Global Pulse

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  • India refuses to criminalise marital rape. This new series shines a light on it

    India refuses to criminalise marital rape. This new series shines a light on it

    In a media landscape where many taboo topics remain buried under social and cultural norms, a breakout Hindi web series on India’s JioHotstar streaming platform has thrust a long-ignored injustice into the national conversation: marital rape, a crime still not outlawed in the world’s largest democracy.

    Titled *Chiraiya* – Hindi for ‘little birds,’ a quiet nod to the women who are often caged and silenced by patriarchal norms – the series premiered in March 2025 and has already amassed an audience of millions, ranking among the streamer’s most popular Hindi original series in recent months. Widely praised by critics for its unflinching portrayal of a topic widely sidelined in Indian popular culture, the show has reignited social media discussions around sexual consent, systemic misogyny, and the failure of Indian law to protect married women from violence. At the same time, it has drawn sharp pushback from conservative and men’s rights groups, who have labeled the series ‘anti-men’ and claim it undermines the perceived ‘sanctity of marriage.’

    Adapted from the successful Bengali series *Sampoorna* and reimagined for the deeply patriarchal cultural context of northern India, *Chiraiya* centers on the intersecting lives of two women shaped by opposing views of gender roles. The first is Pooja, an educated, socially conscious young advocate for gender equality played by actor Prasanna Bisht, who marries Arun – a man widely seen as an ideal match, raised like a son by middle-aged homemaker Kamlesh, portrayed by award-winning veteran actor Divya Dutta. Kamlesh, a lifelong housewife who has internalized the belief that a woman’s place is in the home, initially holds the traditional view that sexual consent is automatically implied by marriage.

    The story unravels dramatically on Pooja and Arun’s wedding night, when Arun rapes Pooja. When Pooja confronts him, he dismisses her complaint, declaring he has only ‘taken what is mine’ – and points out that under Indian law, marital rape is not a criminal offense, leaving her with no legal recourse. When Pooja dares to speak out about the abuse, even her own family pressures her to stay silent and adjust to the situation, arguing that public discussion of the issue would only bring shame to the entire family. As the series progresses, Kamlesh is forced to confront her own deep-seated beliefs, choosing between staying in her comfortable, socially approved bubble or standing with a woman she initially dislikes. By the story’s midpoint, she undergoes a gradual transformation, emerging as a loyal ally to Pooja.

    In comments to the BBC, Dutta explained that the core theme of *Chiraiya* is the concept of consent, specifically within the institution of marriage, which is widely framed as an inherently sacred, unbreakable bond in Indian culture. ‘Marital rape is very difficult to talk about. Every woman who goes through it thinks it’s just her story. She thinks if she speaks about it, there will be social stigma, the harmony of the house will be disrupted,’ she said. Director Shashant Shah added that the creative team intentionally avoided framing the show’s male characters as one-dimensional villains. Instead, he noted, they are ordinary people molded by a deeply entrenched patriarchal system that normalizes misogyny, often without people even recognizing their own harmful biases. ‘They are not monsters – they are just regular people we encounter in our daily lives. Patriarchy is so deeply entrenched that most people are not even aware they are being misogynistic,’ Shah said. Unlike the original Bengali series, which centered an already radicalized feminist protagonist, *Chiraiya* follows Kamlesh, a woman so immersed in patriarchal conditioning that she does not even recognize the misogyny shaping her life. Through her gradual awakening, the creative team hoped to craft a character that millions of women across India could see themselves in. ‘We wanted to raise this question to the society – how do you look at it? We wanted to make people aware,’ Shah explained, adding that while Pooja’s story is fictional, it reflects the lived reality of millions of married women in India.

    The series arrives amid a long-running national battle over the criminalization of marital rape in India. Official Indian government data shows that 6.1% of ever-married women in the country have experienced sexual violence at the hands of their spouses. Despite decades of advocacy from women’s rights activists, India remains one of roughly three dozen countries around the world – alongside Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Saudi Arabia – that have not criminalized marital rape. A colonial-era law still in force today exempts men from criminal prosecution for forced sex with an adult wife, and successive Indian governments, along with conservative religious groups and men’s rights organizations, have repeatedly blocked efforts to amend the legislation. Public outrage erupted last year after a man convicted of raping his wife (who died within hours of the assault) was released on appeal, after judges ruled that India does not legally recognize marital rape as a crime.

    For *Chiraiya*’s scriptwriter Divy Nidhi Sharma, the gap in Indian law and social acceptance of marital rape made telling this story a moral imperative. ‘This injustice is happening within our homes, in our neighbourhoods. What I find most troubling is that there’s no legal or social recourse. So, as a writer I felt I should do my bit about it,’ he told the BBC. While critics and opponents have slammed the series for its portrayal of marital abuse, Sharma says the creative team’s only goal was to drag a taboo topic into public view. ‘But our aim was to just start a conversation. We are artists, we can’t make laws, we can’t curb crimes, we can’t change society rapidly, but we can use art to make a taboo topic mainstream,’ he said.

    Reception to the series has been overwhelmingly positive, according to Dutta, who says the response has been ‘absolutely overwhelming.’ ‘I’ve been getting midnight messages and calls and personal notes on Instagram and Twitter. Everyone’s watching it. Veteran actors are calling me to say thank you for doing this. Someone sent me a sari with a heartfelt note, somebody’s sent a poem they’ve written. I think it really stirred something within everyone,’ she said. Though a small minority of viewers have reacted negatively, Dutta says she chooses to focus on the widespread support for the show’s message. Dutta added that she believes stories like *Chiraiya* carry unique power to drive social change, starting with conversations within households. ‘I think this will make a difference in more ways than one because it is telling us where we are going wrong. And rather than just putting the onus on the outside, for someone else to do something for us, this show just emphasises that let’s start from home first. And that is a first step, but it is a very strong step,’ she said.

