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  • Body of war criminal Mladic lies in state in Serbian capital ahead of funeral

    Body of war criminal Mladic lies in state in Serbian capital ahead of funeral

    On a crisp Monday in central Belgrade, thousands of Serbian mourners filed through the small Serbian Orthodox Church of St. Luke to pay their final respects to Ratko Mladic, the former Bosnian Serb military commander who died last month while serving a life sentence for genocide and war crimes. The public lying-in-state comes as the Balkan nation openly rejects repeated warnings from the European Union, which has decried the official state-backed honors for a man convicted of orchestrating the worst act of genocide on European soil since World War II.

    Mladic, 84, died on August 27 in a Dutch prison in The Hague, where he was incarcerated after an international tribunal found him guilty of overseeing mass atrocities during the 1992-1995 Bosnian War. His conviction centered on his role in planning the 1995 Srebrenica massacre, where more than 8,000 Bosnian Muslim men and boys were systematically executed after Mladic’s forces overran a U.N.-designated safe haven, as well as the four-year siege of Sarajevo and the operation of deadly concentration camps for non-Serb civilians. Though his funeral was formally organized by his family, the Serbian government has taken unprecedented steps to honor the convicted war criminal: it dispatched a state aircraft to repatriate Mladic’s remains to Belgrade last week, had soldiers carry his flag-draped coffin, and hosted an official military commemoration at a Serbian army facility over the weekend. Pro-government Serbian media outlets have confirmed Mladic will receive full military honors during his burial, with Serbian Orthodox Church Patriarch Porfirije set to lead the funeral service. Inside the Belgrade church on Monday, Mladic’s military cap and saber were displayed atop his coffin, flanked by uniformed men in combat fatigues.

    For many Serbs, Mladic remains a revered nationalist hero, a symbol of efforts to unify ethnic Serb territories across the Balkans following the breakup of the former Yugoslavia. Milan Dobric, one of the mourners who traveled from Kosovo to attend the service, called Mladic “a man who gave everything in his life for the Serbian people.” “I am glad that this morning people are coming to pay special respect,” Dobric told reporters.

    The decision to grant official state honors to Mladic has sparked immediate international backlash, deepening a rift between Serbia and the EU at a critical moment for the country’s decades-long membership bid. EU Enlargement Commissioner Marta Kos announced she would scrap a scheduled visit to Serbia in protest, stating clearly that “the glorification surrounding his death is incompatible with the values on which the EU path is built.” Kos was joined by dozens of European officials, Balkan regional leaders, and survivors and relatives of Mladic’s victims in condemning the public homage. The Bosnian War, which ended with a U.S.-brokered peace deal in 1995, left more than 100,000 people dead and forced more than 1 million from their homes.

    Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic, a populist leader who has ramped up anti-Western rhetoric ahead of early high-stakes parliamentary elections scheduled for next month, has dismissed the EU’s criticism as baseless, accusing Kos of outright “lying.” Though Vucic, a former extreme nationalist who backed expansionist Serb policies during the 1990s war, is not attending the funeral, his government has stood firm in its defiance. For years, Serbia has refused to formally recognize the Srebrenica massacre as an act of genocide, only referring to it as a “horrific crime.” This is not the first time the country has granted state honors to a convicted war criminal: last year, former Serbian army chief of staff Nebojsa Pavkovic, who was convicted of war crimes by the U.N. tribunal, was buried with full military honors in Belgrade’s cemetery for distinguished citizens.

    Mladic’s death and the subsequent public tributes have further complicated Serbia’s stalled EU membership bid. The process has already been frozen for years due to widespread democratic backsliding under Vucic’s administration and Serbia’s refusal to join international sanctions against Russia following its full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Nationalist supporters of Mladic have organized a series of public tributes across Belgrade in recent weeks, including street vigils, new murals depicting the former commander, and public displays of flares in his honor. The Serbian government has long argued that the West holds an inherent anti-Serb bias in its assessment of the country’s role in the 1990s Balkan wars, a narrative that has resonated with much of the Serbian public ahead of the upcoming election.

  • Kyiv air raid alerts at record high as Russia launches round the clock strikes

    Kyiv air raid alerts at record high as Russia launches round the clock strikes

    More than two years after Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine, the capital city of Kyiv is facing the most intense period of air raid activity recorded since the war began, new data analysis confirms. A BBC Verify examination of official Ukrainian government figures reveals that daily air raid alerts in Kyiv have surged to levels not seen since the initial invasion in February 2022, upending daily life for millions of residents.

    The most significant shift in Russian tactics has been the move from almost entirely nocturnal strikes to daytime attacks, a change that has spread chaos across schools, workplaces and public transit networks across the capital. Since Russia launched this new campaign of round-the-clock assaults in late August, Kyiv has recorded an average of 10 air raid sirens per day, with some days seeing as many as 13 separate alerts. Individual alerts can last anywhere from a handful of minutes to nearly four and a half hours, forcing residents to repeatedly stop what they are doing and rush to designated shelters. Data for the seven-day period starting August 27 shows the city endured 76 total alerts, already surpassing the previous high of roughly 66 alerts recorded in the first week of full-scale invasion in 2022 — a milestone made more notable by the incomplete data collected in the chaotic early days of the war.

