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  • Nigeria and Kenya Ebola patients may have crossed paths at Uganda airport, officials say

    Nigeria and Kenya Ebola patients may have crossed paths at Uganda airport, officials say

    Public health officials across Africa are working urgently to unpack a critical question: could two separate Ebola infections in Nigeria and Kenya be traced to a shared exposure event at Uganda’s busiest international airport earlier this month?

    The Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (Africa CDC) confirmed Thursday that both patients transited through Entebbe International Airport on October 3, prompting investigators to examine whether viral transmission occurred via shared airport equipment, overlapping movement in terminal spaces, or indirect contact between the two individuals. Dr. Wessam Mankoula, head of emergency preparedness and response at Africa CDC, noted this cross-path exposure remains one of the most plausible working scenarios, but emphasized no definitive connection between the two cases has been confirmed to date.

    The current situation marks a concerning milestone for regional health security: Nigeria is facing its first confirmed Ebola case in over a decade, while Kenya has already logged nine infections and one death linked to the ongoing outbreak originating in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).

    Detailed case accounts have emerged from global and local health authorities. The Nigerian patient is a 42-year-old Ugandan-born woman who resides in Abuja, married to a Swiss diplomat posted to Nigeria, the Swiss foreign ministry confirmed to Reuters. She traveled to Uganda for approximately two and a half weeks, transiting Addis Ababa, Ethiopia for a two-hour stopover before returning to Nigeria on October 3. Four days after arriving in Abuja, she developed characteristic Ebola symptoms, sought care at two private medical facilities, and received a positive test result on October 20. Her husband, who accompanied her on the Uganda trip, remains in isolation with no reported symptoms as of the latest updates, and the World Health Organization (WHO) says the patient is showing steady improvement while receiving targeted care in isolation.

    The Kenyan patient, a man who traveled from the DRC through Uganda before arriving in Nairobi on the same October 3 date, later succumbed to the virus, becoming Kenya’s first recorded Ebola death in this outbreak. While both travelers passed through Entebbe on the same day, investigators have not yet confirmed whether they encountered one another, used the same airport facilities, or had any form of direct or indirect contact. Beyond the airport link, the investigation is also exploring whether both infections can be traced to a single common source outside the airport.

    To date, the exact location of the Nigerian patient’s exposure remains unconfirmed. “The source of exposure is still not known. The travel history of the patient is still being pieced together,” explained Dr. Patrick Otim, a WHO emergency response official. He added that investigators have faced challenges building a full timeline of her movements, as access for interviews has been limited while she receives inpatient care.

    Nigeria’s Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) has prioritized genomic sequencing of the virus sample from the patient, a step that will help scientists determine whether her infection is genetically linked to the ongoing DRC outbreak and the Kenyan cases. “The investigation is reconstructing the full travel and exposure history. Genomic sequencing is given a high priority,” noted Dr. Pavel Ursu, WHO’s representative in Nigeria. While Ugandan officials have previously stated the woman traveled to eastern DRC for business, the epicenter of the current outbreak, WHO, Africa CDC and Nigeria’s health ministry say they have not received verified confirmation of that trip. Ugandan health authorities have repeatedly stressed the country has no confirmed active Ebola cases, and the woman’s transit through the country does not automatically mean she contracted the virus there.

    As the investigation progresses, Nigerian officials have expanded contact tracing efforts beyond the initial 44 people identified as potentially exposed. Mankoula told reporters most of the newly identified exposed individuals are healthcare workers who treated the patient at the two private facilities she visited before her positive test, with a small number of family contacts also added to monitoring lists. Nigerian authorities are currently isolating all high-risk contacts, though Mankoula declined to release an updated total count of monitored contacts ahead of an official government statement. Dr. Ursu confirmed the patient continues to receive high-quality clinical care and her condition remains stable.

    In Kenya, public health authorities are approaching a key milestone this weekend: the first group of quarantined people who may have been exposed to Ebola will be allowed to return to their homes Sunday after completing a 21-day monitoring period with no symptom development. Kenya’s Health Director-General Dr. Patrick Amoth confirmed all nine confirmed infections in the country are directly linked to the index patient who died, with no evidence of sustained community spread detected so far. Even so, he warned “we are not out of the woods,” urging the public to maintain vigilance against the virus without unnecessary panic. The eight remaining confirmed Kenyan cases remain in isolation and are responding well to treatment, he added.

    These cross-border cases have renewed longstanding concerns about Ebola spread across porous African borders, particularly between the DRC and Uganda, where thousands of people cross the shared border every day for trade, work, and family visits. Dr. Otim noted the border is long and poorly secured, with many unofficial crossing points that make comprehensive screening of all travelers impossible. The WHO’s Africa regional director Dr. Mohamed Janabi has called for coordinated “regional vigilance” to counter the outbreak, urging all neighboring countries to strengthen routine disease surveillance, speed up investigation of suspected cases, and prioritize protection for frontline healthcare workers who face the highest exposure risk.

    As a reminder for the public, Ebola is a severe viral pathogen that spreads through direct contact with an infected person’s blood or other bodily fluids, or through contact with contaminated surfaces or equipment. It does not spread through airborne transmission like influenza or the common cold. Symptoms include high fever, extreme muscle weakness, vomiting and diarrhea, and the disease can be fatal in a high share of cases if left untreated. Importantly, infected people are not contagious before they develop symptoms. Global health authorities emphasize that rapid contact tracing, immediate isolation of suspected cases, and early clinical intervention are the most critical steps to prevent large-scale secondary transmission.