  • Lavelle and Heaps score to give USWNT a 2-1 win over Japan

    Lavelle and Heaps score to give USWNT a 2-1 win over Japan

    SAN JOSE, Calif. — The U.S. Women’s National Soccer Team kicked off a three-game friendly series against reigning Women’s Asian Cup champions Japan with a tense 2-1 win on Saturday, extending their undefeated run to 10 consecutive victories for the first time since 2023.

    Rose Lavelle delivered a standout performance to mark her 100th international start for the U.S., netting one goal and notching an assist that set up Lindsey Heaps’ first-half strike, putting the Americans up 2-0 early in the second half. The milestone goal came in the ninth minute, when Trinity Rodman flicked a free kick from Sam Coffey into Lavelle’s path, putting her away for the 28th international goal of her career.

    Less than three minutes after halftime, Lavelle turned provider, slipping a precise pass to Heaps who converted for her 40th career goal in a U.S. uniform. Japan finally broke a long U.S. shutout streak in the 61st minute, when Riko Ueki headed home to cut the deficit in half. Ueki’s score marked the first goal the U.S. had allowed since an October 26 win over Portugal, ending a 866-minute scoreless run for the American defense.

    The match also marked a feel-good milestone for Sophia Wilson, who earned her first national team start since giving birth to her daughter, and her first cap for the U.S. since October 2024.

    Coming into Saturday’s clash, Japan carried major momentum after a dominant run to win the 2025 Women’s Asian Cup. The Nadeshiko outscored all their tournament opponents by a combined 29-1, capped off by a 1-0 defeat of host Australia in the final that secured their ticket to the 2026 Women’s World Cup in Brazil. For the U.S., qualifying for the same World Cup will come in the CONCACAF W Championship set to take place this coming November. Japan also held a recent upper hand over the Americans, having beaten the U.S. 2-1 in the 2025 SheBelieves Cup final.

    The three-match series will continue Tuesday night in Seattle, before wrapping up this coming Friday in Commerce City, Colorado.

  • Hungarians decide whether to end 16 years of Orbán rule and elect rival

    Hungarians decide whether to end 16 years of Orbán rule and elect rival

    As Hungarians prepare to cast their ballots in a landmark general election on Sunday, the nation stands at a pivotal crossroads. After 16 years of unbroken rule under Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, the outcome of this vote has the potential to upend the country’s domestic trajectory and send ripples of change across Europe, transatlantic relations, and global geopolitics centered on Russia’s war in Ukraine.

    Most leading public opinion surveys point to a narrow but clear advantage for challenger Péter Magyar, the founder of the grassroots Tisza party, who launched his political movement after splitting from Orbán’s ruling Fidesz party. Yet in the final hours of campaigning, the long-serving incumbent showed no sign of backing down, striking a defiant tone before thousands of gathered supporters in Budapest’s Castle Hill. “We are going to achieve such a victory that will surprise everyone, perhaps even ourselves,” Orbán told the crowd, leaning into the familiar, polarizing campaign themes that have defined his political career for over a decade.

    Voting will open at 6 a.m. local time (4 a.m. GMT) and close at 7 p.m. local time, with preliminary results expected to begin trickling in later that evening. In the days leading up to the vote, Orbán amplified rhetorical tensions, claiming the opposition would “stop at nothing to seize power.” In response, Magyar issued a plea to supporters, urging them not to cave to what he called “Fidesz pressure and blackmail.”

    During Orbán’s 16 years in office, the European Parliament has repeatedly labeled his administration a “hybrid regime of electoral autocracy.” Magyar and Tisza have centered their campaign on a promise of “regime change”: a full reset of Hungary’s strained relationship with the European Union and an end to Orbán’s close bilateral ties to Moscow, a policy that has put Budapest at odds with its NATO and EU allies.

    In a sign of shifting momentum, Magyar’s final campaign rally in Debrecen, Hungary’s second-largest city, drew a far larger crowd than Orbán’s closing event in the capital. The incumbent, however, retains high-profile international backing: former U.S. President Donald Trump has publicly urged Hungarian voters to turn out for Orbán, whom he called his “true friend, fighter, and WINNER.”

    Addressing supporters on the final Saturday of campaigning, Orbán doubled down on his core messaging targeting Brussels and Kyiv, reiterating his hardline stance that “we don’t give our children, we don’t give our weapons and we don’t give our money” to Ukraine. The message resonated with his base, with long-time Fidesz supporter Johanna telling reporters she backed Orbán’s policies on family protection and his approach to the ongoing war in Ukraine.

    While Orbán has secured four consecutive election victories, political analysts broadly agree that a fifth term is far from guaranteed. Hungary is currently grappling with persistent economic stagnation, and Fidesz has been battered by a string of high-profile corruption scandals in recent months. Most notable is the public revelation that Foreign Minister Péter Szijjártó held regular off-the-record talks with his Russian counterpart before and after every EU summit, a detail Szijjártó has since confirmed.

    Orbán’s continued veto of a €90 billion EU aid package for Ukraine has left his European allies furious, deepening the rift between Budapest and the bloc. Róbert László, an election specialist at Budapest-based independent think tank Political Capital, notes that Hungary’s three most reputable polling firms all point to a “huge lead” for Tisza. Contrary to most analysts’ predictions that Fidesz would close the gap as the election neared, László says that narrowing has failed to materialize.

    Magyar has framed his campaign around the need for a two-thirds supermajority in Hungary’s 199-seat parliament — not just a simple absolute majority — to roll back the sweeping constitutional changes Fidesz enacted over the past 16 years that weakened judicial independence, consolidated state control over media, and centralized power in the ruling party. Hungary consistently ranks near the bottom of Transparency International’s annual Corruption Perceptions Index, a reflection of widespread concerns about graft in the Orbán administration.

