Global Pulse

作者： admin

  • UN report finds Syria was building a nuclear reactor in Deir el-Zour under former President Assad

    UN report finds Syria was building a nuclear reactor in Deir el-Zour under former President Assad

    VIENNA – In a confidential briefing distributed to member states and obtained by the Associated Press on Tuesday, the United Nations’ nuclear watchdog has formally confirmed that decades of unreported nuclear activity under former Syrian President Bashar Assad violated global non-proliferation rules.

    Inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) carried out on-site verification work at multiple locations across Syria in August 2025, yielding new concrete evidence that the Assad regime failed to declare all nuclear material, facilities and activities as required under its Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT) Safeguards Agreement.

    The revelations center on a once-secret nuclear reactor project in the eastern Syrian region of Deir el-Zour, alongside a nearby fuel fabrication plant and an additional fuel storage site that were never disclosed to global regulators. For years, intelligence communities have alleged that Syria ran a large undeclared nuclear program, including the Deir el-Zour reactor constructed with technical support from North Korea.

    Details of the reactor only emerged into public view in 2007, when Israel launched surprise airstrikes that destroyed the uncompleted facility. In the aftermath of the strike, the Assad regime bulldozed the entire site and consistently avoided providing full, transparent answers to IAEA investigators for nearly two decades. It was not until 2024 that IAEA sampling at the location detected particles of uranium, reigniting formal verification efforts.

    During the August 2025 visit, inspectors returned to the Deir el-Zour site on August 29 to monitor ongoing excavation work. On-site observations have now confirmed that uncovered cooling infrastructure at the site matches the design specifications of a functional nuclear reactor. The report also identifies three additional locations that served supporting roles for the Deir el-Zour project: one dedicated to nuclear conversion and fuel fabrication work, a second for temporary storage of construction materials for the reactor, and a third that stored materials moved to and from the main site and was originally earmarked for future spent fuel reprocessing.

    Beyond the long-investigated Deir el-Zour complex, the IAEA’s August inspection also included a previously undisclosed site that the new Syrian administration formally notified the agency of in a July 17 letter. The notification invited IAEA inspectors to conduct full verification of the site and any nuclear material found there.

    To the agency’s surprise, verification work at the newly disclosed site found 73 tonnes of natural uranium metal formed into clad fuel rods, all of which had never been reported to the IAEA. As of the publication of the confidential report, all of this undeclared nuclear material has been placed under IAEA containment and continuous surveillance measures to prevent diversion for military use.

    The confirmation of long-suspected undeclared nuclear activities comes amid a period of rapid political transition in Syria, marking one of the most significant findings by the IAEA regarding Middle Eastern non-proliferation compliance in nearly 20 years.