  • First Arab-American mayor to endorse Trump becomes adviser to president

    First Arab-American mayor to endorse Trump becomes adviser to president

    Former Hamtramck, Michigan mayor Amer Ghalib, who made history as the first Arab and Muslim-American elected official to endorse Donald Trump’s 2024 presidential campaign, has now accepted an appointment as Trump’s special envoy and advisor on Arab-American affairs.

    Ghalib made the announcement public via his Facebook account late Wednesday local time, from Washington DC. In his social media post, he wrote: “I would like to express my sincere gratitude to President Trump for appointing me as his Envoy and Advisor for Arab American Affairs, and for his continued trust and support.” He added, “While I cannot promise to resolve every challenge facing Arab Americans across the United States, I can promise to be a strong and dedicated voice for Arab American communities in the White House, ensuring that their concerns are heard and their perspectives are represented.”

    Currently, Ghalib serves as a senior advisor for strategic partnerships at AmeriCorps, the federal agency focused on expanding civic engagement across the U.S. He stepped into this role after Senate Republicans blocked his earlier nomination, which was a reward for his 2024 endorsement: the position of U.S. Ambassador to Kuwait, a key U.S. ally that hosts multiple American military installations.

    Ghalib’s public criticism of Israel and past social media comments from his time as a private citizen became the primary roadblock to his Senate confirmation, with the staunchly pro-Israel Anti-Defamation League and several right-wing news outlets amplifying those comments to turn opposition against him. Middle East Eye reached out to the White House for official comment on Ghalib’s new appointment but received no response prior to publication.

    Speaking with MEE from Michigan on Thursday, Ghalib declined to outline formal parameters for the new role, but confirmed it is not a full-time position. He explained that he will “meet the president and White House staff as needed to discuss our concerns,” and emphasized that “the president granted me direct access to him whenever I need and that’s what matters the most.” Ghalib also noted that this specific advisory position “never existed in any previous administration.”

    A physician who entered politics in 2021, when he took leadership of the first all-Muslim city council in the Detroit suburb, Yemeni-born Ghalib upended the 2024 presidential race with his early endorsement of Trump. This endorsement came even though Trump’s first presidential term was marked by the controversial Muslim travel ban and unwavering close ties to former Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, during which Trump unilaterally recognized all of Jerusalem and the Golan Heights as Israeli territory.

    By late October 2024, driven by the “Arab Americans for Trump” movement and widespread anger over President Joe Biden’s handling of Israel’s military assault on Gaza, many Arab and Muslim majority neighborhoods in Michigan began shifting their support from the Democratic Party to Trump and the Republicans. During the campaign, Trump ran on a platform promising to end foreign wars and made a point to visit Dearborn, Michigan’s hub for Arab-American communities, while his Democratic opponent Kamala Harris declined to do so.

    Since Trump took office for his second term, however, he has only overseen a superficial temporary ceasefire in Gaza and has joined Israel in the widely unpopular conflict against Iran. Domestically, multiple sources told MEE that the political environment for Arab and Muslim communities in the U.S. is now worse than it was in the years immediately following the 9/11 attacks. This comes as congressional and White House Republicans, including President Trump himself, have amplified anti-Palestinian and anti-Muslim rhetoric, even as progressive Muslim political figures such as New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani and Michigan Democratic Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed have risen in prominence.

    Ghalib told MEE that during his most recent 45-minute one-on-one meeting with President Trump, he opened the discussion by addressing immigration policy, the need to build stronger connections between the White House and Arab-American communities, and the urgency of reining in hate speech from extremist groups. In a follow-up text exchange with MEE, Ghalib said: “I found an opportunity to continue having direct access to the president so I can deliver the people’s concerns to him and try to get them addressed. It’s going to add more work and more stress to me, but I’m willing to go through it – perhaps I can help and continue to be the voice of our community in the White House.”

    Middle East Eye provides independent, in-depth coverage and analysis of the Middle East, North Africa and surrounding regions. For information on republishing this content and associated licensing fees, please visit the contact form on their official website.

  • Failed attack on Illinois temple spotlights anti‑Hindu hate in US

    Failed attack on Illinois temple spotlights anti‑Hindu hate in US

    On the first day of Navaratri, the nine-night Hindu festival honoring the divine feminine, hundreds of worshippers had gathered at the Sri Venkateswara Swami Temple in Aurora, Illinois, in October 2026 when a potentially catastrophic attack was derailed only by chance and an alert tip. According to prosecutors, 19-year-old suspect arrived at the temple armed with a rifle and full body armor, ready to carry out a mass shooting. What stopped the massacre was a mechanical malfunction that jammed his weapon, paired with a warning from the suspect’s co-worker who had learned of his violent plans. A search of the suspect’s belongings uncovered a manifesto filled with virulent white supremacist ideology, prompting bipartisan demands for federal authorities to probe the plot as a hate crime.

    In a joint letter addressed to the FBI and U.S. Department of Justice, Democratic Congressman Ro Khanna and Republican Congressman Rich McCormick emphasized that this planned attack did not arise out of a vacuum. They warned that the attempted attack is tied to a measurable, nationwide surge in hostility targeting both Hindu Americans and the broader Indian American community. Data from a 2026 Carnegie Endowment survey backs this claim: one in four Indian American adults reported being targeted with racial, ethnic, or religious slurs in the 18 months since January 2025.

    Scholars of religious studies argue that this growing animosity stems from two deeply intertwined sources: anti-Indian racial prejudice and anti-Hindu religious bigotry rooted in decades of American cultural bias and modern Christian nationalist ideology. This overlap has been visible in high-profile public incidents in recent months. In September 2026, a Texas Republican candidate for state office, Bo French, posted a viral photograph from a University of Texas at Austin football game, centered on a group of Indian American students, and claimed that “the problem is now obviously far worse than anyone imagined.” Though French did not explicitly reference religion in his post, the resulting wave of social media responses quickly turned to calls for violence against Indian people and threats to desecrate Hindu temples.

