Global Pulse

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  • He’s Australia’s most decorated soldier. Now he’s at the centre of a historic war crimes case

    He’s Australia’s most decorated soldier. Now he’s at the centre of a historic war crimes case

    On a quiet Tuesday on the tarmac of Sydney Airport, a landmark moment in Australian military history unfolded with little fanfare: Ben Roberts-Smith, once the nation’s most celebrated and highly decorated living war hero, was escorted off a commercial flight and into a waiting police vehicle to face five criminal charges of war-time murder.

    Less than 15 years ago, Roberts-Smith returned home from his tour of duty in Afghanistan a national icon. Awarded the Victoria Cross, Australia’s highest military honor, for reportedly single-handedly overcoming Taliban fighters who ambushed his Special Air Service (SAS) patrol, he quickly became the face of Australia’s revered military legacy. He stepped away from the Australian Defence Force (ADF) in 2013, and parlayed his fame into lucrative speaking engagements, corporate board positions, mainstream magazine covers, and high-profile honors including Father of the Year. He even met the late Queen Elizabeth II at Buckingham Palace just months after receiving his top military decoration.

    But that carefully cultivated reputation crumbled in 2018, when Nine newspapers published a bombshell series of investigative reports detailing widespread alleged misconduct during Roberts-Smith’s service. The reports included claims of unlawful beatings and extrajudicial killings of unarmed Afghan detainees, workplace bullying of fellow soldiers, and domestic abuse of a former partner. To clear his name, Roberts-Smith launched one of the most expensive and high-profile defamation lawsuits in Australian history, a seven-year legal battle dubbed the “trial of the century” that cost millions of dollars.

    In 2023, three years after the case began, a Federal Court judge ruled that the core allegations of four murders were substantially true, a finding that was later upheld on appeal. While claims of domestic violence and some bullying allegations were dismissed, the civil trial shattered the myth of Roberts-Smith as a national hero. Now, he faces criminal prosecution that carries a life sentence if convicted, and he continues to maintain his innocence. He has denounced the allegations as “egregious” false claims driven by jealous and spiteful former comrades.

    The criminal charges against Roberts-Smith mark an unprecedented turning point not just for Australia, but for the global community. As a Victoria Cross recipient, Roberts-Smith is the first holder of Australia’s highest military honor to ever be charged with war crimes. Experts note it is nearly impossible to find a recipient of a comparable top military valor award anywhere in the world that has faced such prosecution.

    “For Roberts-Smith to now be charged with war crimes – and not just one, but multiple war crimes – is a very significant cultural and social moment for a country that, for much of its history… has placed a lot of store in the exploits and contributions of the members of its defence forces,” Donald Rothwell, a leading Australian international law professor, told the BBC.

    Deane-Peter Baker, a special forces ethics scholar who redesigned the ADF’s ethics training following the Afghanistan war crime scrutiny, called the moment extraordinary, noting “We’ve never seen this before.”

    Roberts-Smith’s arrest is the culmination of a five-year investigation by the Office of the Special Investigator (OSI), a special watchdog body created after the 2020 release of the landmark Brereton Report. That official inquiry found credible evidence that elite Australian SAS soldiers had unlawfully killed 39 Afghan civilians between 2001 and 2021, when Australian troops withdrew from the country, and recommended 19 current or former ADF members face formal investigation. To date, the OSI has opened 53 probes, finalised 39, and only charged one other former soldier, Oliver Schulz, who is not scheduled to face trial until 2025, two years after his arrest.

    OSI investigations director Ross Barnett told reporters Tuesday that investigators have operated under uniquely challenging conditions that have slowed progress dramatically. All alleged crimes took place in Afghan war zones roughly 9,000 kilometers from Australia, and investigators have no ability to access original crime scenes, recover physical evidence like bullets or blood spatter, conduct post-mortem examinations, or coordinate cross-border law enforcement cooperation. Compounding these challenges is the long-standing military culture of loyalty between “brothers in arms” that discourages service members from testifying against one another. Still, Peter Stanley, former principal historian at the Australian War Memorial, noted that many witnesses who previously stayed silent have come forward, recognizing their obligation to truth outweighs informal loyalty bonds. He added that the original investigative reporting from Nine Newspapers helped uncover critical leads and cleared a path for prosecution.

    Barnett called Roberts-Smith’s arrest a “significant step” in the OSI’s mandate, and the agency says it remains committed to wrapping up remaining investigations as quickly as possible. But legal experts warn the criminal trial itself is still years away, as Australia’s legal system has no modern precedent for domestic war crimes prosecutions, and the case presents a host of unprecedented procedural hurdles. The five separate charges relate to events that occurred more than a decade ago, requiring the court to manage massive volumes of evidence. Coordinating witnesses is another major logistical challenge: some witnesses require identity protection for security or national security reasons, while others based in Afghanistan are nearly impossible to reach under current conditions. Additionally, years of high-profile public coverage of the civil defamation trial, which included 110 days of public evidence, means finding an unbiased jury — should the case go before a jury rather than a judge-alone trial — will be extremely difficult.

    Beyond the legal process, the Roberts-Smith case has forced Australia to confront a long-overdue reckoning over its military legacy and national identity. For more than a century, Australia has anchored its national self-image in the “Anzac spirit,” a set of values centered on courage, loyalty, honor, and ethical conduct forged from the World War One Gallipoli campaign. The slow, unfolding saga of war crime allegations has eroded public trust in the ADF and caused distress among current service members, while the glacial pace of investigations has drawn criticism from veteran groups, who argue the drawn-out process is unfair to all parties involved, including the families of the alleged victims.