  • Trump running out of bullets against an intractable Iran

    Trump running out of bullets against an intractable Iran

    Seven months ago, U.S. President Donald Trump launched a discretionary war against Iran, a conflict he initially framed as a quick “little excursion” that would wrap up in mere weeks. Today, that war remains mired in intractable deadlock, with no clear path to victory or exit for the United States – a outcome that has upended regional security and threatened global economic stability. The conflict, launched at the urging of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in late February, was premised on two flawed justifications: forcing Tehran to keep the Strait of Hormuz open to commercial navigation (a status quo that held before the war began) and compelling Iran to renegotiate its nuclear program. Notably, independent experts have repeatedly confirmed Iran was not close to developing a nuclear weapon prior to the outbreak of hostilities, undermining the core strategic rationale for the invasion. From its inception, the conflict was launched without a coherent long-term strategy. The Trump administration repeatedly downplayed expectations, echoing then-Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s promises that the war would be short and low-cost, while criticizing previous U.S. leaders for getting the country trapped in protracted foreign wars. Yet administration officials badly miscalculated: they severely underestimated the Iranian regime’s resilience and preparedness to repel U.S. aggression, and failed to anticipate that Iranian society would rally together around the government in response to outside attack. Despite these early missteps, Trump has repeatedly rushed to claim premature military victory, asserting that Iran’s defensive capabilities had been wiped out and that U.S. bombings had forced Tehran to the negotiating table. These claims have quickly unraveled. Not only did Tehran rebuild its offensive capabilities far faster than U.S. intelligence projected, it also secured de facto control over the Strait of Hormuz – a critical chokepoint for global oil supplies – giving Iran a powerful leverage point to pressure Washington and the international community. By May, Iran held the strategic upper hand and refused to enter any negotiations that did not address its core non-negotiable demands: a full ceasefire across all fronts, including an end to Israel’s offensive against Hezbollah in Lebanon; the unfreezing of billions of dollars in Iranian assets held overseas; war reparations from the U.S.; formal recognition of Iran’s sovereign right to manage the Strait of Hormuz; and a permanent guarantee that the U.S. and Israel will abandon all threats of regime change and military action against Iran. In June, Trump signed a vaguely worded memorandum of understanding with Iran’s hardline IRGC-dominated leadership that aligned closely with many of these demands. But facing fierce backlash from senior Republican Party figures and Netanyahu, Trump quickly backed out of the agreement and renewed large-scale military strikes. For its part, Tehran made no effort to salvage the deal, recognizing that continued conflict serves its goal of inflicting political damage on Trump ahead of U.S. midterm elections. Since the collapse of the June memorandum, the Trump administration has reimposed a full blockade on Iranian ports to cut off Tehran’s oil revenue, while carrying out periodic airstrikes intended to intimidate the regime. These moves have done nothing to break the stalemate, with periodic exchanges of fire continuing this week: the U.S. launched strikes on Iran’s Larak Island, and the IRGC retaliated with attacks on U.S. military bases in Jordan and the United Arab Emirates. With no substantive peace talks underway, the conflict remains in a dangerous, volatile limbo. Ahead of the approaching midterm elections, the Trump administration last week unveiled a sweeping new round of sanctions dubbed Operation Economic Outcast, labeled “Economic D-Day” by Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent. The policy is designed to cripple Iran’s economy and force global isolation of the regime, but analysts widely expect it to fail, just as previous pressure campaigns have. Both China and Russia have already rejected the new sanctions as unacceptable, and none of Iran’s key neighboring states – including Pakistan, Iraq, and Turkey – have committed to enforcing the measures. Only the United Arab Emirates, a close U.S. and Israeli ally, has paused financial transactions and trade with Tehran. History offers little evidence that broad, unilaterally enforced sanctions force regime capitulation: the only widely cited case of successful multilateral sanctions was the campaign against South Africa’s apartheid regime. For 47 years, Iran’s Islamic government has honed strategies to evade U.S.-led sanctions, building domestic self-sufficiency and diversifying its trade network to reduce dependence on Western markets. While the Iranian public has inevitably borne the brunt of economic hardship from past sanctions, the regime has consistently survived and consolidated its control. The current round of sanctions will almost certainly deepen suffering for ordinary Iranians, but there is little reason to expect it to topple the government or force Tehran to make concessions on core demands. The ongoing standoff poses unacceptable risks to both regional and global security. Allowing the conflict to escalate further could spark a full-scale regional war, and a prolonged closure of the Strait of Hormuz would carry catastrophic costs for the global economy. The only viable path forward, according to regional analysts, is for Washington and Tehran to return to the framework of the June memorandum of understanding and resume direct, good-faith negotiations to reach a final settlement. Quiet mediation efforts led by Pakistan and Qatar continue to work behind the scenes to bring the two sides back to the table, and a growing number of Gulf states are pushing for an end to the conflict. These regional powers have increasingly come to accept Iran as a permanent major regional actor, and are moving away from relying exclusively on the U.S. for security. In a notable sign of this shift, Saudi Arabia – the wealthiest Gulf state – recently signed a mutual defense pact with NATO member Turkey and nuclear-armed Pakistan, with several other regional states including Egypt considering joining the agreement, a move that Iran has publicly welcomed. While the path to a lasting peace remains fraught with uncertainty and obstacles, analysts agree that diplomacy is the only viable way out of the current stalemate. This commentary, written by Amin Saikal, Emeritus Professor of Middle Eastern Studies at Australian National University, the University of Western Australia, and Victoria University, is republished under a Creative Commons license from The Conversation.

  • Oil giant Chevron is expected to announce it will expand operations in Venezuela, US official says

    Oil giant Chevron is expected to announce it will expand operations in Venezuela, US official says

    WASHINGTON — A senior United States government official, speaking on condition of anonymity in line with briefing rules established by the White House, confirmed Tuesday that American energy giant Chevron is on the cusp of announcing a major expansion of its oil operations in Venezuela. The formal rollout of the new investment initiative is scheduled for Wednesday, when senior leaders from Chevron and U.S. Energy Secretary Chris Wright will travel to Caracas to make the official announcement. As the second-largest oil producer headquartered in the United States, Chevron holds a unique position among American energy firms: it is the only U.S. oil company that maintains a large-scale operational footprint in Venezuela, which holds the world’s largest proven crude oil reserves. The upcoming announcement comes just one day after the White House formally confirmed a new partnership between U.S. authorities and Canada-based North American Blue Energy Partners. This collaboration aligns directly with former President Donald Trump’s broader policy push to unlock development of Venezuela’s vast underutilized oil reserves, a priority that has shaped U.S. energy and foreign policy toward the South American nation in recent years.