    This pattern of religious bigotry targeting Hindu worship, framed through the lens of Christian nationalism, has been building for years. In September 2025, a Republican U.S. Senate candidate in Texas, Alexander Duncan, publicly condemned the installation of a large statue of the Hindu deity Hanuman in Sugar Land, Texas, asking, “Why are we allowing a false statue of a false Hindu god to be here in Texas? We are a Christian nation!” The post was viewed more than six million times. Just a year later, prominent pastor Dale Partridge shared an image of the iconic Swaminarayan Akshardham Temple in New Jersey, writing that America’s 18th-century Christian founding fathers would have “this demon temple leveled in 24 hours.”

    A September 2026 report from the Center for the Study of Organized Hate confirms that this type of rhetoric is widespread across major online platforms. The report documents that Hindus have been specifically targeted for religiously motivated attacks, with routine social media posts labeling Hindu devotees as “demon worshippers,” mocking Hindu deities, and openly calling for temples to be destroyed and replaced with what posters frame as “American” religious monuments. These posts consistently frame Hindu worship as inherently incompatible with American Christian identity, a core tenet of Christian nationalism—the belief that the United States was founded to be an explicitly Christian nation. Sociological research from Andrew Whitehead and Samuel Perry shows that as of 2017, nearly one-third of all U.S. adults support the federal government formally declaring the country a Christian nation.

    Religious scholars trace this anti-Hindu prejudice back nearly 200 years in American culture. As religious studies scholar Michael Altman explains, the claim that Hindus worship false gods and idols became entrenched in mainstream American national culture in the 19th century, when Protestant-influenced school textbooks categorized global religions into “true” and “false” faiths, framing Hindu idolatry as evidence of inherent moral decay. In the early 20th century, even as some white Americans embraced detached ideas from Hindu thought such as yoga, they framed these practices as universal spirituality rather than Hinduism, while immigration laws barred most Asian immigration and kept actual Hindu people out of the country. After the 1965 Immigration and Nationality Act opened borders to Asian immigrants, the Hindu American population grew to more than one million by 2000, according to estimates from religion scholar Diana Eck. As Hindu communities began building public temples across the country starting in the 1970s, they faced immediate, sustained hostility: in 1983, attackers desecrated a temple outside Pittsburgh, smashing sacred murtis (consecrated sacred images that Hindus believe hold the presence of the divine) and scrawled “Leave” on the altar; in the early 1990s, vandals painted “Get out Hindoos” on a future temple site in New Jersey.

    This animosity continued into the 21st century, reinforced by popular cultural depictions that frame Hinduism as sinister. Religious studies scholar Sailaja Krishnamurti points to the 1984 film *Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom*, which depicted Hindus carrying out ritual human sacrifice, and influential televangelists such as Pat Robertson, who publicly labeled Hinduism “demonic.” These distorted depictions have translated into real-world violence: in 2019, a vandal defaced Hindu deity images with anti-Hindu, pro-Christian graffiti.

    What makes modern anti-Hindu hate particularly insidious, scholars argue, is the way it blends racial and religious prejudice into a single, overlooked form of discrimination—a dynamic education scholar Khyati Joshi terms the “racialization of religion.” In a society where white identity and Christian faith have long been treated as the unspoken American norm, brown skin is automatically associated with a foreign, “other” faith, leading authorities and the public to often miss the explicitly religious dimension of this discrimination. The Aurora plot illustrates this dynamic perfectly: while the suspect’s manifesto framed his hatred in racial terms, labeling Indians, Black people, Jewish people and other marginalized groups as “sub-human,” law enforcement confirmed he specifically sought out a large Hindu temple as his target. Joshi points to the 1980s New Jersey gang the Dotbusters as a historical example: while media framed their brutal attacks on Indian Americans as purely racial violence, the gang’s name explicitly referenced the bindi worn by Hindu women, exposing the religious core of their bigotry.

    U.S. Representative Raja Krishnamoorthi, who was at the Aurora temple with his family on the day of the attempted attack, told an emotional press conference that the suspect was radicalized entirely online, saying “he was radicalized by social media until he told a coworker he could not wait ‘to kill Indians.’” Data from Stop AAPI Hate, a national coalition tracking anti-Asian discrimination, shows this pattern is widespread: 71% of all online violent threats targeting Asian American communities are directed at South Asians, with the most common narrative framing South Asians as an “invading” group that threatens American culture.

    Academic research has repeatedly documented that online hate speech directly leads to offline violence, and policy experts say addressing this growing crisis requires coordinated action from major social media platforms to enforce accountability for hate speech. After the foiled Aurora attack, Hindu American communities are increasingly calling for public recognition of the dual racial and religious nature of the hate they face, demanding action to push back against rising bigotry before another attack succeeds.

    This analysis is written by Arun Brahmbhatt, assistant professor of religion at Syracuse University.

  • Pro-Israel lobbying group Aipac ends endorsements, direct funding to US candidates

    Pro-Israel lobbying group Aipac ends endorsements, direct funding to US candidates

    Against a backdrop of rapidly shifting public opinion in the United States toward Israel, the nation’s most influential pro-Israel lobbying entity has announced a major restructuring of its political playbook, ending its longstanding practice of public candidate endorsements and direct financial contributions to electoral hopefuls.

    The American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) laid out the new approach in a mass email to supporters Wednesday, framing the shift as a strategic adjustment to align with the evolving political landscape. The organization will move toward a less publicly visible operating model to continue backing pro-Israel candidates from both major U.S. political parties.

