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Israel will not give Greece the source code for air-defence system: Report

A controversial decision by Israeli defense officials to refuse Greece access to the core source code for its newly purchased $3.5 billion multi-layered air defense system has ignited new questions about military technological sovereignty and future Israeli arms exports across the Middle East and Mediterranean.

The multi-billion dollar weapons deal, signed between Athens and Tel Aviv in August of this year, stands as the largest arms export agreement in Israel’s history. Under the terms of the original deal, Israel is set to deliver a full layered air defense array designed to counter a sweeping spectrum of modern aerial threats, ranging from small hostile drones to both short-range and long-range ballistic missiles. The system integrates multiple interconnected components: advanced sensors, precision radar arrays, interceptor missiles, launch infrastructure, and a central command-and-control backbone that orchestrates all defensive operations.

In comments published by Greek national newspaper *Kathimerini*, Moshe Patel, head of the Israel Missile Defence Organisation, confirmed that Greece would not receive the proprietary source code for the system’s command-and-control infrastructure. “No. Because the ‘source code’ was not included in the licence to use the agreement,” Patel stated directly when asked about Athens’ potential access. Without access to this core code, Greek defense engineers and technical teams would be locked out of independent upgrades, routine maintenance, and system modifications, forcing the country to remain reliant on Israeli expertise for all long-term management of its primary air defense network.

Shortly after Patel’s comments sparked backlash in Greece, Israel’s Ministry of Defense issued a clarifying statement, announcing that it would collaborate with Greek counterparts to develop a separate, customized “Greek source code” for the system. This tailored code, the ministry explained, will grant Athens full command-and-control access aligned with its unique operational requirements, and will remain under permanent exclusive Greek sovereignty. “The Greek source code developed under the programme, together with any modifications and additions to it, will remain under exclusive Greek control and be tailored to Greek operational requirements,” the ministry’s statement read.

Even with this compromise, Israel’s initial reluctance to share the original proprietary code has raised broader concerns among the global community of potential Israeli defense clients, particularly the Gulf states that have recently expanded defense cooperation with Tel Aviv. Industry analysts note that the decision underscores a long-standing norm among major military exporters: retaining exclusive technological control over cutting-edge hardware to maintain strategic leverage over buyer nations. The most prominent global example of this practice is widely discussed in defense circles: the United States’ F-35 fifth-generation stealth fighter jet, which many defense analysts speculate includes a hidden “kill switch” that allows Washington to disable the aircraft remotely. While U.S. defense officials have repeatedly denied the existence of such a feature, the F-35’s core functionality remains entirely dependent on proprietary American software and data infrastructure.

According to a serving U.S. official who spoke to independent outlet Middle East Eye, Israel is already planning to dramatically scale up its global exports of advanced air defense systems, with the United Arab Emirates identified as its next high-priority target customer. Tel Aviv has framed the Greek deal as a landmark milestone for its defense export industry: Israeli defense officials note this is the first time the country has offered a complete, integrated defense array capable of countering the full scope of modern aerial threats, from ballistic missiles to rogue UAVs.

The ongoing debate over source code access highlights the delicate balance between global arms trade commerce and national sovereignty, as client nations increasingly demand full independent control over critical defense infrastructure while exporting nations guard their proprietary technological advantages.

11 9 月, 2026
Firefighters say this antioxidant helped them – their union warns it could be risky

Against the backdrop of increasingly destructive wildfires raging across the American West, a growing divide has emerged over an untested alternative treatment that hundreds of firefighters have turned to ease smoke-related health symptoms: inhaled glutathione.

For veteran Pasadena Fire Captain David Marquez, the solution came just days after he helped battle the devastating Eaton Fire, a blaze that etched its place as the second most destructive in California history, leaving 17 dead and more than 9,000 structures reduced to ash. Standing on the shoulder of a road outside Pasadena’s Rose Bowl Stadium, Marquez inhaled his first dose of the antioxidant, months after he and his crew had been reeling from persistent post-fire health issues. “We were having trouble sleeping, dealing with chronic coughs, headaches, crippling fatigue — it was just a really rough set of symptoms after the fire,” Marquez explained in recent testimony. The 25-year firefighting veteran said relief was almost immediate, even after what he calls the worst toxic exposure of his career. With crew members desperate for any reprieve from their debilitating symptoms, “we were willing to try pretty much anything,” he added.

Marquez’s experience is far from unique. For years, public health researchers have confirmed that repeated inhalation of toxic wildfire smoke puts first responders like firefighters at drastically elevated risk of long-term illness, including multiple forms of cancer. Data from the U.S. National Institute for Occupational Health and Safety puts that risk in concrete terms: firefighters face a 14% higher chance of dying from cancer than the general American public. As awareness of these occupational hazards has grown over the past decade, so too has interest in unproven, sometimes risky alternative interventions that promise to mitigate damage after fire exposure.

Glutathione, an antioxidant produced naturally in the human body, has been offered as an on-site treatment by volunteer groups at many of the largest U.S. wildfires in recent years, from last summer’s blazes near Spokane, Washington, to earlier outbreaks across Northern California. Anecdotal accounts from frontline clinicians and fire department crews have offered encouraging early signals: many users report rapid relief from common post-exposure symptoms, and some proponents claim it helps flush carcinogenic toxins absorbed through smoke inhalation out of the body. But to date, no large-scale, peer-reviewed clinical research has confirmed its safety or effectiveness for this use, and public health and firefighter advocates have raised serious alarms about supply contamination, unregulated dosing, and the risks of promoting an untested treatment to vulnerable workers.