    Opinion across the country remains deeply divided. High-profile public figures including former Australian prime minister Tony Abbott and billionaire Gina Rinehart have publicly sided with special forces veterans, arguing that the investigations amount to unfair persecution of soldiers who served their country. “I am very sorry that some of them have been subjected to a form of persecution by the country they served,” Abbott said this week.

    But supporters of the investigations argue that the prosecution of Roberts-Smith demonstrates Australia’s unwavering commitment to the rule of law, even when it requires holding the nation’s most beloved heroes accountable. Other countries, including the United Kingdom, have already launched their own Brereton-style inquiries into Afghan war misconduct following Australia’s lead.

    “In a weird way, this is a moment that Australians should be proud of,” Baker said. “For a nation to hold a member of their armed forces to account – someone who has been held up as one of our greatest living heroes – shows a commitment to ethics, decency and the rule of law that is unfortunately very rare among nations.

    “That ought to be recognised and applauded, however embarrassing or sad this is for many people,” Stanley added.

  • Anger and surprise in Israel after US-Iran ceasefire

    Anger and surprise in Israel after US-Iran ceasefire

    Hours after the United States and Iran announced a ceasefire agreement to end weeks of direct conflict, Israel has been roiled by intense public and political backlash, with cross-opposition leaders and leading commentators uniformly condemning the deal and pinning blame squarely on Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for what they call an unprecedented diplomatic and strategic failure.

    The harshest criticism came from Yair Lapid, leader of the centrist opposition party Yesh Atid and head of the national opposition, who framed the agreement as a defining low point for Israeli statecraft. In a post shared to X Wednesday, Lapid declared that “There has never been such a diplomatic disaster in our entire history.” He emphasized that Israel, a core stakeholder in the conflict, was completely excluded from negotiations that directly touched on the country’s most fundamental national security interests.

    Lapid, who backed the war against Iran from its launch and previously called for joint Israeli-US strikes on Iran’s critical Kharg Island oil export terminal, praised the Israeli Defense Forces for executing all operational orders and commended the Israeli public for what he called their remarkable resilience through weeks of rocket and drone attacks. Even so, he argued that Netanyahu’s leadership had fallen short on every level. “Netanyahu failed diplomatically, failed strategically, and did not meet a single one of the goals he himself set,” Lapid wrote. He added that the damage caused by Netanyahu’s “arrogance, negligence, and a lack of strategic planning” would take years for Israel to repair.

    Left-wing Democrats party leader Yair Golan, a former IDF major general who also supported the war effort, went further, accusing Netanyahu of outright lying to the Israeli public when he launched the campaign against Iran. “He promised a ‘historic victory’ and security for generations, but in practice we received one of the most stark strategic failures Israel has ever known,” Golan wrote on X. Echoing Lapid, Golan praised Israeli troops for the tactical success of their strikes inside Iran, but argued that Netanyahu’s government had once again failed to turn military gains into tangible strategic victory.

    Golan lamented the lives lost among both soldiers and civilians, noting that none of the core war objectives Netanyahu laid out at the conflict’s onset have been achieved. He pointed out that Iran’s controversial nuclear and ballistic missile programs remain fully intact, and argued that Iran has actually emerged from the war stronger than before. “This is a complete failure that endangers Israel’s security for years to come,” he added.

    The criticism extended to right-wing opposition circles as well. Avigdor Liberman, leader of the right-leaning opposition party Israel Beytenu, warned that the ceasefire agreement would only force Israel into another round of fighting in the future, under far worse conditions and at a much higher cost.

    Most members of Netanyahu’s ruling coalition have remained silent so far, as the country observes the week-long Passover holiday. But far-right Otzma Yehudit party MP Tzvika Foghel broke ranks to lash out directly at US President Donald Trump, who negotiated the ceasefire. “Donald, you came out looking like a duck,” Foghel wrote in a since-deleted post to X.

    According to reporting from Israel’s public broadcaster Kan 11, the Israeli government was caught completely off guard by Trump’s ceasefire announcement. A senior unnamed Israeli official told the outlet that the country received last-minute notice only after all terms of the agreement had already been finalized. The Prime Minister’s Office issued its first public response roughly four hours after Trump’s announcement, stating that Israel supported the US president’s decision to suspend strikes against Iran for a 14-day period. It also added a key clarification: the ceasefire does not apply to hostilities on the Lebanon front, a claim that contradicts earlier statements from Pakistan, which served as a mediator for the deal.

    In the lead-up to Trump’s announcement, Israeli commercial broadcaster Channel 13 had been running a public countdown to the president’s deadline for Iran to reach a deal, with on-air warnings that “a whole civilisation” would face destruction if no agreement was reached. But by Wednesday morning, most of Israel’s mainstream media outlets had shifted from their weeks-long unified backing of the war effort to open criticism of Netanyahu.

    Kan 11’s senior diplomatic correspondent Gili Cohen wrote that “once again, Netanyahu caved to Trump,” noting that this marks the second time in less than a year that Trump has unilaterally dictated the end of a war with Iran. The first similar incident took place in June 2023. When Netanyahu launched the current war in February, he made two non-negotiable core pledges: he would overthrow Iran’s ruling regime and fully dismantle the country’s nuclear and ballistic missile programs. “None of these objectives has been fully achieved,” Cohen noted.