    “To win the fight for the future of the country and the US-Israel alliance, we must build a more strategic, consequential, and nimble political operation,” the organization’s statement read.

    Under the revised framework, AIPAC will prioritize expanding direct, coordinated donations from individual American supporters to candidates, while leaning into newly emerging political fundraising tools. Public endorsements, direct contributions from AIPAC’s political action committee (PAC), and earmarked funding will be eliminated from the group’s strategy to make room for scaled individual giving and innovative campaign tools.

    As a registered PAC, AIPAC is legally capped at $5,000 in direct contributions per candidate per election cycle. By contrast, independent super PACs face no limits on outside spending, which can heavily sway the outcome of electoral contests.

    AIPAC already operates a well-funded super PAC, the United Democracy Project (UDP), which is exclusively focused on advancing pro-Israel policy goals and ranks among the top spenders in U.S. federal elections. UDP has already poured more than $60 million into influencing the 2024 midterm election cycle, and its independent spending will continue uninterrupted under the new strategy, as it does not qualify as direct candidate contribution. In past cycles, AIPAC has also used so-called “shell PACs” to aggregate funds that are later transferred to UDP before the shell entities are dissolved.

    “We believe this approach positions us to capitalize on new innovations and deliver even greater political impact to influence policy,” AIPAC’s statement added. “We will focus our time and resources on what is most effective — disciplined, organized giving directly to candidates by individual Americans — and on the ability to adapt quickly in an ever-changing changing environment.”

    The strategic overhaul comes three years into the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza, amid rising global backlash against Israel’s military campaign and a growing split in traditional U.S. pro-Israel consensus. Even the American right, long a stalwart backer of Israel through the lens of Evangelical Christian ideology, has increasingly begun questioning the massive flow of U.S. foreign aid to Israel, as the country remains the top recipient of U.S. assistance worldwide.

    The shift in opinion comes ahead of the November 3 U.S. midterm elections, where soaring cost of living has emerged as the dominant issue on the campaign trail. After Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s years-long push to convince the U.S. to declare war on Iran culminated in a formal U.S. escalation, former President Donald Trump’s base has openly broken ranks on the issue. Some of the most vocal critics of unchecked pro-Israel policy today are pro-Trump Republicans, including high-profile names like former talk show host Tucker Carlson, far-right commentator Nick Fuentes, and former Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene.

    Repeated public opinion polling confirms that unfavorable views of Israel have grown steadily across all segments of the U.S. public. Within the Democratic Party, even potential 2028 presidential candidates have begun publicly distancing themselves from AIPAC, even as many retain formal support for Israel.

    This growing transparency around AIPAC’s influence has been driven in large part by the work of AIPAC Tracker, a independent project that publishes detailed data on how much funding candidates receive to advance Israeli policy priorities.

    Still, Waleed Shahid, a former spokesperson for progressive PAC Justice Democrats, noted on social media platform X Wednesday that the political slogan “reject AIPAC money” will carry far less practical weight moving forward. This is because direct AIPAC contributions amounted to only around $3 million in the current cycle, compared to the $90 million donated by AIPAC’s individual members.

    Progressive Palestinian rights advocates, who have seen unprecedented electoral success in recent cycles despite starting as longshot underdogs, have long run without pro-Israel financial support. New York City Councilmember Zohran Mamdani and Michigan Democratic Senate candidate Abdul el-Sayed are two high-profile examples of candidates who have advanced progressive, pro-Palestine platforms without AIPAC backing.

    Leading Senate progressive Bernie Sanders amplified opposition to AIPAC in a post on X Thursday, writing: “AIPAC is now spending as much as $9 million against Abdul El-Sayed. AIPAC is why we’re at war in Iran. AIPAC is why the US has supported genocide in Gaza. We must say NO to AIPAC. YES to electing Abdul as Michigan’s next US Senator.”

    If el-Sayed secures victory on November 3, he will not only become the first Muslim senator in U.S. history, but his win will also signal that left-leaning popular policies, including diplomatic and economic pressure on Israel, can gain traction in the industrial Midwest and competitive swing state of Michigan.

  • Attack on actor Tiger Shroff is dark reminder of Bollywood’s gangster past

    Attack on actor Tiger Shroff is dark reminder of Bollywood’s gangster past

    On a recent Sunday evening in Juhu, Mumbai’s iconic leafy upscale neighborhood where countless A-list Bollywood stars reside and celebrity sightings are a daily routine, action icon Tiger Shroff faced a brush with death that has upended Indian public discourse. The 36-year-old actor, famous for his high-octane on-screen fight scenes and choreographed escape sequences, had just finished a casual football match and was exiting the playing field in his BMW when gunfire erupted. Two people – Shroff’s personal driver and a vlogger who had traveled to the spot to film the star – were struck by bullets, leaving the unharmed actor at the center of a unfolding national criminal investigation. Four days after the incident, the case remains the lead story across Indian media, with every new leak of information spawning a flood of competing conspiracy theories, conflicting claims, and wild speculation about hidden motives.

    Indian law enforcement has so far apprehended or detained 10 suspects connected to the attack. Investigators are currently tracing suspected weapons shipments across multiple Indian states and tracing suspicious financial transfers to the men accused of carrying out the shooting. The attempted attack has also thrust the name of Lawrence Bishnoi, one of India’s most infamous active gangsters, back into national headlines. Within hours of the shooting, a screenshot of a social media post supposedly shared by an associate of the Bishnoi gang circulated widely online, claiming responsibility for the attack. A separate audio recording also emerged, featuring a man identifying himself as Anil Pandit who repeated the claim, explaining that Shroff was targeted due to his reported close ties to fellow Bollywood superstar Salman Khan – a figure Bishnoi has threatened repeatedly for years. Mumbai police have yet to verify these claims or confirm that the Bishnoi gang actually orchestrated the attempted shooting, and investigators are still working to identify who ordered the attack and what their ultimate motive was.