    Compounding the threat of more frequent strikes is Russia’s deployment of a new generation of jet-powered attack drones that are far faster and harder to intercept than older propeller-driven models. These new drones can reach speeds of nearly 370 miles per hour, three times the speed of the widely used Shahed propeller drones, putting additional strain on Ukraine’s existing air defense systems. Ukrainian military data shows Russia launched roughly 2,800 of these fast drones across Ukraine in August, nearly double the number deployed in July.

    At the BBC’s on-the-ground office in Kyiv, the constant rumble of air defense engagements and exploding drones is a near-continuous backdrop to daily work. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has convened an emergency meeting with senior government ministers and military commanders to fast-track development of domestically produced high-speed interceptor missiles capable of countering the faster Russian drones. In remarks to officials, Zelensky acknowledged the sharp escalation of Russian terror tactics, noting that strikes against Ukrainian population centers have grown far more intense since the start of August.

    Diplomatic and military observers warn of a growing risk: Russia may be able to ramp up production of these fast attack drones faster than Ukraine can develop and deploy a new generation of countering interceptors. Some defense analysts even warn the drone threat could soon outpace the risk posed by Russian ballistic missiles, which have already worn down Ukraine’s limited stock of Patriot air defense systems. Currently, Ukrainian forces rely on a combination of combat aircraft, anti-aircraft artillery, and shoulder-fired missiles to shoot down the jet-powered drones, but Ukrainian Air Force spokesman Yurii Ihnat confirmed that only around 60 percent of incoming drones are successfully intercepted.

    Ihnat emphasized that new, purpose-built interceptors are critical to addressing the gap in Ukraine’s defenses. “The task now is to make them faster and equip them with specialised guidance systems so that they can shoot down jet-powered UAVs, the jet-powered Shaheds,” he said. “The key issue really is having guidance systems, because that is one of the crucial elements. It is not enough for the interceptor simply to fly fast — it has to hit the target. That is very important.”

    For ordinary Kyiv residents, the constant air raids have become a debilitating new normal that wears on mental health and upends basic daily routines. The new daytime strike tactic has disrupted the start of the new academic year, with students repeatedly forced to evacuate classrooms and rush to underground shelters. At Drahomanov Ukrainian State University in central Kyiv, some students head to underground spaces immediately when sirens sound, while others have grown accustomed to the frequency of alerts and remain on public streets.

    Diana, a student teacher, told the BBC that the constant disruptions have ruined her sleep and upended her daily schedule. “Sometimes it is hard because most of the day I need to go to safe places, like the metro or somewhere underground,” she said. “It’s a terrible time, but thank God we are alive. We go day by day.”

    Ihor, a chemistry student training to be a teacher, said while he has acclimated to sirens after years of war, the constant alerts have gutted the quality of education in the city. “We are annoyed by the sirens because they are constant,” he said. “It destroys the quality of our education… We cannot study normally.”

    After a recent drone strike on a residential neighborhood in central Kyiv, students from a nearby nearby school were immediately evacuated over fears of a secondary “double-tap” attack, a tactic that targets first responders and survivors following an initial strike. Seventeen-year-old Sophia described the constant uncertainty of daily life in the city, saying “It’s a little bit scary to live here in Kyiv. It’s very difficult.” Her interview was cut short when another air raid siren began, prompting her to urge the reporting team to move to shelter: “It is very dangerous for you to stand in the streets. Maybe we can have a second detonation.”

    Local businesses have also been hit hard by the repeated alerts, as most are required to suspend operations and evacuate workplaces every time a siren sounds. During one alert, dozens of workers from Kyiv’s largest department store were seen gathering on nearby streets after evacuating, having grown accustomed to the frequency of disruptions. Public transit networks also face widespread chaos: overground trains crossing the Dnipro River that cuts through the center of Kyiv are forced to stop during alerts, stranding commuters who must scramble to find replacement bus service.

    To address the widespread economic and social disruption, the Ukrainian government has announced a new two-tiered air raid warning system designed to minimize unnecessary disruption while still keeping residents safe. Under the new framework, a yellow warning will be issued for lower-risk drone attacks, allowing most work, travel and academic activity to continue with limited restrictions. A red warning will be reserved for higher-risk missile attacks, requiring full evacuation to shelters and a full suspension of public activity.

    The escalation of Russian strikes came amid a brief pause in attacks over a recent weekend, when high-level U.S. diplomatic envoys visited Kyiv for talks focused on potential paths to ending the war. As Ukraine adapts to this new threat, analysts warn that Russia’s current campaign of constant strikes may also be a precursor to a planned winter offensive targeting Ukraine’s energy infrastructure, a tactic Russia used in 2022 and 2023 to break civilian morale. There are growing fears that the drain on Ukraine’s air defense resources from the current drone campaign will leave the capital less prepared to defend critical energy infrastructure as temperatures drop in the coming months. Military analysts add that Russia’s goals extend beyond eroding civilian morale: the constant strikes are also intended to weaken Ukraine’s overall economy by disrupting commercial activity and damaging critical storage and industrial infrastructure.