  • Jurors in Lindsay Clancy trial deadlocked but judge asks them to keep trying

    Jurors in Lindsay Clancy trial deadlocked but judge asks them to keep trying

    After three full days of closed-door deliberations, the jury hearing the high-profile triple murder case against Massachusetts resident Lindsay Clancy has failed to reach a unanimous verdict, leaving the court in shock on Tuesday. Despite the impasse, the presiding judge has instructed the panel to continue their deliberations in an effort to resolve the deadlock.

    Clancy, a 36-year-old former nurse, stands accused of killing her three young children at the family’s Massachusetts home in 2023, and faces three counts of first-degree murder. Prosecutors with the commonwealth’s legal team have argued that Clancy carried out the killings in a premeditated, intentional act that meets the legal standard for first-degree homicide. Her defense team does not contest that Clancy caused the deaths of her children, but has centered its entire case on the argument that she was suffering severe, untreated postpartum psychosis at the time of the incident. This condition, the defense argues, left Clancy unable to distinguish right from wrong, negating the criminal intent required for a first-degree murder conviction.

    The 12-member jury, made up of nine women and three men, began deliberations last week, wrapping up weeks of testimony from more than 50 witnesses called by both the prosecution and defense. When Judge William Sullivan read the jury’s note announcing the deadlock to the court, audible gasps from spectators filled the courtroom. Clancy, who appeared in court seated in a wheelchair beside her legal counsel, remained stoic as the announcement was made.

    Legal experts note that jury deadlocks are a far from uncommon outcome in high-stakes, emotionally fraught criminal cases, and the court system has established long-standing protocols for addressing such impasses. Heather Cucolo, a professor at New York Law School and a leading expert in mental health law, explained to media outlets that hung juries are particularly typical of what she described as “complex and emotionally charged trials” such as Clancy’s.

    “If the deadlock does not break, the judge may issue what is commonly called a ‘dynamite instruction’ – known as a Tuey-Rodriguez charge in Massachusetts state courts – which encourages jurors to reconsider opposing perspectives in an effort to reach a consensus, while still upholding each juror’s right to their own honest conviction,” Cucolo explained. She added, however, that this kind of additional instruction is typically only deployed as a last-ditch effort to avoid a mistrial.

    If the jury ultimately convicts Clancy on all three first-degree murder charges, Massachusetts state law requires a mandatory sentence of life in prison without any possibility of parole. If no verdict can be reached, the case will result in a mistrial, leaving open the possibility that prosecutors would have to try Clancy again at a later date.

  • Trump says US position on Falklands ‘one of many’ under review

    Trump says US position on Falklands ‘one of many’ under review

    In a development that has sparked cross-party friction in British politics, former U.S. President Donald Trump has confirmed that the United States’ longstanding ambiguous stance on the Falkland Islands sovereignty dispute is “one of many” international positions currently under formal review, as the U.S. presses the United Kingdom to accelerate its planned increases to NATO-aligned defence spending.

    The confirmation follows a weeks-old report from The Daily Telegraph, which first revealed that senior U.S. defence officials were drafting a set of proposals designed to pressure NATO allies into meeting their mandatory 2% of GDP defence spending commitments. Among the leverage options reportedly under consideration was a U.S. shift away from its longstanding neutrality on the Falklands dispute, which could see Washington oppose London’s long-held sovereignty claim over the South Atlantic territory.

    The Falkland Islands, located 300 miles off the southern coast of Argentina, have been the site of a bitter sovereignty dispute between London and Buenos Aires for nearly two centuries. The dispute boiled over into open conflict in 1982, when Argentine military forces invaded the islands to stake the South American nation’s territorial claim. A 74-day British military campaign retook control of the territory, but the conflict left more than 900 people dead – 255 British service members, three civilian islanders, and 649 Argentine military personnel. For decades, successive U.S. administrations have formally recognized the UK’s de facto governance of the islands, but have declined to take an official position on the underlying sovereignty question.