    She added that in the unpredictable politics of the Middle East, temporary arrangements often harden into permanent realities. After two and a half years of ongoing conflict across multiple fronts, Cohen argued that the new status quo will not only leave Israel with permanent ground presences in Syria, Lebanon, and Gaza, but also lock the country into cycles of periodic direct confrontation with Iran.

    Military affairs commentator Avi Ashkenazi struck an even bleaker tone in an op-ed for the right-leaning *Ma’ariv* newspaper, writing that “41 days of fighting and 5,000 destroyed structures [in Israel] ended in a decisive Iranian victory.” Ashkenazi argued that Iran successfully maneuvered the United States and Israel into agreeing to a deal that amounts to a capitulation by the two Western-aligned countries, rather than a concession from Iran. He counted the deaths of dozens of soldiers and Israeli civilians, plus widespread economic damage inflicted by Iranian and Hezbollah attacks, as the crippling cost of Netanyahu’s failed campaign.

    Amos Harel, veteran military analyst for the left-leaning *Haaretz* newspaper, echoed that assessment, agreeing that none of Israel’s core war aims were met and the country has suffered significant strategic damage. Harel argued that Israel’s standing in the United States has been severely harmed, and the country is likely to face growing accusations that it pressured Trump into launching an unnecessary war. He added that Netanyahu may have good reason to worry about the future of his close relationship with Trump, who is widely known for averse to public losses and will likely hold Netanyahu responsible for the joint campaign’s failure.

  • China’s first 180,000-cubic-meter LNG carrier completed in Jiangsu

    China’s first 180,000-cubic-meter LNG carrier completed in Jiangsu

    In a landmark leap for China’s high-value shipbuilding sector, the country’s first 180,000-cubic-meter liquefied natural gas (LNG) carrier, fully designed and constructed by domestic Chinese enterprises, was finalized for delivery on Wednesday at the China Merchants Heavy Industry Haimen Base in Nantong, Jiangsu Province, state broadcaster China Central Television has confirmed.

    Measuring 298.8 meters in overall length with a molded breadth of 48 meters, the newly completed vessel incorporates a cutting-edge low-speed dual-fuel propulsion system. It is engineered to deliver standout operational performance, including an extremely low boil-off rate for stored LNG and industry-leading environmental compatibility, addressing key priorities for clean energy transportation globally.

    As the largest LNG carrier ever fully built and completed in China to date, the vessel represents a critical technical breakthrough for Chinese shipbuilders in the segment of large-scale clean energy transport vessels. LNG carriers are highly specialized ships purpose-built to carry liquefied natural gas stored at an ultra-cold temperature of -163 degrees Celsius. Widely nicknamed the “crown jewel of the global shipbuilding industry”, these vessels require extraordinarily complex design and manufacturing expertise that only a small number of shipyards around the world have managed to master. Prior to this delivery, only four Chinese shipyards held the capacity to deliver completed LNG carriers; with the launch of this new vessel, China now counts five domestic shipyards with this advanced capability, expanding the country’s production capacity for high-value specialized vessels.

    This milestone underscores China’s rapid advancement in moving up the global shipbuilding value chain, turning a once highly restricted niche market into a new strength for domestic manufacturing.

  • ‘Islamic bomb’: The secret Pakistani scheme to make Iran a nuclear power

    ‘Islamic bomb’: The secret Pakistani scheme to make Iran a nuclear power

    For nearly half a century, Abdul Qadeer Khan, known to Pakistanis as the “Father of the Bomb” and “Mohsin-e-Pakistan” (Saviour of Pakistan), stood at the center of one of the most consequential and controversial chapters in modern nuclear history. His legacy, which blends nationalist devotion to his homeland with a global campaign of nuclear proliferation that upended international nonproliferation norms, continues to shape tensions across the Middle East and South Asia decades after his network was first exposed.

    Khan’s journey into nuclear politics began in 1974, when India conducted its first nuclear weapons test, codenamed Smiling Buddha, in the Rajasthan desert. The test sent shockwaves through neighboring Pakistan, where then-prime minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto framed the acquisition of an Islamic nuclear bomb as an existential necessity for the young nation. Facing a nuclear-armed Hindu neighbor, Bhutto famously vowed, “We will eat grass or leaves, even go hungry, but we will get one of our own.” He asked: If Christian, Jewish, and Hindu nations already held the bomb, why should the Islamic world be denied it?

    At the time of India’s test, Khan was working at a Urenco Group subcontractor facility in Amsterdam, where he held access to classified blueprints for advanced gas centrifuges—critical technology that enriches natural uranium into weapons-grade material. Recognizing Pakistan’s urgent need, Khan penned a handwritten letter to Bhutto, volunteering his expertise. “I have acquired very detailed and comprehensive knowledge of the gas centrifuge system and am now in a position to help Pakistan… This is a matter of utmost urgency,” he wrote. Later, he would recall, “I wrote the letter with full awareness that I could be arrested or killed. But I felt I had no choice. India had tested. We had to respond.” Though accused of stealing classified centrifuge designs from the Netherlands, Khan returned to Pakistan in 1975, and by 1976 he had established a dedicated nuclear research lab in Rawalpindi. China provided critical support—enriched uranium, tritium, even scientific expertise—despite fierce opposition from India and Israel. The U.S., which initially cut aid to Pakistan over the program in 1979, reversed course months later after the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan, turning a blind eye to Pakistan’s nuclear progress and even providing covert technical training to its scientists in the 1980s.