  • Indonesia keeps several airports closed though volcanic eruption is easing

    Indonesia keeps several airports closed though volcanic eruption is easing

    On Monday, Indonesia maintained major travel disruptions and public safety measures following a massive 25-hour eruption of the Anak Krakatau volcano, even as geological authorities reported that the volcano’s most intense activity was beginning to subside.

    According to Indonesia’s Geological Agency, the continuous eruption that sent lava fountains soaring and generated a detonation loud enough to be heard 435 miles from the volcano’s site concluded on Sunday. However, the volcanic island did not return to a stable state overnight. On Monday, Anak Krakatau continued to display moderate, intermittent eruptive activity, releasing plumes of dark ash into the atmosphere and triggering small, localized seismic tremors. Inclement weather in the region has also blocked scientists from conducting clear visual monitoring of the volcano’s crater, complicating ongoing hazard assessments.

    Indonesia’s air navigation authority AirNav Indonesia confirmed that air quality tests detected dangerous levels of volcanic ash in the airspace surrounding Jakarta and multiple other population centers across the country. In response, officials ordered eight airports to remain shut until 6 p.m. local time on Monday. The shutdown includes four major commercial hubs operated by state-owned airport manager InJourney Airports: Jakarta’s two primary international airports, Soekarno-Hatta and Halim Perdanakusuma, Husein Sastranegara International Airport in West Java, and Radin Inten Airport in Lampung, located on the southern tip of Sumatra.

    As of Monday, InJourney Airports reported that the closures have already disrupted roughly 2,300 scheduled flights, impacting an estimated 268,539 passengers traveling through the four affected major hubs. Beyond travel disruptions, Indonesian public officials moved quickly to protect student health, authorizing temporary remote learning transitions for schools across ash-affected regions, including Jakarta, West Java, Banten, and Lampung provinces. The policy shift is designed to minimize children’s exposure to toxic airborne ash that can cause serious respiratory distress.

    Geological Agency head Lana Saria warned that the threat of further volcanic activity has not passed. “The probability of additional eruptions in the coming days remains high,” she stated. Saria outlined the primary ongoing hazards, noting that future eruptions could launch volcanic bombs, produce widespread heavy ashfall, and generate lava flows if large-scale sustained activity resumes.

    Anak Krakatau, which translates to “Child of Krakatau,” is a volcanic island located in the Sunda Strait between Indonesia’s two most populous islands, Java and Sumatra. The active volcano formed from the remnants of the original Krakatau, whose catastrophic 1883 eruption was one of the most explosive volcanic events in recorded history, triggering a multi-year period of global cooling by blocking incoming solar radiation with atmospheric ash. In 2018, another major eruption of Anak Krakatau triggered a devastating tsunami after volcanic activity destabilized the volcano’s slope and caused a massive underwater landslide. The disaster killed at least 430 people across coastal Sumatra and Java.

    Indonesia sits along the Pacific “Ring of Fire,” a global belt of active seismic faults that hosts the majority of the world’s earthquakes and volcanic activity. As a result, the country is home to more than 120 active volcanoes, making frequent volcanic eruptions a persistent natural hazard for local communities and national infrastructure.

  • Nepal holds a day of mourning after floods kill 1,300

    Nepal holds a day of mourning after floods kill 1,300

    Two weeks after catastrophic flash floods swept through southern Nepal and the Tibet Autonomous Region of China, Nepal marked a national day of mourning on Monday to honor the hundreds of lives lost to the disaster, capping 13 days of traditional mourning for grieving families across the Hindu-majority nation.

    According to Nepal’s national disaster management agency, the flooding that struck on August 26 has already claimed more than 1,300 lives across Nepal and Tibet, with close to 5,000 people still unaccounted for — a number that includes foreign nationals working and traveling in the flood-hit region.

    In traditional Nepalese Hindu culture, the mourning period for lost loved ones spans exactly 13 days, during which immediate family members remain at home to receive condolences and respect from extended relatives and community members. The 13th day marks the conclusion of the mourning process, when families hold final rituals to offer prayers for the peaceful journey of the departed souls. For hundreds of families whose relatives remain missing, swept away by floodwaters or buried under landslide debris, these rituals have taken the form of symbolic funerals, carried out without the recovery of their loved ones’ remains. Per Hindu tradition, cremation is a non-negotiable final rite, and holding the ceremony even without a body gives many grieving families a small measure of spiritual closure amid their uncertainty.

    The Nepalese government had previously designated Monday as an official national day of mourning, requiring all federal and local government offices to lower their national flags to half-mast as a mark of respect. In the capital city of Kathmandu, dozens of grieving family members gathered outside the prime minister’s office and major government ministry buildings to demand that authorities accelerate search and rescue operations. Many of the missing are workers employed at hydropower projects along the rushing Bhotekoshi River, who were either swept away by surging floodwaters or trapped under debris from flood-triggered landslides.