    László says the most likely outcome is a comfortable absolute majority for Tisza that falls just short of the two-thirds threshold, though he adds that a supermajority cannot be ruled out entirely. In recent weeks, current and former figures from Hungarian law enforcement, the military, and the business community have all publicly broken with Fidesz, a shift László calls a clear sign that the national mood has turned definitively against Orbán.

    Hungary’s complex electoral system has long benefited Fidesz, a fact Orbán himself has acknowledged. Of the 199 parliamentary seats, 106 are filled by direct constituency elections, while the remaining 93 are allocated via national party lists, with votes open to Hungarians living both at home and abroad. Votes from losing parties in constituency races, as well as excess votes from winning candidates, are transferred to the national list, a mechanism that has historically delivered additional seats to Fidesz. Parties must clear a 5% national vote threshold to gain any parliamentary representation.

    One of the only polling firms that still projects a potential Orbán victory is the Nézőpont Institute. Its director, Ágoston Mráz, points to 22 competitive “battleground constituencies” that will decide the race. If Fidesz can win a majority of these swing seats, Mráz says Orbán could still secure a fifth term. Because 5% of votes in these key districts will not be counted immediately, a final official result may take several days to emerge.

    Mráz also argues that Fidesz’s support is undercounted in most polls, thanks to a large bloc of “hidden voters.” “Conservative voters are not normally as enthusiastic or their self-confidence is probably limited. They are more hidden voters, they are not ready to answer questions of pollsters, and among the Fidesz voters there are more, in percentage, blue-collar voters than in the Tisza party voter camp,” he explained.

    The northwestern city of Györ, Hungary’s sixth-largest city located near the Slovak border, has emerged as a critical battleground that will likely shape the final result. Orbán put the city in the national spotlight last month when he lost his temper amid jeers from protesters, accusing the crowd of “pushing Ukrainian interests.” Just weeks later, Magyar drew a massive crowd for a rally in Györ’s central square, showcasing his strength in the once-safe Fidesz area.

    For many young and first-time voters in the city, ousting Fidesz is the top priority. Gergely Németh, a 20-year-old university student, told reporters he and his family have faced persistent financial hardship under Orbán’s policies, even with the prime minister’s widely promoted pro-family tax breaks for households with multiple children. “I think it’s not the man, Péter Magyar, who’s most important. More important is that someone changes these politicians in the parliament,” Németh said, adding that nearly every young person he knows supports removing Fidesz from power.

    Györ has been led by an independent mayor and deputy mayor for the past two years, though Fidesz still holds a majority on the local city council. Deputy Mayor Roland Kósa, an independent, has criticized Fidesz for its arrogant approach to power, saying that even after independent leaders were elected, “Fidesz basically looked through us and said and thought we do not exist – this is still their city, this is still their country.” Kósa accuses the ruling party of squandering massive public funds and years of economic opportunity in the city.

    Magyar’s political ascent has been built on a broad, cross-partisan appeal. A former center-right Fidesz insider who broke with the party just two years ago, he has attracted disaffected voters from across the ideological spectrum, allowing even voters who are skeptical of him personally to back Tisza as a unified movement to oust Orbán.

    Unlike Orbán, who built his opposition movement decades ago through local “citizen circles,” Magyar built Tisza from the ground up through a network of local “Tisza islands” — small activist cells embedded in Fidesz’s traditional strongholds. While the model is not new, it has grown into a robust national movement that has challenged Fidesz’s decades-long hold on local political organizing. Unlike many established opposition parties, Tisza’s candidates are largely non-career politicians: the party’s slate includes practicing surgeons, public school teachers, and local business leaders with direct experience addressing gaps in Hungary’s healthcare and education systems.

    This election has defied many conventional European campaign norms. Notably, the two leading candidates have refused to face off in a nationally televised debate, with the entire race being fought out on social media and in open-air rallies across the country. While other minor parties are competing in the election, only Fidesz and Tisza hold enough support to win parliamentary power.

    Outwardly, Fidesz officials maintain they are confident of victory, but Balázs Orbán, the party’s political director, has already pre-emptively suggested that the opposition would refuse to accept a Fidesz win. Mráz, from Nézőpont Institute, shares concerns about post-election unrest, warning that Tisza supporters may reject an Orbán victory by claiming widespread fraud. “I’m really afraid of getting violence on the streets because tension is in the air. I hope very much that every politician will be smart enough to help voters avoid violence on the street,” he said.

    So far, large opposition gatherings have remained peaceful: at least 100,000 anti-Fidesz supporters packed Budapest’s Heroes’ Square on Friday for a pre-election concert and rally, with no reported incidents. Magyar has repeatedly urged his supporters to remain calm and avoid falling for any provocations that could lead to unrest, regardless of the final outcome.

  • From blast off to splashdown: My days following Nasa’s historic mission to the Moon

    From blast off to splashdown: My days following Nasa’s historic mission to the Moon

    Over 10 extraordinary days that will be written into the annals of human spaceflight, four astronauts made unprecedented history, venturing deeper into deep space than any humans have ever traveled on a round-trip voyage to the Moon and back. As a BBC journalist embedded with the science team covering every phase of the Artemis II mission, I tracked every moment from the thunderous launch to the dramatic lunar flyby and the heart-pounding final landing back on Earth.

    Before liftoff, the crew reminded reporters that on launch day, astronauts are consistently the calmest people on site. I cannot say the same. My excitement bubbled over completely, and my unfiltered reaction as the 98-meter tall rocket ignited its massive boosters and climbed skyward quickly went viral across social media.

    Standing beside the countdown clock at Florida’s Kennedy Space Center alongside BBC colleagues Alison Francis and Kevin Church, the experience felt visceral enough to touch. The blinding burning white glow of the launch was impossible to look away from, the deafening roar took several seconds to reach the crowd and shook every bone in my body, and the shockwave of the blast rippled straight through the ground. More than anything, I still struggled to process the reality that four living, breathing people were strapped into the capsule at the top of that massive rocket, on their way to the Moon.