    By the end of the Cold War, the U.S. again halted aid to pressure Pakistan to abandon its program, but Khan continued production of highly enriched uranium in secret. After India tested a new series of nuclear warheads in May 1998, Pakistan responded with its own successful tests in the Balochistan desert, officially becoming the world’s seventh nuclear-armed state. “I told Bhutto Sahib we would get the bomb,” Khan declared after the tests. “I promised it. I kept that promise.”

    What remained hidden from the world for decades was that Khan had spent years running a second, far more audacious project: an illicit international proliferation network that sold nuclear technology, components, and designs to three nations—Iran, North Korea, and Libya. Driven by a deep-seated resentment of what he saw as Western hypocrisy, Khan believed the Islamic world had a right to nuclear deterrence, just as Western and allied nations did. In a blunt rebuke of Western double standards, he once asked: “I want to question the holier-than-thou attitude of the Americans and British. Are these bastards God-appointed guardians of the world?”

    Iran’s pursuit of nuclear assistance began in the 1980s, shortly after the 1979 Islamic Revolution that ended Western backing for Tehran’s civilian nuclear program. Though Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini issued a fatwa opposing nuclear weapons, the Iranian government, locked in a costly war with Iraq, secretly approached Pakistani military leadership for help. As former Iranian president Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani revealed in 2015, “We were at war, and we wanted to have such an option for the day our enemies wanted to use nuclear weapons. This was our state of mind.” Khan, who firmly believed the Islamic world needed its own nuclear deterrent, agreed to the deal: Pakistan supplied Iran with 4,000 second-hand first-generation centrifuges, full design blueprints, and training for six Iranian nuclear scientists at Pakistani facilities. For years, the Pakistani military hid the arrangement from even its own civilian leaders; Benazir Bhutto, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto’s daughter and then-Prime Minister of Pakistan, only discovered the agreement by accident during a 1989 visit to Tehran, when Rafsanjani asked her to reaffirm their deal on “special defense matters.”

    Israel, which had long opposed any Muslim-majority nation acquiring nuclear technology, had Khan under surveillance as he traveled across the Middle East in the 1980s and 1990s, but failed to uncover the full scope of his network. Decades later, former Mossad chief Shabtai Shavit admitted he regretted not assassinating Khan when he had the chance, saying the attack would have “changed the course of history.” This was not Israel’s first attempt to stop Khan’s work: in the early 1980s, Israel had convinced then-Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi to approve a joint airstrike on Pakistan’s main nuclear facility at Kahuta, with Israeli fighter jets set to launch from an Indian airbase. Gandhi ultimately backed out, and the plan was never carried out.

    Khan’s sprawling network operated undetected until 2003, when Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi voluntarily disclosed the network’s existence to Western intelligence agencies in an attempt to curry favor with the U.S. Gaddafi revealed that Khan had helped Libya build secret nuclear facilities, some disguised as working chicken farms. The CIA seized a shipment of nuclear machinery bound for Libya passing through the Suez Canal, and investigators uncovered full bomb blueprints hidden in dry cleaning bags from an Islamabad cleaner. The exposure sent shockwaves through Western capitals; a senior U.S. official told the *New York Times* at the time, “It was an astounding transformation when you think about it, something we’ve never seen before. First, [Khan] exploits a fragmented market and develops a quite advanced nuclear arsenal. Then he throws the switch, reverses the flow and figures out how to sell the whole kit, right down to the bomb designs, to some of the world’s worst governments.”

    In 2004, Khan appeared on national Pakistani television and confessed to running the network, claiming he had acted entirely alone with no government backing. The Pakistani state immediately pardoned him, a move Khan later defended, saying he “saved the country for the first time when I made Pakistan a nuclear nation and saved it again when I confessed and took the whole blame on myself.” Former CIA director George Tenet would later describe Khan as “at least as dangerous as Osama bin Laden,” a label he carried for the rest of his life.

    The exposure of Khan’s network to Iran triggered decades of international crisis. In 2005, Iran agreed to place its civilian nuclear program under International Atomic Energy Agency supervision, and in 2015, Tehran signed the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) with world powers, accepting strict limits on its nuclear program in exchange for sanctions relief. The deal collapsed in 2018, when the Trump administration withdrew from the agreement and reimposed crippling sanctions on Iran—tensions that persist to this day. Of the three nations Khan assisted, only North Korea successfully developed and tested its own nuclear weapons, joining the small club of nuclear-armed states.

    Khan died in Islamabad in 2021, revered as a national hero in Pakistan but reviled by Western governments as the world’s most dangerous nuclear proliferator. To the end, he remained unapologetic, arguing that his actions were a necessary pushback against Western double standards. He pointed to Israel’s open secret nuclear arsenal, which the West has never seriously challenged, and sarcastically asked in 2009: “If Iran fires a missile then it is wrong, but if Israel does it then it is right?” In a 2011 interview, he laid out his core belief: “Don’t overlook the fact that no nuclear-capable country has been subjected to aggression or occupied, or had its borders redrawn. Had Iraq and Libya been nuclear powers, they wouldn’t have been destroyed in the way we have seen recently.” Today, Pakistan remains the only Muslim-majority nuclear power, and Khan’s shadow continues to hang over global nonproliferation efforts and Middle Eastern security dynamics.