    Search operations are still ongoing for the hundreds of people who remain missing after the disaster. In recent days, rescue teams have pulled multiple survivors from the debris more than a week after the floods struck: two Nepalese workers were extracted from a damaged hydropower plant on Friday, followed by a Chinese worker rescued alive on Saturday, giving hope to families still waiting for news of their relatives.

    Authorities have shifted the bulk of their rescue resources to 12 affected hydropower projects, where roughly 900 workers are still listed as missing, with an estimated 500 believed to be trapped inside construction tunnels under mountainside debris. Specialized rescue teams from four countries — China, India, South Korea, and the United States — have joined the search effort, combing through mangled infrastructure, collapsed debris piles, and remote tunnel networks in the hopes of finding more survivors more than two weeks after the disaster.

  • Rescuers search for people trapped in a New Delhi building collapse as death toll rises to 6

    Rescuers search for people trapped in a New Delhi building collapse as death toll rises to 6

    NEW DELHI – A devastating structural collapse has killed six people and left multiple others injured after a 55-year-old five-story boys’ hostel caved in Sunday evening in Satya Niketan, a crowded residential neighborhood adjacent to Delhi University’s main campus that is packed with private student housing. As of Monday, search and rescue teams had entered their second consecutive day combing through twisted metal, broken concrete and splintered wood, working to locate any additional people still trapped beneath the wreckage.

    Local law enforcement officers, firefighters, and specialist teams from India’s national disaster response force have been deployed to the scene, with heavy earthmoving equipment clearing large sections of debris and specially trained sniffer dogs helping rescuers pinpoint potential signs of life in the remaining rubble. Delhi Chief Minister Rekha Gupta confirmed to reporters on site Monday that 12 people have already been pulled alive from the collapsed structure, and that roughly 80 percent of the total debris has been cleared. Only the wreckage from the building’s basement still needs to be fully processed, she added. Six people have been confirmed dead, and six more have been treated for injuries sustained in the collapse, per official updates.

    Local residents told reporters the building was constructed more than half a century ago, and had been undergoing extensive renovation for several months before it reopened to student tenants in August. At the time of reopening, construction work was still incomplete on the structure, they said. Prakash Chand, a local resident, noted that construction workers were carrying out excavation work in the building’s basement when the structure suddenly collapsed.

    Preliminary official investigations have pointed to two key contributing factors that likely caused the collapse: prolonged water accumulation in the building’s basement, combined with the stress of ongoing repair work on the already weakened, aging structure. Gupta added that the tragedy has prompted the Delhi government to move forward with a new mandatory safety policy for public-facing buildings. Under the proposed new rules, all structures that host public activity including student hostels, nursing homes, and schools will be required to complete routine structural safety audits and obtain up-to-date safety certificates. Any building that fails to meet the new safety standards will be barred from allowing public access, Gupta emphasized.

    Structural collapses are a recurring, preventable public safety hazard across many regions of India, particularly during the annual June-to-September monsoon season. Heavy, prolonged rainfall during this period often seeps into the foundations of older, poorly maintained buildings, weakening their structural integrity over time and increasing the risk of sudden collapse.

  • Aftermath of fatal Amazon cargo plane crash at Miami airport

    Aftermath of fatal Amazon cargo plane crash at Miami airport

    A devastating aviation incident has left the Miami airport community reeling after a cargo plane operated for Amazon overran a runway during landing, erupted into flames, and claimed multiple lives in the process. Recently released on-site footage captures the grim aftermath of the crash, showing charred wreckage scattered across the ground beyond the runway threshold and emergency response teams working to secure the scene.

    Initial reports confirm the aircraft, which was carrying cargo for the e-commerce giant, failed to stop within the designated runway boundary during what was supposed to be a routine landing. The overrun pushed the plane off the paved runway surface, triggering an intense blaze that quickly engulfed the fuselage. Emergency crews from Miami-Dade Fire Rescue were dispatched to the scene within minutes, working to extinguish the fire and conduct search-and-recovery operations amid the smoldering debris.

    The crash has prompted an immediate investigation by the U.S. National Transportation Safety Board, which has dispatched a team of aviation investigators to examine all potential contributing factors, including weather conditions at the time of landing, aircraft maintenance records, and pilot operational decisions. Local airport operations were disrupted in the immediate aftermath, with multiple incoming and outgoing flights diverted to nearby airports while authorities cleared the crash site and secured the area.

    As details continue to emerge, the tragedy has drawn attention to the growing volume of air cargo traffic moving through major U.S. coastal airports, and ongoing conversations about runway safety infrastructure to prevent similar overrun incidents. At this stage, official statements confirm multiple fatalities, though the full list of victims has not yet been released as next-of-kin notifications remain ongoing.