    During a press briefing with reporters on Monday, BBC correspondents asked Trump directly whether his administration was actively reviewing the U.S.’s longstanding position on the dispute. Trump responded simply: “I always review every position. That’s just one of many.” He added that the UK “has got some problems, but they’ll get solved” when pressed for further comment on the link between the review and British defence spending targets.

    Trump’s remarks drew immediate pushback from senior British political figures. Dame Emily Thornberry, the Labour Member of Parliament who chairs the House of Commons Foreign Affairs Committee, dismissed the comments as “nonsense” and called on the UK government to issue an immediate, formal response to the threat from Washington. Responding to the call during Tuesday’s parliamentary session, Foreign Office Minister Uma Kumaran reaffirmed London’s unwavering position on the dispute, telling MPs: “The UK has no doubt about its sovereignty over the Falkland Islands. They are and will always remain a British overseas territory in line with the wishes of the Falkland islanders. The UK is steadfast in our support for the islanders’ rights of self-determination. Our position remains unchanged.” A UK government spokesperson added in a separate statement: “Falkland islanders are British with a right to determine their own future. The islanders have repeatedly expressed their wish to remain a British overseas territory and our commitment to them is unwavering.”

    The current debate around the Falklands is not the first time a potential review of U.S. policy has emerged. Earlier this year, an internal Pentagon email obtained by Reuters revealed the U.S. was considering a range of punitive options against NATO allies that it deemed insufficiently supportive of its military operations in Iran. The Falklands sovereignty position was one of the potential leverage tools listed in that internal correspondence, and the proposal has reemerged in recent reporting tied to the Trump administration’s pressure on NATO members to increase defence spending.

    The row over the Falklands comes as the UK’s new ruling administration works to lock in commitments to raise defence spending in line with NATO demands. New Prime Minister Andy Burnham has pledged to honour a commitment made by his predecessor, former Prime Minister Keir Starmer, to hit a target of 3.5% of GDP for core defence spending by 2035. On Tuesday, Chancellor John Healey told The Times that he would outline a clear, binding timeline to meet that 3.5% target during the next government spending review, scheduled for spring 2026. Healey added that the plan will also include an explicit target date for reaching an interim 3% of GDP spending target. Healey, who served as defence secretary under Starmer, resigned from the previous cabinet in June over a public dispute about military spending timelines, saying in his resignation letter that he was frustrated by the lack of a clear plan to hit the 3% target by 2030, his preferred timeline.

    Beyond the Falklands dispute, the Burnham administration is also facing ongoing political pressure over a stalled plan to transfer sovereignty of the Chagos Islands to Mauritius. The 2024 agreement, reached under Starmer, would have seen London hand over control of the Indian Ocean archipelago in exchange for a long-term lease to retain the joint US-UK military base on Diego Garcia, a key strategic logistics hub for U.S. and British military operations across the Middle East and Africa. In April, the deal was paused indefinitely after Trump withdrew U.S. support for the agreement, throwing the entire process into doubt.

    Appearing before the Commons on Tuesday, Kumaran reaffirmed that maintaining long-term operational control and security of the Diego Garcia base remains the UK government’s top priority, and that this goal is the entire foundation of the ongoing negotiations with Mauritius. She added that any funding tied to a final agreement would be covered within existing spending allocations for the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office and the Ministry of Defence. But the minister’s comments drew fierce criticism from the opposition Conservative Party. James Cartlidge, the Conservative shadow defence secretary, called the existing Chagos agreement “crazy” and said it “belongs on the ash heap of history.” He called on Burnham to “show some backbone” and scrap the deal entirely, reallocating any planned funding for the transfer to the armed forces. Conservative shadow Foreign Office minister Wendy Morton also pressed the government for clarity, noting that the Starmer administration acknowledged in April that the treaty had become “impossible to agree at political level” and asking what had changed to justify continuing negotiations. In response, Kumaran said the Burnham government would “continue to work with the US and Mauritius to find a way forward that is in the UK’s best interests and protects our national security.”

  • Pistol in a lake gives hope for French cold case

    Pistol in a lake gives hope for French cold case

    One of Europe’s most high-profile unsolved murder cases has taken an unexpected turn, after a 12-year-old cold case gained a critical new lead following the discovery of a vintage Luger pistol in a French lake close to where a British family and a passing cyclist were gunned down in 2012.