Last month, the International Association of Fire Fighters (IAFF), which represents more than 360,000 active and retired firefighters across the U.S. and Canada, issued a rare public warning about the growing unregulated use of inhaled glutathione. The organization highlighted two recent product recalls linked to contaminants at compounding pharmacies that produce the injectable and inhalable versions of the supplement. While the association stressed that past scares involving naturally occurring vitamins that ended up increasing cancer risk are not directly tied to glutathione, the case underscores the danger of rolling out untested treatments to at-risk workers.

“We don’t know if glutathione actually delivers on the benefits its proponents claim,” said Sean DeCrane, assistant to the IAFF general president for health and safety. “We don’t know if the reported improvements are just a placebo effect, and we have no data on the long-term health impacts of regular inhaled use.” DeCrane criticized the aggressive promotion of glutathione to frontline crews, pointing to incidents in Spokane where fire chiefs included recommendations for crews to visit volunteer treatment tents during morning briefing sessions. “The total lack of rigorous research is what really raised red flags for our organization,” he said, adding that the IAFF has already heard from multiple members who reported feeling worse, not better, after receiving glutathione treatment. In many of those cases, DeCrane said, treating clinicians told users their worsening symptoms were just a sign that toxins were being flushed from their bodies.

The current push to bring glutathione treatment to wildfire crews traces its origins back to 2017, when a group of naturopathic practitioners banded together in Santa Rosa, California, to offer support to crews battling the destructive Tubbs Fire. That initial effort grew into the Integrated Health Action Network (IHAN), previously known as the Integrative Healers Network, which now deploys volunteer clinicians to major wildfire events across the country to provide glutathione alongside other complementary treatments including acupuncture and massage therapy.

In response to the IAFF’s warning, IHAN released a statement acknowledging the critical need for further formal research, and said the organization is eager to partner with academic researchers to generate rigorous data on glutathione’s effectiveness. Jen Riegle, a licensed naturopath and IHAN co-founder, noted that the group’s treatment has consistently led to what she calls “clinically meaningful improvements” in the most common post-fire symptoms: headaches, fatigue, and brain fog that leave crews unable to work effectively. Riegle stands by the claim that glutathione helps eliminate harmful contaminants from firefighters’ bodies, and acknowledged that mild short-term side effects are common immediately after treatment.

Riegle said she hopes the anecdotal data her group has collected over nearly a decade of work will help secure funding and support for large-scale clinical trials to confirm the treatment’s value, with the goal of making it a standard long-term health intervention for firefighters. At the same time, she emphasized that the group’s current evidence is entirely anecdotal, and far from the conclusive data required for formal regulatory approval. “I want to be really clear that what we are collecting is program-level data from our treatment work,” she said. “It shouldn’t ever be misconstrued as clinical trial data, double-blind placebo-controlled data, or peer-reviewed research. It’s just a starting point to build support for future formal studies.” It is important to note that full clinical trials for new medical interventions typically take years of rigorous testing and evaluation before winning regulatory approval.

The debate over glutathione burst into the public sphere last year, when California’s State Board of Pharmacy proposed new rules that would have severely restricted compounded production of the supplement. The proposal sparked a massive wave of pushback from firefighters across the state, who traveled to Sacramento to testify in person about the improvements they had experienced after using the treatment. The board ultimately abandoned the proposed restrictions. Marquez was among the uniformed firefighters who traveled to the capital to testify, and he said he is grateful that glutathione is now more widely available to crews, including at every fire station in his home city of Pasadena. He dismisses critics who argue that his reported improvement is nothing more than a placebo effect. “I don’t care if it’s a placebo — it worked,” he said. “Guys were saying they felt better, I felt better, and that made me want to keep accessing the treatment.”

The debate over glutathione also highlights a longstanding gap between emerging understanding of occupational risks for firefighters and regulatory protection that matches that knowledge. As recently as last year, U.S. National Forest Service firefighters were banned from wearing protective face masks on the job over unfounded concerns that the gear would impair their ability to operate in rugged mountain terrain. Today, there is a growing consensus across the fire service that improved respiratory protection and routine decontamination are critical to reducing the elevated cancer risk that comes with the job.

Dr. Coralynn Sack, an occupational pulmonologist at the University of Washington who specializes in the health impacts of air pollution, confirmed that wildfire smoke is a well-documented inhalational hazard that causes lasting damage to first responders. “There’s been a lot of broad interest in using antioxidant supplements to mitigate damage from air pollution overall, but studies have returned very mixed results — some have even found that antioxidant use leads to worse health outcomes,” Sack explained. While Sack said there is biological plausibility to the idea that glutathione could reduce smoke-related damage, she added that she is “very underwhelmed by the existing data” to support its use for firefighters. No peer-reviewed clinical trials of inhaled glutathione for firefighter smoke exposure have ever been completed, she noted. What’s more, Sack argued that the current debate over glutathione distracts from proven, evidence-based interventions that are already known to reduce risk, like widespread access to high-quality personal protective equipment.

For Greg Fonts, a fire captain in West Sacramento and vice president of his local IAFF chapter, the growing conversation around glutathione is part of a much larger shift in fire service culture around occupational health. Gone are the days, he said, when firefighters would leave ash caked on their helmets and jackets to brag about the blazes they had fought, and write off cancer as an unavoidable part of the job. “When I joined the fire service in 2000, that was the prevailing attitude: cancer was just something that came with the work,” Fonts, who has used glutathione himself, explained. “The culture has changed drastically. Younger firefighters take their long-term health way more seriously now, and that’s a good thing.”