  • New videos of man in 9/11 lawsuit reveal extremist links

    New videos of man in 9/11 lawsuit reveal extremist links

    Twenty-five years after the deadliest terrorist attack on U.S. soil that killed nearly 3,000 people, newly unsealed evidence in the ongoing lawsuit brought by 9/11 victims’ families has exposed explosive new details about long-buried connections between a central suspect, senior Saudi government figures, and future al-Qaeda leadership — along with repeated failures by the FBI to disclose critical evidence to investigators, prosecutors, and the official independent inquiry into the attacks.

    At the center of the $1 trillion civil suit is Omar al-Bayoumi, a Saudi national who moved to San Diego in 1994 claiming to be an English language student. Court records show Bayoumi quickly abandoned his studies to focus on organizing religious events, and his name was found on the apartment lease of two of the 19 9/11 hijackers, Nawaf al-Hazmi and Khalid al-Mihdhar, who crashed a plane into the Pentagon. For decades, Bayoumi has denied any ties to extremism or being a Saudi intelligence asset, claims that the newly public video evidence directly contradicts.

    The BBC has obtained and verified never-before-seen video footage that the FBI acquired within days of the September 11, 2001 attacks. One clip, filmed in January 1998, captures Bayoumi embracing Anwar al-Awlaki, who would later rise to become the leader of al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula before being killed in a 2011 CIA drone strike. A second video, recorded between 1997 and 1998 near San Diego, shows Bayoumi, Awlaki, and an official from Saudi Arabia’s Ministry of Islamic Affairs participating in a military-style paintball exercise. Participants are seen wearing military fatiguges, practicing urban combat drills, and shouting “Allahu Akbar” during simulated charges, with Bayoumi addressing Awlaki with the honorific title “Sheikh Anwar.”

    Additional footage also documents multiple private meetings between Bayoumi and Ministry of Islamic Affairs officials, including a public outing at SeaWorld where Bayoumi explicitly positioned himself to be recorded alongside the Saudi representatives. Established in 1993, the Ministry was long known to be dominated by hard-line Sunni clerics who exported radical Islamist ideology globally, spending hundreds of millions of dollars to build mosques and place ideological operatives across the United States.

    The explosive video evidence is not the only suppressed piece of evidence unearthed by the BBC’s joint investigation with Panorama and Radio 4, which reviewed thousands of declassified documents, court records, and interviewed dozens of former FBI agents and investigators involved in the case. When British Metropolitan Police arrested Bayoumi at his home in Birmingham, UK, just 10 days after the 9/11 attacks, officers seized more than 80 videotapes, thousands of pages of documents, and a handwritten diagram of an airplane accompanied by a mathematical descent equation written in Bayoumi’s own handwriting. Legal representatives for the 9/11 families describe the diagram as the long-sought “smoking gun” that proves Bayoumi had prior knowledge of the attack plot: the handwritten numbers calculate the altitude and distance required for a pilot to crash a plane into a fixed ground target. A federal judge overseeing the lawsuit ruled in 2023 that the document, on its face, connects Bayoumi to advance knowledge of the 9/11 attacks. Bayoumi claimed in 2021 court testimony that he collected random equations and could not recall writing the diagram.

    Within 48 hours of the seizure, copies of the plane diagram were delivered to the FBI’s liaison at the London police station where Bayoumi was being held, and passed between three senior FBI agents. Yet the British detectives interrogating Bayoumi were never informed of the diagram’s existence, nor were they briefed to question him about the paintball video or his ties to Awlaki. When Bayoumi’s seven-day detention window expired, U.S. Department of Justice officials rejected British investigators’ recommendation to extradite Bayoumi to the U.S. to face charges, claiming there was insufficient evidence — even though the critical evidence had been intentionally withheld from the prosecution team. Bayoumi was released in September 2001, and he has never been prosecuted.

    Multiple FBI agents interviewed by the BBC confirmed a pattern of deliberate evidence suppression spanning field offices. The diagram was couriered to the FBI’s New York field office, the lead agency for the 9/11 investigation, but no formal analysis report has ever been uncovered. Only one reference to the diagram exists in declassified FBI files, created 11 years after it was seized. The San Diego FBI field office, which was actively investigating Bayoumi’s local activities including his ties to the hijackers, repeatedly requested copies of all evidence seized in Birmingham but never received most of the materials. Rick Lambert, who led the San Diego 9/11 investigation, told the BBC that New York refused to comply with repeated requests, and that early access to the evidence could have allowed investigators to uncover the full plot network much faster.

    The paintball video faced a similar fate: a copy was sent to New York and viewed by agents, but it was never mentioned in official summaries of Bayoumi’s connections to extremism, and his long-standing relationship with Awlaki was omitted from all internal 2002 FBI and DOJ memos that otherwise noted Bayoumi’s anti-American and jihadist writings. Jeffrey Breinholt, former deputy director of counterterrorism at the Department of Justice who oversaw post-9/11 terrorism prosecutions, told the BBC that Bayoumi was initially identified as a high-priority candidate for charges, but the New York U.S. Attorney’s Office never submitted a prosecution proposal for approval. Breinholt noted that both the plane diagram and paintball video would have been more than enough evidence to secure a conviction on material support for terrorism charges, adding “we’ve convicted people for less.”