    As commander Reid Wiseman, pilot Victor Glover, mission specialist Christina Koch and Canadian astronaut Jeremy Hansen caught their first full view of Earth from deep space, Glover shared his thought with the world: “Planet Earth, you look beautiful.” After a short burn of the Orion capsule’s main engine, the crew set off on the 250,000-mile journey toward the lunar orbit.

    Live streams beamed directly back to Earth from the capsule as the crew adjusted to microgravity, and viewers immediately got a sense of just how cramped their living quarters were. For 10 days, the four astronauts ate, slept, worked and lived in a space no larger than the interior of a minivan. No privacy existed between crew members, and none from the millions of people around the globe following every development of the mission in real time.

    One of the mission’s most high-profile (and widely discussed) snags emerged early on: the $23 million custom-designed Universal Waste Management System, better known as the crew’s toilet, developed unexpected plumbing issues. During a live media briefing, reporters got unvarnished details on how the issue impacted the crew’s daily routine. As it turned out, solid waste operations functioned as normal, but the crew had to rely on collapsible, portable contingency bags with funnels for urine collection.

    Later in the mission, I got the chance to visit the Johnson Space Center in Houston to stand inside mission control, the central nervous system of the entire Artemis II operation. The team of flight controllers sat glued to their displays, monitoring a constant flood of real-time data from every one of the capsule’s systems, from navigation to life support. This constant vigilance was never unnecessary: Artemis II was a test flight, the first time humans had flown both the new Space Launch System rocket and the Orion capsule, and test flights carry inherent, tangible risks.

    Those risks were driven home in an interview I did with Canadian astronaut Jeremy Hansen for the 13 Minutes Presents: Artemis II podcast, recorded while he was in pre-launch quarantine. Hansen told me he had spoken openly with his wife and three children about the very real possibility that he might not return home from the mission. Commander Reid Wiseman similarly shared that he had been fully honest with his two daughters about the dangers of the mission; Wiseman has raised his daughters alone as a single father since his wife Carroll died six years before the flight.

    That personal loss became one of the most poignant, memorable moments of the entire mission. As the capsule approached the Moon, and the lunar surface grew larger in the capsule’s viewing window, the crew spotted a striking, bright new crater visible from Earth that had not yet been named. To honor Wiseman’s late wife, they officially named the crater after her. The entire crew, gathered to hug their commander, were all in tears, and back in Houston’s mission control, there was not a dry eye in the room, including among our BBC reporting team.

    Every NASA staff member we spoke to, from administrator Jared Isaacman to junior engineers and veteran fellow astronauts, felt a deep personal connection to the four-person crew, and pulled for them with every fiber of their being. And in the end, the crew delivered on every expectation.

    After breaking the 50-year-old record set by Apollo 13 for the farthest humans have ever traveled from Earth, the Artemis II crew kept pushing forward, ultimately reaching 252,756 miles from Earth’s surface. As they flew past the Moon, the crew captured thousands of high-resolution images and recorded detailed audio descriptions of the stark, desolate beauty of the lunar landscape passing beneath their capsule.

    The legacy of the Apollo program runs deep through the Artemis program. Pre-recorded messages from Apollo veteran astronauts Charlie Duke and Jim Lovell (recorded before Lovell’s death in 2025) were played for the crew during their voyage. Still, critics have questioned whether the $93 billion investment in the Artemis program is just an exercise in nostalgic nostalgia, asking why the U.S. is returning to the Moon when it already landed astronauts there more than 50 years ago.

    Administrator Isaacman explained that NASA’s goal is to build on the Apollo program’s achievements, not just repeat them. The agency already has a full slate of future lunar exploration plans, including a crewed landing scheduled for 2028, a permanent lunar outpost, and long-term ambitions to land the first humans on Mars. Critics have also questioned whether human exploration of the Moon is necessary at all, when robotic orbiters, rovers and landers can carry out research at a far lower cost and risk. Isaacman pushed back firmly, arguing that human exploration is encoded in human DNA, and that robotic missions cannot replace the insight and judgment that human researchers bring to exploration. He did, however, acknowledge that all progress in space exploration comes with inherent risk.

    That risk was never more visible than during the mission’s final and most dangerous phase: the crew’s re-entry and return to Earth. Glover described re-entry as riding on the back of a fireball through the atmosphere; as the capsule hurtled toward the ocean, its heat shield reached temperatures equal to half the temperature of the surface of the Sun. Watching the descent from mission control was a nail-biting, anxiety-fueled experience, made all the more tense when communications went completely black for six long minutes as the capsule was enveloped in plasma during re-entry.

    When a tiny, bright white dot of the descending capsule was spotted high above the Pacific Ocean, and Wiseman’s voice came through loud and clear with “Houston, We have you loud and clear,” the wave of relief in mission control was palpable. The capsule descended slowly under massive parachutes and made a gentle splashdown in the Pacific, and the four astronauts were safely back on Earth. The focused, quiet calm of mission control evaporated as the room erupted in cheers and celebration; the thousands of people who worked years on the project had brought their friends home safe.

    The Artemis II crew has had an experience unlike any other in human history, and they have acknowledged it will take a long time to fully process what they have seen and done. They have also formed an unbreakable bond with each other. Near the end of their voyage, I spoke to the crew from Earth and asked what they would miss most once they got home. Without a moment of hesitation, Koch said she would miss the camaraderie – that after 10 days crammed together in deep space, the crew is now family.