    The killings, which shocked communities on both sides of the English Channel, unfolded on 5 September 2012 in the hilly, picturesque countryside near Lake Annecy in eastern France. Saad al-Hilli, an Iraqi-born British engineer, was on a family caravan holiday with his wife Ikram, his mother-in-law Suhaila Al-Allaf, and their two young daughters, aged four and seven. The bodies of al-Hilli, his wife, and his mother-in-law were found slumped in their family car, which was left idling on a remote forest road near the village of Chevaline. A French cyclist, Sylvain Mollier, who had been passing the scene, was also fatally shot. All four victims were killed by a gunshot to the head.

    In a cruel twist of fate, the al-Hilli’s two young daughters survived the attack. The seven-year-old girl was struck in the head with a pistol butt and left badly injured, while the four-year-old hid under her mother’s body and was not discovered by forensic investigators until hours after the first officers arrived at the crime scene. Forensic analysis of fragments left at the scene from the pistol butt allowed investigators to quickly confirm the murder weapon was a Luger P06, a semi-automatic pistol once standard issue for the Swiss military, phased out of service around 1960. Today, the model is largely held as a collector’s item rather than a functional weapon, a detail that long complicated theories of a professional contract killing.

    For more than a decade, exhaustive cross-border investigations carried out by law enforcement teams in France and the United Kingdom have failed to identify a suspect or establish a clear motive for the killings. Multiple lines of inquiry, from a family dispute over inherited assets to a random attack by an unhinged individual, even the theory that cyclist Mollier was the intended target, have been pursued by investigators over the years, only to be ultimately discarded. At one point, investigators also examined a potential link to the sudden death of al-Hilli’s wife’s first husband, an American man who died of a heart attack only hours before the Annecy attack, but no connection was ever proven.

    Now, France’s national cold case unit has confirmed that a vintage Luger pistol was recovered from Lake Annecy, just a short distance from the 2012 murder site, according to reporting from French outlet Marianne, which first broke news of the discovery. The weapon was found by British tourists visiting the region on 20 August, who spotted the object lying two meters below the water’s surface near Le Solitaire du Lac, the campsite where the al-Hilli family had parked their caravan for the holiday. Initially, the group mistook the weapon for a plastic water toy, but quickly realized it was a real firearm once they pulled it from the water and felt its weight.

    The recovered pistol has suffered significant corrosion and damage after more than a decade submerged in lake water, and forensic experts are currently conducting detailed testing to confirm whether the weapon is the Luger P06 model used in the killings. Roughly 60,000 P06 models were manufactured during the pistol’s production run, out of more than three million total Luger pistols made globally. Lake Annecy sits only 50 kilometers from the Swiss border, and investigators have long noted that many retired P06 pistols remain in private family collections on both sides of the French-Swiss border, a context that could help narrow down the weapon’s provenance if testing confirms it is the murder weapon.

    The discovery marks the first major break in the case in years, giving investigators new hope of finally solving one of the most puzzling unsolved murder cases in recent European history.

  • Germany says Russia behind Leipzig airport drone attack

    Germany says Russia behind Leipzig airport drone attack

    In a landmark public announcement that escalates tensions between Berlin and Moscow, German officials have formally named Russia as the perpetrator of an explosive drone attack last month at Leipzig/Halle Airport, a critical logistics hub supporting military shipments to Ukraine.

    The incident, which unfolded on August 4, saw an explosive-laden drone discovered near Ukrainian cargo aircraft parked at the eastern German airport. The device never detonated, investigators confirmed, after its detonator malfunctioned. Separately, probes suggest a second drone collided with a nearby cargo plane, while a third unmanned device was located in the area surrounding the airport 10 days after the initial discovery.

    Speaking at a Berlin press conference alongside German Foreign Minister Johann Wadephul, Interior Minister Alexander Dobrindt framed the attempted attack as fitting the long-documented blueprint of Russian hybrid operations targeting European states. He added that German authorities operate under the working assumption that further attacks on German soil are likely.

    Leipzig/Halle Airport holds unique strategic significance: it is used by the German military and NATO allies to transfer military supplies, and it also acts as a operational base for Ukraine’s Antonov Airlines, the carrier that moves the vast majority of Ukraine’s airborne cargo. That strategic role makes it a logical target for Moscow, analysts note, at a time when Germany remains one of Kyiv’s most prominent backers in its war against Russian invasion.

    In response to the confirmed Russian involvement, Wadephul announced sweeping diplomatic measures: he has ordered the closure of Russia’s consulate in Bonn, and the government will terminate the operating contract for the Russian House in Berlin, a facility long suspected by security observers of being used for Russian espionage and disinformation campaigns.