11 9 月, 2026
Close race in Sweden as hard right eyes role in government

As Sweden heads to the polls for its 2026 general election on Sunday, the Nordic nation is facing one of the most closely contested political races in recent history, with two competing blocs locked in a dead-heat battle that could reshape the country’s political landscape for years to come. Over 8 million eligible Swedish voters will cast their ballots to fill the 349 seats of the Riksdag, Sweden’s national parliament, with results set to begin counting Sunday evening and continue through Monday.

The split in Swedish politics has long pitted four-party blocs against one another on the left and right, a dynamic that has accustomed the country to functioning coalition and minority governments. This cycle, the center-left left bloc is led by the Social Democrats’ Magdalena Andersson, who is looking to return to the prime ministership. On the opposing side, incumbent conservative Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson leads the right-wing bloc, which has already made a historic concession to its hard-right ally: cabinet positions for the Sweden Democrats (SD) if Kristersson retains power.

The Sweden Democrats, a party with well-documented origins in 1980s neo-Nazi and Nazi sympathizer circles, was shunned by mainstream Swedish politics for decades. The 2022 election marked a major political turning point, however, when the party’s anti-immigration, anti-crime campaign pushed it to become the second-largest party in the Riksdag. Since that vote, the SD has provided external support for Kristersson’s center-right coalition, which has implemented sweeping anti-immigration reforms including eliminating permanent residency for refugees and ramping up deportation numbers. This election marks the first time the SD would formally enter government if the right bloc holds its majority, a historic step for the once-marginalized far-right party.

Latest polling from multiple outlets points to a razor-thin advantage for Andersson’s left bloc. A Friday poll commissioned by Swedish public news service Ekot puts the left alliance at 50.8% of projected voter support, compared to 47.6% for the right bloc, a 3.2-point lead. Within the blocs, the Social Democrats remain the most popular single party, holding 28.6% support in the Ekot survey, while the Sweden Democrats trail as the second-most popular party at 18.3%. Multiple other independent polls released Friday have also mirrored the narrow left lead.

Key voter priorities heading into election day include national security policy, the ongoing crisis of gang-related violent crime, and public welfare spending, but the question of the Sweden Democrats’ formal entry into government has hung over the entire campaign. The SD has already faced controversy during the race, with unproven allegations that one of its senior officials shared pro-Russia disinformation on social media platforms. Kristersson has stated the official should be dismissed if the claims are verified, while SD leader Jimmie Åkesson has confirmed the party is conducting an internal investigation into the accusations.

Political analysts note that while the SD’s potential entry to cabinet is not the top issue for most voters, it could act as a decisive tiebreaker in the tight race. Nicholas Aylott, associate professor of political science at Södertörn University, told reporters that bringing the SD into government would mark another major milestone in the party’s mainstream normalization. “That said, it might still be important for the election outcome,” Aylott explained, noting that a small but critical share of centrist voters may defect from the right bloc to the opposition over discomfort with SD cabinet roles. “They might just tip the balance against the incumbent right-wing bloc,” he said.

The election comes amid a broader regional trend of rising far-right support across Europe, coming just one week after Germany’s far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) won a near-plurality in the eastern German state of Saxony-Anhalt. The AfD topped the regional poll with nearly 44% of the vote, and its local leadership is currently in negotiations to form a governing coalition and take control of the state parliament.

11 9 月, 2026
Five minutes to steal a Renoir: Why museum thefts are becoming bolder across Europe

A bold new theft of four Pierre-Auguste Renoir paintings from the Musee Renoir in southern France has underscored a fast-growing crisis: an escalating wave of audacious museum burglaries across the continent, fueled by copycat criminals inspired by last October’s high-profile heist at Paris’s Louvre. The Renoir theft, carried out when intruders cut through a perimeter fence using an electric knife and hacksaw, was pulled off in less than five minutes, with two of the stolen works quickly recovered after being abandoned in the museum’s grounds. The remaining two pieces, worth millions of euros collectively, remain at large as investigators continue their search.

The brazen nature of this latest robbery comes as no surprise to industry experts and law enforcement. Just one month before the Renoir heist, European policing agency Europol issued a formal warning that museum thefts across the continent were growing more aggressive and frequent. Days before the Cagnes-sur-Mer break-in, veteran art detective Arthur Brand, who helped recover a stolen Van Gogh painting in 2023, told the BBC that a wave of new high-profile burglaries would likely follow the 2025 Louvre heist, where thieves made off with 88 million euros worth of untraceable jewels that have never been recovered. “If you can hit the Louvre, thieves around the world see that, and they start asking why they can’t hit smaller local institutions holding high-value items,” Brand explained.

Data shows that the upward trend in museum theft began roughly two years ago, according to Europol. Since the Louvre robbery, thieves have targeted a string of cultural institutions across Europe: they stole coins from a smaller French museum within hours of the Louvre break-in, took a diamond necklace from Vienna’s Museum of Applied Arts (MAK), made off with Bronze Age artifacts from a Spanish collection, and burglarized two separate Italian museums for valuable art pieces. ARCA, the Association for Research into Crimes against Art, reports that recorded museum thefts in France spiked sharply in 2024, with a slight further increase in 2025.