    Investigators also faced explicit political roadblocks when trying to question Saudi officials connected to Bayoumi. In 2001, Lambert’s San Diego team requested permission to interview multiple Saudi Ministry of Islamic Affairs officials in the U.S. whom they suspected of coordinating Bayoumi’s support to the hijackers. Permission was denied by FBI headquarters and the U.S. State Department. The following year, the Los Angeles FBI field office faced the same block when requesting to interview a Saudi religious diplomat who met Bayoumi immediately after his first meeting with Hazmi and Mihdhar. The State Department declined to comment on the BBC’s inquiry.

    The pattern of suppression extended to the 9/11 Commission, the independent congressional inquiry tasked with producing a full public account of the attacks. When the Commission interviewed Bayoumi in Riyadh in 2003, he had returned to Saudi Arabia following his release, and the interview was held in the presence of Saudi secret police, who later explicitly requested that Bayoumi be cleared of any wrongdoing. The final 2004 Commission report effectively exonerated Bayoumi, describing him as “obliging and gregarious” and concluding there was no evidence of extremist ties. But the BBC has confirmed that multiple Commission staff objected to the conclusion that Bayoumi was “unlikely” to have ties to Islamist extremists, and the final report was revised to attribute the claim only to “our investigators who have dealt directly with him.” Critically, the Commission was never given access to the plane diagram, the paintball video, or any of the other evidence seized by British police. Commission executive director Philip Zelikow declined to answer specific questions about the suppressed evidence, noting that the Commission’s findings had been reviewed twice by U.S. government bodies and that the panel was open about its uncertainties.

    The unsealed evidence comes as the long-running civil lawsuit brought by 9/11 families against the Saudi government moves forward, after a 2018 court ruling allowed the case to proceed and a 2021 executive order from former President Joe Biden ordered the declassification of thousands of 9/11 investigation files. Bayoumi and the Saudi government have never responded to the BBC’s requests for comment, and both have repeatedly denied any involvement in or prior knowledge of the 9/11 attacks, calling all allegations of complicity categorically false. The FBI has also declined to comment on the BBC’s findings, while the DOJ said it could not comment on 25-year-old decisions involving staff who no longer work at the agency.

  • Indonesia volcano eruption leaves 270,000 stranded as airports extend closure

    Indonesia volcano eruption leaves 270,000 stranded as airports extend closure

    A powerful eruption of Indonesia’s iconic Anak Krakatau volcano has triggered widespread travel chaos across the archipelago, leaving more than 270,000 passengers stranded after more than 2,000 flights were grounded and key airports extended shutdowns into a second consecutive day.

    The eruption, which began late Friday in the Sunda Strait roughly 150 kilometers southwest of Jakarta, has sent towering lava fountains streaming into the sky and plumes of volcanic ash drifting across heavily populated regions including the national capital and Lampung province. Seismic activity remained elevated and unstable throughout the weekend, with the most recent outburst recorded at 20:23 local time on Sunday, according to Indonesian geological authorities.

    By Monday, Jakarta’s Soekarno-Hatta International Airport—one of the busiest air hubs in Southeast Asia—and three additional affected airports announced extensions to their temporary closures until 18:00 local time Monday, after continuous monitoring detected unsafe levels of volcanic ash in surrounding airspace. Volcanic plumes reached altitudes of up to 6,000 meters on the Java side of the volcano and as high as 15,000 meters over Sumatra, according to Indonesia’s meteorological agency BMKG, with ash also falling across parts of Banten, Java’s westernmost province.

    The disruption has rippled across daily life in the region: local schools shifted all classes to remote learning, and commercial shipping operations through the busy Sunda Strait have also faced major interruptions. Long, snaking queues formed in departure halls at Soekarno-Hatta on Monday as stranded travelers crowded service desks to seek ticket refunds, rebookings, and updated information on rescheduled flights.

    For many travelers, the extended shutdown has turned routine or celebratory trips into stressful ordeals. A newlywed Malaysian couple, who just finished a week-long honeymoon in Bali, told reporters they face a five-day wait until their next available flight back to Kuala Lumpur, scheduled for September 11. “We only prepared enough money for our honeymoon and were supposed to go home yesterday,” 29-year-old Amir Hamzah told Malaysia’s national news agency Bernama. “We thought we would just sleep at the airport for a few hours and then take the morning flight home on Monday. We never thought we would end up being stuck here for days.”

    Other stranded passengers have adopted a resigned outlook amid the unpredictable natural event. “This is nature, after all. So I have to accept it, because when it comes to nature, there’s no choice. Now I’m just waiting for the next update from the airline,” 58-year-old business traveler Suhardi, who was due to travel from Jakarta to Lampung for work, told Reuters.