    When they launched, the four astronauts were little known to the general public. Now, after their historic voyage, Wiseman, Glover Koch and Hansen have returned to Earth as household names. Covering this mission has felt like having a front row seat to history being written. My colleagues and I have been constantly surprised by how deeply this mission has gripped the public imagination, as we worked around the clock to meet the world’s insatiable demand for every new update from the voyage. For 10 extraordinary days, the four astronauts took millions of people around the world along with them, pulling us away from our daily lives on Earth and letting us share in the adventure of deep space exploration. If NASA achieves its ambitious exploration goals, and other spacefaring nations join the effort, this will only be the first chapter of a new era of human lunar exploration.

  • Iran war lands ‘triple blow’ to flood-ravaged Sri Lankans

    Iran war lands ‘triple blow’ to flood-ravaged Sri Lankans

    For Indrani Ravichandran and her family, the nightmare began in the pitch-black of a November night, when Cyclone Ditwah’s unprecedented rainfall sent floodwaters surging through their small village of Kudugalhena in Sri Lanka’s Kandy district. Within minutes, rising waters swallowed portions of their home, forcing the family to flee into lashing rain, slippery hillsides and constant fear of encountering venomous wildlife displaced by the storm. They escaped with their lives, leaving almost all their belongings behind. Today, months after the cyclone passed, they have returned to the only section of their home that remained standing, joining hundreds of thousands of Sri Lankans still picking up the pieces of the worst natural disaster to hit the island nation in modern history.

    Cyclone Ditwah left a trail of destruction that experts say outstripped even the devastating 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami in terms of infrastructure damage. Over just 72 hours, parts of Sri Lanka’s central highlands received up to 500 millimeters of rain – nearly two months of average rainfall – triggering catastrophic flash floods and landslides that washed away entire communities, businesses and residential settlements. The official human toll stands at 643 confirmed dead, with another 173 people still unaccounted for. Close to two million people across all 25 of Sri Lanka’s districts were impacted, with more than 165,000 people remaining displaced months after the storm, housed in temporary shelters or with host families.

    According to estimates from the United Nations and international aid agencies, total damage from the cyclone reaches roughly $4 billion – an amount equivalent to 4% of Sri Lanka’s entire annual gross domestic product. Dr. Ganeshan Wignaraja, a visiting senior fellow at London’s ODI Global Institute, notes that while the cyclone’s death toll was lower than that of the 2004 tsunami, its damage to roads, public utilities, private property and critical economic infrastructure is unmatched in the country’s modern history.

    The cyclone hit at the worst possible moment for Sri Lanka. The South Asian island nation had only just begun to claw its way back from a crippling 2022 economic crisis, when a collapse in foreign currency reserves led to a sovereign debt default and widespread shortages of food, medicine, fuel and cooking gas. Those shortages sparked mass public protests that ousted then-president Gotabaya Rajapaksa, and the new government had implemented austerity measures including cutting electricity subsidies and raising top income tax rates to 36% in an effort to stabilize public finances and restore growth.

    Now, the fallout from the ongoing Iran conflict has compounded the country’s existing challenges, creating what Wignaraja calls a “triple shock” to the fragile economy: first, the $4 billion in damage from Cyclone Ditwah; second, skyrocketing global fuel prices driven by Middle East tensions; and third, a looming drought in parts of the country that threatens to deepen resource shortages.

    In response to shrinking fuel supplies and spiking global prices, the Sri Lankan government has been forced to implement emergency austerity measures in recent weeks: fuel rationing, broad price hikes, a mandatory four-day working week to cut energy consumption, a 40% increase in electricity tariffs, and rolling power and water cuts to conserve dwindling resources. Fuel and cooking gas shortages have already triggered panic buying across the country, stirring grim memories of the 2022 crisis, when daily power cuts stretched up to 13 hours and basic essentials were unobtainable for millions.

    As the government struggles to fund post-cyclone reconstruction, it has secured only around $750 million of the estimated $4 billion in recovery costs – barely one-fifth of what is needed. Unlike the 2004 tsunami, which drew immediate billions in international donor pledges from across the globe, the international response to Cyclone Ditwah has been far more muted. Only neighboring India moved quickly to mount a large-scale relief effort, launching Operation Sagar Bandhu – “Friend Across the Sea” – deploying two warships including an aircraft carrier, launching rescue sorties that saved hundreds of people including foreign citizens, setting up field hospitals, restoring critical infrastructure, and delivering more than 1,000 tonnes of emergency supplies. New Delhi also provided $450 million in grants and direct aid, making it by far the largest international donor to date.

    In contrast, long-time Sri Lankan ally and major investor China has offered minimal support: less than $2 million in financial aid and roughly 100 tonnes of emergency supplies. The Sri Lankan government formally requested Chinese support for key infrastructure reconstruction projects in January, but has yet to receive a substantive response.

    Sri Lankan disaster management officials acknowledge that while most families with partially damaged homes – like the Ravichandrans, who received 50,000 rupees ($325) in repair aid plus additional support for their young children – have received government assistance, compensation for families who lost their entire homes or businesses has been delayed. KG Dharmathilake, a senior official in the country’s disaster management division, says the delay stems from the government’s focus on “building back better”: officials are prioritizing identifying safe, disaster-resilient land for new housing to protect families from future extreme weather events, rather than rushing construction in high-risk areas. He adds that more than 80% of all affected residents have already received the financial support they are eligible for.

    For displaced Sri Lankans and economic analysts alike, the outlook has grown even bleaker in recent weeks due to the Iran conflict. Beyond spiking fuel prices, the crisis threatens Sri Lanka’s key source of foreign exchange: remittances from the estimated one million Sri Lankan workers based in Gulf nations. Last year, those remittances totalled roughly $7 billion, nearly matching the country’s current total foreign reserves of $7 billion. While mass layoffs have not yet occurred, economists warn that a prolonged conflict in the Middle East could cut off new job opportunities for Sri Lankan migrant workers and reduce overall remittance inflows, further straining the country’s ability to pay for critical imports and fund reconstruction.