    This targeting of Shroff is only the latest in a string of violent attacks and threats against high-profile Bollywood figures that have shaken the Indian film industry. In 2024 alone, gunshots were fired outside Salman Khan’s Mumbai residence, and shots were also reported outside the home of acclaimed filmmaker Rohit Shetty earlier this year. Taken together, these incidents have revived long-dormant public fears that organized crime is once again extending its reach into Bollywood, stirring up uncomfortable memories of a dark, violent chapter in Mumbai’s modern history.

    Back in the 1990s and early 2000s, Mumbai’s underworld held formidable, open influence over the Indian film industry. Criminal groups financed big-budget productions, demanded massive protection payments from producers and stars, and regularly used violence to enforce their demands. It took decades of targeted police crackdowns and the gradual rise of legitimate, institutional film financing to loosen the underworld’s stranglehold on the industry. Today, as new allegations and conspiracy theories emerge nearly every day, a question long thought to be confined to Mumbai’s past has reemerged: Is the underworld attempting to retake control of Bollywood?

    Veteran law enforcement officials who confronted organized crime at its peak in Mumbai say the answer is far more nuanced than a simple yes or no. D Sivanandhan, who led Mumbai’s Crime Branch starting in 1998, recalls an era when a single phone call from Dubai – where many of India’s most notorious gang leaders operated from exile – could decide the entire fate of a major film: who would star in it, who would finance it, and who would profit from its distribution. At the time, the industry relied almost entirely on unregulated private capital, and the line between a legitimate investor and an extortionist was often dangerously blurry. The threats were not just abstract: in 1997, legendary Indian music industry executive Gulshan Kumar was shot and killed outside a Mumbai temple, and just three years later, acclaimed filmmaker Rakesh Roshan survived a targeted assassination attempt.

    Sivanandhan himself led the investigation into the financing of *Chori Chori Chupke Chupke*, a hit Salman Khan film. The movie’s producer and his assistant were each sentenced to six years in prison under Maharashtra’s organized crime laws for their ties to underworld figures, while the film’s financier received a one-year sentence for hiding information about those connections. Police seized the film’s original negatives, and it was only released eventually under direct court supervision. Sivanandhan also recalled that criminal influence was not always imposed on a reluctant industry: many filmmakers actively sought out underworld funding, entering into mutually beneficial arrangements that proved extremely difficult for police to dismantle.

    Even so, Sivanandhan argues that the current wave of violence should not be interpreted as a return of the old Mumbai mafia he spent decades fighting. The criminal networks he pursued, led by figures such as Dawood Ibrahim, Chhota Shakeel, and Arun Gawli, were deeply rooted in Mumbai’s local networks, even when their leaders operated from foreign soil. “This is not the Mumbai mafia which we know in the last 60 years,” he explained. “This is something else.”

    That “something else” is inextricably linked to Lawrence Bishnoi. A gangster with origins in northern India who has been incarcerated since 2015, Bishnoi has cultivated a mythic, menacing public persona: he is widely reputed to command a network of gunmen across multiple continents, and his name is regularly attached to threats and claims of responsibility that spread across social media within minutes.

    Bishnoi has publicly targeted Salman Khan for years over a 1998 poaching case involving blackbucks – a species of antelope that holds religious reverence for the Bishnoi community. In April 2024, unidentified gunmen fired five rounds outside Khan’s Mumbai home. Six months after that attack, Baba Siddique, a senior Indian politician with close ties to Khan and multiple other Bollywood stars, was gunned down in a public assassination. Mumbai police have connected both attacks to the Bishnoi gang, though investigators have not confirmed any direct personal involvement by Bishnoi in Siddique’s murder.

    While some allegations against Bishnoi’s network have been confirmed by official police investigations, many others remain unproven. But the line between what the gang has actually done and what is claimed in its name often blurs in public discourse, only amplifying Bishnoi’s notoriety. Rakesh Maria, a former Mumbai police commissioner, has described Bishnoi as a representative of a new generation of Indian gangsters who are far more technologically savvy and globally connected than their predecessors. “The old underworld was visible and territorial, but the new one is dispersed, fluid, making it harder to pin down,” Maria told Indian outlet *The Print* last year. “They no longer need to reside in the city to command it.”

    The relationship between criminal groups and Bollywood has shifted in another key way: who gets to shape the gangster’s public image. In the 1990s, Bollywood itself turned Mumbai’s feared underworld figures into objects of widespread public fascination. Films such as *Satya* (1998) and *Company* (2002) brought a gritty, raw realism to the portrayal of gang life, and Manoj Bajpayee’s iconic performance as gangster Bhiku Mhatre in *Satya* became what film scholar Ashvin Immanuel Devasundaram calls “mythologised and talismanic.” The fear and fascination of that era are “seared into the collective consciousness” of the Indian public, Devasundaram told the BBC. Each new attack pulls those old memories back to the surface.

    But today’s gangsters no longer need mainstream cinema to build their own mythology. Social media platforms allow them to craft and spread their own public image directly, circulating threats, claims of responsibility, and carefully staged content to audiences that reach far beyond Mumbai’s borders.

    In the wake of the Shroff shooting, Indian police have reportedly increased security detail outside the homes of Salman Khan and Rohit Shetty. The All Indian Cine Workers Association has called for enhanced protection for Bollywood figures, asking publicly: “Today it is Tiger Shroff. Who is next?”