    Indonesia’s Geological Agency has issued a stark warning that the risk of additional large eruptions in the coming days remains high, while authorities have established a 3-kilometer exclusion zone around the active crater, barring all land access to the area and prohibiting commercial ships from passing through the restricted maritime zone around the volcano. In a reassuring update, however, officials confirmed there is no current tsunami warning linked to the volcano’s recent activity.

    Indonesia’s Transport Minister Dudy Purwagandhi noted that authorities cannot yet predict when the closures will end, due to the highly dynamic and shifting volcanic activity and weather patterns. “We cannot ascertain when this will end due to the dynamic weather,” he said, adding that air quality and ash spread monitoring is being conducted every 30 minutes across affected airport zones to track whether ash plumes are expanding or receding.

    Anak Krakatau—meaning “Child of Krakatoa”—rose from the sea in the early 1900s, forming in the massive caldera left by the catastrophic 1883 eruption of the original Mount Krakatoa, one of the most destructive volcanic events in recorded history. The volcano has seen sporadic activity for more than a century, but a major 2018 collapse triggered a massive tsunami that killed more than 400 people and displaced and injured thousands across coastal areas of Java and Sumatra.

    Indonesia sits along the Pacific Ring of Fire, a 40,000-kilometer horseshoe of tectonic activity that wraps around the Pacific Ocean basin. Roughly 90% of the world’s earthquakes and 75% of all active volcanoes on Earth—totaling 452 active volcanic systems—are located along the ring, making the country one of the most geologically active nations on the planet.

  • When lunch is the main event, here’s a ‘Greek Out’ take on halibut and halloumi skewers

    When lunch is the main event, here’s a ‘Greek Out’ take on halibut and halloumi skewers

    What does the term “main dish” actually mean? For most people across the globe, the phrase immediately brings to mind a formal evening dinner, typically following the rigid formula of meat paired with a starch side and a vegetable portion. This common assumption makes perfect sense: for millions of households, dinner is the largest, most structured meal of the day. But for Greek recipe creator Maria Koutsogiannis, author of the new cookbook *Greek Out*, a main dish is far less about a set structure and far more about a feeling that fits how you grew up eating. And for Koutsogiannis, that means the biggest meal of the day has always been lunch – and main dishes don’t have to be reserved for the dinner table at all.

    In an excerpt from her upcoming 2026 cookbook, Koutsogiannis shares one of her signature creative main dishes: handheld grilled skewers that pair flaky wild halibut with salty halloumi, sweet dried dates and fresh figs, balanced with warm aromatic spices. Designed to work as a hearty main for four people or a shareable appetizer for a crowd of 10, this dish brings together an unexpectedly harmonious blend of textures and flavors: chewy sourdough, creamy cheese, tender juicy fish, and layered notes of sweet, salty, and warm spice all in one portable bite.

    Many Greek recipes gravitate toward graviera for firm, salty grating and grilling cheese, but Koutsogiannis makes a deliberate swap for halloumi here. The choice is a practical one: halloumi holds its shape perfectly on the grill without melting or turning mushy, and its bold saltiness stands up beautifully to the mild, tender halibut for a balanced bite. The simple prep process starts with seasoning the fish: cubed 1-inch chunks of skinless wild halibut get coated in a dry rub of lemon zest, ground sumac, garlic powder, onion powder, kosher salt, black pepper, and just a hint of warm cinnamon, tossed with a splash of extra-virgin olive oil. Cubed sourdough, 1-inch chunks of halloumi, halved fresh figs, and pitted Medjool dates get a light toss in olive oil as well, before being threaded onto pre-soaked wooden skewers in repeating order: bread, halloumi, halibut, fig, and date, to create 10 complete skewers.

    The skewers are grilled over medium heat (around 400°F or 200°C) until each side develops deep caramelized char marks, with a total grilling time of 8 to 12 minutes to ensure the halibut cooks through and flakes easily. Once pulled off the grill, a quick drizzle of hot or regular honey, a squeeze of fresh lemon, and a sprinkle of bright mint leaves finish the dish. For an extra punch of garlicky creaminess, Koutsogiannis recommends serving with store-bought toum, a creamy garlic spread.

    Koutsogiannis is no newcomer to Greek cooking: the CEO and creator of the popular recipe platform FoodByMaria grew up working in her parents’ Greek diner and spent every summer traveling through Greece, building a deep foundation of traditional Greek food knowledge that she reimagines for modern home cooks. She now shares her approach with a community of nearly 4 million followers across social and digital platforms, splitting her time between New York City and Calgary, Alberta. This excerpt is printed with permission from Voracious, an imprint of Little, Brown and Company, with all content copyrighted 2026 by Maria Koutsogiannis.

  • Europe wrestles with impact of historic regional gains for Germany’s AfD

    Europe wrestles with impact of historic regional gains for Germany’s AfD

    On Sunday, the anti-immigration hard-right nationalist party Alternative for Germany (AfD) secured a historic breakthrough victory in regional elections in Germany’s eastern state of Saxony-Anhalt, sending immediate political tremors across Berlin, Brussels, and beyond. Political analysts and major media outlets have already framed the outcome as a seismic shift, a socio-political earthquake, and a defining watershed moment for modern German politics — a description that, despite the state’s small geographic and demographic size, proves anything but exaggerated.