    The formal accusation and retaliatory measures have drawn immediate reaction from across the Western alliance. NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte released a statement on X confirming the alliance’s full solidarity with Germany, noting that “the evidence is clear” and that he supports the actions Berlin has taken in response. The incident is scheduled to be a top topic of discussion during a meeting of European Union foreign ministers taking place in Ireland on the same Tuesday the announcement was made.

    Moscow has repeatedly denied any involvement in attacks on European soil, and in response to the new measures, Russian Foreign Ministry spokesperson said Russia would retaliate for what it calls “anti-Russian decisions”, according to Russian state news agency Interfax.

    This formal attribution marks a shift from Berlin’s previous cautious stance, which only referenced potential involvement by “foreign powers” without naming a specific actor. US media had already reported that American intelligence agencies linked the attack to Russian actors, confirming the assessment that German intelligence had privately reached.

    German officials have long warned that the country faces daily hybrid threats from hostile powers. Last week, Chancellor Friedrich Merz, who has taken a hardline stance in support of Ukraine, reiterated that any actor that carries out hostile acts against German interests will “pay a price”. The German government is currently moving forward with plans to expand the legal powers of the country’s intelligence agencies, which have long been criticized for having limited authority to counter hybrid and asymmetric threats.

    The announcement comes at a sensitive domestic political moment for the Merz administration. A key regional election in the eastern state of Saxony-Anhalt, where the airport is located, is approaching, and polls suggest the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) could win enough support to take control of the state government for the first time in the party’s history. The AfD, Germany’s largest national opposition party, has campaigned on ending all military and political support for Ukraine and restoring normal diplomatic and economic ties with Russia.

    In a separate development that adds to growing concerns over security on German soil, German police confirmed Tuesday they are launching an investigation into the discovery of improvised explosive and incendiary devices at a power substation in the eastern state of Brandenburg. The devices damaged a power line, causing a temporary power outage in the area. No group or actor has yet been linked to the sabotage attempt, and investigations into what happened remain ongoing.

    Over the past 12 months, multiple NATO member states, Germany included, have recorded a surge in drone sightings near critical infrastructure, military bases, and industrial facilities, raising alarms across the alliance over the growing scope of Russian hybrid activity targeting Western countries.

  • River water smashed into tunnel and chased me for 20 minutes, Nepal worker tells BBC

    River water smashed into tunnel and chased me for 20 minutes, Nepal worker tells BBC

    Last week, catastrophic flash floods swept through river valleys across Nepal, triggering a deadly collapse at a hydropower construction tunnel along the Trishuli River that left hundreds of workers missing and thousands dead. In harrowing first-person interviews with the BBC, surviving workers have shared their accounts of the terrifying moments that unfolded when river water breached the tunnel they were building.

    Pemba Dundu Tamang, one of the workers who narrowly escaped the rushing floodwaters, was part of a 30-person crew pouring concrete lining inside the tunnel when the disaster struck. The first sign of trouble, he recalled, was an unexpected, violent gust of wind that ripped through the tunnel, sending splintered plywood flying through the air and shaking loose large construction equipment. Outside the tunnel mouth, nearby riverside homes had already been torn from their foundations and swept away by the surging water.

    “I ran toward the tunnel entrance,” Tamang described. “The water was chasing behind me and I was running ahead of it.” For 20 minutes, he fled uphill, with the deluge nipping at his heels, until he emerged from the tunnel disoriented and numb with shock. By the time he reached safety, the devastating reality of what he had lost began to sink in.

    Tamang lost six members of his family—including his mother, older brother, sister-in-law, and three young nieces and nephews—who were staying at their riverside home when the flood hit. Only his wife, son, and one nephew survived the disaster. His colleague Itha Ghale suffered an equal loss, losing eight family members including his mother and eldest daughter; only Ghale, his wife, and three sons survived. “I feel life is meaningless now. Surviving feels miserable. I do not know where to eat or where to go,” Tamang said. “The dead are at peace. It is those of us who survived who suffer.”

    Beyond the personal toll on these workers, the disaster has brought widespread devastation across Nepal. Official counts put the national death toll at more than 1,000, with roughly 4,000 people still unaccounted for. Hundreds of the missing are hydropower workers like Tamang, who were employed across a sprawling network of construction tunnels for hydropower projects running along the Trishuli River, which generates over 99% of Nepal’s total electricity supply.

    Tamang and Ghale were working on the Upper Trishuli 3B Hydropower Project, a major facility scheduled to come online in 2027 that was designed to reuse water from an upstream plant to add additional capacity to Nepal’s national energy grid. Around 50 to 60 workers escaped the tunnel with Tamang, but dozens more remain trapped inside, he said.