    Economists say that with careful fiscal management, the current $7 billion in foreign reserves should be enough to get the country through the immediate crisis of cyclone recovery and spiking fuel prices. But a prolonged fallout from the Iran conflict would push the country back into the kind of economic chaos it saw in 2022. For President Anura Kumara Dissanayake, who took office after the 2022 crisis, successfully navigating this compound of natural disaster and geopolitical economic shock will be the defining test of his leadership.

  • Over 90 arrested as hundreds gather to defy Palestine Action ban in London

    Over 90 arrested as hundreds gather to defy Palestine Action ban in London

    On a Saturday afternoon in central London, hundreds of demonstrators gathered in the iconic Trafalgar Square to openly defy the UK government’s recent ban of the direct action group Palestine Action, deliberately putting themselves at risk of arrest under sweeping counterterrorism legislation.

    Organized around a silent vigil, approximately 500 protesters set up camping chairs along the base of Trafalgar Square’s central steps, holding handcrafted cardboard placards that bore a simple, unapologetic message: “I oppose genocide, I support Palestine Action.” In a show of force that preceded the start of the demonstration, London’s Metropolitan Police had already lined the open square with police vans, deploying a heavy uniformed presence hours before the first protester arrived.

    Footage and on-the-ground reporting from the event captured images that have become increasingly common across the UK in the months since the ban was enacted: elderly protesters, many grey-haired, frail, or relying on crutches for mobility, were physically hauled away by officers. A number of demonstrators chose to dress as Suffragettes, the early 20th-century British women’s suffrage activists, to draw a parallel between their current civil disobedience and historical fights for democratic rights. At one point during the arrests, one elderly woman lost consciousness while being carried by officers, and was placed in the recovery position by police as onlookers watched on.

    This demonstration is far from an isolated incident. Since the UK government formally proscribed Palestine Action as a terrorist group in July 2025, more than 1,600 people have been arrested under counterterrorism laws simply for holding placards echoing the same message displayed at the Trafalgar Square vigil, government data shows. Many of the attendees at Saturday’s gathering have already been detained multiple times for the same act of peaceful protest.

    Among the protesters were 70-something siblings Mark and Betty, who traveled separately from Wales and Cornwall to attend the London vigil. Both have a long history of local Palestine advocacy, and this marked their first joint appearance at a national demonstration. Mark, a Jewish genocide scholar, told Middle East Eye that his participation carries triple weight: as a member of the Jewish community, a scholar of mass atrocities, and a critic of the UK government’s policy. “I don’t want to be here. I want the government to acknowledge a failing and unravel this ban,” he said.

    Betty, also Jewish and a veteran of decades of anti-war organizing, echoed her brother’s frustration. “There is really very little else we can do. We’ve done everything: smaller local protests, writing letters to our Members of Parliament, signing petitions,” she explained. “But clearly this government will not be told unless it is forced to be told by making things very, very difficult for them by being here.” She added that the current political climate has reached a deeply worrying point: “But now we’ve got into the stage where we’re not even allowed to turn up on the street with a bit of paper for being absurdly peaceful people.”

    Also in attendance were former Palestine Action supporters who had been imprisoned after the ban, among them Heba Muraisi, who took part in a 73-day hunger strike behind bars to protest both poor detention conditions and the proscription itself. Muraisi, who had only recently been released, told reporters she had watched previous “Lift the Ban” protests on a small prison television, and witnessing the police response in person was staggering. “It’s crazy actually witnessing it. It’s both insane and disgusting. Look how many police are here, just for elderly people holding placards. It’s a joke. The state is a joke,” she said.

    Trudi Warner, a veteran activist who previously faced contempt of court charges for holding a pro-jury rights placard outside a climate change trial, argued that the UK government is completely disconnected from widespread public sentiment on Palestine. “People are outraged, they are furious, and we’re trying to show that,” Warner said. “Our thing is show, don’t tell. We can tell people that we’re living in an authoritarian state. They won’t believe us, but we can show them, and that’s what these actions are all about.”

    Saturday’s mass arrests come against a shifting legal backdrop. In February 2026, the UK High Court issued a ruling that found the government’s ban on Palestine Action was unlawful. Following that decision, Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood was granted permission to appeal the High Court’s ruling, with the appeal scheduled to be heard on April 28 and 29.

    After the initial High Court ruling, the Metropolitan Police issued a public statement saying it would suspend arrests of Palestine Action supporters and proscription opponents under counterterrorism laws, and would instead focus solely on gathering evidence for future prosecutions pending the appeal. But in a sudden policy reversal that surprised activists, the Met backtracked, describing its initial statement as an “interim position” and announcing it had revised its approach to resume arrests. Prior to Saturday’s vigil, MEE had already confirmed the Met had arrested two people on proscription-related charges after announcing the suspension.

    Defend our Juries (DOJ), the activist group leading the national campaign to overturn the Palestine Action ban, said it had formally written to Met Commissioner Mark Rowley to warn that any arrests carried out after the High Court’s unlawful ruling would carry serious legal repercussions. The group noted it had planned Saturday’s vigil based on the Met’s original pledge to suspend arrests, and that police had failed to issue a substantive response to correspondence from the group’s legal team ahead of the event.

    DOJ argues that any post-ruling arrests are unlawful, as they violate protesters’ fundamental democratic rights enshrined in the UK Human Rights Act and the European Convention on Human Rights. In a formal statement released after the vigil, the group said: “It is clear that the Metropolitan Police has adopted a policy of a) refusing to investigate crimes under the [International Criminal Court Act] relating to the acts of the government of Israel; and b) suppressing public expression of opposition to such crimes. Such a biased and discriminatory policy materially assists both the Israeli Government and Elbit Systems in the commission of genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity.”