  • Israel launches massive wave of strikes across Lebanon following Iran ceasefire

    Israel launches massive wave of strikes across Lebanon following Iran ceasefire

    On Wednesday, just hours after the United States and Iran reached a bilateral ceasefire agreement that was framed to include a halt to hostilities targeting Lebanon, Israel unleashed an unprecedented wave of coordinated air strikes across multiple regions of Lebanon, triggering widespread chaos and emergency response measures across the crisis-hit country.

    Witnesses from Agence France-Presse on the ground documented thick plumes of smoke billowing over central Beirut and its surrounding suburbs, with widespread panic sending civilians fleeing into the streets in search of shelter. In an official public statement, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) confirmed the scope of the operation, saying it had completed the largest single coordinated strike in the current round of conflict, targeting roughly 100 Hezbollah command centers and military installations across Beirut, the Bekaa Valley and southern Lebanon in just a 10-minute window.

    Local Lebanese media confirmed early civilian casualties from the strikes. Lebanon’s National News Agency reported that an Israeli air strike hit a cemetery in the village of Shmestar in the Bekaa Valley while a memorial gathering was underway, killing at least 10 attendees and wounding four more. Additional strikes hit residential and infrastructure areas across Beirut and multiple districts in southern Lebanon.

    Lebanon’s Ministry of Public Health quickly issued an urgent emergency appeal, asking civilians to clear all major roadways in Beirut to allow ambulances and emergency response teams to reach attack sites and transport casualties. The ministry confirmed that initial assessments showed dozens of people had been killed and hundreds more wounded across the country, adding that severe traffic congestion sparked by the sudden wave of strikes was creating major barriers to rescue operations.

    The timing of the Israeli strikes came as a major escalation just after the US and Iran announced a two-week ceasefire, an agreement negotiated based on an Iranian proposal that originally included a commitment to end all attacks on Lebanese territory. While Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had formally approved the broader ceasefire between the two countries, he immediately issued a clarification asserting that the truce did not extend to Israeli military operations against Hezbollah in Lebanon.

    Hezbollah entered the ongoing cross-border conflict on March 2, launching a heavy barrage of rockets into Israeli territory in solidarity with Iran amid rising US-Iran tensions. Since that opening exchange, Israel has launched a full ground incursion into southern Lebanon, a move that regional analysts have broadly interpreted as a preliminary step toward establishing a long-term permanent occupation of the area.

    Following Wednesday’s massive strikes, Lebanon’s caretaker prime minister issued an urgent appeal to the country’s regional and international allies, calling for immediate intervention to halt the Israeli attacks. Hezbollah had previously issued guidance for internally displaced Lebanese civilians, urging them not to return to their home areas until a formal, permanent ceasefire agreement is put in place.

    In a separate diplomatic incident connected to the escalating conflict, the Spanish government summoned the Israeli chargé d’affaires in Madrid on Wednesday to protest what it called the unjustifiable detention of a Spanish peacekeeper serving with the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) by Israeli military forces. UNIFIL first reported the incident on Tuesday, initially withholding the peacekeeper’s nationality, and confirmed on social media platform X that Israeli forces detained the service member after blocking a UN logistics convoy. The peacekeeper was ultimately released after less than an hour in custody.

  • Exclusive: The Ethiopian army base covertly supporting Sudan’s RSF

    Exclusive: The Ethiopian army base covertly supporting Sudan’s RSF

    Exclusive analysis of declassified satellite imagery published by the Yale School of Public Health’s Humanitarian Research Lab (HRL) and obtained first by Middle East Eye has uncovered damning evidence that Ethiopia is covertly backing Sudan’s Rapid Support Forces (RSF) from a formal Ethiopian National Defence Force (ENDF) base in the country’s western Benishangul-Gumuz region, opening a new window into the complex geopolitical maneuvering prolonging Sudan’s devastating 2023-present civil war.

    The findings, which mark the first concrete visual confirmation of long-circulated accusations of Ethiopian involvement, track five months of consistent, large-scale military logistics activity at the ENDF base on the outskirts of Asosa, the capital of Benishangul-Gumuz. The activity aligns directly with the RSF’s intense cross-border offensive against Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) positions in Sudan’s adjacent Blue Nile state, which has raged from December 2025 through March 2026.

    Over the monitoring period, HRL researchers documented repeated arrivals of commercial car transporters at the Asosa base carrying unmarked technical vehicles that are not part of the ENDF’s standard fleet. By February 2026, more than 200 of these vehicles were counted on site. Imagery shows unarmed vehicles were retrofitted on base with custom gun mounts designed for heavy .50-caliber machine guns, and up to 15 tents capable of housing 150 RSF fighters were erected to accommodate personnel. Multiple commercial shipping containers arrived, and fuel tanks on site allowed for mass refueling of vehicles before they deployed toward the Sudanese border.

    Crucially, the technical vehicles tracked through the Asosa base match the color, size, and armament of vehicles later documented in open-source footage of RSF combat operations around Kurmuk, a strategic Sudanese border town just 100 kilometers from the Asosa base. Kurmuk fell to the RSF and its allied Sudan People’s Liberation Movement–North (SPLM-N) fighters in late March 2026 after weeks of fierce clashes. HRL’s analysis of 14 other ENDF bases across the region found no comparable logistics buildup, confirming the Asosa site is a unique outlier dedicated to supporting the RSF.