    So far, there is little concrete evidence that criminal networks have regained the level of overt influence over Bollywood financing and creative decisions that the old underworld held in the 1990s and early 2000s. But the recent string of attacks has exposed a new, different vulnerability for the industry. Modern gangsters no longer need to control the entire $2.7 billion Indian film industry to destabilize it and spread widespread fear. A single attempted shooting, amplified across millions of social media feeds and phone screens, can create panic that extends far beyond the original target.

    Sivanandhan, who spent decades confronting Mumbai’s most powerful criminal groups, understands that even the most robust security has gaps. “There is always a crack in the armour,” he observed.

  • Powerful earthquake hits Tibet killing 16 people, reports say

    Powerful earthquake hits Tibet killing 16 people, reports say

    A powerful magnitude 7 earthquake has rattled the remote, mountainous terrain of Baqên County in Tibet’s northern Nagqu region, triggering widespread destruction that has claimed at least 16 lives and left dozens injured, according to official Chinese state media reports.

    Citing data from the local emergency management bureau, state-run news agency Xinhua confirmed the seismic event struck just after nightfall on Thursday, with its epicenter located roughly 400 kilometers northeast of Lhasa, Tibet’s regional capital. In the immediate aftermath of the quake, regional and national authorities swiftly activated a level-one emergency response and deployed specialized search-and-rescue teams to the hard-hit area, where 32 people have been confirmed with injuries ranging from minor to critical.

    Local official updates paint a grim picture of the damage: more than 300 residential structures have completely collapsed across the affected county, and widespread damage to grid infrastructure has left most of the region without electrical power. Compounding the challenges for first responders, triggered rockfalls along mountain highways have forced the closure of key access routes, slowing the arrival of emergency supplies and rescue personnel to cut-off communities.

    This earthquake comes less than two months after a separate catastrophic disaster in the Himalayan region, when a massive glacial lake collapse unleashed devastating flash floods and landslides across southern Tibet and neighboring Nepal. That disaster killed more than 1,400 people, with hundreds of residents still unaccounted for months later, underscoring the high natural disaster risk facing Tibet’s geologically active mountain ecosystems.

  • Surveillance and ‘constant paranoia’: Western diplomats tell BBC of life in war-time Moscow

    Surveillance and ‘constant paranoia’: Western diplomats tell BBC of life in war-time Moscow

    For decades through the Cold War and beyond, Western diplomats based in Moscow served as critical bridges between competing powers, defusing escalating tensions even when bilateral relations hit their lowest points. But three years after Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine, the role of Western envoys in Russia has been transformed into one of the most dangerous and isolating assignments in global diplomacy, according to firsthand accounts from five senior former diplomats who served in Moscow in the post-invasion era. In exclusive interviews with the BBC, these envoys – including former U.S. Ambassador Lynne Tracy and former French Ambassador Pierre Lévy – detail a surveillance and pressure campaign that harkens back to the darkest days of the Cold War, while bringing new logistical and psychological challenges that many say outstrip even the most high-risk postings around the world.

  • Hospitals deliberately targeted by Sudan’s RSF fighters, BBC investigation finds

    Hospitals deliberately targeted by Sudan’s RSF fighters, BBC investigation finds

    One year after Rapid Support Forces (RSF) paramilitary fighters captured the key Darfur city of el-Fasher following a months-long brutal siege, a new BBC investigation has uncovered overwhelming evidence of a coordinated campaign to eliminate the city’s entire healthcare network — a violation of international humanitarian law that the United Nations’ top human rights official says may constitute war crimes.

    Sudan’s devastating civil war erupted in April 2023 when tensions between the national Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and the RSF boiled over into open conflict. While both sides have faced accusations of targeting medical infrastructure, the destruction in el-Fasher stands out as one of the clearest and most severe examples of healthcare collapse amid the ongoing crisis, according to the World Health Organization (WHO).

    Drawing on firsthand testimony from on-the-ground medical workers who survived the siege, the investigation documents at least 43 separate attacks on hospitals and medical sites across el-Fasher between May 2024 and October 2025, with some facilities hit multiple times. Between the start of the war and the RSF’s final takeover of the city, the investigation recorded 55 medical workers killed, 120 injured, and 10 more forcibly abducted or disappeared.

    Dr. Muhamed Suliman, a surgeon who remained in el-Fasher through the siege, told the BBC the campaign against healthcare was deliberate and strategic. “The RSF [were] trying to evacuate the hospitals, to put them out of service because the health system is the cornerstone of any city or any state,” he explained. “The RSF started hitting these areas so citizens have no longer any way to stay there. It was intense. It was deliberate. It was planned.”

    The collapse of el-Fasher’s healthcare system unfolded gradually as the conflict dragged on. Within weeks of the war’s start in 2023, one of the city’s largest core facilities, the Teaching Hospital located near central SAF positions, was forced to shut down, relocating all operations to the city’s South Hospital. For months, South Hospital continued operating, but service was increasingly disrupted by widespread power outages and rapidly dwindling medical supplies. The situation deteriorated dramatically when the RSF launched its full siege of el-Fasher in May 2024, and South Hospital came under repeated shelling as RSF fighters advanced from the city’s eastern outskirts.

    On June 8, 2024, RSF fighters raided South Hospital in an attack that still haunts survivors. Dr. Izzeldin Ahmed Dawaud Asow, the hospital’s director general, was confronted by paramilitaries outside his office who targeted him with ethnic slurs, using a derogatory term that labels non-Arab Sudanese as foreigners. He was beaten unconscious with rifle butts and only survived by playing dead. “They put their hand on my chest, and I stopped breathing. And they said: ‘Leave him, leave him. The rubbish has died. Leave him.’ They left me,” he recalled. After the attack, the hospital shut down and later fell under RSF control when SAF forces retreated.