Experts largely agree that most of these post-Louvre robberies are copycat crimes, driven by a combination of systemic vulnerabilities in many museum institutions and shifting criminal priorities that make cultural institutions far more attractive targets than heavily secured banks or jewelry stores. Unlike banks, which are protected by cutting-edge security systems and hold limited physical cash these days, most museums are housed in historic, heritage-listed buildings that are difficult to retrofit with modern security infrastructure. Many museum directors also face chronic underfunding, choosing to allocate limited budgets to new exhibitions rather than costly security upgrades, and the open, public nature of museum spaces allows criminals to scout targets easily under the guise of ordinary visitors.

“Museums cannot be fortresses,” explained MAK director Lilli Hollein, whose institution was burgled earlier this year. “We exist to be open to the public, but we are now facing entirely new threats that demand updated security standards.”

Europol’s latest report notes that the nature of these museum heists has shifted dramatically in recent years. Where historic thefts relied on deception and stealth, modern burglaries increasingly use brute force: criminals now regularly carry power tools, sledgehammers, crowbars, and even explosives to break through barriers and access high-value targets in minutes, long before police can respond. The Louvre thieves, for example, used a mechanical lift to reach an upper floor, cut through reinforced glass with power tools, threatened on-site guards, and seized the jewels before law enforcement could arrive.

What thieves target is also changing. While fine art like Renoir paintings is still occasionally stolen, criminals increasingly prioritize small, portable, easily fenced items: precious metals that can be melted down to erase any trace, loose gemstones that can be resold individually, and high-demand cultural artifacts like Chinese porcelain that have a ready black market. Renoir paintings are particularly difficult to sell on the black market, which leads Brand to predict the two remaining stolen works will likely eventually be recovered – a fortunate exception to the broader trend. Art recovery firm Art Recovery International estimates that only 5 to 10 percent of all stolen cultural property is ever recovered, making thefts from small regional museums like the Musee Renoir uniquely devastating.

In response to the rising threat, many museums have begun implementing new security measures, even as funding remains a major barrier for smaller regional institutions. After its post-Louvre burglary, the Maison des Lumières in Langres launched a government-ordered security audit, and has already added enhanced video surveillance, with larger structural upgrades in development. MAK has overhauled its security protocols, adding metal detectors at entry, requiring all bags to be stored in lockers, and increasing the number of on-site security guards to deter copycat attacks.

Security experts emphasize that the core goal of museum security is not to make theft impossible, but to slow intruders down enough for police to arrive. “Security is all about buying time,” explained Ibrahim Bulut, a museum security expert and member of the International Committee for Museum Security board. “The objective is to make a burglary difficult, noisy, detectable, and above all time-consuming – because the truth is, any institution can be targeted, but delaying thieves is the key to stopping them.” Low-cost measures like training guards to spot and confront potential scouts can be just as effective as expensive high-tech systems, Bulut notes, though many institutions have begun investing in advanced tools like vibration-detection systems that can alert security to intruders cutting or drilling through walls. A handful of countries, including Sweden, have seen major museum thefts decline over the past decade, though the rise in illicit trafficking of smaller cultural artifacts remains a persistent threat even there.

For small regional museums holding nationally significant collections, the challenge of funding these upgrades remains acute. “A small city can be entrusted with collections of global importance, but it will never have the same budget as a major Paris institution,” explained Théo Caviezel, mayor of Langres. The debate now centers on how European cultural institutions can balance the core mission of public access with the urgent need to protect irreplaceable cultural heritage from a growing wave of organized theft. Critics also note that many high-value treasures held in European museums have colonial origins, raising ethical questions about efforts to recover stolen artifacts that were originally taken through imperial force, though defenders argue these pieces remain part of global cultural heritage that must be preserved for public access.

11 9 月, 2026
Houthis used AI platform Claude to develop ballistic missiles

US artificial intelligence developer Anthropic has uncovered a troubling attempt by a threat actor cell based in northern Yemen to exploit its Claude AI platform to advance weapons development, including critical guidance, control, and navigation systems for ballistic missiles. The company detailed the incident in a Thursday report outlining actions it has taken to block unauthorized misuse of its AI technology across multiple countries.

Northern Yemen is the primary stronghold of the Houthi movement, which has controlled Yemen’s capital Sanaa since 2014 and just concluded a major military breakthrough this week. The group’s rapid offensive forced the retreat of forces aligned with Saudi Arabia and the internationally recognized Yemeni government headquartered in Aden, leaving the Houthis in control of large stretches of Yemen’s Red Sea coastline adjacent to the Arabian Gulf. This territorial gain includes key strategic islands and the Bab el-Mandeb Strait, a critical global shipping chokepoint that connects the Red Sea to the Gulf of Aden and borders three nations: Eritrea, Djibouti, and Yemen.

According to Anthropic’s report, the Yemeni cell was running three distinct weapons development initiatives when it turned to Claude for assistance. The programs included a guided rocket outfitted with an off-the-shelf phone-grade flight computer equipped with final-phase homing guidance technology, a multi-stage ballistic missile with an intended range exceeding 2,000 kilometers, and a flexible multi-variant missile platform that included a configuration for a hypersonic glide vehicle.