    “This report is the first visual evidence that those allegations are true. In fact, it is even worse than first feared. Not only are the Ethiopians assisting the RSF, they are doing it from an actual Ethiopian army base,” said Nathaniel Raymond, HRL’s executive director, in an interview with MEE.

    Multiple independent sources, including active and former ENDF officers, Sudanese military and intelligence analysts, a European diplomat, and a former senior Ethiopian foreign ministry advisor, confirmed to MEE that the RSF has operated a secret staging hub in Benishangul-Gumuz for months, though its exact location at a formal ENDF base had not been confirmed until now. Those sources also draw a direct line between Ethiopia’s involvement and the United Arab Emirates (UAE), which has faced mounting international evidence of backing the RSF despite consistent public denials.

    Open-source video evidence from late 2025 further links the Asosa operation to a UAE-controlled supply network centered on the port of Berbera in Somaliland, where the UAE maintains a permanent military base. The car transporters seen carrying vehicles to Asosa match the dimensions and color of carriers filmed moving technical vehicles from Berbera into Ethiopia, and flight tracking data confirms multiple UAE-linked IL-76 cargo planes flew from Abu Dhabi to Ethiopian airports within 300 kilometers of Asosa between December 2025 and March 2026. Additional satellite imagery of Asosa airport identified a UAE-operated C-130 cargo plane and a MI-17 helicopter on site during the buildup period.

    The UAE’s deepening reliance on Ethiopia for RSF supply lines comes amid a shifting geopolitical landscape in the Horn of Africa. In January 2026, the Somali federal government canceled all cooperation agreements with the UAE over its support for breakaway regions Somaliland and Puntland, disrupting the UAE’s established regional network of military bases that it developed with Israel and the United States to control Red Sea and Gulf of Aden shipping lanes. Israel’s formal recognition of Somaliland sovereignty in December 2025, and subsequent talks to open an Israeli base at Berbera, further escalated tensions between Mogadishu and Abu Dhabi, leaving Ethiopia as the UAE’s most critical remaining partner for RSF operations.

    Analysts point to two core motivations for Ethiopia’s decision to back the RSF, rooted in both geopolitics and domestic security. For nearly a decade, Ethiopia’s government has been locked in strategic competition with Egypt and Eritrea, both of which back the SAF. Domestically, tensions between Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed’s government and SAF leader Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, Sudan’s de facto leader, date back to the 2020-2022 Tigray war, when Burhan provided military support to the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF), which remains in intermittent conflict with Addis Ababa. A 2025 high-level Ethiopian delegation to Khartoum failed to convince Burhan to cut ties with the TPLF, cementing Addis Ababa’s decision to align with the RSF.

    Getachew Reda, a senior Abiy advisor who joined that 2025 delegation, publicly stated earlier this year that Ethiopia could not remain a “passive bystander” in Sudan’s war, noting the country must defend its own strategic interests in the region. Sudan’s government first openly accused Ethiopia of intervening in the war in March 2026, after the RSF launched its major Blue Nile offensive that included fighters crossing into Sudan from Ethiopian territory.

    Sudan’s civil war, which broke out between the SAF and RSF in April 2023, has already spawned the world’s worst humanitarian crisis: hundreds of thousands of people have been killed, and more than 11 million have been displaced from their homes. A United Nations fact-finding mission recently concluded that the RSF committed genocide during its capture of el-Fasher, the capital of North Darfur, with survivors reporting mass executions, sexual violence, and systematic abuse of fleeing civilians.

    Multiple parties named in the report including the RSF, the office of Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed, and the Ethiopian foreign ministry have not responded to requests for comment from MEE. A former senior advisor to UAE President Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan has previously pushed back against accusations of UAE support, noting that other regional states including Uganda, Ethiopia, and Chad all maintain ties to the RSF, while the SAF receives widespread military backing from Turkey and Egypt.

    HRL’s final report concludes that the Asosa base functions as a critical dedicated logistics node for RSF operations in Blue Nile state, providing resupply, refueling, accommodation, and vehicle maintenance for RSF personnel between December 2025 and the end of March 2026. “It is well situated to provide these services for RSF forces operating inside Blue Nile,” the report notes, “and the five months of consistent activity confirms this is not an isolated incident, but a sustained support operation.”

  • Shanghai Jiao Tong University celebrates 130th anniversary with a vision for global excellence

    Shanghai Jiao Tong University celebrates 130th anniversary with a vision for global excellence

    One of China’s most prestigious higher education institutions, Shanghai Jiao Tong University (SJTU), commemorated its 130th founding anniversary Wednesday with a grand formal ceremony hosted at its sprawling Minhang campus. The milestone gathering drew a diverse lineup of high-profile attendees, including senior officials from China’s Ministry of Education and the Shanghai municipal government, as well as institutional leaders and distinguished scholars from more than 130 universities across the globe. Also in attendance were representatives from the university’s key strategic collaborative partners, descendants of early pioneers who shaped SJTU’s century-long development, retired and incumbent university leadership, and elected delegates from the school’s teaching faculty and current student body.

    In his keynote address to the assembled guests, Xiong Sihao, member of the Party Leadership Group of the Ministry of Education and vice-minister of education, laid out clear expectations for the university’s next chapter. He urged SJTU to leverage its century of accumulated expertise to deliver new, transformative contributions to China’s national push to build global leadership in education, scientific research, and talent development.