    Dr. Alaa Eldin Nugud, a Sudanese surgeon who now serves as health minister in the RSF-backed civilian administration, has defended the group’s actions, claiming South Hospital was being used as a military base with missile launchers positioned on its grounds. He shared a video of weapon remains filmed more than a year after the hospital closed to support his claim, and also released purported maps of landmines planted by SAF around the adjacent Teaching Hospital. However, the BBC found no independent evidence to verify these allegations, and local Darfur government officials have categorically rejected the claims. El-Fasher doctors also confirmed the hospital was never integrated into the nearby military base and that staff continued to access the facility to retrieve supplies throughout the conflict.

    After South Hospital closed, remaining staff and equipment moved to the Saudi Maternity Hospital in western el-Fasher, near the main SAF stronghold. It did not take long for attacks on the new last remaining major medical facility to ramp up. Six doctors who spoke to the BBC independently described a clear pattern of systematic targeting, with the Saudi Hospital hit repeatedly — sometimes as many as 25 times in a single day — by a mix of artillery shelling and precision-guided drone strikes. Smaller clinics and specialized facilities fared no better: when medical sites relocated to escape attack, their new locations were also targeted. The Specialised Children’s Hospital, which closed early in the war, was forced to shut down twice more after moving to two alternate sites, both of which were shelled. The city’s main dialysis center was also struck, then attacked again after relocating.

    As attacks intensified, medical workers improvised desperate measures to keep care running. They built sandbag barricades around the Saudi Hospital, converted steel containers into underground operating bunkers, and set up a network of secret alternative patient wards and surgical sites to reduce the risk of mass casualties from strikes. Even in these conditions, life-saving care continued: on the day the Saudi Hospital was hit by bombing, medical staff conducted an emergency C-section using only light from their mobile phones.

    Dr. Asow, who continued operating through the siege, shared harrowing accounts of close calls and deliberate targeting. On one occasion, he ordered an operating theater deep cleaned before a procedure, forcing the patient to be moved to an alternate site just hours before the room was destroyed by a shell — a twist that led his staff to nickname him “Mr. Deep Cleaning.” On another occasion, he was mid-surgery on a patient’s neck when an explosion shook the building; all other staff fled, but he stayed to complete the procedure. He also described drones systematically tracking patient movements: in March 2025, a drone followed a group of people carrying injured patients to a temporary ward and struck at the hospital gate, killing nine. Five months later, a drone hit a donkey cart transferring patients — all ambulances had already been destroyed — killing two patients, the driver, and the donkey.

    By the time RSF fighters seized full control of el-Fasher in October 2025, the Saudi Hospital was the only functioning medical facility left in the entire city. The RSF stormed the facility on October 25, with allegations emerging of a massacre that killed more than 460 patients and accompanying civilians. The RSF has denied the massacre took place, but the WHO has condemned the reported killings, and satellite imagery published after the attack showed clusters of bodies on the hospital grounds.

    In response to the BBC’s findings, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk called the evidence “deeply disturbing,” confirming the findings align with his office’s own monitoring. “Our monitoring and documentation shows the RSF repeatedly struck el-Fasher’s main hospitals and makeshift health facilities, destroying or seriously damaging them and severely impacting access to health services for thousands of civilians trapped in the city,” Türk said. He added that the repeated attacks on civilian healthcare infrastructure amount to serious violations of international humanitarian law and may constitute war crimes.

    The RSF has uniformly rejected the BBC’s findings, framing the allegations as political propaganda designed to damage the group’s reputation by SAF and its local allies. Dr. Nugud dismissed the testimonies of el-Fasher doctors as lies, claiming their accounts are skewed by tribal and political loyalties to the SAF. He also claimed the RSF has reopened major facilities including the Saudi Hospital and Teaching Hospital, and that South Hospital will soon reopen, asserting that medical workers who stayed did so voluntarily. But multiple doctors who appeared in RSF government videos claiming they were working voluntarily told the BBC they were forced to participate, with one noting “If I spoke out of line, they’d put a bullet through my head.”

    A full year after el-Fasher fell, the trauma of the siege remains raw for survivors. Sudan’s civil war shows no sign of ending, with front lines shifted to other regions but attacks on healthcare continuing across the country as part of a worsening nationwide humanitarian catastrophe. UN investigators have previously noted that the violence in el-Fasher carried all the “hallmarks of genocide”, with RSF forces — built from former Arab militias with a history of ethnic violence in Darfur — systematically targeting non-Arab civilian populations that make up most of the city’s population.

  • L’Oreal says weight loss drugs are impacting beauty and skin care sales

    L’Oreal says weight loss drugs are impacting beauty and skin care sales

    The global beauty industry is facing a new, unexpected shift driven by the exploding popularity of GLP-1 weight loss medications, and one of the world’s largest beauty conglomerates is already adapting its product lineup to meet changing consumer needs.

    In recent years, GLP-1 agonists — originally developed to treat type 2 diabetes — have seen a meteoric rise in mainstream use after clinical trials found drugs including Ozempic, Wegovy and Mounjaro deliver dramatic weight loss by suppressing user appetite. What started as a medical treatment has quickly become a widespread cultural and wellness trend, with millions of people around the world turning to the medications to reach weight loss goals.