The threat actors leveraged Claude’s capabilities to develop critical software for these weapons projects, work that would normally require the expertise and labor of a full team of specialized engineers. Anthropic confirmed that while there is no conclusive evidence the group successfully deployed a fully operational weapon based on the AI-assisted work, the actors did carry out a test firing of the guided rocket. That field test ended in failure, and within hours of the unsuccessful attempt, the actors returned to the Claude platform to ask for help troubleshooting what went wrong.

As soon as the illicit activity was flagged and confirmed, Anthropic moved quickly to ban all accounts linked to the threat cell, cutting off their access to the AI system.

Public reporting has long documented that the Houthi movement receives arms supplies and military training from Iran, and a previous investigation by Middle East Eye also exposed additional military support from Russia. Despite this foreign backing, the Houthis have prioritized building up a domestic military industry to strengthen their independent defense and intelligence capabilities, a priority that has only grown amid years of ongoing conflict in Yemen.

Since Israel launched its full-scale invasion of Gaza in 2023, the Houthis have launched a sustained campaign of attacks on commercial shipping transiting the Red Sea, which the group says is an act of solidarity with Palestinians under siege in Gaza. A prior Middle East Eye report detailed how the group has used openly available commercial shipping data to target vessels linked to Israel and the United States for these attacks, marking a new pattern of asymmetric leveraging of accessible commercial and digital tools to advance military goals.

11 9 月, 2026
When an avalanche killed climber Nirmal Purja, his friends faced the hardest mission of all

For veteran Nepalese mountaineer Mingma Gyalje Sherpa, the journey up Pakistan’s Broad Peak last July was not one of summiting or record-breaking. It was a mission of loyalty: to bring home the bodies of two of his closest climbing companions, Nirmal “Nims” Purja and Kili Pemba “Kilu” Sherpa, who had been swallowed by a sudden avalanche on the mountain’s upper slopes.

When Mingma G picked his way across the wind-scoured frozen slope toward the two distant shapes, he already knew his friends would not be coming back alive. The three had shared decades of climbing memory across the world’s highest peaks, pushing through clear blue summit days and deadly blizzards side by side. Nims and Kilu, both counted among the strongest climbers Mingma G had ever known, had been ascending Broad Peak when the avalanche struck without warning, burying everything in its path. Drone surveys had already confirmed no signs of life. Still, as he drew near to the bright fluorescent down jackets cutting stark against the endless white snow, he could not shake the quiet feeling that they had been waiting for him.

“I told them: ‘It’s ok. You don’t have to be here in the cold anymore,’” Mingma G recalled in an interview with the BBC from Islamabad, his voice thick with grief. As he lifted one of the frozen bodies into his arms, he made a quiet promise: “I’m here to take you guys home.”

The friendship between Mingma G and Nims stretches back to 2021, when the pair crossed paths on Pakistan’s K2, the world’s second-highest peak. At the time, Nims had already earned global fame for his groundbreaking Netflix documentary *14 Peaks*, which chronicled his record-setting feat of climbing all 14 of the world’s 8,000-meter-plus peaks in just over six months. Both native Nepalese climbers, they had taken vastly different paths to the top of the mountaineering world: Mingma G, born into the Sherpa community, had spent 20 years building his reputation as one of the most reliable and skilled high-altitude guides in the industry. Nims, a former Gurkha and British Special Forces soldier, had rapidly risen to become one of the most recognizable figures in global mountaineering, credited with elevating the profile of Nepalese climbers in a sport long dominated by Western narratives. His career was not without controversy, however: critics argued he prioritized record-breaking and social media marketing over traditional mountaineering values, and in 2024, he faced public sexual misconduct allegations that he strongly and repeatedly denied through legal representation.

Mingma G admitted he had misjudged Nims at first, saying “In the beginning, I had the feeling he was very arrogant.” That impression melted away when the two rivals agreed to team up for the historic first winter ascent of K2 that year, and Mingma G quickly came to see him as “very kind-hearted, one of the most beautiful human beings I’ve met.” For years after, their paths crossed again and again on peaks across the globe, with Nims often found pushing for new routes on Mount Everest.

This summer, the pair met once again in the Karakoram Range, preparing for separate expeditions just five miles apart: Nims would lead a team up Broad Peak, while Mingma G would take a client team up K2. Before they split, Nims asked Mingma G to wait one more day for a final meeting before their ascents. That meeting never happened. “That was the last thing he told me. I still regret it,” Mingma G said.

July 30 dawned with ideal climbing conditions: clear sunshine, no wind, perfect snow for ascending. Mingma G was leading his team up K2 when he spoke to Kilu, his childhood friend and a senior climber on Nims’s team, at 8:30 a.m. Kilu reported snow conditions were excellent, and the two agreed to check in again once both parties reached their next planned camps. Two independent trekkers lower on the slope recalled watching Nims’s 10-person combined team climbing toward Broad Peak’s summit, cheering them on as their silhouettes stood small against the vast snowfield.

Less than an hour later, the mountain erupted. A sharp, thunderous crack split the air, and a massive avalanche broke loose from Broad Peak’s summit, tearing down both sides of the mountain. The trekkers waited and prayed the team had climbed above the avalanche path, but the small silhouettes never reappeared. Their guide immediately alerted Broad Peak base camp to the disaster.

Initial investigations by the Alpine Club of Pakistan have found that while the region had seen heavy snowfall earlier that week, the avalanche was triggered by the collapse of a pre-existing ice slab, unrelated to the recent snowfall. The cause remains under formal review.