    Saxony-Anhalt, one of Germany’s 16 federal states, counts only 1.7 million eligible voters out of the country’s total 59 million, and the AfD fell just short of an outright parliamentary majority. Still, the implications of the result stretch far beyond this small, economically struggling eastern region, touching every level of German and European politics.

    Domestically, the landslide result amplifies pressure on Germany’s already embattled centrist federal coalition in Berlin, and may well spell the political end for unpopular conservative Chancellor Friedrich Merz, who staked his political credibility on curbing the AfD’s growing support. This domestic political upheaval comes at a particularly precarious moment for the European Union, as the bloc confronts Russian military aggression in Ukraine, aggressive trade pressure from former U.S. President Donald Trump, and growing economic competition from China — and as Germany, the EU’s largest and most economically powerful member, finds itself increasingly weakened and distracted by internal strife.

    Most notably, the result marks the first major electoral landslide for a hard-right nationalist party in Germany since the collapse of the Third Reich in 1945, forcing a national reckoning with a country’s still-lingering legacy of Nazi extremism. German federal authorities have already formally classified parts of the AfD as anti-democratic, and the Saxony-Anhalt regional faction is explicitly labeled a far-right extremist extremist group. Long a dominant political force in eastern Germany, the AfD now stands as the most popular political party in national polling, a clear sign that Germany’s traditional mainstream political establishment has failed to address voter grievances.

    The shockwaves of the Saxony-Anhalt result have already reached across international borders. Within hours of exit polls being published, former U.S. President Donald Trump shared the result on his Truth Social platform, aligning the AfD’s nationalist, anti-immigration, “Germany for Germans” platform with his own “Make America Great Again” movement. Like many other European nationalist parties, the AfD has adopted core elements of Trump’s political playbook: attacking the credibility of mainstream media, questioning judicial neutrality, and promising to “make Germany great again.”

    Shortly after Trump’s post, Kirill Dmitriev, head of the Russian Direct Investment Fund and a close ally of Vladimir Putin, hailed the outcome as “historic,” dismissing Germany’s sitting national government as “discredited” and Chancellor Merz as “humiliated.” Dmitriev’s comments are no coincidence: Germany is the largest single military donor to Ukraine, and the AfD has openly pushed to end Western military aid to Kyiv, lift sanctions on Russia, and resume imports of cheap Russian energy — a policy that holds particular appeal for energy-hungry German industrial firms that suffered massive economic losses after Russia cut energy exports following the 2022 full-scale invasion of Ukraine. For voters in Saxony-Anhalt, Germany’s poorest region which still lags far behind western German states despite trillions of euros in integration spending since the fall of the Berlin Wall, the AfD’s pro-Russia stance and appeals to “Ostalgie” — nostalgia for the relative stability of communist East Germany — have resonated deeply.

    Across the European Union, the result has sparked widespread alarm, as the bloc prepares for a year of critical national elections across key member states including France, Italy, Spain, and Poland. EU leaders fear that the AfD’s victory will embolden far-right nationalist parties across the continent, a concern echoed by political actors on both sides of the debate. Santiago Abascal, leader of Spain’s nationalist Vox party, hailed the outcome as “a great hope for Germany and for Europe,” while French Europe Minister Benjamin Haddad, a close ally of centrist President Emmanuel Macron, warned that “this is a serious moment in Europe, seeing the far right win in a regional election in Germany.”

    While far-right parties across Europe differ in tone and policy — Marine Le Pen’s National Rally in France expelled the AfD from its European Parliament grouping two years ago for being overly radical — they share core anti-immigration and nationalist policy platforms that directly challenge the EU’s founding principles of cross-border unity and integration. Brussels fears that the rise of Eurosceptic nationalist parties will fracture European cohesion at a moment when unified action is more critical than ever, from countering Trump’s trade threats to checking China’s economic expansion to maintaining unified sanctions against Russia.

    European defense officials warn that softening stances on sanctions against Russia and wavering support for NATO collective defense — positions held by the AfD and many other European nationalist parties — only embolden Moscow, increasing the risk that the Kremlin could eventually launch attacks on NATO Baltic member states if left unchecked.

    At its core, the Saxony-Anhalt result is a stark warning to Europe’s traditional mainstream political parties and establishment institutions, which the AfD dismisses as a self-interested elite disconnected from ordinary voters. Across the continent, millions of voters report feeling let down by decades of leadership from traditional parties, grappling with growing anxieties over economic insecurity, crumbling public services, uncontrolled immigration, street safety, and the spillover effects of ongoing wars in Ukraine and the Middle East. The growing willingness of voters to support the AfD, which has never held national governing power and ran on the upbeat slogan “Anything is Possible” paired with a promise to restore national pride, does not mean they have all embraced extremism — it means they are ready to try something new.