    But while the medications deliver significant health and aesthetic benefits for many users, rapid weight loss often brings an unintended cosmetic side effect: loose, sagging skin, particularly around the face and neck. Though GLP-1s do not directly cause skin laxity, the quick pace of weight loss common with these medications leaves skin unable to retract quickly enough to match a user’s new body contours, leaving many patients searching for solutions to address visible changes to their appearance.

    French beauty giant L’Oréal, which owns dozens of household beauty and skincare brands including Maybelline, La Roche-Posay, SkinCeuticals and Kiehl’s, has publicly acknowledged that this growing trend is already shifting consumer spending on beauty and skincare products. During a recent investor call, L’Oréal CEO Nicolas Hieronimus called the rising adoption of GLP-1s “a very important phenomenon for us” that is having a measurable impact on overall beauty consumption, especially in the skincare category.

    Rather than seeing the trend as a pure headwind, the company has moved quickly to capitalize on the new consumer demand it has created. Hieronimus confirmed that the company’s premium skincare brands SkinCeuticals and Kiehl’s have already launched specially formulated products designed to complement GLP-1 use and target common side effects like skin sagging linked to rapid weight loss.

    L’Oréal has also expanded its footprint in the clinical aesthetics space to better position itself for this growing market. In December 2023, the company increased its stake in leading dermatology and aesthetics firm Galderma to 20%, deepening a partnership focused on developing solutions for GLP-1 users. According to reports from Reuters, the two companies are running separate ongoing clinical trials testing new products on GLP-1 users who report concerns about loose, sagging skin after rapid weight loss.

    Galderma, which owns market-leading aesthetic injectables including collagen-stimulating treatment Sculptra and dermal filler Restylane, was one of the first major firms to flag the link between rising GLP-1 use and growing demand for facial aesthetic solutions. Last year, the company released an industry report analyzing the impact of GLP-1 adoption on facial appearance concerns. Its internal survey of weight loss medication users found that an overwhelming majority of respondents had noticed visible changes to their face shape and skin tightness after starting GLP-1 treatment.

    Despite the market shift created by GLP-1 adoption, L’Oréal’s recent financial performance has outperformed market expectations. The company announced Thursday that its total sales rose 7.7% year-over-year in the three months ending September 2024, a growth rate that beat forecasts from industry analysts. Hieronimus noted that the global beauty market has remained resilient even amid broader economic uncertainty around the world, and the company’s proactive strategy to adapt to the GLP-1 trend positions it to capture new growth in a shifting market.

  • Trump says Musk has restored Ukraine’s access after Starlink row

    Trump says Musk has restored Ukraine’s access after Starlink row

    A new political storm has emerged over the critical satellite internet infrastructure Ukraine relies on for its frontline operations, after former President Donald Trump confirmed that SpaceX CEO Elon Musk has reversed service restrictions placed on the Starlink network for Kyiv’s military.

    The confirmation came hours after Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy told reporters that full connectivity to Musk’s satellite system had not yet been reinstated, noting that operating speeds remained well below the levels Ukrainian forces require for effective combat operations. In his public remarks Thursday, Zelenskyy said “the speed has not been restored to 400 km/h yet, we are still working on the issue” and added that he was awaiting a formal update from U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who had promised to deliver clarity within a 48-hour window.

    Zelenskyy’s comments came shortly before the *Wall Street Journal* published a report citing anonymous administration officials claiming Trump personally phoned Musk to pressure him to lift the speed caps that had hamstrung Ukraine’s military operations. According to the outlet, Trump told Musk he was frustrated that Starlink speeds remained capped at roughly 160 km/h, a restriction that had rendered Ukraine’s offensive drones and air defense interceptors largely ineffective against Russian strikes. The report added that connectivity returned to near-normal levels shortly after the call between the U.S. president and SpaceX’s CEO. BBC News has not independently verified the *Journal*’s claims, and has reached out to both the White House and SpaceX for comment on the situation.

    Musk has previously denied any personal involvement in imposing the slowdowns, which directly undercut Ukraine’s ability to deploy drones against Russian positions. Last week, the billionaire noted that the U.S. government retains ultimate control over Starshield — the military-grade variant of Starlink that Ukrainian forces use for many frontline operations — and argued the system was built specifically for the Pentagon, implying the U.S. military could have been behind the restrictions. The White House has repeatedly pushed back on these claims, issuing multiple public denials that it ever ordered any restrictions on Starlink access for Ukraine.

    The connectivity restrictions emerged against a backdrop of growing friction between the Trump administration and Kyiv, as Trump has publicly pressured Zelenskyy to halt attacks on Russian oil refineries. The U.S. president has argued these strikes have driven up global energy prices, creating economic headwinds ahead of next month’s U.S. midterm elections. To ease domestic fuel costs, Trump has recently waived some U.S. sanctions on Russian energy exports and struck a deal to allow imports of Russian diesel into the U.S. market, a policy shift that has drawn sharp criticism from both Ukraine and its European allies.

    Ukraine has become heavily dependent on the Starlink network, owned and operated by Musk’s SpaceX, to support a wide range of critical military functions. Beyond frontline troop communications, the system is a core component of Ukraine’s early warning systems that alert civilian and military populations to incoming Russian missile attacks. The first reports of disruptions to Ukrainian access to U.S.-provided digital infrastructure emerged in mid-October, when Kyiv first reported an interruption to U.S. intelligence sharing.

    When asked Thursday whether he had pressured Musk to restore full service, Trump declined to elaborate on the specifics of any interaction, but offered a clear confirmation that access had been reinstated. When pressed on the issue, the U.S. president told reporters: “Bottom line, he put it back.” The Trump administration has previously stood by its insistence that it never issued any instruction to SpaceX to restrict Starlink connectivity for Ukrainian forces.