    Nepal’s military has launched a large-scale search-and-rescue operation across the affected region, with crews pumping air into submerged and blocked tunnels to sustain any potential survivors still trapped. Soldiers have also been assigned to recover bodies and implement public health measures to prevent the spread of waterborne disease in the flood aftermath. “We are focused on search-and-rescue efforts at the tunnels, our work is continuing,” Nepal Army spokesman Raja Ram Basnet told AFP.

    International teams of specialists from China, India, and Nepal are also on-site, operating heavy excavators and clearing tonnes of debris to reach trapped workers at multiple hydropower construction sites. Tamang, who took shelter in the nearby village of Shanti Bazar for two days before military rescuers reached him, says he holds out hope for the colleagues still trapped. “There are probably still some survivors inside. I would be happy if they were rescued quickly,” he said. “I know many people who are still trapped there.”

    The disaster has also sparked new discussion about disaster preparedness in Nepal’s mountainous, flood-prone river valleys. A new analysis by an international coalition of mountain hazard experts—including researchers from the Asian Mountain Academic Alliance, the Stimson Centre, and China’s Institute of Mountain Hazards and Environment—found clear warning signs of impending instability in the upstream glacier in the days before the flood triggered the disaster.

    Satellite imagery captured before the event showed the glacier surface was accelerating, meltwater had changed to a sediment-heavy brown colour, and a large crack was forming in the surrounding rock—all clear indicators that a collapse and downstream flood was imminent. While the avalanche that triggered the flood moved too quickly to warn communities immediately upstream, experts say a functioning early warning system would have given 10 minutes or more of warning to downstream communities and construction sites—time that could have saved hundreds of lives. Tamang echoed this assessment, saying more lives could have been saved if adequate emergency resources had been in place before the flood hit.

    As the search continues for missing workers and flood victims, survivors like Tamang are left grappling with the loss of their families and uncertain futures. Many, including Tamang, fear that if the damaged hydropower projects are shuttered indefinitely, they will be left without work and unable to feed their surviving families. “If things continue like this, we will go hungry,” Tamang said. “Sometimes I feel it would have been better not to survive.”

  • ‘I have fired 40 of my agents for being corrupt’, says Nigeria’s anti-corruption chief

    ‘I have fired 40 of my agents for being corrupt’, says Nigeria’s anti-corruption chief

    Nigeria’s top anti-graft watchdog has carried out a major internal clean-up, removing more than four dozen of its own employees over allegations of corruption and financial misconduct in the three years since current leadership took office. The announcement came from Ola Olukoyede, chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), during a public briefing in the nation’s capital Abuja, where he outlined the agency’s progress and structural reforms since he assumed leadership in October 2023.

    According to Olukoyede, more than five of the dismissed staff have already been formally charged and are facing prosecution in court, while investigative case files are still being compiled for the remaining terminated employees to move forward with legal proceedings. The EFCC, Nigeria’s primary agency tasked with probing financial crimes including advance fee fraud, money laundering, and public sector corruption, regularly pursues high-profile cases against sitting politicians, senior public officials, prominent business leaders, and other figures accused of diverting or misappropriating public funds.

    In comments to reporters at the briefing, Olukoyede confirmed the scale of internal accountability measures, noting that he had personally authorized the dismissal of over 40 staff members over his three-year tenure over proven charges of corruption and financial malpractice. As part of a broader package of internal reforms to strengthen ethical standards across the agency, Olukoyede revealed that the EFCC’s existing Department of Internal Affairs has been formally rebranded as the Department of Ethics and Integrity, to reflect its renewed mandate of upholding professional integrity within the commission.

    To further mitigate risks of conflicts of interest and improper influence, the EFCC has also introduced a new mandatory policy regulating gifts and hospitality received by agency staff. The new rule requires all EFCC officers to formally declare any gifts received that exceed an undisclosed monetary threshold, a requirement that extends even to gifts sent by relatives living outside of Nigeria.

    Olukoyede emphasized the non-negotiable need for internal probity in the agency’s anti-corruption mission, stating: “You must be sure that your hands are clean. You can’t be fighting corruption when your hands are soiled with corrupt practices.” When the BBC reached out to the EFCC to request additional details on the specific allegations against the dismissed former employees, the agency declined to release further information, noting the data was not currently available for public disclosure.