    Dal Babu, a former chief superintendent with the Metropolitan Police, told BBC Radio 4 that the optics of mass arresting peaceful elderly protesters will create significant reputational challenges for the force. “The optics of the mass arrests will be very challenging for the police… in terms of how they manage it,” Babu said. “Also be aware of the fact there will be a huge amount of people who have sympathy with what is going on with the views of Palestine Action.”

    Official Home Office data underscores the scale of the crackdown: arrests linked to the Palestine Action ban make up the majority of the 1,800 total terrorism arrests conducted across the UK in 2025, representing a 660% year-on-year increase in counterterrorism detentions. Multiple leading human rights organizations have repeatedly warned that the proscription of Palestine Action represents a dangerous misuse of counterterrorism legislation that threatens core civil liberties, including the rights to free expression and peaceful assembly.

    A DOJ spokesperson emphasized that the campaign to lift the ban has grown far beyond a single protest rights issue. “The government’s refusal to accept the judgment of the High Court, coupled with inconsistent and opaque policing decisions, signals a troubling disregard for the rule of law,” the spokesperson said. “These are not the actions of institutions committed to protecting citizens, but of a state prioritising its own authority. Today’s wrongful arrests of… people holding signs at a silent vigil are further evidence of this.”

  • US and Iran hold direct talks in Pakistan to end war

    US and Iran hold direct talks in Pakistan to end war

    Six weeks after open conflict erupted between the United States and Iran, the two long-adversarial nations convened their highest-level face-to-face negotiations in half a century Saturday in Pakistan’s capital of Islamabad, marking the first direct formal high-level meeting between the two sides since Iran’s 1979 Islamic Revolution. The two-hour closed-door session brought together a high-powered American delegation led by Vice President JD Vance, special envoy Steve Witkoff, and former White House senior advisor Jared Kushner, while Iran was represented by parliamentary speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf and Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi. Pakistan’s army chief also joined the opening round of talks, as the South Asian nation served as a neutral mediator for the breakthrough diplomatic engagement. The talks entered a pause after the initial session, even as competing and contradictory accounts of early progress and on-ground developments began to emerge even before negotiators released any official joint statement. One key point of contention is the status of the Strait of Hormuz, the strategically critical waterway that carries roughly a fifth of the world’s daily oil supplies. Iran’s blockade of the strait earlier sparked the largest single disruption to global energy markets in modern history. A senior anonymous U.S. official told news outlet Axios that multiple U.S. Navy vessels traversed the strait on Saturday, but both Iranian state television and an anonymous Pakistani source outright denied any U.S. ships had passed through the waterway. Shortly after the opening of talks, former U.S. President Donald Trump claimed on social media that the process of clearing the Strait of Hormuz had already begun, adding that all 28 of Iran’s mine-laying vessels had been sunk. No independent confirmation of this claim has emerged as of Saturday evening. Another conflicting report centers on the fate of billions of dollars in Iranian assets frozen by U.S. sanctions in foreign banks, primarily in Qatar. A senior unnamed Iranian source earlier told Reuters that the U.S. had agreed to release these assets, a statement that was immediately rejected by a U.S. official. The direct Saturday meeting came after hours of pre-negotiation shuttle diplomacy led by Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, who worked to align both sides on basic terms before the first face-to-face encounter. Iranian state media outlined Tehran’s core pre-negotiation red lines that Washington must accept for any final agreement: progress on the status of the Strait of Hormuz, the full unfreezing of Iranian blocked assets, war reparation payments from the U.S., and a comprehensive immediate ceasefire across the entire Middle East region. A key non-U.S.-Iran conflict at the top of Tehran’s negotiating agenda is the ongoing Israeli military campaign in Lebanon, where strikes have continued despite the recent bilateral ceasefire between the U.S. and Iran. On Wednesday alone, Israeli strikes killed more than 350 people in Lebanon, and total fatalities from Israeli operations that began in March have reached nearly 2,000. Both the U.S. and Israel have insisted that the military campaign in Lebanon falls outside the scope of the U.S.-Iran ceasefire, a position Tehran strongly rejects. Iran’s negotiating delegation has confirmed it will continue to press for an immediate ceasefire to end Israeli strikes in Lebanon during the ongoing talks. Even as the Islamabad talks got underway Saturday, fresh violence rocked southern Lebanon: Israeli air strikes hit more than a dozen locations, killing 10 people including a Lebanese civil defense member and two paramedics. In response, the Iran-aligned group Hezbollah announced it had carried out multiple targeted operations against Israeli military positions both inside Lebanese border territories and across the frontier in northern Israel. Looking ahead, both Israeli and Lebanese officials have confirmed they will hold separate talks in Washington on Tuesday, though the two sides have also released conflicting accounts of what agenda those discussions will cover, adding another layer of uncertainty to the already volatile regional situation as world powers wait for outcomes from the historic U.S.-Iran negotiations in Pakistan.

  • Chinese Kuomintang leader hails tech example set by Beijing

    Chinese Kuomintang leader hails tech example set by Beijing

    In a landmark visit to China’s capital Beijing, Cheng Li-wun, chairwoman of the Chinese Kuomintang (KMT), has praised the remarkable technological advances achieved on the Chinese mainland, describing her cross-strait trip as deeply productive and enlightening.\n\nThe visit, which took place in early April 2026, opened with a solemn and symbolic stop on Saturday morning, when Cheng led a delegation of senior KMT figures to the Sun Yat-sen Memorial Hall. Tucked within the grounds of Biyun Temple on Beijing’s scenic Fragrant Hills in the city’s northwestern outskirts, the memorial hall holds profound historical significance for both sides of the Taiwan Strait, as Sun Yat-sen is a revered pioneer of China’s democratic revolution shared by both the KMT and people across the strait.\n\nDuring her time in Beijing, Cheng got a first-hand look at the Chinese mainland’s cutting-edge technological development, which left a lasting positive impression on the KMT leader. She explicitly highlighted Beijing’s progress in the technology sector as a notable example worth recognition. This visit marks a key moment in cross-strait party exchanges, coming as Cheng held a historic meeting with General Secretary Xi Jinping of the Communist Party of China Central Committee during her stay in the capital, a meeting the KMT chair has already characterized as a pivotal milestone for cross-strait relations.\n\nObservers note that positive remarks from the KMT leader about the Chinese mainland’s technological development reflect growing people-to-people and party-to-party recognition of the mainland’s development achievements, creating a foundation for further constructive exchanges across the Taiwan Strait in the fields of technology, industry and people’s livelihoods.