    Speaking on behalf of the university, SJTU president Ding Kuiling outlined the institution’s bold strategic vision as it enters its 131st year of operation. Ding stressed that to reach its long-term goals, the university must prioritize cultivating a world-class hub for exceptional talent through deliberate, long-term strategic planning, generate groundbreaking original research and lead global academic progress through proactive, forward-thinking initiative, and build an open, interconnected academic ecosystem rooted in a global outlook.

    A day ahead of the main anniversary ceremony, the university unveiled a new statue of Qian Xuesen, widely known as the founding father of China’s space program and a 1934 graduate of SJTU, on its Minhang campus. Inscribed on the statue’s stone pedestal is a message Qian left to his alma mater: “In the 21st century, (the faculty shall) strive to build SJTU into a world-class university.”

    Reaffirming the university’s long-term roadmap during Wednesday’s celebration, Ding announced SJTU’s official timeline for global academic leadership: the institution aims to secure a place among the world’s leading top-tier universities by 2035, and rise to join the very top ranks of global higher education by 2050, fulfilling the vision set out by its famous alumnus decades ago.

  • Shanghai hosts forum on AI and human intelligence in education

    Shanghai hosts forum on AI and human intelligence in education

    On Tuesday, Shanghai became the focal point for global education and technology innovation as it hosted the 11th Science Education Forum organized by the Academic Divisions of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, bringing together hundreds of stakeholders to examine how artificial intelligence and human intelligence can work in tandem to reshape modern K-12 and higher education.

    Held at Shanghai Jiao Tong University, this year’s forum centered its core discussions on two pressing priorities for modern education: the ongoing transformation of science-focused classrooms and the advancement of adaptive, personalized learning for primary and secondary school students. More than 400 attendees, including school principals, K-12 frontline educators, educational research scholars, and university-based experts from across China, participated in targeted workshops and dialogues exploring the shifting landscape of 21st century education.

    Speaking at the opening ceremony, representatives from key international bodies including the United Nations Development Programme and the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization joined leadership from the Chinese Academy of Sciences to set the agenda for the event. Forum participants uniformly emphasized that robust, forward-thinking science education forms the foundational backbone of nurturing the next generation of innovative talent. They highlighted that the thoughtful deep integration of artificial intelligence tools with human-led instruction is injecting critical new momentum into science education systems to meet the demands of the modern era.

    On the same day the main forum concluded, Shanghai Jiao Tong University convened a parallel high-level summit at Shanghai Grand Zero Bay focused on AI-driven empowerment for the integrated development of education, scientific research, and talent cultivation. This complementary event drew university presidents and senior representatives from more than 40 top higher education institutions across the globe. Through a series of keynote addresses and closed-door in-depth dialogues, attendees exchanged insights on three core challenges: reshaping educational frameworks to keep pace with AI advancement, leveraging new technologies to accelerate scientific progress, and adapting talent development pipelines to meet evolving workforce needs in the AI age.

    To cap off the day’s announcements, organizers officially launched the annual “SJTU AI Week” initiative, a recurring event scheduled to take place every April. The program is designed to build actionable connections between the academic education sector, cutting-edge technology research, and industrial practice, creating a sustained cross-disciplinary platform that fosters collaborative exchange and innovative problem-solving at the intersection of AI and education.

  • Scale of killing in Lebanon ‘horrific’: UN rights chief

    Scale of killing in Lebanon ‘horrific’: UN rights chief

    Just hours after a ceasefire deal was reached between Israel and Iran, a devastating wave of Israeli air strikes across Lebanon left a staggering death toll in its wake, drawing sharp condemnation from the United Nations’ top human rights official who has labeled the scale of killing “horrific” and called for urgent global intervention to end the spiraling crisis.

    Updated figures from Lebanon’s Ministry of Public Health confirm that at least 112 people were killed and more than 830 others sustained injuries in the unprecedented wave of strikes carried out Wednesday, marking the deadliest single day of violence since Lebanon became entangled in the broader regional Middle East conflict.

    In an official statement released following the attacks, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk expressed revulsion at the staggering number of civilian and overall casualties, saying, “The scale of the killing and destruction in Lebanon today is nothing short of horrific. Such carnage, within hours of agreeing to a ceasefire with Iran, defies belief. It places enormous pressure on a fragile peace, which is so desperately needed by civilians.”

    The statement detailed the catastrophic aftermath of the strikes, noting mass casualties have overwhelmed local hospital capacity across the country. A UN human rights field team deployed to a strike site in the Lebanese capital Beirut reported a scene of utter devastation, where multiple dead bodies were recovered from piles of rubble left by destroyed buildings.

    Türk stressed that international humanitarian law (IHL) sets clear, non-negotiable requirements that all parties to armed conflict must uphold: civilians and civilian infrastructure must be protected at all times, and every attack must adhere to the core IHL principles of distinction between combatants and civilians, proportionality, and precautionary measures to minimize harm to non-combatants. “These principles are non-negotiable, and must always be respected, whatever the circumstances of armed conflict,” he said. The UN rights chief also called for prompt, independent investigations into all alleged violations of international law, with any actors found responsible held legally accountable for their actions.

    Lebanon was dragged into the ongoing regional conflict back in March, when Iran-backed militant group Hezbollah began launching rocket attacks into northern Israel. Türk also made clear his condemnation of Hezbollah’s sustained missile and drone strikes targeting northern Israeli communities, echoing his call for an immediate end to all hostilities from both sides.