    Beyond internal reforms and staff dismissals, Olukoyede highlighted a string of strong enforcement outcomes achieved during his tenure, announcing that the EFCC had recovered a record 1.23 trillion naira (equivalent to approximately $925 million or £683 million) in stolen funds, with an overall conviction rate for prosecuted cases exceeding 75% between October 2023 and July 2026.

    Breaking down the agency’s operational output, Olukoyede reported that over the 33-month period, the EFCC received 49,673 public petitions alleging financial crimes, completed investigations into 39,615 separate cases, filed 14,476 formal charges with the courts, and secured 10,872 criminal convictions. In the first half of 2026 alone, the agency secured 1,370 convictions from just 1,889 filed cases, a result Olukoyede said demonstrates the commission’s improving efficiency and focus on evidence-based prosecutions.

    “These results reflect diligence, resilience and a prosecutorial approach anchored on evidence and courtroom outcomes,” he added. Data presented at the briefing also revealed a shifting priority in the EFCC’s caseload, with a growing share of investigations now focused on cybercrime and cyber-enabled fraud, alongside traditional corruption cases involving high-profile public officials.

  • US borrowing costs hit fresh highs over inflation fears

    US borrowing costs hit fresh highs over inflation fears

    Renewed military strikes in the Middle East have sent global oil markets into volatility, pushing crude prices above $92 per barrel and amplifying long-running concerns about sticky U.S. inflation. This geopolitical and economic pressure triggered a fresh surge in U.S. government borrowing costs on Tuesday, with the 10-year Treasury yield – the benchmark effective interest rate for U.S. government borrowing – climbing to 4.79%, its highest point since January 2025.

    Beyond impacting how much the federal government pays to access capital, movements in the U.S. bond market have far-reaching ripple effects across the domestic economy. Benchmark Treasury yields directly shape the interest rates consumers pay for everyday forms of borrowing, including home mortgages, auto loans, and credit card balances. Already, 30-year fixed mortgage rates have jumped to nearly 6.7%, a one-year high, following the recent bond market selloff.

    The sharp uptick in borrowing costs has coincided with growing market speculation that the U.S. Federal Reserve will greenlight a new interest rate hike when it meets later this month. Persistent above-target inflation has left policymakers open to further tightening, with top Fed officials signaling that stubborn price growth could force decisive action.

    In a public speech delivered Tuesday, Federal Reserve Governor Michael Barr emphasized that inflation has remained unacceptably elevated for five years. “If it does not cool, then I think we should act decisively to raise rates,” Barr warned. His remarks echoed comments made the previous week by Fed Chairman Kevin Warsh, who told attendees that policymakers would “have work to do” if they cannot confirm that cost-of-living pressures are easing for U.S. households.

    Latest official inflation data puts annual price growth at 3.4% as of July, a full 1.4 percentage points above the Federal Reserve’s longstanding 2% target. Despite this overshoot, the central bank has held its benchmark policy rate steady for months at a range of 3.5% to 3.75%. While Warsh has declined to elaborate on his personal outlook for rate policy, shifting investor expectations following recent official comments have pushed the probability of a September rate hike sharply higher.

    For bond markets, persistent inflation is the core driver of rising yields – the term used to describe the effective interest rate governments pay to investors who buy their debt. When governments issue bonds, they are essentially selling interest-bearing IOUs to raise capital for public spending. Bond investors routinely demand higher yields when inflation is high or projected to stay elevated, to offset the eroding impact of price growth on their future returns. Since U.S. Treasury yields serve as a global benchmark for borrowing, this shift pushes up borrowing costs across nearly every major economy worldwide.

    Inflation is not the only factor weighing on bond investors. Growing anxiety over ballooning government debt levels across the world, paired with uncertainty over the future returns of Big Tech’s massive artificial intelligence investments, has also put upward pressure on yields. In the U.S. specifically, total national debt has crossed the $40 trillion threshold, doubling over the past 10 years under both the Trump and Biden administrations.

    Last week, 30-year Treasury yields reached levels not seen since 2008, prompting a policy response from the Treasury Department. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent announced that the U.S. government would expand debt buyback programs in an effort to cool rising rates. However, the positive market reaction to the announcement faded quickly, leaving yields to resume their upward climb.

    Economists warn that the sustained rise in borrowing costs carries meaningful downside risks for U.S. economic growth. Higher interest rates make both consumer borrowing and business investment less attractive. If households pull back on discretionary spending and companies pause expansion plans in response to elevated rates, the broader economy could slow sharply, tipping the balance between cooling inflation and triggering a downturn.