By the time Mingma G reached his next camp on K2, his team had still received no word from the Broad Peak climbers. Initially, there was no panic: climbers often turn off radios to preserve battery life during ascents. But Mingma G grew increasingly uneasy: one of the missing climbers, Wang Zhong, was a close friend and long-time client who always sent a check-in message via his Garmin satellite tracker after arriving at a new camp. No message came. Lower down the mountain, Pakistani guide Waqar Ali also tried repeatedly to contact the team, with no response. He initially assumed the group was resting ahead of a final summit push that night, but by 3 p.m., base camp had still received no contact from any member of the 10-person team.

Stranded at 7,300 meters on K2 with limited communication, Mingma G began frantically reaching out to government officials, the climbers’ families, and contacts in Kathmandu for any information. It was not until around 8 p.m. that they received devastating data: the altitude readings from the Broad Peak climbers’ satellite trackers had plummeted, with one dropping by more than 1,600 meters in seconds.

It was far too dark and dangerous to launch an immediate rescue or reconnaissance, so Mingma G waited for sunrise, still clinging to hope. “Especially for Kilu and Nims, who were ‘experienced and physically… strong,’” he recalled thinking. At first light, a drone was launched, and within minutes, the operator radioed back: bodies had been spotted on the lower slope, and there were no signs of survivors.

“I was totally blank,” Mingma G said, his voice dropping. Still, he refused to leave his friends on the mountain, driven by the quiet conviction that they might still need help getting down. He immediately called off his own K2 expedition to lead the recovery effort.

By the time Mingma G reached Broad Peak base camp, Waqar and another climber had already recovered two bodies: that of Nadhira Al Harthy, the first Omani woman to summit Everest, and Pur Bahadur Gurung, a veteran Nepalese climber who had conquered 12 of the world’s 14 highest peaks. But the bodies of Nims, Kilu, and three other climbers remained trapped on the unstable upper slope. When Mingma G called Nims’s family to share the news, they struggled to process the loss; Kilu’s wife simply told him, “don’t leave your brother on the mountain.”

Organizing the recovery proved far more complicated than Mingma G had initially expected. The members of his K2 expedition were shaken by the disaster and faced pressure from their own families to return home. Logistically, Mingma G initially believed helicopter recovery with a long-line rope would be possible, a common practice in Nepal that would have taken just minutes to extract the bodies. But helicopter support was not available for the mission. The Alpine Club of Pakistan told the BBC a request for helicopter support filed on August 1 was approved, but persistent poor weather delayed the operation for days. With no other option, Mingma G assembled a small team to carry out the recovery on foot.

On August 1, the team set out to locate the four bodies spotted in drone imagery: Nims, Kilu, Wang Zhong, and Nima Sherpa, with a fifth climber, Gyaljen Sherpa, located nearby. The slope remained extremely unstable, with constant risk of falling rock and secondary avalanches. A large team would increase the risk of more casualties, but a small team faced immense physical challenges moving the heavy bodies down the steep ice.

Disaster struck again just as the team reached the bodies and began lowering them down the slope on ropes: a second avalanche hit. The rush of snow swept one body all the way to the base of the mountain, while three others including Nims came to rest in an even more dangerous position, wedged in the center of a slope flanked by towering, unstable glacial ice pillars. A single shift of either pillar would have sent the entire team tumbling to their deaths. As days passed and conditions worsened, team members began to drop out, their numbers shrinking from nine to six, then to just four.

With the slope too dangerous for a large group, the team agreed Mingma G would stay back to monitor the operation via drone, guiding the three climbing team members toward the bodies. The grueling, high-risk operation took more than five hours, but the team finally succeeded in dragging all recoverable bodies down to the base of the mountain.

The sight of his friends on the mountain still haunts Mingma G. Nims and Kilu had covered their faces with their jackets, leading Mingma G to conclude they had seen the avalanche coming and prepared for the impact. The pair had been tied together on the same rope, with their legs wrapped around it. Mingma G believes the collision of the two men as they tumbled down the slope, not the fall itself, was what killed them: “They didn’t fall that much, almost 500m. But unfortunately they hit each other a lot, I think. If they were not on the rope, maybe there was a possibility that Nims and Kilu might have survived.”

After recovery, the bodies were flown by helicopter to the nearby city of Skardu, then to Islamabad, before finally being repatriated to their families in Nepal. In the days after the avalanche, the bodies of Pakistani climber Sohail Sakhi and American climber Mallory Geis were also located and recovered. One climber, Nawang Thindu Sherpa, still remains on the mountain.

Nims’s family released a statement expressing deep gratitude “to the extraordinary team led by our brother, Mingma G, who worked in incredibly challenging conditions to bring Nimsdai home.”

For Mingma G, the recovery mission has left an indelible mark, unlike any other expedition he has completed in his 20-year career. As he grieves his lost friends, he says he is now considering bringing his legendary climbing career to an end. The memory of the three of them singing together as they climbed a sunlit but freezing K2 five years earlier will stay with him forever, but he is unsure what that grief means for his future on the mountains.

“I’m not sure if it helps, if the memory helps me to keep climbing or it makes me stop,” he said.

11 9 月, 2026
President Trump to arrive in Ireland for two-day visit

Former U.S. President Donald Trump is scheduled to touch down at Dublin Airport on Saturday morning to kick off a two-day official visit to the Republic of Ireland, a trip that blends high-level diplomatic engagement, a major sporting appearance, and widespread planned protest action across the country.