    Months of sustained conflict have already caused a humanitarian catastrophe in Lebanon: more than one million Lebanese people have been forcibly displaced from their homes, and Israel has launched a full ground invasion into southern Lebanon. Türk drew particular attention to concerning statements from senior Israeli officials that indicate a long-term intention to occupy or formally annex parts of southern Lebanese territory. “The scale of such actions, coupled with statements by Israeli officials indicating an intention to occupy or even annex parts of southern Lebanon, are deeply troubling,” he said.

    Closing his statement, Türk stressed the urgent need for the international community to act swiftly to stop the bloodshed. “The international community must act quickly to help bring an end to this nightmare. Efforts to bring peace to the wider region will remain incomplete as long as the Lebanese people are living under continuing fire, forcibly displaced, and in fear of further attacks.”

  • ‘Ketamine Queen’ jailed for 15 years over Matthew Perry drugs

    ‘Ketamine Queen’ jailed for 15 years over Matthew Perry drugs

    In a high-profile sentencing that closed one major chapter of the investigation into the 2023 death of beloved *Friends* star Matthew Perry, a British-American drug trafficker known publicly as the “Ketamine Queen” has been sentenced to 15 years in federal prison for her role in supplying the ketamine that caused the actor’s fatal overdose.

    Forty-two-year-old Jasveen Sangha, a dual U.K.-U.S. citizen, was one of five people charged in connection with Perry’s death, the 54-year-old actor who was found unresponsive in the hot tub of his luxury Los Angeles home in October 2023. Court documents detail that Sangha operated a large-scale illicit drug distribution ring out of her upscale Los Angeles apartment, intentionally targeting wealthy, high-profile clients in the heart of Hollywood’s entertainment industry.

    Prosecutors emphasized in sentencing filings that Sangha deliberately built her brand as an exclusive supplier for A-list clientele, boasting to customers of her tight-knit VIP network of celebrity buyers. In a 2020 message to one customer, she wrote, “I’m really select with people, it’s a very VIP circle of celebs.”

    The conspiracy that led to Perry’s death saw Sangha partner with middleman Erik Fleming to sell 50+ vials of ketamine to Kenneth Iwamasa, Perry’s live-in personal assistant. Court records confirm Iwamasa administered repeated injections of Sangha’s ketamine to Perry, including at least three separate doses on October 28, 2023—the same day the actor died of an overdose. Within hours of learning of Perry’s death from breaking news reports, Sangha attempted to cover up her involvement, ordering Fleming to “delete all our messages” to destroy evidence of their arrangement.

    Prosecutors argued that Sangha’s actions reflected a deliberate disregard for human life, prioritizing illegal profits over the well-being of her customers. “She chose profits over people, and her actions have caused immense pain to the victims’ families and loved ones,” prosecutors wrote in their sentencing recommendation. When law enforcement raided Sangha’s home following Perry’s death, they seized a large cache of controlled substances including methamphetamine, ketamine, ecstasy, cocaine, and counterfeit Xanax, alongside drug trafficking equipment: a money counting machine, a digital scale, and electronic devices designed to detect hidden surveillance cameras and wireless bugs.

    The investigation into Perry’s death uncovered a broader network of enablers who profited off the actor’s long-public struggle with addiction, including two medical professionals who violated their oaths to traffic drugs to Perry. Dr. Salvador Plasencia, who pleaded guilty to four counts of ketamine distribution connected to the case, was sentenced to 30 months in prison last year. A second physician, Dr. Mark Chavez, received a sentence of home confinement coupled with hundreds of hours of community service. Court records show Chavez supplied ketamine to Plasencia, who then resold it to Perry at exorbitant markups. In one text message, Plasencia wrote, “I wonder how much this moron will pay,” highlighting the callous exploitation of Perry’s addiction. Prosecutors confirmed Perry paid more than $2,000 per vial of ketamine, while his suppliers paid only a small fraction of that price for the drug.

    Sangha pleaded guilty to a five-charge indictment, including one count of operating a drug-involved premises, three counts of ketamine distribution, and one count of distribution of ketamine resulting in death. Her guilty plea also acknowledged she supplied four vials of ketamine to 33-year-old Cody McLaury in August 2019; McLaury died of an overdose just hours after purchasing the drug from her.

    For decades before his death, Perry spoke openly about his decades-long battle with substance use disorder. The actor, who found global fame and fortune playing sarcastic everyman Chandler Bing on the hit 1990s-2000s sitcom *Friends*, had long struggled with addiction to painkillers and alcohol, even as his role on the show made him a household name worldwide. In 2018, he suffered a life-threatening colon rupture linked to drug use that required multiple emergency surgeries. In his 2022 memoir *Friends, Lovers and the Big Terrible Thing*, Perry documented his experience going through detox more than 60 times, writing, “I have mostly been sober since 2001, save for about sixty or seventy little mishaps.” At the time of his death, colleagues told reporters Perry appeared to be managing his addiction and making progress in his recovery. He had originally been using ketamine as part of a physician-supervised therapy program for depression, but prosecutors confirmed he developed an addiction to the drug, which is used legally as an anesthetic and depression treatment but is also commonly misused as a psychedelic party drug.

    The remaining co-defendants in the case—personal assistant Iwamasa and middleman Fleming—are scheduled to be sentenced later this month. Perry’s death triggered an outpouring of global grief from *Fans* across multiple generations who grew up watching the hit sitcom.