  • ‘It’s a special thing to be on Planet Earth’: Artemis crew welcomed home in Houston

    ‘It’s a special thing to be on Planet Earth’: Artemis crew welcomed home in Houston

    Houston’s Johnson Space Center rolled out a warm, celebratory welcome on Monday for the four-member Artemis II crew, whose landmark nine-day journey around the Moon has secured its place in human exploration history. The mission marked an extraordinary milestone for space travel: the four-person team traveled farther from Earth than any humans have ever gone before, pushing the boundaries of human deep-space exploration and paving the way for NASA’s ambitious goal of returning astronauts to the lunar surface.

    Addressing an audience of thousands of cheering NASA employees, space industry partners, and family members, crew commander Reid Wiseman summed up the profound emotion of the journey, saying, “It’s a special thing to be on Planet Earth.” The comment reflected the transformative perspective the astronauts gained from seeing Earth rise against the black expanse of space from lunar orbit, a view that only 24 humans have witnessed firsthand since the Apollo era.

    The nine-day mission, which launched from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida earlier this month, was a critical uncrewed test flight no—wait, correction, this was the first crewed test flight of the Space Launch System rocket and Orion capsule, the core vehicles that will power future Artemis landing missions. The successful voyage validated key life support, navigation, and heat shield systems that will be used when the first woman and first person of color step onto the Moon during Artemis III, currently scheduled for 2026.

    NASA officials emphasized that the mission’s success is more than a symbolic win for space exploration; it lays the groundwork for eventual human missions to Mars, turning decades of planning into tangible progress. For Houston, which has served as the heart of American human spaceflight for more than 60 years, the homecoming celebration was also a reminder of the city’s enduring role in leading humanity’s push beyond low Earth orbit.

  • Manhattan prosecutor investigates abuse claims against congressman Eric Swalwell

    Manhattan prosecutor investigates abuse claims against congressman Eric Swalwell

    A high-stakes political drama has unfolded in American politics this week, after the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office confirmed it has opened a formal investigation into multiple sexual misconduct allegations against U.S. Representative Eric Swalwell, a leading Democratic candidate for governor of California.

    Four women have now come forward with accusations against the congressman, ranging from persistent sexual harassment to non-consensual sexual assault, with one of the alleged incidents occurring on Manhattan soil. Swalwell, who has represented a Northern California district covering areas near San Francisco since 2012 and launched a high-profile bid to replace outgoing Governor Gavin Newsom in this year’s election, has forcefully denied every claim. In public statements, he has pledged to clear his name using documented facts and has not ruled out pursuing legal action against his accusers.

    In an official public statement released Saturday, the New York prosecutor’s office extended an invitation for survivors and any other individuals with information relevant to the allegations to reach out to its Special Victims Division. “Our specially trained prosecutors, investigators and counselors are well-equipped to help you in a trauma-informed, survivor-centered manner,” the office said. Representatives for Swalwell did not issue an immediate response to repeated requests for comment from the BBC following the announcement of the investigation.

    The first public allegation against Swalwell appeared Friday in the *San Francisco Chronicle*, from a woman who previously worked as a staff member in his Castro Valley district office. She told the outlet that shortly after she was hired, Swalwell began making unwanted inappropriate comments, repeatedly solicited her for sexual encounters and sent unsolicited sexual messages. The former staffer alleges she was assaulted by Swalwell on two separate occasions: the first in September 2019, after the pair went out for drinks, and the second in 2024 following a charity gala in New York City. Both times, she told the newspaper, she was too impaired by alcohol to give legal consent. The BBC has not been able to independently confirm the details of her account or verify her identity, but has reached out to her legal representation for comment.

    Shortly after the first report, CNN published accounts from three additional women, bringing the total number of accusers to four, all raising claims of varying degrees of sexual misconduct against the congressman. The network also reported that Swalwell’s legal team has already sent cease-and-desist letters demanding retractions to two of the women making accusations.

    In a public video message posted to Facebook Friday, Swalwell addressed the allegations directly to voters. He acknowledged he has made errors in judgment earlier in his life, framing those past mistakes as private matters between himself and his wife, to whom he issued a deep apology for the public scandal. “I do not suggest to you that I am perfect or a saint,” he said. “I’ve certainly made mistakes in judgment in my past. But those mistakes are between me and my wife. And to her, I apologise deeply for putting her in this position.” He reiterated his denial of all the misconduct allegations, stating: “For nearly 20 years, I have served the public – as a prosecutor and a congressman and have always protected women. I will defend myself with the facts and where necessary bring legal action.”

    The timing of the allegations could not be more consequential for Swalwell’s gubernatorial campaign. The investigation comes just weeks before California begins mailing out ballots to voters for the June 2 primary, in an open race to lead the nation’s most populous state. Before the allegations surfaced, two separate public opinion polls ranked Swalwell as one of the top two front-runners for the Democratic nomination in the crowded primary field. Within hours of the first reports of the accusations, Swalwell lost the public endorsement of several of his most prominent political backers, including U.S. Senator Adam Schiff and House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries, whose support had been a major boost to his campaign credibility.