Yousef Jabareen emphasized the existential stakes of the negotiations, stating, “Anyone who wants to offer a substantive and genuine alternative to Netanyahu’s blood-soaked government will have to talk to us. It’s either the continuation of racism, the continuation of exclusion, and the continuation of supremacy, or a genuine Jewish-Arab partnership.”
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US conservative activists charged with unlawful voting in election stunt
Two prominent conservative political operatives, James O’Keefe and Cam Higby, have been formally hit with felony charges of unlawful voting and identity theft following an undercover stunt staged at a Minnesota polling location last August, Hennepin County prosecutors announced this week. O’Keefe, the well-known founder of right-wing activist outlets Project Veritas and the later-established O’Keefe Media Group, and 26-year-old political commentator Higby are accused of orchestrating the provocative operation in a deliberate bid to erode public trust in Minnesota’s electoral infrastructure. According to court filings, the pair disguised themselves in Islamic attire and adopted fake accents while interacting with on-duty poll staff, allegedly attempting to obtain ballots by providing the full names of already registered voters in the precinct without those individuals’ explicit consent or prior knowledge. Prosecutors from the Hennepin County Attorney’s Office confirmed that neither man completed the legally required address verification oath when approaching poll workers, emphasizing that both intentionally falsified their identities during the ballot application process. The stunt was designed to test a long-standing Minnesota electoral rule that permits registered local voters to vouch for the identity and residential status of up to eight other people, a policy crafted specifically to support newly relocated residents who may lack standard forms of voter ID. Higby, who spoke exclusively to the BBC to defend his actions, framed the operation as a public-interest effort to uncover critical gaps in the state’s voting framework that pose risks to all American voters. “I never cast a ballot, I never signed a formal voter affidavit, and I never broke any existing law,” Higby stated, arguing that state authorities are retaliating against him for exposing alleged administrative flaws by moving to permanently strip him of his own voting rights. Following the public release of the pair’s self-recorded footage, Higby posted a caption claiming that he had posed as a Muslim woman to demonstrate that Minneapolis poll staff were ready to permit him and a large group of non-citizens to cast fraudulent votes with no formal identity verification. Minnesota’s state election code explicitly prohibits any person from intentionally misrepresenting their identity when submitting a ballot application, depositing a completed ballot, or attempting to cast a vote via any electronic voting system. Steve Simon, Minnesota’s Secretary of State and top election official, issued a firm statement Wednesday condemning the activists’ actions. “Any deliberate effort to deceive or disrupt our dedicated election workers will never be tolerated,” Simon said. “Polling sites are the foundational backbone of our democratic system, and they must remain safe, peaceful spaces for all eligible voters to exercise their civic duty.” Both felony counts the two men face carry significant potential legal penalties, though no formal court appearance date has been publicly disclosed as of press time. The BBC has reached out to O’Keefe directly to request an official statement on the charges, but has not yet received a response.