Following his arrival, Trump’s first agenda items include a courtesy meeting with Irish President Catherine Connolly, followed by a formal bilateral discussion with Taoiseach (Irish Prime Minister) Micheál Martin. He will also join a series of scheduled events at the Dublin Phoenix Park residence of U.S. Ambassador to Ireland Ed Walsh before traveling west to County Clare.

In Clare, Trump will attend the Amgen Irish Open, which this year is being hosted at Trump International Golf Links and Hotel Doonbeg — a property he owns. This marks Trump’s first return to the Republic of Ireland since 2019, when he also visited his Clare golf course during a previous trip. He will be accompanied at the tournament by his two sons, Eric Trump and Donald Trump Jr.

Irish Prime Minister Micheál Martin has expressed a warm public welcome for the visit, noting ahead of Trump’s arrival that both sides will use the meeting to address a range of topics of shared bilateral interest. In an official statement released Friday evening, Martin reaffirmed the deep and longstanding economic, cultural, and people-to-people connections between Ireland and the United States. He also framed the visit as a fitting cap to what has been a standout summer of international sport hosted across both Ireland and the U.S., adding that he hoped an Irish golfer would claim the tournament trophy on Sunday.

An avid golf enthusiast himself, Trump has openly shared his excitement for the tournament for months. In a pre-recorded video address to the U.S. Embassy’s Fourth of July celebration in July, he spoke enthusiastically about his Doonbeg course, calling it one of the most scenic and top-tier golf properties in the world, and said he was eager to watch star players including Northern Irish golf legend Rory McIlroy compete.

The trip comes with significant logistical and security preparation: Irish security forces have spent months planning for the visit, which is set to be one of the largest security operations in the history of the Irish state. Organizers are expecting thousands of protesters to gather in Dublin, with a smaller parallel protest also planned in Doonbeg during Trump’s attendance at the golf tournament.

A key point of political tension ahead of the visit surrounds Irish President Catherine Connolly, a well-known activist for Palestinian causes in Gaza who has previously been publicly critical of U.S. policy and has called Trump’s approach to international tariffs “bullying”. Multiple Irish political parties, including major opposition party Sinn Féin that supported Connolly’s 2025 presidential campaign, have publicly called on her to raise the ongoing crisis in Gaza during her scheduled meeting with Trump. Ireland has long held one of the most pro-Palestinian stances among European Union member states, a position that has drawn repeated criticism from the Israeli government.

11 9 月, 2026
Arrest made in the murder of Tasia Fortune, black woman found hanged from tree

Nearly six weeks after the body of 23-year-old Tasia Fortune was discovered hanging from a tree on the property of an abandoned Jackson, Mississippi residence, local law enforcement has made the first arrest in a case that has stoked widespread community fear and drawn national attention over long-standing histories of racial terror in the American South.

Jackson Police Chief RaShall Brackney confirmed the arrest during a public press briefing Friday, emphasizing that the development marks a critical milestone in the probe — not its end. “That arrest today is an important development in this investigation, but it is not the conclusion,” Brackney said, noting that the case remains open and active as investigators continue tracing leads. “Additional arrests will be pending as our investigators continue to follow the evidence,” she added, revealing that detectives have already interviewed 15 people connected to the case.

Fortune’s body was first found by responding officers on August 3 along Road of Remembrance, in an overgrown lot tied to a vacant home. By the time authorities recovered her remains, Brackney said the body showed clear signs of advanced decomposition. For weeks after the discovery, investigators provided little public information about the case, only confirming earlier this month that they were now treating Fortune’s death as a suspected homicide. Just this past Thursday, the state medical examiner officially ruled her cause of death as a homicide, clearing the way for murder charges against the unnamed suspect taken into custody Friday.

For Fortune’s family, the arrest has brought a fragile moment of calm after more than a month of agonizing uncertainty. Christy Spivey, Fortune’s mother, told the BBC she broke down in tears when Jackson police called her Friday to share the news of the arrest. “I guess I do feel like a little sigh of relief. Like a little bit of peace just come over me,” Spivey said, though she added she remains cautious: “I just hope that they’ve got the right person.”

In the weeks following her daughter’s death, Spivey said she has been unable to sleep soundly, wracked by questions about what happened. “I fall asleep, but I can’t stay asleep,” she explained. Her frustration has been echoed by many Jackson residents, who criticized local officials for weeks of limited communication and perceived slow progress on the case. Spivey herself told reporters earlier this week that she had repeatedly attempted to contact Jackson police over a two-week period, leaving multiple voicemails that went unanswered. After Spivey penned an open letter criticizing the investigation’s pace and lack of transparency that was read aloud at a public city council meeting Tuesday, Jackson police formally announced they were treating the death as a possible homicide — a move Spivey called surprising in its speed. “I’m kind of like in awe. Like, I can’t believe it. That was quick,” she said Friday.
Brackney pushed back against claims of poor communication with the family Friday, saying investigators have maintained consistent contact with Spivey, Fortune’s stepfather, and her biological father throughout the probe.

The case has struck a particular raw nerve in Jackson, a majority-Black city in a state where more than 500 anti-Black lynchings were documented between 1877 and 1950, one of the highest totals of any U.S. state. The gruesome discovery of Fortune’s body hanging from a tree, paired with the slow initial investigation, left the local community reeling in shock and anxiety. The case has also sparked national action, with more than 50 members of the U.S. Congress signing an open letter this week calling on the FBI and U.S. Department of Justice to launch independent investigations into a growing string of suspicious deaths of Black people found hanging across multiple U.S. states.

In the letter, congressional members said they are “extremely alarmed by reports of black people found hanging from trees in numerous states”, framing the recent deaths as a potential pattern of modern-day lynchings. The letter notes that so far in 2026, at least 10 Black people have been found hanged in reported incidents across the country, and more than 70 such suspicious deaths have been documented between 2000 and 2025.

11 9 月, 2026
UAE campaign used AI Claude to target Muslim Brotherhood and Sudan

Leading artificial intelligence firm Anthropic has announced the discovery and disruption of a coordinated, UAE-directed influence operation that exploited its Claude AI assistant to shape global discourse on two high-stakes regional issues: the status of the Muslim Brotherhood and the ongoing conflict in Sudan. The details of this covert campaign are laid out in the company’s September 2024 intelligence threat report, marking one of the first documented cases of a state-aligned actor abusing commercial generative AI to advance covert geopolitical goals.

According to Anthropic’s investigation, the operation was run by a single actor working on behalf of United Arab Emirates government officials, with high confidence linking the work to senior Emirati decision-makers. The core mission laid out in the operation’s internal guiding documents, which the actor fed directly into Claude across hundreds of work sessions, was to execute a coordinated transatlantic and regional campaign aimed at dismantling the global Muslim Brotherhood movement. Beyond that, the operation also sought to manipulate global public opinion regarding the UAE’s well-documented involvement in Sudan’s two-year civil war.

The UAE has publicly long denied any role in the Sudan conflict, but multiple independent investigations from Middle East Eye, international human rights groups, and United Nations researchers have confirmed that Abu Dhabi provides extensive military and political backing to the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), the Sudanese paramilitary group that has been widely accused of perpetrating genocide and mass atrocities in the Darfur region. The influence operation’s secondary goal was specifically designed to undermine international efforts to hold the UAE accountable for its support for the RSF at the UN.

To carry out this campaign, the actor leveraged Claude’s generative capabilities to build an extensive infrastructure of deceptive content and networks. At its core, the operation built a network of roughly 300 inauthentic influencer accounts across major social media platforms, all designed to amplify the operation’s narratives to broader audiences. The actor also used Claude to create a fake non-governmental organization that stole the identity of a legitimate, existing Swiss human rights group, publishing state-aligned “human rights reports” under the stolen organization’s legitimacy.

One of the operation’s most high-stakes plans targeted the UN Human Rights Council’s 62nd session. Claude was used to ghost-write official testimonies that were intended to be delivered by two speakers at the session, with explicit instructions built into the content that the UAE could not be mentioned in any critical context. Beyond institutional targeting, the actor used Claude to conduct open-source research and build detailed personal profiles of 18 members of the European Parliament and prominent international journalists who cover Middle East affairs. The operation also compiled dedicated counter-accountability dossiers targeting UN Special Rapporteurs who had previously published criticism of the UAE’s conduct in Sudan. All of the generated content, from cloned identity documents to profiled target lists, was prepared for direct delivery to senior UAE government officials, Anthropic confirmed.

The actor operated a custom private AI persona codenamed “Deadshot” on their own private infrastructure to coordinate the campaign, embedding a master mission file that instructed Claude to reiterate the operation’s core goals across all work sessions. The standardized workflow mixed real-world event data and the actor’s pre-written political doctrine, then used Claude to refine the content into official-looking intelligence reports, testimonies, and dossiers. The UAE-linked actor also directly funded the social media network created to amplify the operation’s content to wider global audiences.

To date, Anthropic notes that it has not been able to confirm whether any of the prepared testimonies or compiled targeting dossiers successfully reached their intended audiences at the UN or within the UAE government. The UAE has not yet issued a public response to Anthropic’s findings, and continues to maintain its official position that it has no involvement in the Sudan conflict. The disclosure shines a new light on the growing risk of state actors misusing commercial generative AI tools to conduct covert geopolitical influence operations, undermining multilateral accountability efforts and manipulating global public discourse.

11 9 月, 2026
Passenger train derails in France leaving at least 44 injured

A serious passenger train derailment in northern France has left dozens of people injured, prompting a large-scale emergency response, local authorities confirmed Friday. The incident occurred near the commune of Cléon, located just south of the major Normandy city of Rouen, along the rail line connecting Rouen and Caen.

Of the 44 people injured in the crash, one person – an 18-year-old woman – remains in critical condition. She was airlifted via emergency helicopter to a nearby hospital for urgent medical care. The remaining 43 injured individuals have sustained less severe injuries, according to official updates.

In a statement to reporters, French Transport Minister Philippe Tabarot confirmed that 180 passengers were on board the train when the derailment happened Friday evening. More than 140 firefighters alongside multiple other emergency response teams have been deployed to the accident site to carry out search, rescue and treatment operations. French police have already sealed off the crash area to secure the site for investigation and response work.

Visuals emerging from the scene show passengers evacuating the damaged train, and local French media reports indicate that three of the train’s carriages overturned during the incident. France’s state-owned national railway operator SNCF has announced that the derailment has caused “significant disruptions” to all rail routes passing through the affected area. To mitigate the impact on stranded passengers, the operator has arranged replacement bus services for affected journeys.

As of the latest official update, the exact cause of the derailment has not yet been determined. Investigations are ongoing to identify what led to the incident, with authorities yet to release any preliminary findings on potential contributing factors.

11 9 月, 2026